Woman's Hour - Accessing medical records, South Africa killings, Working post retirement

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Ten NHS staff have been removed from duty or suspended after accessing the medical records of three-year-old Noah Woods, without authorisation. A major search for Noah was carried out in the village of Brantham, Suffolk, after the child went missing on 15 September. His body was found the next day in a nearby pond by police divers. An urgent investigation has been launched by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which says any unauthorised access to patient data is 'completely unacceptable.' BBC Health Correspondent Jim Read joins Kylie Pentelow to discuss the case and the issues it raises, along with Sam Smith, from the organisation Med Confidential, which campaigns for confidentiality in healthcare.South Africa also has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, and calls are intensifying for more to be done to protect women after the bodies of 10 women have been discovered in Ekurhuleni, east Johannesburg in South Africa in the past two months. It has triggered an outpouring of national grief and outrage, and it's brought the issue of femicide and gender-based violence to the forefront of national discussions. The BBC's Southern Africa correspondent Pumza Fihlani gives an update on developments. What happens when retirement doesn't mean giving up work? Joanne, who is 72, and Karen, who is 66, discuss their experiences of working after retirement.Serenity Falls is the latest thriller novel by C. J. Tudor. The story centres on a British father and daughter who unexpectedly inherit a luxurious house in a seemingly idyllic, crime-free town, Serenity Falls, in the US. Dan and Sadie seize the opportunity for a fresh start and emigrate, but on day one a corpse dressed in an armadillo suit turns up in their swimming pool, and that's just the start of a series of freakish events. C. J. joins Kylie to talk about writing thrillers and her passion for tattoos.Presenter: Kylie Pentelow Producer: Dianne McGregor

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service,

Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'DO.com. How did Katzai become one of the biggest girl groups in the world? I'm Asma Khalid. And I'm Tristan Redmond, and together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. In this episode, we give you everything there is to know about Katzai. They've gone from their first EP to a sold-out U.S. tour in just two years,

but has their stratospheric success. revealed a darker side of the K-pop model. Search for the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the program. Thanks for your company this morning. We have plenty to come, including as the proportion of women still working in their late 60s and 70s has risen substantially over the past decade, I'll be speaking to two women who've gone more.

back to work after taking retirement. And for them it's not just about making a bit more money, but finding purpose in life. So we want to hear from you on this. Are you one of those women who's carried on working into your late 60s and 70s? Tell us why. Are you struggling to make ends meet on the state pension? Or did you think it would simply be a bit boring, not working? Do get in touch with us. You can text the program. That number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC. Women's Hour and you can email us through our website or send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note. That number is 0-3700-144. Also on most smart speakers, you can say Alexa, ask BBC sounds to send a comment. Also coming up, the deaths of 10 women in South Africa have sparked a national outcry about the scale of violence against women in the country, which has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world.

be hearing how women now fear walking alone or leaving their home after dark. And she only had her first book published at the age of 45, and now she's an award-winning author. Horror writer C.J. Tudor will be in the studio with me talking about her latest novel. We'll be discussing how she had numerous jobs before she became an author and how she gets a new tattoo for every book she has published. But first, 10 NHS staff have been removed from duty or suspended after accessing the medical records of three-year-old Noah Woods without authorization. A major search for Noah was carried out in the village of Brantham in Suffolk after the child went missing on the 15th of September. His body was found the next day in a nearby pond by police

divers. An urgent investigation has been launched by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which says any unauthorised access to patient data is completely unacceptable. Well, the trust has apologised unreservedly to Noah's family and says disciplinary action will follow if needed. The breach was uncovered during a proactive review because of the case's high profile and comes as NHS England orders trusts to strengthen measures against data breaches. Well, I'm joined by BBC Health Correspondent Jim Reid and also by Sam Smith from the organisation Med Confidential, which campaigns for confidentiality in healthcare. Jim, if I can start with you, the case of Noah Woods, of course, a very upsetting one.

