Podcasts about Health minister

Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier joined Jimmy Bartel and Mark Allen to discuss patients having to wait days for treatment at the brand new Footscray HospitalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Health Minister's claiming a win following improvements in elective treatment wait times. April to June data shows patients waiting fewer than four months for treatment increased about nine points to around 73%, compared to last year. MidCentral and Wairarapa have met the 2030 target of 95% this quarter. Simeon Brown told Mike Hosking there are more than 14,000 fewer people waiting over four months, since the peak of early 2025. He says they've used all available public and private system capacity to achieve this 41% reduction after waitlists ballooned under the previous Government. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Saskatchewan Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill joins Evan for a full hour of listener calls as the health system faces pressure on multiple fronts — from staffing shortages and looming CUPE job action to pharmacists expanding their scope of care. Evan takes a deep dive into the state of health care in Saskatchewan.

360 Executive Producer Kathleen Gazzola spoke with NT Health Minister Steve Edgington after an announcement from the Chief Minister this morning that Calvary Health Care has been named as the new operator for the Darwin Private Hospital. Mr Edgington confirmed discussions are ongoing with Calvary regarding the return of private maternity services with the transition from Healthscope to Calvary to be complete by the end of November.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2GB Mornings listener Zoran spent at least 20 hours in St George Hospital's Emergency Department, waiting for a bed for his daughter. As Zoran waited, the NSW Health Minister Ryan Park was giving a press conference outside that very facility. The State Government says our hosptials are full, due to wait times for NDIS and Aged Care services funded by their federal counterparts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

*** One Nations denies its new superannuation policy will lead to a rise in inflation... *** Lidia Thorpe clashes with the federal Health Minister ... And in tennis... *** Jessica Pegula and Carlos Alcaraz through to the U-S Open quarter-finals

Nolan speaks with Diane Dodds, Dr Alan Stout, Nuala McAllister, Claire Hanna & callers.

A Clare TD has written to the Health Minister calling for an immediate extension to the working hours for community paramedics. Ten newly qualified specialists who provide primary and preventative medical care directly in people's homes are to become operational across the Midwest. However, it's been revealed the National Ambulance Service plans to restrict service to daytime-only hours, rather than on a 24/7 basis. Meelick Fianna Fáil TD, Cathal Crowe, says allowing community paramedics to operate full time will greatly reduce strain on hospitals.

