An exclusive on the acne drug Roaccutane. The parents of young people who have killed themselves and some patients with loss of libido are calling for the NHS not to prescribe it.
Manufacturer Roche said “millions of patients worldwide have benefited from taking the drug”.
The majority of those who take the drug have a positive experience.
Read article here.
(17 May, 2019)
“Emma” froze her eggs nine-and-a-half years ago.
She has been in a relationship for six months but, facing the loss of her frozen eggs in July, is now having to choose whether or not to ask her partner to fertilise them, or to fertilise them using a sperm donor.
Watch interview here.
(18 April, 2019)
Women who freeze their eggs should be allowed to keep them for longer than 10 years, fertility experts are telling the government.
Legislation says frozen eggs must be destroyed after this time, unless a medical condition has left the woman prematurely infertile.
Experts told the Victoria Derbyshire programme that the limit was arbitrary and had not kept up with technology.
The government has said an extension “would be a significant policy change”.
Continue reading here.
(21 January 2019)
The scale of maternity discrimination is being hidden because of the use of gagging orders when women who have lost their jobs settle out of court, experts have told the Victoria Derbyshire programme.
“My boss said if I’m not going back to work, then I’d have to pay back all the maternity payment.”
“Emma” – not her real name – was working as a beautician when she became pregnant.
She did not realise at the time that her boss’s request was against the law.
She was called into the salon and told by the owner she would no longer be needed at the company.
“I didn’t know what to do. I’m a single mum, no family. No-one can help me,” she tells the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme.
“How can I pay my rent? How can I pay my bills? I was floored.”
.This video received 443,000 views and reached more than a million people.
The story was picked up by other media.
For the introduction of the Night Tube in London I produced and filmed a series of stories:
On 14 December, 2016 this story I produced and reported on, led BBC London News programmes:
The speed at which mandatory criminal checks are being completed by the Metropolitan Police is of “great concern”, a government department said.
A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is needed to work with children or vulnerable adults.
The London force has 50,570 outstanding applications. The Met says that is down from 83,000 in April and more people have been brought in to process cases.
One nurse said she lost her job after an eight-month wait for clearance.
A DBS check is supposed to take up to eight weeks, with no checks taking longer than 60 days. But just over half of cases – 51.9% – are dealt with within 61 days and on average, it takes 107 days.
Continue reading here.
Published 14 December, 2016