Can you remind us what happened regarding Noah's medical records in this case? So what we know so far is that Noah went missing around, as everyone knows, about the middle of September and his body was found nearby in a pond by police divers. It's what happened after that, which the NHS was focusing on this weekend. So as you say, 10 staff have been either removed from duty or suspended after this so-called data breach. We don't know much of the detail around this at the moment because the trust is carrying out its own internal investigation.

But there was some new guidance that came through from NHS England on Friday last week that said in any situation now, they're hardening up their guidance, their advice to NHS Trust, saying that if there's any suspicion of staff snooping, as they put it, or viewing, accessing these records when they shouldn't do, they should be immediately suspended while an investigation is conducted to see if that access was acceptable, was your usual work-related thing, or if they shouldn't have been accessing it in the first place,

which is what appears to be going on here. So we'll have to see the results of that investigation when it comes back. Tell us more then about how this breach was actually discovered. Well, it looks like they used the phrase proactively in their response to the trust here. It looks like what happened, because we've had a series of these very similar incidents recently. We had one after the knife attacks in Nottingham, one after the attacks in Southport, and also the child who ended up in the crocodile enclosure in Cambridges.

In all three of those, it looks like staff access records when they shouldn't have done. And so now when there's another high-profile case like this, it looks like the trust have gone in and looked at their audit trail in their IT systems to see exactly who was looking at this information. Some of the access obviously would have been completely legitimate. It was people caring for or involved in the actual, investigation itself. But in some cases it wasn't, it seems, and so that's why an investigation has been launched. But it looks like it was proactively launched because they went into the audit

trail of his records to see which members of staff had accessed them. So why is this kind of access, this unauthorised access to medical records taken so seriously by the NHS? I think we need to think about what's in these records, because this goes far beyond what you might see on your NHS app if you look up your own personal data. Yes, it includes the obvious stuff, things like vaccine records, prescriptions, medication, but like I say, it can go much further. So it includes safeguarding concerns, for example, that can include details of domestic violence. It includes risk assessments, correspondence between healthcare professionals, detailed consultation notes. So these are really the most personal, confidential pieces of data. It's possible to

for anyone to look at in the country, which is why I think the NHS is taking it so seriously. Incidentally, you do have a right as a patient to access your own personal records. You can put in what's called a subject access request to do that. But even then, these records are so sensitive that there are various opt-outs. For example, if it's deemed that the records or revealing the records could damage the patient's mental or physical health, they can be withheld. So it's really that level of sensitive confidential data that we're talking about. And some of those cases you mentioned, of course, tragic, tragic cases. I wonder what impact this kind of breach can have on a family already dealing with a tragedy.

Well, you mentioned the response from the trust earlier on. I spoke last week actually to a woman called Paula McGowan, who lost her 18-year-old son back in 2016. And she was told very recently that his medical records may, may have been accessed inappropriately after his death. and she said she was, I think the words were deeply hurt, deeply disappointed at hearing that news. And when you spoke to her, her main reason was actually she said she'd be very open about what had happened to Oliver in the circumstances around his death. But there were things in his notes that she said she literally had not told anyone outside her immediate family. And I think it was that kind of feeling, maybe betrayal is too much of a strong word here, but suddenly that this information was so sensitive that feeling that someone had accessed,

whether out of curiosity or because they wanted to learn more was really inappropriate, in her words, and disappointing, I think. Let's just bring you out a bit more of that statement that was issued on Sunday. So it was from Dr. Martin Mansfield, who's the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, and Coddicot Guardian, who is the senior person responsible for health and care information at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust. So he said we've apologised and reservedly to Noel Woods family for the extra anguish. This breach of trust has caused them at an already devastating time. As soon as we became aware of concerns that NOAA's medical records may have been viewed inappropriately, we launched an urgent internal investigation.

