Two years into the social democrat government that promised to ‘rescue’ the ailing state health service, doctors and hospital administrators are once again warning of likely closures of A&E departments

The post A&E closures threatened at Portugal’s state hospitals through summer appeared first on Portugal Resident.

The Trump administration has warned more than 500 hospitals that they are failing to provide the public with basic pricing information — arguing that the lack of disclosure is keeping healthcare costs higher than they should be.

NHS bosses urge all hospitals in England to use ‘digital triage’ process to combat overcrowding in emergency services

Patients who turn up at A&E with non-urgent ailments could be told to come back another time under NHS plans to stop hospitals becoming overcrowded and avoid the service’s usual winter crisis.

Eighteen hospitals in England are already using “digital triage assessment” to help A&E staff decide which patients need to be seen right away or be dealt with in another way. If patients do need urgent care they are treated at once in the usual way. But if they have more minor ailments and can wait, they are told to come back later that day or the next day, or are referred to a community-based service, such as a GP or pharmacy.

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© Photograph: Islandstock/Alamy

© Photograph: Islandstock/Alamy

© Photograph: Islandstock/Alamy

OpenEvidence, a fast-growing start-up, is using artificial intelligence to help doctors find answers to clinical questions for diagnosis and treatment.

© Sasha Maslov for The New York Times

Senior medical staff call for solutions to tackle root causes of excess deaths amid tenfold increase in a decade

More than 1,300 patients a month in England are dying needlessly due to long A&E waits, a tenfold rise in a decade, figures suggest.

There were more than 300 deaths linked to long waits every week in 2025, up from 30 a week in 2015, according to analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

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© Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

© Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

© Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

One in five of the 1.92m patients on list wait longer than six weeks for tests such as CT and MRI scans, analysis shows

A record number of people are waiting for a diagnostic test on the NHS, triggering fears that delays in accessing CT and MRI scans could endanger patients’ health.

A total of 1.92 million patients in England are waiting to have a test to diagnose their illness such as by an ultrasound scan, assessment of their hearing, bone scan or various tests for cancer.

The diagnostic waiting list has grown by 500,000 since 2022.

It is 83% higher than before the Covid pandemic.

On current trends the waiting list will hit 2 million in March 2027.

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© Photograph: skynesher/Getty Images

© Photograph: skynesher/Getty Images

© Photograph: skynesher/Getty Images