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Steve Davis surprised himself this week by liking not one but two posts from South Australian Liberal politicians, so he called in long-time political commentator Robert Godden and geopolitics expert David Olney to ask a pointed question: is Peter Malinauskas becoming the Liberal Party’s secret weapon, not by helping them, but by driving his own supporters into their arms? The verdict: Jack Batty and Ashton Hurn are operating like grown-ups in a party otherwise described as riddled with “decrepit fossils and weird cultists,” and the conversation turns to whether Malinauskas’s drift from consensus premier to contentious premier is manufacturing the very opening they need, while the Liberals themselves remain too fractured to properly capitalise on it. From there the trio put South Australia’s Health Minister through the wringer, running his saccharine response to a horror day of ambulance ramping through The Adelaide Show’s free Spin Detector tool, which diagnoses the reply as “flooding the zone with warmth” while the union’s four specific claims quietly leave the room. This episode did not include an SA Drink of the Week segment. The conversation closes on the value, or otherwise, of protest, with Robert and David comparing Sunday’s planned Stop the Chop march to the Vietnam moratorium marches and the Arab Spring, before Steve rounds out the episode with the Musical Pilgrimage: his own new ska track, For Pete’s Sake, a “streetwise, maybe slightly embittered” take on politicians who set sail from the people who elected them. No SA Drink Of The Week this week. You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve! The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it. And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concisepage. Running Sheet: Is Peter Malinauskas A Liberal Party Asset? 00:00:00 Intro Introduction 00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week. 00:04:53 Robert Godden and David Olney Is Peter Malinauskas, without meaning to, building the Liberal Party’s next asset? That’s the question Steve Davis put to Robert Godden and David Olney after finding himself, against every instinct, liking videos from Bragg MP Jack Batty and Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn. Godden’s answer arrived with a caveat wrapped in a compliment: “it would have to be said that Ashton Hirne and Jack Batty have only a vague resemblance to the entire rest of the Liberal Party.” He rates them as two capable, switched-on operators surrounded by what he bluntly called “decrepit fossils and weird cultists” — but he’s blunt about where any Liberal opportunity is actually coming from. Asked whether there’s now something for the Liberals to seize, Godden pushed back hard on the framing: “I don’t agree with that… They’re riven with division,” pointing to a 40,000-signature petition against the premier as evidence that discontent is building on Labor’s own side of the ledger, not because of anything the Liberals have done. David Olney sharpened that point into a broader theory about how governing parties eventually lose the benefit of the doubt. “At a certain point, the ideology smells like five-day-old fish,” he said, and once a party in power starts breaking things badly enough, voters go looking for competent alternatives regardless of their politics. In this reading, Batty and Hurn aren’t succeeding because the Liberals have fixed themselves — they’re succeeding because Malinauskas’s own missteps are softening up his supporters and making them receptive to a Liberal alternative for the first time in years. Godden underlined how fragile even that is, noting a federal example where a promising, competent candidate “lasted six months before the rabble that has no chance of winning decided that they’d rather destroy it for themselves than destroy her.” The pair also dismantled the comfortable idea that Labor’s 41 per cent polling represents genuine popularity. As Godden put it, “if a 39, 40% is a big win these days, you know, two-thirds of people don’t actually want you there,” while Olney pushed further into theory, arguing that Australia’s compulsory voting system means elections are increasingly decided by negativity bias rather than enthusiasm: “more people reach decisions in politics not based on who I like, but on based on who I don’t like.” The implication, left hanging over the rest of the segment, is that if Malinauskas keeps generating reasons for his own base to switch off, Batty and Hurn may not need to do very much at all to become the beneficiaries. The discussion pivoted from parliamentary sparring to street-level action, with Steve Davis probing whether Sunday’s Stop the Chop march — protesting parkland clearing for a motorsport event — carries any real weight in 2026. Godden was characteristically unsentimental: “the only benefit you’ll get out of this march is, is publicity, and continuing to maybe foment more anger in the community, because 40,000 quite angry people won’t get it there.” Olney offered the historical counterpoint that protest’s real value in the 1960s wasn’t its immediate political impact but the fact that it taught a generation “relearning collective action, relearning organisation, relearning holding their political leaders to account” — skills he argues have atrophied in a population that has “shrunk into our little black screens.” That theme of decline without a single dramatic collapse ran through the episode’s most striking tangent, when Olney cited historians’ work dating the fall of Rome not to the sacking of the city but to the point where the empire “stopped solving more than half of its problems every year” — a shift he places somewhere between 112 and 142 CE, and which he half-jokingly maps onto Australia’s own trajectory from around 1980. Godden couldn’t resist the follow-up: does that make Malinauskas South Australia’s Trajan? “Yeah, basically,” Olney replied, before noting the state is still waiting on its Marcus Aurelius. 00:45:30 Musical Pilgrimage In the Musical Pilgrimage this week we listen to Pete’s Sake by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos. For this episode’s musical pilgrimage, Steve Davis premieres his own composition rather than paying tribute to another artist: “For Pete’s Sake,” a comedic ska track from Steve Davis and The Virtuosos, built to fuse the genre’s “upbeat, zany” energy with pointed commentary on the state government’s parklands and MotoGP saga. The song was directly inspired by the premier’s choice of language toward protesters, whom he has variously labelled “ragtag extremists” and “cultural elites,” a framing Davis skewers by noting the real elite will likely be sipping champagne in the “exclusive money can’t buy VIP areas” at the racetrack itself. As Davis puts it, sometimes many a true word is spoken in jest — and occasionally it gets sung in ska.Support the show: https://theadelaideshow.com.au/listen-or-download-the-podcast/adelaide-in-crowd/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former head of the Health and Social Care Board John Compton & DUP's Paul Frew give views