Immediate steps are also taken to secure the records and prevent further access that was not for a legitimate clinical reason. It goes on to say we've reported the matter to the Information Commissioner's office. They say they'll keep NOAA's family informed of that investigation. So, Jim, what sanctions could staff? face then if these, if the allegations are proven? Well, actually, the sanctions involved can be quite strong, which is, in a way, where it's quite strange that this seems to be taking place so regularly. The Health Services Journal,

which is a media outlet which reports on the work of the health service, had an investigation this month saying that over the last four, over the last five years, 214 NHS staff have been sacked and around 2,000 sanctions because of data breach issues. Now, obviously, in the last in the great context of the NHS and how much work that goes on, that still makes these cases incredibly rare. But nevertheless, that's 240 staff that have been sacked. It's a potentially criminal offence as well. And this is not just theoretical.

There have been cases where healthcare workers have been taken to court prosecuted and fined as a result of this. And as I say, the NHS is now saying it's going to take this even more seriously. So Jim Mackie, who's the chief executive, issued this statement on Friday, saying, enough is enough. and some of these rules have been tightened. So you don't have to be proven to have looked at these things in records inappropriately.

You can be suspended immediately while any investigation takes place. Okay, I want to bring in Sam Smith here. Sam, you lead on policy at Med Confidential, not-for-profit organisation advocating for confidentiality in health data. So what sort of safeguards already exist within NHS systems to prevent staff from unauthorised access? So this is another utterly appalling incident after so many others. And it comes down to the fact that accident and emergency has to work.

You can be wheeled or walk into a knee and they will help you. And this is a good thing. But the systems that are there to make that work, to provide you care, are being misused elsewhere in the hospital by other staff for, you know, snooping and voyeurism. And, you know, we saw in the letter that Jim talked about that NHGNHRS England has quietly extended to this to cover GP records, which contain even more sensitive data and are also accessible. So tell us about the potential problems that you see them with the current system. And as we were talking about, the individuals that we were talking about here were only caught as part of a proactive search on this high profile case. Is there a flagging or alert system built in?

So whenever somebody in the NHS looks up a record, that is locked. And that has been logged for 20 or years, probably longer, and nobody ever looks at the locks. It's not new that it's happening. It's new that patients are finding out about it after the committed work of various victims who believe they knew what had happened and would be right. And, you know, this is a single victim where the first person, family knows that it affected them. If Noah was home safe right now, would the NHS have considered this a high-profile incident and done some checks? Like, we don't know, but the staff guidance

that was announced on Friday only covers high-profile incidents or high-profile patients. And staff do it because they think they'll get away with it. And most of the time, they're right. It is inconceivable that somebody who had never abused records before were like, that kid's missing. Let's start with him. So what does Med Confidential actually want the NHS to do? So anybody listening to this should be able to open the NHS app and see the who were and when of access to their records. And 99 out of 100 people listening to this,

you know, wouldn't have had anything go wrong. And for honest, it's probably 99 out of 1,000. And they would be able to see that their records were only accessed where they should have been and not access when they shouldn't. and that would reassure everybody, but the people who have had their records misused, and we focus on the high-profile instance because they are high-profile, and because they are high-profile, the NHS looks at them. Most abuses are never detected by anybody

because the patient has no idea that somebody read all of the sensitive information in the notes and had a chat with somebody. You just have no idea where that information came from. And you've talked about a kind of bank statement system where everyone could actually ask for a printout, say, of all the people who have tried to access their information. Tell us more about that. So you should be able to open the NHS app.

And in the same way you can see your recent prescriptions. You should be able to see who was recently accessed your record. And that will show you probably where you were in the NHS. And it will improve care because the image spends lots of money on these big computer systems and then complains the staff don't use them. So you'd be able to see that when you went into a pharmacy or you were talking to a hospital doctor, they hadn't looked at your record and that is generally a symptom of poor care, which is very hard to evidence.

But if you have a list of this is where your record was accessed, you can see that your record was and wasn't accessed in various places. And that's far, far more common than the relatively rare abuses, which we are hearing about progressively because the NHS has, has started locking. And these abuses didn't start with these high-file incidents. The reason we are finding out now is because people are looking. Just briefly, if you can, Sam, the NHS is bringing in the single patient record, which will bring together a patient's health information in one place.

