The Department of Health (DoH) is looking to fill two top-level positions in the areas of finance and human resources, at Assistant Secretary grade with salaries approaching €143,500.

Researchers at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in University College Cork (UCC) have discovered how gut bacteria communicate with their host to specifically regulate weight gain and serum cholesterol levels.

Four of Ireland’s major academic teaching hospitals have participated in a trial on a new hepatitis C drug regime that promises to revolutionise the future treatment of the disease.

Hepatitis C should be added to the diseases and conditions regularly tested for as part of a routine over-50s health check, a leading authority on the virus has suggested.

Dear Editor, Minister Alex White is quoted in Irish Medical Times of May 9, 2014 (‘Research and evidence informed draft contract — White’) stating that expert medical opinion informed the draft GP contract.

The €37 million allocated for under-sixes GP visit cards “will all transfer to general practice”, the HSE National Director for Primary Care has pledged.

Patients fear being “thrown on the mercy of the ill-functioning hospital service”, the ICGP AGM was told last weekend.

The assessment process for medical cards is “outdated and it is high time it is replaced”, the HSE’s National Director for Primary Care has stated.

It is expected that all those on the relevant National Cancer Screening Service’s (NCSS) register will be invited for their first bowel cancer screening by the end of 2015, BowelScreen has said.

People who use antipsychotic medication (such as clozapine or risperidone) to treat psychiatric illness are half as likely to commit a violent crime compared to when they are not using such medication, according to new results published in The Lancet.