It was mostly looking at coaching (you’re right that mental-health support is provided separately), which is classified as a form of support work. If you look at the graph that’s what’s skyrocketed in recent years, and is why the DWP has cut hourly rates from £450 to £205 and capped nos of sessions

This chart from my article this week is pretty scary. 12-hour waits in emergency departments were non-existent in the 2010s in England. Now they're the new normal and are leading to thousands of extra deaths a year: www.economist.com/britain/2025...

This is why I still occasionally read The Mirror

Men in Blackpool now have a shorter life expectancy than in Glasgow, according to new figures from the ONS.

It's now the worst in the UK and the same as Iran

Really interesting work from John Hopkins & @drjoshs.bsky.social quantifying the life expectancy gap between the US & the UK:

❤️ Cardiovascular disease 57% of the gap
💉Drugs overdoses 32%
🔫Gun-related deaths 20%
🚗Car crashes 17%

😷Covid & cancer -26% (UK worse for both)

shorturl.at/f3rBB

Put the Christmas tree up last night. Trouble with not having a kid is that there’s no one to blame for the decorations 😬

Also this from a year ago on how a rise in mental-health awareness, while helpful for some, may be having unintended consequences www.economist.com/britain/2023...

Hello everyone! Since we're all quite new here and The Economist has no bylines (a blessing & a curse!) I thought I'd share a few of the articles I'm most proud of.

First this with the fab @fransham.bsky.social showing how covid was part of a decade of UK deaths www.economist.com/interactive/...

“Soared” 😂

Crazy fact from a conference at Imperial on UPFs last week: British kids get 2/3 of their calories from UPFs, more than in America 🍟

Uplifting read in HSJ this morning. £22bn extra for the NHS but already there is no more money!

@doctrinedominatrix.bsky.social @jason-m-thornberry.bsky.social Respectfully I don’t think this is stigmatising or ableist at all. The writer appears to have had a brain injury themselves. I wrote a similar piece myself years ago and it’s clear we’re not talking about all with TBI