Do you think that could potentially help with confidentiality and data protection? So we are promised that there will be an audit trial. And we were promised for a new system that was brought in 2004, which is now the current system, that the NHS would know when and where your record was accessed and it would have a log. And NHS England flat out refuses to show that log to the patient. So the easiest way to have confidence in tomorrow is to do it today. And showing patients who looked at their record last month helps every patient because it prevents abuses before it starts.

Anybody deemed to have a first offence, it's probably just the first time they got caught. Okay, Sam, thank you very much at Sam Smith. there and also to our correspondent Jim Reid and I should just say that we have asked the NHS for a further statement but so far we have not received one from them we will bring it to you of course if we do

thank you so much we've been asking for your comments about retirement and whether you have indeed retired we're going to be talking to two women a little later in the programme who have gone back to work after retiring this one this comment here says I'm 69

I love my work Why would you retire when you could get paid for enjoying yourself surrounded by wonderful people? And also Sue has been in touch to say I'm 73, still working as a biomedical scientist for the NHS. In fact, I've just done three 12-hour night shifts. I love my job and I can't imagine not doing it. Thank you very much for getting in touch, Sue. And I hope you do get some sleep today. You can get in touch with us on 84844 or 0300-100-444 if you

want to WhatsApp us. We will be talking about that a little later. But next, South Africa's struggles with violent crime continue to dominate headlines. It's been in the news this weekend that 28 people have been killed in two separate mass shootings in townships within hours of each other. South Africa also has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world and calls are intensifying for more to be done to protect women after the bodies of 10 women have been discovered. in Ekuru Leni in East Johannesburg in South Africa in the past two months. Well, these incidents have triggered an outpouring of national grief and outrage and have brought the issue of femicide and gender-based violence to the forefront of national discussions.

Well, to discuss this now, I'm joined by Pumsaflani, who is our South Africa correspondent, and also Katsu cello Rassiligwane, the Opposition Democratic Alliance's mayoral candidate for Akuru Leni, where the bodies were found. Pumsar, if I can start with you. For listeners who haven't been following this story of the deaths of 10 women, can you just explain what's happened, please? Well, this is a story really that's captured the nation, that's got people really asking difficult questions around

what it would take for women to feel safe in the country. It's something that the police are still trying to piece together the details of how these murders have happened. But what brought it to national media, was the disappearance of a runner. This is a woman who had gone out for an afternoon run a few weeks ago and did not return home when she was expected to. And at that point, her eight-year-old daughter got in touch with the neighbors

and let them know that her mom had not come home. That started a social media campaign, which then also then helped her eventually get found. But within that timeline, the more detail started coming out that it wasn't just her. Her name is Elizabeth Mosulah Homo. It wasn't just Elizabeth who'd gone missing in the area around that time, but other women had also gone missing prior,

and the police had not come forward at that point to share this with the nation. So it was really at the point of the runner going missing, Elizabeth going missing, that police sort of tracing back that actually this is something that they can trace back to as far as two months ago. And at the current stage, we're sitting with around 11 bodies. there was another body that was found tragically at the weekend as well. She's yet to be identified, but she was also found within that area of Okolene. A number of them have not been identified yet. They've not been identified by the police,

and also their families haven't been able to come forward then and reclaim those bodies and start things like burial rights. But it's a story really that has South Africans asking difficult questions of the society itself, but asking more about what is the government doing, what can they do to ensure the safety of women here? You've spoken to some of the victims' family members. What have they been saying? Gosh, that was, I mean, I've been doing this with the BBC for 17 years, and every few years or so, these sort of spikes in murders happen, but it's something that never really leaves you. So I spoke to three of these families. At the heart of it is they want answers.

