Jehovah’s Witnesses can now decide themselves whether to accept or donate blood components, without risk of excommunication. New guidance issued to its members worldwide by the Governing Body of Jeho...

More than 200 NHS staff have been sacked and 2000 sanctioned for inappropriately looking at patient records in the past five years, an investigation has revealed. However, at least a quarter of NHS t...

NHS England has said it is not unlawful to access patients’ data for “legitimate and appropriate work purposes” in updated guidance to staff, a move welcomed by the BMA. Last month NHS England chief ...

Only about a fifth of hospital trusts in England are using fully electronic systems for clinical record keeping, an analysis by The BMJ shows. This is despite ministers first setting out ambitions to...

The genomic generation is on its way

Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 24 June 2026

Nature Medicine - The geopolitics driving artificial intelligence superpowers is reshaping biomedical datasets, and who has access to them.

The Irish Patients' Association has said the absence of a national electronic patient record system means thousands of patients have to legally request access to their own health records from many sou...

The government said medical data of 500,000 people was affected but no personally identifiable information had been made available.

GP records for over 3 million patients are to be shared with researchers as part of a drive to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of major diseases. Data will be shared with three large...

Abstract. Under European Union law, the processing of health and genetic data, which are special categories of personal data under the General Data Protect

US immigration agents are using an app developed by Palantir that draws on the health records of millions of Americans to find and detain illegal immigrants. The revelation comes as the US’s Immigrat...

New National Commission unites clinical leaders, patient advocates and leading tech firms to make the NHS the most AI-enabled healthcare system in world

Large language models could help reduce backlog of study proposals, but critics are wary of entrusting ethics to machines

Artificially generated data can help to train AI models when real data are scant, but more focus is needed on validating the results.

Letter to the Editor

Only qualified professionals would be able to offer high-risk BBL procedures and filler clinics would require licences Ministers have announced a clampdown on “cowboy” cosmetic procedures, including liquid Brazilian butt lifts, with stricter rules on who is allowed to perform the procedures in England. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, plans to introduce legislation next year restricting who can access and perform aesthetic treatments. Labour has warned that the industry is a “wild west” because of a lack of regulation around who can administer treatments such as dermatological filler and Botox injections. Continue reading...

Translational and other modern forms of biomedical research often use stored biospecimens and the health records of individuals whose biospecimens will be used in research. As part of the enrollment ....

Virtual chatbots that simulate conversations with famous actors or sci-fi characters can have real-world consequences.

The first phase of the Human Tissue Act 2024 is due to come into operation from tomorrow, meaning everybody will be considered an organ donor unless they opt-out or are included in a so-called "exclud...

Alain Berset acknowledged growing criticism of the 75-year-old treaty, but said any changes must also respect ‘our core values’

EU member states have adopted a controversial set of new measures governing the regulation of medicines at European level, following two years of deadlock and "unprecedented" lobbying by the pharma se...

Among all its ideas, the most important is to go all-in for digital transformation

Over 240 amendments to the landmark Mental Health Bill 2024 are to be proposed by the government.

The independent clinical audit of dysplasia of the hips surgery in children at a number of hospitals has found that a lower threshold was used to decide for surgery at Temple Street and Cappagh hospit...

Pharmaceutical companies have undertaken massive lobbying campaign to push back against proposed changes

“One of the only things that is getting me through the day is the thought that I might have a little bit of him again,” said a distraught Cork woman who has been refused access to her dead husband’s s...

Apply for the Senior Lecturer in Law role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

OVER 2,200 more families could potentially be caught up in the controversy over children's hip operations, it has now emerged.

Ethics experts raise concerns over consent, study design

Researchers fed an artificial-intelligence model called Foresight anonymized data from a huge swathe of patients in Britain’s NHS.

Ireland has the lowest availability for new cancer medicines in Western Europe, according to the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association.

This Viewpoint considers unjust enrichment stemming from the use of biospecimens known as offering particular value without informing the patient or gaining consent, as in the case of Henrietta Lacks.

The NHS can’t afford all the latest miracle drugs. A quango decides who misses out

This Special Communication discusses the changes introduced in the first-ever restatement of the law of medical malpractice by the American Law Institute.

The editorial team is delighted to announce this invitation for proposals for the next special symposium to be published in International Data Privacy Law. You

That opens the door to abuse

Laws in the Isle of Man to let terminally ill adults end their own lives are in the last stages of debate.

On 11 December 2024, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales handed down its judgment in the case of Prismall v Google UK Ltd.1 The case had been appealed