Intertwining our health services

In November 2021, then secretary ofstate for health and social care SajidJavid announced plans to reducethe number of national NHS bodies(UK Parliament, 2021). He saidthis major reform aimed to put theworkforce and technology ‘at theheart of long-term planning’ and seemore patients benefit from the ‘bestpossible care, with the right staff inplace to meet patients’ needs’.Fast forward to April 2023, andHealth Education England (HEE) –the UK government’s body chargedwith overseeing workforce skills– merged with NHS England. Thelatter now has full responsibilityfor work including ‘planning,NEWS ANALYSIS THE S&O 11recruiting, educating and trainingthe health workforce, ensuring thatthe healthcare workforce has theright numbers, skills, values andbehaviours in place to support thedelivery of excellent healthcare andhealth improvement to patients andthe public’ (HEE, 2023a).HEE says becoming part of asingle, streamlined organisation willreduce duplication and ‘help us tocollaborate more effectively’ (HEE,2023a). However, critics view it as acost-cutting exercise, and question towhat extent the NHS will continue toprovide and prioritise support for ahealthcare workforce already facingmajor challenges

Hydralazine administration activates sympathetic preganglionic neurons whose activity mobilizes glucose and increases cardiovascular function

Hypotensive drugs have been used to identify central neurons that mediate compensatory baroreceptor reflex responses. Such drugs also increase blood glucose. Our aim was to identify the neurochemical phenotypes of sympathetic preganglionic neurons (SPN) and adrenal chromaffin cells activated following hydralazine (HDZ; 10 mg/kg) administration in rats, and utilize this and SPN target organ destination to ascribe their function as cardiovascular or glucose regulating. Blood glucose was measured and adrenal chromaffin cell activation was assessed using c-Fos immunoreactivity (-ir) and phosphorylation of tyrosine hydroxylase, respectively. The activation and neurochemical phenotype of SPN innervating the adrenal glands and celiac ganglia were determined using the retrograde tracer cholera toxin B subunit, in combination with in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Blood glucose was elevated at multiple time points following HDZ administration but little evidence of chromaffin cell activation was seen suggesting non-adrenal mechanisms contribute to the sustained hyperglycemia. 16±0.1% of T4-T11 SPN contained c-Fos and of these: 24.3±1.4% projected to adrenal glands and 29±5.5% projected to celiac ganglia with the rest innervating other targets. 62.8±1.4% of SPN innervating adrenal glands were activated and 29.9±3.3% expressed PPE mRNA whereas 53.2±8.6% of SPN innervating celiac ganglia were activated and 31.2±8.8% expressed PPE mRNA. CART-ir SPN innervating each target were also activated and did not co-express PPE mRNA. Neurochemical coding reveals that HDZ administration activates both PPE+SPN, whose activity increase glucose mobilization causing hyperglycemia, as well as CART+SPN whose activity drive vasomotor responses mediated by baroreceptor unloading to raise vascular tone and heart rate.10 page(s

Pleasure and distance: exploring sexual cultures in the classroom

Teaching sexually explicit materials to undergraduate students is fraught with questions of what ought to be taught when we introduce sessions on pornography, cybersex, explicit representations of gay and lesbian sexuality and the politics of representation more generally. This article will address some of those concerns through a meditation on some of my own teaching experiences offered, not as an example of best practice, but as a further contribution to the provocative discussions elsewhere in this issue. I argue that teaching about sexually explicit representations has the potential for reaching beyond the examination of hegemonic meanings or the exposition of generic repetitions to more innovative exploration of the cultural discourses of sexuality. Keywords: classroom strategies, pornography, teaching sexualitie

Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age

Present-day people from England and Wales harbour more ancestry derived from Early European Farmers (EEF) than people of the Early Bronze Age . To understand this, we generated genome-wide data from 793 individuals, increasing data from the Middle to Late Bronze and Iron Age in Britain by 12-fold, and Western and Central Europe by 3.5-fold. Between 1000 and 875 BC, EEF ancestry increased in southern Britain (England and Wales) but not northern Britain (Scotland) due to incorporation of migrants who arrived at this time and over previous centuries, and who were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France. These migrants contributed about half the ancestry of Iron Age people of England and Wales, thereby creating a plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain. These patterns are part of a broader trend of EEF ancestry becoming more similar across central and western Europe in the Middle to Late Bronze Age, coincident with archaeological evidence of intensified cultural exchange . There was comparatively less gene flow from continental Europe during the Iron Age, and Britain's independent genetic trajectory is also reflected in the rise of the allele conferring lactase persistence to ~50% by this time compared to ~7% in central Europe where it rose rapidly in frequency only a millennium later. This suggests that dairy products were used in qualitatively different ways in Britain and in central Europe over this period. [Abstract copyright: © 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.