They want to understand what it is that is going on in this country that makes this possible. So one of them was talking about if you can die is simply going out for an afternoon run. Where is it then that you're going to be safe? One of the things that they point out is that it takes incredibly long for arrests to happen. And in the few instances where they do happen, it then takes even longer for those arrests to lead to successful prostitution in the courts. Sometimes the cases are bungled at the investigation stage or it just drags on for so long that families eventually give up and think, well, nothing is going to come of this. But that's then got an adverse effect.

It's got then the effect that there's a big sense here that justice really gets metered out and that people can die and nothing happens. So in this instance, one family in particular, Elizabeth Mudabana's family, whose 38-year-old daughter was found on the side. of the road, just days after she'd been killed, they've said to me that they will make this their cause, that they're not going to rest until they get answers. She, along with the other women, showed signs of extreme violence before they died. So they want the person or persons behind this to be brought to the courts and punished and say that's the only way that they can move forward. Again, it kind of re-emphasized that sense that there is usually a time like this where a lot people are talking about what should be happening.

But after a while it kind of fizzles out and other news take over and people move on. They're saying they don't want that to be a denial story, nor do they want her to be the story of the other women who have been found killed tragically in a similar way as she was. And there have been protests, haven't there? Tell us about that. And this is the language of South Africans. South Africans go to the streets when they are greatly unhappy about something. it is how the change from a bar date to democracy happened. So for people that don't understand what's the point of it,

when people really get to a point where they feel frustrated and feel a sense of hopelessness, this is what they do. And around this period, we've seen various groups form themselves in protest. This is from local running groups around the country, gathering to women and men in support of calls for more to be done to get a handle on gender-based violence. They have had conversations with people who are experts on gender issues

who say at the heart of it also, aside from bringing in new policies, which there are policies that exist around how those cases should be handled, they're saying also work needs to be done on getting men in society to understand their role as men in society and unlearned toxic beings.

or thoughts or how they view women. They're saying often, in part as a legacy of aparthe, because violence was the currency. That is how you exerted power. That has not been unlearned. And we're continuing to see women's bodies, they've told me, used then, as something that's disposable as a way to express frustration at either personal life or the state of the economy or being out of a job, any old thing, they've said seems to be fined its expression through violence and that is often, it's women that are often at the receiving end of that violence. So this is why the protests happen. Pimsa, just stay with us a moment. I want to bring in Catuchello.

Katuchello, you've been to the areas where some of the women have been killed. Can you tell me what you've heard from other women in the area about how they're feeling? We seem to be struggling with that line to Catechello there. We will try to get back to her if we can. So Pumsa, can you tell us what has been the response from the government and the police? Well, the country's president, Cyril Romoposa, in the days after it became official that there was this manhunt that was launched, said he would direct more resources towards having these arrests happen and making sure that they go through the court system, set up a specialized task team that includes high-level ministers that are meant whose role really

is to make sure that these cases are treated as a matter of priority. So in terms of resources and manpower, they promised that they will make sure that that is done. He's also expected to address the nation sometime this week. They've not given us a day yet on new measures that the government is looking at. This is in response to the protests. And again, that conversation that's sparked up again here in South Africa around the safety of women. They've said they're going to address the nation on new measures, on what else they will be doing to try and turn things around here and show that they're doing what they can to get a handle on the situation. I was going to ask Katuchello about the feeling of women.

And do you get that sense that you mentioned Elizabeth there who had just, gone out for a run. I mean, doing very simple, normal day-to-day things. Is there a fear of doing those things as a woman on your own? Absolutely. And I think it's something that is, that people don't fully understand. You know, each family that I've spoken to or other women that I've spoken to, to speak about the sense that increasingly it is just incredibly too easy to die in South Africa, if you're a woman. I'm reminded of a story that I covered a few years. I'm reminded of a story that I covered a few years ago of a 19-year-old university student who was killed inside a post office. She had gone to collect a parcel at a post office and a post office worker took a liking to her,

made a pass at her, she rejected it. And instead of letting her go home, he trapped her there and that's where she died. And it was only days later where she would be found. So that's just one example of if you can die going to collect a parcel at a post office. If you could die in the afternoon. Elizabeth was killed in an afternoon run. So it makes it difficult for women themselves to feel like they know what to do. So the usual advice is don't go out at night, go out in groups, except some women work night shifts. And the public transport system isn't all that good. It is inevitable to walk, that you need to walk to a certain place where you can then get a taxi that brings you into the city where the jobs are. So some of that special legacy of a part day, where the jobs are concentrated within the city and people live in the townships, that also has an influence in how people are able to come in. So it's not particularly helpful, they've told me, to be told, walk in groups don't walk at night.

