Research to test this will take a decade.There are an estimated two million people in Britain with type 2 diabetes, in which blood glucose levels can rise dangerously, but half are unaware of their condition. The disease can initially be controlled by adjusting the diet, but many patients also need drugs and as it progresses these become less effective.Avandia is made from rosiglitazone, one of a new class of agents – glitazones – which has been shown in trials to reduce blood glucose levels in a similar way to insulin when given in combination with existing treatments.An earlier version called troglitazone, launched in the UK two years ago, was withdrawn after it was found in the US to cause liver failure in one in 60,000 patients. No case of liver failure has been reported in the US with Avandia.Tony Barnett, professor of medicine at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, who has run trials of Avandia, said glitazones were the “first new agents since the mid-Fifties in Europe for the management of type 2 diabetes”. He added that “it would be incredible” if it could be shown that they prevented the disease.. The closure of Britain’s top security hospitals – Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth – was called for in a report yesterday by a committee of MPs.

The closure of Britain’s top security hospitals – Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth – was called for in a report yesterday by a committee of MPs.
The Commons Health Select Committee said they were outmoded and should be replaced by eight smaller units to provide better security and more appropriate care.The hospitals, housing some of the most dangerous offenders, have been attacked over embarrassing security lapses, brutal treatment and mismanagement. This month a dangerous patient at Broadmoor was found to have taped confidential clinical meetings.Experts have argued since the late 1980s that the culture of the institutions, which are viewed more as prisons than hospitals, is beyond reform and that they should be shut. In 1994 the Government commissioned an internal review which called for the hospitals to be cut in size and their patients transferred to smaller units but ministers shelved the main recommendations. In 1999 the Fallon inquiry into Ashworth – after a girl of nine and pornography had been smuggled into the hospital – said managers were “totally unable to control the institution” and recommended it should close.Yesterday the MPs said that, despite millions spent by government on the hospitals, reform was “probably not workable”. More than 1,300 patients are held in the hospitals, at a cost of £100,000 per patient a year. The MPs say: “We are deeply concerned as to the human-rights implications of patients staying far longer than they should in the higher levels of security.”Based on its inquiry into NHS mental-health provision, the committee urged the Government to back community care, which it said had been misrepresented as having failed.

It opposed plans to allow detention of people with personality disorders but who had not committed a crime.. Gynaecologist Richard Neale was today struck off the medical register after the General Medical Council found him guilty of serious professional misconduct. Gynaecologist Richard Neale was today struck off the medical register after the General Medical Council found him guilty of serious professional misconduct.
Neale, 54, stood silently with his head bowed as the GMC’s professional conduct committee chairman Professor Ken Hobbs announced the decision at the central London hearing.Prof Hobbs said: “The findings of fact reveal many deficiencies in the standard of care you provided to patients as well as unprofessional and dishonest behaviour.”The body’s professional conduct committee last week found the “facts proven” in 34 out of 35 allegations against the consultant.It found Neale, from Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, carried out operations without consent, performed sub-standard surgery and unnecessary procedures and failed to inform patients’ GPs of complications resulting from his incompetence.Women were left in agonising pain after complications following surgery, and they said Neale became abusive when they complained.One woman had a serious condition misdiagnosed as period pains and another was conned into paying for a private operation after Neale exaggerated the length of the NHS waiting list.The consultant worked at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, from 1985 to 1995, and in Leicester, London and the Isle of Wight.The Medical Protection Society, which represented Neale, issued a statement on his behalf.He said: “My family and I are totally devastated by this decision, the events of recent weeks and the two years it has taken to bring evidence before the GMC.”My life and career are now in ruins.”I would like to apologise fully and unreservedly to those patients whose cases have been the subject of this hearing.”I am very sorry for the physical and psychological suffering they and their families have endured. It is a tragedy not just for them but for me also.”However, I hope that the public will accept that, as a committed Christian, I went into medicine and became a surgeon, not to cause pain and suffering but to alleviate it wherever possible.”I loved medicine It was my life and the greatest privilege to be involved in. These cases, all of which presented a surgical complication, represent only 0.14% my surgical work over a ten-year period.”He added: “I would also like to say how profoundly grateful I am to my family, friends, countless patients, colleagues and professional advisers for their support.”I would be grateful now to be accorded the privacy for my family and I to rebuild our shattered life in private.”Neale is one of the first people to be punished under a new rule which means doctors who are struck off the medical register are erased for a minimum of five years.. When the Swedish pianist Niklas Sivelov flung off his jacket before playing, it seemed like a breath of fresh air. But the way he launched Haydn’s E minor Sonata was more like a gale – gusty and loud, augmented by humming as he played.