Fiona Phillips's husband on life after her Alzheimer's diagnosis
Phillips, 64, was diagnosed with the cognitive condition in 2022 and publicly shared her diagnosis the following year to raise awareness.
Frizzel co-authored Phillips's new book, Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer's, detailing his anger over the lack of support for those with the disease.
He highlighted that despite an estimated one million people in the UK having Alzheimer's, including 70,000 with early-onset, there is very little help available.
Frizzel, who stepped down from This Morning to focus on family, expressed a heartbreaking wish that Phillips had been diagnosed with cancer due to the availability of treatment pathways and support. Frizzel shared that Phillips sometimes becomes confused over who she is.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
38 minutes ago
- Sky News
'My voice box was removed after the NHS missed my throat cancer'
Steve Barton is angry, and he has every right to be. The 68-year-old retired engineer stares at his medical notes that, he says, expose in black and white the moment his life changed forever. "I have somehow missed… due to my mistake," a doctor writes in one of the notes, after it became apparent that Mr Barton had not been urgently referred to specialists over what later became an aggressive form of throat cancer. Steve now has a prosthetic voice box and is one of many British patients fighting medical negligence claims after being misdiagnosed. NHS officials in Scotland are dealing with thousands of cases annually. Meanwhile, Westminster's Public Affairs Committee (PAC) recently disclosed England's Department of Health and Social Care has set aside £58.2bn to settle clinical lawsuits arising before 2024. Mr Barton, who lives in Alloa near Stirling, repeatedly contacted his doctors after he began struggling with his breathing, speaking and swallowing. His concerns were recorded by the NHS as sinus issues. As panic grew and his voice became weaker, Mr Barton paid to see a private consultant who revealed the devastating news that a massive tumour had grown on his larynx and required part of his throat to be removed immediately. "I am angry, I am upset, I don't want anyone else to go through this," Mr Barton told Sky News. "There were at least four, possibly five, conversations on the phone. He [the doctor] said to me that it sounds like I've got reflux." 'He was palmed off' Mr Barton is now unable to work and cannot shower by himself because if water enters the hole in his neck, he could drown. And a windy day can cause a debilitating coughing fit if a gust catches his prosthetic voice box. Asked if he believes this was avoidable, Mr Barton replied: "Absolutely. 100%." His wife, Heather, told Sky News: "He hates this. You see him crying. It breaks my heart. It's been hard emotionally." She added: "Everybody knows their own body. He was palmed off and the consequence is a neck dissection. It [life] changed overnight." Legal battle over compensation The Barton family have been locked in a legal battle over their ordeal with the Medical and Dental Defence Union Scotland (MDDUS) - a body which indemnifies GPs. It has not admitted formal liability in this case but has agreed to settle financial compensation to Mr Barton. Izabela Wosiak, a solicitor from Irwin Mitchell who represents the Bartons, said: "Cases like Steve's are complex and usually quite difficult, but solicitors have accepted there was no defence to this case. "They have arranged to make an interim payment; however we are still in the process of negotiating final settlement." A MDDUS spokeswoman refused to comment while talks are being finalised. What is the scale of medical negligence in Britain? The NHS in Scotland is under the devolved control of the Scottish government. Figures suggest there were almost 14,000 clinical negligence claims and incidents in 2023/24, an increase on the previous year. It comes as PAC warned that the total liabilities in England's health service has hit £58.2bn. PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP told Sky News: "I extend my sympathies to Steve and his family. Unfortunately, he is not alone. "Some are really heart-wrenching tales. Every single claim somebody is involved, someone has been in some way injured, so this is a terrible thing. "We are going to be working on how we can make the whole system less litigious and get compensation paid out quickly because if the state does harm to somebody, the least they could do is to compensate them as quickly as possible." Paul Whiteing, the chief executive of patient safety charity Action Against Medical Accidents, told Sky News: "The NHS itself last year [in England] paid out just over £5bn in compensational set aside money for compensation that it would need to pay out. "It's a huge cost and of course that doesn't speak to the cost to every individual, every family, every person who is impacted by the consequences of some form of medical accident and the trauma that can go with that."