The Health Minister's being demanded to apologise after revelations emerged he signed off on a savings strategy to control recruitment across the sector. Documents obtained by the PSA reveal Health New Zealand bosses briefed Simeon Brown on its plan for last year's Budget, aimed at strongly controlling hiring. Close to 80 percent of health workers surveyed by the union claim their team had to wait more than a month before approval came to fill vacancy. PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says she wants Health Minister Simeon Brown to make a stronger commitment. "I've read very carefully the comments he's made in the media today, and he has not said - I give a green light for every hospital to advertise every clinical vacancy, when it comes up." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite repeated denial there was a hiring freeze at Health NZ, documents uncovered through the PSA's OIA request have revealed the Health Minister knew vacancies were left open to meet the govt's explicit cost-cutting expectations and stay within budget.Luxon has shown once again he is out of touch with the people, blaming cycle ways and Labour Party / Green Party aligned council members for Wellington's downer-vibes and people leaving the city. Chris Hipkins in the house also claims Luxon once called National's front bench nothing more that AirNZ middle managers.Labour's Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni defends Labour's CGT Tax on her panel with Nicola Willis and John Campbell, while Nicola Willis defends her party's attack ads fear mongering about 100 new taxes if the left-block are voted in.++++++++++++++++++++Like us on Facebook.com/BigHairyNetwork Follow us on Twitter.com/@bighairynetworkFollowing us on TikTok.com/@bighairynetworkSupport us on Patreon www.patreon.com/c/BigHairyNewsCheck out our merch https://bhn.nz/shop/Donate to our work https://bhn.nz/shop/donation/

A new report into aged care has made 40 recommendations - saying New Zealand's aged care system is underfunded, overwhelmed, and in desperate need of major systemic reform. The report says the system was built for a "different era" and "if we do nothing, there will be a mountain of unmet need." It warns there could be a shortage of more than nine thousand residential beds in just over a decade, at an extra cost of nearly 600 million dollars a year. Former Labour Leader and Health Minister, David Cunliffe, who chaired the group, spoke to John Campbell.

There's confidence a proposed shake-up of our aged care system will fix the gaps. A Ministerial Advisory Group's made 40 recommendations, including more in-home care, a workforce strategy, and a national pathway for people needing support. It warns that without action the cost of care will almost double within a decade, and some areas could run out of beds. Associate Health Minister Casey Costello told Mike Hosking we don't have a care system, just fragmented parts of one. She says it's difficult to navigate the current system and the changes need to have people's health at the forefront. Costello told Hosking the recommendations are bold, and previously solutions have been missing from discussions, so she's pleased with the group's work. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Ashley Dalton, Labour MP and former Health Minister, joins Laura on the Breast Cancer Now podcast this week.In this episode, Ashley reflects on her breast cancer diagnoses, and what working with incurable metastatic disease is like. She also talks about leading the development of the National Cancer Plan for England and why patients' experiences are essential for creating cancer policy.Ashley discusses the importance of counting people with metastatic cancers, having a single patient file in the NHS, and pushing for real change.Read the National Cancer Plan here.Key Topics:01:18 Getting to know Ashley Dalton07:45 Ashley's breast cancer diagnoses14:14 Life between primary and metastatic breast cancer16:36 The Prime Minister's reaction to Ashley's cancer diagnosis18:43 Ashley resigns from her job as Health Minister20:40 What is the National Cancer Plan?22:06 Involving organisations and patients in the Cancer Plan25:40 The great ambition of the Cancer Plan31:52 What does the National Cancer Plan mean for metastatic breast cancer?33:02 We need to count people with metastatic breast cancer37:43 Improving access to treatment44:03 Identifying people with an increased risk of breast cancer45:32 Improving access to breast screening48:44 Ashley shares her highlights from the Cancer Plan51:24 Keeping hope in the face of metastatic breast cancer

Checkpoint visited five shops and found the banned pipes in three of them, some costing under $10. This comes a month after a briefing paper warnted the Health Minister they were readily available through some retailers. Penalties for anyone selling them range from three months jail to a $5000 fine. But drug addiction services are concerned Police aren't doing enough to enforce the law. Melissa Chan-Green spoke with Police assistant commissioner Corrie Parnell.

Over in Australia, the Health Minister says Australians are reaping the benefits of record investment in Medicare after bulk billing rates when up ahead of schedule. The national rate rose to 84.1 percent for the June 2026 quarter - an increase of nearly 5 percent. Australian correspondent Oliver Peterson says the bulk billing changes are impacting patients of all ages - and the Government's aiming for a 90 percent target. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Health Minister Hon. Moses Jn. Baptiste is encouraging Saint Lucians to adopt healthier lifestyles and take greater personal responsibility for preventing and managing non-communicable diseases. He highlighted the importance of regular check-ups, exercise, healthy eating and monitoring conditions such as hypertension and diabetes to reduce pressure on the healthcare system.