Then what do you say about going on a job, going to the post office, coming home from work, leaving your house to go look for a job during the day and not making it, being lured by somebody on social media promising a job, posing as somebody that's going to employ you. And it turns out that that's how you meet your end. So they're saying that the questions are being asked of the wrong people and that maybe more should be said to the men that are behind this and then trying to understand the attitudes behind why this continues to happen.

Pumsa, thank you very much. That's Pumsa Falani there, our South Africa correspondent. Now, I've been asking for your thoughts this morning on returning to work after retirement or indeed not retiring at all. We've had lots of comments in already. This one here says, I'm 77 and was working until long. last September. I'd love to find another job, she says, for the company, for the company, so friends, yeah, as I hate being home alone. Another one says, I'm 86 now. I lived in Ireland

when I retired for four years. Came back to the UK when I was 65 and got a job in a school and worked until I was 70. I went back to work purely because I love working and I love working in schools. I actually think I probably could have carried on until I was 80. Thank you very much for all your comments. Do you keep getting it. in touch 84844L-0-3-700-100-44-4. Or indeed, you can ask your smart speaker to send a message. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another.

Your spreadsheet says, good luck. O-Doo brings your business together on a single platform from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'D-O.com. How did Katzai become one of the biggest girl groups in the world. I'm Asma Khalid.

And I'm Tristan Redmond, and together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. In this episode, we give you everything there is to know about Katzai. They've gone from their first EP to a sold-out US tour in just two years. But has their stratospheric success revealed a darker side of the K-pop model? Search for the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, I just want to bring you this. Catherine Zeta Jones has been acting for more than 40 years and starred in everything from TV's Darling Buzz of May

to acclaimed films such as Chicago and Traffic more recently as Mortisha Adams in the TV series Wednesday. Catherine joined Nula in the Woman's Out Studio last week to talk about her latest TV role in the action thriller Kill Jackie. Nula asked her why she had recently described the term Nepo Baby as horrific. Both her children are pursuing careers in entertainment. They didn't ask for celebridum.

They just came into the world and I'd just speak from my own experience with my children. They've dealt with it profoundly well with the intense attention thrown on them. And they carve their way in life. And if it was any other industry, whether it be finance or business, usually people go in or if you're a lawyer, oh, my son is a lawyer. I know all my grown-up surgeon doctor friends have kids going into that industry. and they don't get labeled. But I think more importantly, I'm married to the ultimate Nepo baby.

My husband was the son of Kirk Douglas. My son was the son of Spartacus, you know? Yes. And he's done pretty good on his own, you know. And so I think it's unfortunate that with an intense scrutiny, young people have, not just my kids or celebrity kids, just generally, they get slaughtered by, AI images of perfection

of this and that they don't need another tag you know I think it's very unfortunate I suppose people use that tag because they would feel that children of celebrities have advantages that other actors don't have

quite opposite quite opposite first of all they have so much to prove you know that oh like you said it's in your jeans it's in your blood it's like no actually I have a true passion and love

of the craft. They don't, my kids have a zero, zero desire for celebrity or fame. I mean, they've been brought up with that. It's the craft. It's the craft. And people lose sight of what we do. We're not just clothes horse who's walking down the street getting photographed. It all stems from a real passion and a commitment and, you know, a craft that we make sacrifices for in our lives.

to be better and do something that we'd love to do. That was Catherine Zeta-Jones there. And if you want to listen back to that interval in full, and if you didn't listen to it, you should, because it's really good. Head to BBC Sounds and the Woman's Hour episode from Wednesday the 23rd of September. Now, the proportion of women in their late 60s and 70s

who are still working has risen substantially over the past decade. For some, it's a financial necessity. For others, it's about purpose, flexibility or simply not wanting to stop. Meanwhile, there's a continuing debate about how we fund retirement and whether people can afford to give up work when they reach pension age. So whether doing it for the money or some other reason, what's it actually like to work beyond the age when most women might once have thought they'd retired?