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
NHS doctors' strike: Health secretary and BMA to meet next week
Talks between Health Secretary Wes Streeting and the British Medical Association (BMA) will take place next week in a bid to avert strike action in England's NHS, the BBC doctors, previously known as junior doctors, announced earlier this week that they will walk out for five consecutive days from 25 July until 30 July over a dispute about pay with the BMA said strikes would only be called off if next week's talks produce an offer it can put to its government has insisted it cannot improve its offer of a 5.4% increase for this year. Resident doctors were awarded a 5.4% pay rise for this financial year - which will go into pay packets from August - following a 22% increase over the previous two they are arguing that pay in real terms is still around 20% lower than it was in 2008 and have called for the government to set out a pathway to restoring its believe that this year's 5.4% increase doesn't take them far enough down that department sources have told the BBC the health secretary is sympathetic to improving working conditions for resident doctors, but he won't budge on the BMA's strike announcement, Streeting called the strike "unnecessary and unreasonable", adding: "The NHS is hanging by a thread - why on earth are they threatening to pull it?"He said the government was "ready and willing" to work with the BMA, but any further strike action would be a disaster for patients and push back the progress made in reducing waiting lists in resident doctor committee co-chairs, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said on Wednesday they had been left with "no choice" but to strike without a "credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay".Lord Robert Winston, a professor and TV doctor who was a pioneer of IVF treatment, resigned from the BMA on Friday over the planned an interview with The Times, he urged against strike action and said it could damage people's trust in the doctors took part in 11 separate strikes during 2023 and order to end the previous strikes last year the incoming Labour government awarded a backdated increase worth 22% over two action in England will not affect resident doctors in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, who negotiate directly with their devolved governments on doctors' basic salaries in England range from £37,000 to £70,000 a year for a 40-hour week, depending on experience, with extra payments for working nightshifts and does not include the latest 5.4% average pay award for this year which will start to be paid into wage packets from August.
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Struck down by malnutrition, pregnant Gazan woman can only pray for a healthy baby
GAZA, July 11 (Reuters) - At six months pregnant, displaced Palestinian woman Fatima Arfa wishes she could be buying cute clothes and toys for the special day when she delivers a healthy, safe child. Instead she spends much of her time seeking medical help in war-ravaged Gaza, weak and fearful that malnutrition will sabotage her pregnancy as Israel presses on with a military campaign that has led to widespread hunger among children and adults and reduced the enclave to rubble. She longs for simple foods like milk, eggs and red meat that could improve her health and increase the chances of delivering a healthy baby. But just trying to deal with deficiencies is exhausting and highly risky under steady bombardment. "I'm coming from a faraway place, and on foot too, because I need to have a blood transfusion because of a very big deficiency, malnutrition," said Arfa, 34, staring at medical imaging of her unborn baby. In June, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned an estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza face growing health risks such as miscarriage, stillbirth and undernourished newborns. Tackling those grim realities is challenging for doctors who face severe shortages of medicine and fuel to keep overwhelmed hospitals running as the nearly two-year war between Israel and Hamas rages. During a consultation with Arfa, Fathi al-Dahdouh, director of external clinics at Al-Helou Hospital, examines documents about her health. She has anaemia and hopefully she can receive two units of blood and needs admission to hospital because she can't live a normal life with low energy levels, or walk, he said. "We hope that God will stop this war and open the crossings so that green food supplies, fruits, and vitamins can enter, along with these things," said al-Dahdouh. Thousands of starving Gazans who frantically wave pots around at food collection points risk violence merely walking to those areas. Israeli air strikes can hit at any minute and most Gaza residents have been displaced. Arfa is getting weaker by the day and generating enough energy on a meagre diet is a huge challenge. "It is very difficult, and in the middle of the heat. I leave small children at my house, and until now they may not have had breakfast, and neither have I," she said, sitting in a makeshift tent near her children, wondering how she will be able to support them, and husband Zahi. Her daughter serves food from a cooking pot into a bowl for the whole family of 7. Zahi, 40, complains that much of Gaza's population relies on mostly lentils. Sometimes he wanders around flattened neighbourhoods desperate for flour, anything that could give his wife the strength to produce life in a strip where Israeli strikes have killed over 57,000 people, according to Gaza authorities. "More than once, I was exposed to death. I failed every time I tried to even get a can of tuna or a can of peas for the children. I couldn't," said Zahi. The Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in 2023 killed around 1,200 people and the militant group seized 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. At least 20 are believed to still be alive.