Facing a blanket policy that prevents Queensland public hospitals from performing routine tracheostomies on Motor Neurone Disease (MND) sufferers, Logan father Aaron Reardon is being denied a routine surgery that could extend his life by up to 15 years. To challenge this restriction, his wife Bec has launched a parliamentary petition urging the Health Minister to grant MND patients the legal right to choose life-prolonging treatment in line with international medical standards.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The New Zealand Blood Service says the capital's new blood bank officially opened by the Health Minister today couldn't come soon enough. The facility plays a critical role in delivering life-saving donor blood to patients and replaces a decrepit laboratory at risk of losing its accreditation. Reporter Mary Argue was given a tour.

The Health Minister says the Government's setting an expectation of accountability in its response to the Covid inquiry. It's promising to in future release information around major decisions within five working days and has already proactively released advice from the Covid vaccine advisory group. Simeon Brown has committed to reviewing the Health Act, so any future pandemic response balances the protection of public health, the economy, and New Zealanders' rights. He told Mike Hosking transparency should be core to any future response to maintain public trust. Brown is also rejecting claims the Inquiry could be wasted time if the Government changes after the election. He says it provides a framework for future governments, with timely, targeted spending, and transparency, and importantly, they won't be setting up a separate piece of pandemic legalisation – if it needs changing, they'll update what's already there. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Government's issued its formal response to the Covid inquiry, accepting all recommendations in some form - with some caveats. Health Minister Simeon Brown says emergency support in future shocks will be timely, temporary, and targeted. The Government's promising key advice in a future pandemic will be made public within five working days. "I know of parties in Parliament that could take a very different approach, as they did last time, but I think that's the point of a Royal Commission, and that's the point of how we've responded - saying, actually there's an important point around keeping expenditure to what's necessary." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Health Minister is being accused of leaving Clare "at a standstill" ahead of the Dáil recess on Thursday. More than four months on from the announcement that the HSE has purchased a 44-acre site in Raheen in Limerick for the purpose of developing a new hospital campus, the hospital development board has yet to be established. As well as making decisions relating to the Raheen facility, the board will oversee the expansion of services at Ennis, Nenagh and St John's. Friends of Ennis Hospital spokesperson Angela Coll says nothing can be progressed at the Midwest's smaller hospitals until the board is assembled.

The Health Minister has been criticised for not reappointing the chair of the Medical Council, Dr Rachelle Love, and the deputy chair, Simon Watt. 

I read that apparently the Government are about to give a formal response this month to the Covid Inquiry Phase Two report. Brooke van Velden, who drove it, was so concerned about the mistake made around Covid vaccine advice for 12–17-year-olds, and the fact Chris Hipkins said he didn't see any advice, when in fact he did. She went off to seek advice as to what to do. They told her what you would expect they would, which was, roughly, you could do a lot, do a bit, or do nothing. The trouble with Royal Commissions is once they are done, they are done, and launching yet another inquiry, she rightly decided, would be wasting everyone's time. So she has passed it off to the Health Minister, and we stand by. The tricky thing here is accountability: will there ever be any? Hipkins and Bloomfield, the two critical players here, never turned up in person to the Commission. Once the mistake was discovered, that the paperwork on the vaccine did get to Hipkins in Cabinet, no one seems to want to know anything about it. The head of the inquiry, Grant Illingworth KC, doesn't answer questions. "The report can speak for itself," he tells everyone. Hipkins relied on the faulty report to say he never saw anything, even though he did, and Bloomfield refuses all comment. I go back to my original request; that the Government do things properly, which was an adversarial inquiry i.e. they had the power to force people to turn up. Because when they don't and the Q&A is all back and forward on paper, look what happens. And what does happen? Well, nothing, clearly. I'm happy to be proven wrong, but what is the Health Minister going to do? What happens to Hipkins or Bloomfield, apart from nothing? Mistakes were made in Covid, so we have two Commissions. Commission one is a whitewash, Commission two missed critical detail, so more mistakes are made. Does that give you confidence that the next time we have an epidemic we are any better off? Of course not. So as we await the so-called response, what was the point? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Health Minister says it's a complex task to unclog the issue of ED wait times. Progress is being made on the Government's health targets, with all five areas improving year on year in the March quarter. However some progress is incremental, with EDs seeing a 0.2% rise to 74.4% of patients being admitted, discharged, or transferred within six hours. Simeon Brown told Mike Hosking there's no single solution. He says it needs to be made easier to see a GP, which they've done with a big uplift in funding and more after hour care like the new centre in South Auckland. The Health Minister says they're looking to keep using private hospitals as much as they can to reduce wait times. Brown says Health New Zealand's looking at longer term contracts with providers to get more delivery and better value for money. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Health Minister claims not enough focus has been on Clare and Tipperary with respect to healthcare. Fine Gael Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has confirmed a chairperson has been agreed for a project board that will oversee the development of a new hospital in Raheen in Limerick. The chairperson will also look at how health services can be expanded in other parts the Midwest. Speaking in the Dáil, Minister MacNeill says improving community care and integrated care in the region means giving Ennis and Nenagh the attention they deserve.

