Ministers will argue, however, that the resulting higher costs will mean less cash to treat other patients.Dr Bogle said ministers had shown themselves willing to “talk, talk and talk” but not act.. The sleeper train service linking London with Fort William looks set to be permanently reprieved after British Rail said it was postponing a decision on whether to appeal against the judgment which had halted its closure. At a meeting yesterday, the British Railways Board decided to continue operating the train until 22 September and to delay a decision on an appeal to the House of Lords against the Scottish courts’ refusal to let it to shut down the service.
More significantly, the board said it is waiting to see if the franchising director, Roger Salmon, will agree to subsidise the service in the long term. Shots in the GPs’ locker are believed to include unfettered referral of patients to hospital, prescribing expensive rather than generic drugs and hitting NHS paperwork. Our young doctors see that, and they simply won’t do it.”Chris Tiarks, a Scottish GP, warned that any form of sanctions would damage patients – a charge Dr Bogle denied. Dr Barbara West, from Glasgow, said that led “to alcoholism, divorce and burn out. Though they might do in one instance – if it was to ask a Parliamentary question”.GPs protested they were working more than 100 hours a week – longer than junior hospital doctors but with the prospect of doing that for 30 years.

It was “ridiculous” that GPs received pounds 2,500 for a year’s night work. “Not many Tory MPs would leave their lover’s beds for that sort of money. But after health ministers’ insistence that their offer is final, Dr Bogle said “you need to be supremely optimistic to think we are going to get any great joy”.Fury at the failure to find a solution to a mounting daytime workload and ever rising demands at night was palpable at the conference as GPs protested that they could not continue burning the candle at both ends.Dr Brian Hope, of Salford, said 24-hour care was “an old concept that has outlived its usefulness”. GPs would then chose which contract they wanted to hold – day cover, night cover or both – with health authorities responsible for providing cover at night where GPs chose not to do that.
The move raises the possibility that the Government could retaliate by encouraging private companies to provide night cover, hiring their own doctors to do the work.The decision was described as “momentous” by Dr Ian Bogle, the family doctors’ negotiator.It was the most dramatic by GPs since the 1960s and would require an entirely new contract to that imposed by the Government in 1990, he said.Virginia Bottomley, Secretary of State for Health, urged GPs to think again, saying it would be “a very, very sad day for the National Health Service” if family doctors opted out of their 24-hour responsibility for patients.The call to draw up such proposals came as the conference of local medical committees, meeting in London, took a key step closer to industrial action in its dispute with the Government over out-of-hours work.As it voted for a ballot on industrial action, Dr Bogle said he would seek a meeting first with Mrs Bottomley and then with John Major before a final decision next month.

Instead of GPs holding 24-hour responsibility for their patients, out- of-hours work should be separated entirely from “in-hours” or daytime work, their national conference demanded. The judge at Knightsbridge Crown Court ordered the jury to find Dr Clive Wilfred Bird, 64, of Upminster, east London, not guilty after the court was told that he had given instructions to the 23-year-old student, Lakhbir Pooni, before the experiment at King’s College, London.. As family doctors yesterday voted overwhelmingly for a ballot on industrial action, they demanded an entirely new contract with the NHS which would split their job in two. A university chemistry lecturer who saw one of his students lose part of a finger in a violent laboratory explosion was yesterday cleared of failing to make a suitable risk assessment. But we are increasingly worried about low-income people excluded from the scheme, who will now pay quite a lot more for their gas than those who can pay on time.” Customers paying by direct debit already receive a 5 per cent discount and will now gain pounds 1 extra a quarter through a reduction in the standing charge.Clare Spottiswoode, Director General of Ofgas, said: “While I welcome discounts in principle I will need to be convinced that other customers will not end up footing the bill.”But a British Gas spokesman said: “Anyone can switch to other forms of payment to get a discount It is a matter of choice.”. But it excludes those using pre-payment meters or magnetic swipe cards at Post Offices .Ian Powe, council director, said: “We welcome discounts.

Ofgas, the gas industry regulator, has launched an inquiry into British Gas discount schemes to see if they unfairly discriminate against millions of customers, writes Mary Fagan. The Gas Consumers Council said the payment plans create three million losers, including “those who find it most difficult to afford the warmth and comfort that gas provides”.
A scheme announced yesterday gives pounds 2 off per quarter for people paying within 10 days. “Now that Britain has had low birth and death rates for some time, changes in death rates at older ages are having a stronger effect on age composition.”. In 1991, this proportion had risen to more than 9 per cent, or 3.5 million people.

Although this increase is largely due to historic falls in birth rates, it is also due to more people living longer, Dr Grundy says. “Of the girls born a century earlier in 1881, over 40 per cent died before the age of 55, many in infancy, only a third reached 75.” Only half the boys reached the age of 55 and a mere 20 per cent survived to 75.At the turn of the century there were fewer than half a million people – about 1.5 per cent of the population – aged 75 and over. Only a few years separates the life expectancies of 60-year-old men then and now, and by the time people reach 100, it is almost the same.Because men living 150 years ago were exposed to very different living conditions and health environments than men alive today, the existence of a limit to life expectancy is a sign that maximum longevity is under the control of our genes – which are the same genes that existed 150 years ago.According to Emily Grundy, a Medical Research Council demographer at King’s College London, the best estimates suggest that about 60 per cent of boys and 70 per cent of girls born in 1981 will survive to celebrate their 75th birthday in 2056. Today, he can expect to live up to 55 more years.This differential begins to whittle away with age. This compares with a life expectancy of over 70 for boys born today. A 20-year-old man living 150 years ago could expect to live about 40 more years. Although life expectancies of people who lived in the last century were lower, the difference between then and now becomes smaller in older people.For instance, in 1850, a baby boy had a life expectancy of about 40 years, but this was largely due to the enormous childhood mortality at the time.