Fliss and James are joined by BBC Wales' Health Correspondent to discuss his interviews with the new Health Minister and whether the extra funding he's announced can cut down waiting lists.

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In today’s episode, Ben O’Shea unpacks rumours Albanese could be rolled by Health Minister Mark Butler. Plus, WA Police trial Big Brother facial recognition tech in what is an Australian first.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Taoiseach claims he "didn't realise" there were issues around the exclusion of a memorial to Aoife Johnston in the 96-bed block opened at University Hospital Limerick last year. The family of the late Shannon teenager have said they're "disappointed and angry" that the new block was opened in October 2025 without a tribute to her despite conversations having taken place to this effect. 16-year-old Aoife died at the Dooradoyle facility in December 2022 after waiting for 13 and a half hours on chairs to be seen by a doctor for suspected sepsis. Responding to Shannon Sinn Féin TD Donna McGettigan in the Dáil, Micheál Martin says he'll raise the matter with the Health Minister.

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The Associate Health Minister's praising a proposal to offer free flu jabs to more people. Pharmac's looking at providing the jabs to an extra 260 thousand children between six months and five-years-old from next year. It's also proposing introducing two new brands for over 65s. David Seymour told Mike Hosking some young people still die every year from influenza, and as every parent knows, they also spread it around the household. He says the cost-benefit of this stacks up, and it's a great thing for Pharmac to be looking into. Consultation opens mid-June. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is the United Kingdom on the verge of replacing another Prime Minister? The incumbent Sir Keir Starmer faces fresh challenges to his leadership today, beginning with the resignation of his Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has already called on the Prime Minister to step down after disastrous local election results last week. Meanwhile, the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, says he's going to stand for election to return to Parliament, and he could challenge Mr Starmer if he wins that by-election.Also in the programme: reflections on the meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi in Beijing; and we look at the dinosaur with the tiny brain, said to be as heavy as nine elephants.(Photo: Prime Minister Keir Starmer and MP Wes Streeting who has just resigned as Health Minister. Credit: Associated Press)

In a letter to the Prime Minister shared on X Streeting says he has "lost confidence" in Keir Starmer's leadership and it would be "dishonourable and unprincipled" to remain in government. For the latest Lucy Fisher Whitehall, Editor at the Financial Times and Liam Conlon Labour MP for Beckenham and Penge.

Yesterday in a historic move, Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill visited Clare and became the first health minister to do so. She spoke with us about the current situation in the mid-west regarding patient care issues. Image © Clare FM

Doctors in the Mid-West are warning that risks to patient safety at University Hospital Limerick remain ‘intolerable and unacceptable' unless urgent action is taken to expand acute hospital capacity across the region. In an unprecedented statement, the HSE Mid-West Medical Board called on the Government to immediately establish a Development Board for the proposed new hospital, release emergency funding, and lift staffing restrictions. To discuss this Alan Morrissey was joined by Professor Joe Devlin, Consultant Physician and Deputy Chair of the Medical Board and Associate Professor Alan Watts, Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Board Committee Member. Image © anyaberkut from Getty Images Pro

It's hoped the Health Minister will be able to experience Clare's health service deficits for herself today. Jennifer Carrol MacNeill is visiting this county today, where she'll be travelling to Kilkee and Ennis Hospital. Although the proposed hospital campus at Raheen will likely result in a new Emergency Department for the MidWest, over 40% of Clare's population will still be living over an hour's drive away from their nearest ED. Friends of Ennis Hospital Chairperson Angela Coll believes the only solution is an acute facility in Clare.

West Clare residents have told the Health Minister they've been forgotten when it comes to ambulance care in the region. Jennifer Carroll MacNeill visited Kilkee this morning as part of an ongoing countywide tour today where locals and medical staff are taking the opportunity to express the reality of deficits in healthcare provision.

Morning Report has spent the week speaking to GPs about their concerns for New Zealand's health sector. Health Minister Simeon Brown spoke to John Campbell about their concerns.

Canada’s federal Health Minister stepping directly into an agriculture forum—and signalling openness to regulatory change—marks a notable shift in tone between government and the ag sector. At CropLife Canada’s Spring Dialogue Days in Ottawa this week, RealAgriculture’s Lyndsey Smith spoke with Health Minister Marjorie Michel following her remarks and a 45-minute fireside chat with CropLife... Read More

Major healthcare policy changes announced today to save billions in spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The Health Minister has announced plans to reduce the number of participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme by 150 000 by the end of the decade to cut costs.

The government is opening 14 new infusion centres around the country, where patients can get chemotherapy and other therapies. It's also expanding 14 existing infusion centres. The Health Minister said a boost in Pharmac funding that same year is delivering 66 new medicines including 33 cancer treatments, increasing the need for infusions. Triple negative breast cancer survivor, Catherine Cooke, slammed the anouncement saying without medications like Keytruda, funded for early stage cancers, more infusion centres are not the solution and patients are being driven into debt to survive. Cooke spoke to Lisa Owen.

The health secretary Wes Streeting has appointed senior midwife Donna Ockenden to lead a review into maternity and neonatal services at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The appointment came after a sustained campaign by bereaved and harmed families who said that she was the only one they trusted to lead the review into failings in Leeds. Donna Ockenden joined Nuala McGovern to discuss her new appointment as well as her ongoing review into Nottingham university hospitals.How would you feel if everyone in your household forgot your birthday? After a woman's social media post saying her family had forgotten hers went viral, Anita talked to the author Poorna Bell and the journalist Nell Frizzell about whether forgetting a spouse's birthday is simply a careless moment or the sign of something deeper.Dr Amy Blakeway, Senior Lecturer in 16th Century Scottish History at the University of St Andrews, talked to Nuala about the history of the term 'rough wooing', and why she thinks it's time we stopped using it.Ashley Dalton, the MP for West Lancashire, announced last week that she was stepping down from her role as Health Minister to focus on constituency work and her health. Last year she revealed that her breast cancer had returned, and metastasised. This means living with advanced breast cancer everyday – it can't be cured, but it can be managed. She joined Nuala to discuss her decision.Maimuna Memon is an actress, singer, composer, and playwright. Last year, she won a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in the musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 at the Donmar in London. Maimuna talks to Anita about the real-life stories behind her latest show Manic Street Creature.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells

The government's independent advisor on rape, Professor Katrin Hohl, is warning that despite an overhaul on how to investigate rape, there is a lack of awareness of the changes across courts in England and Wales which is affecting the outcomes of trials. Also today, the Justice Secretary David Lammy is launching a new national Legal Advisors service for rape victims, as well as a pilot project that will look at shifting the focus of rape court cases from the victim to the perpetrator. It will be led by Professor Hohl who joins presenter Nuala McGovern to discuss it along with Nogar Ofer from the Centre for Women's Justice.As the Winter Paralympics get underway, we look at why women remain under-represented. Only 26.5% of Paralympians are expected to be women, and just 24% of Team GB. Meanwhile research from Activity Alliance and Women in Sport shows that disabled girls are far less likely than boys to see a future for themselves in sport. So what's holding them back, and what needs to change? We're joined by Phil Smith of ParalympicsGB, Kate Baker from UK Sport, and Paralympic champion Kelly Gallagher, all live from Italy.Ashley Dalton, the MP for West Lancashire, announced last week that she was stepping down from her role as Health Minister to focus on constituency work and her health. Last year she revealed that her breast cancer had returned, and metastasised. This means living with advanced breast cancer everyday – it can't be cured, but it can be managed. She joins Nuala to discuss her decision.How far would you go for a year off work? The character at the centre of new comic novel Motherfaker is prepared to fake a pregnancy. After her husband disappears with her life savings, teacher Barri Brown is dreaming of escape and a new life, but has limited options. So begins her great pregnancy heist. Anna Brook-Mitchell discusses the inspirations for her debut novel and its key themes from grief to connection and being child-free by choice. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Sarah Jane Griffiths