Well, joining me to talk about this, Joanne McLeod, who's 72, has retired twice but repeatedly found herself drawn back to work. And also Karen Harris, who left work due to disability, but now at 66 is back and running her own business. Joanne and Karen, welcome to Women's Hour to both of you. Joanne, if I can start with you then. So you've retired numerous times then. What keeps drawing you back?

What keeps drawing me back? I think it's a sense of purpose perhaps and keeping the mind and body active, state of mind too, I guess. And I didn't want my skills to be wasted. because I've worked a long time initially in IT and then later in housing and support. So I've got lots of years of experience

that I feel that I can still give help to people. And also money comes into obviously as well because it's nice to have the extra few pounds to spend on probably my social life more than anything, I guess. But that's really my reason for going back to work. And I did off years ago I thought yeah I'm going to retire at 60 And that'll be the end of it

I'm going to have the life of Riley Probably wouldn't quite have happened like that But what? It didn't suit you? No I didn't mind I quite enjoy being at home But I've got quite an inquiry mind And I'm always looking out for things And suddenly I'll see like a little job on

Indeed or something And I think I could do that And off I go to it. So tell me what you are doing at the moment then. At the moment I'm working, well, I'm doing two things actually. I work for a company called Vueber and they are a bit like Uber taxes or the food where they facilitate for estate agents and auctioneers to send people out freelance to do the viewings. So they employ people old and young

Where I don't really meet many of the others But I've come across a few in the past And it's men, women, young people, old people, anything really The jobs that I do often are auctions Where the perhaps the Housing Association or a council I've got properties that are not suitable to relet And they put them on an auction site So it was an open house and you pick up the job, you go to the house and you wait to see for half an hour perhaps if anybody comes.

And sometimes you get one person, sometimes you get no people, sometimes you get 10 or 15 people coming to see. Show them around. So it sounds like you're keeping busy then. Karen, if I can bring you in, disability and chronic pain force you out of conventional employing. moment, but when did you realise there was a route back to work? And how did that feel to be able to do that? Hello, yes. I have to visit a museum with a friend and I've worked in the museum service in the past. And they're having a lot of work done. I'm now a ambulatory wheelchair user. And I said, oh, it's a good opportunity to improve access. And I offered my services. I got an email.

and Loembold, they actually offered to pay me, which was a bit of a bit of a shock. Nobody had offered to pay me before. Everybody expected it to be done on a voluntary basis. I went to the Job Centre and I said, look, I've had this opportunity and I think I can do more. How can I get some help? Because I've been out of the workplace a long time. And they put me in touch with Prime Cunery, who helped me to formulate my ideas and come up with a business place. that would enable me to do some work within my capabilities and limitations.

And here we go. Let's Go was born. So is it for you then more, Karen, about getting a bit of extra cash or about the not wanting to be at home? I should point out you're both single. Is it about those social relationships for you, Karen? Initially, yes, I mean, I like to get out and about. I'm on a local access forum and I've always done voluntary work because those are the things that I could do within my limitations and my capacity.

I'd never even considered that I could earn from it. But when I hit retirement, everybody said, oh, you'll be well off. But of course, having been out of the workplace for so long, But when I was in the workplace, I was in a lot of short-term, fixed-term contracts part-time because of my health conditions, which meant I haven't built up a private pension. So financially, yes, a lot of people may be quite well off in retirement, but as a single disabled woman, no, I wasn't. So there's a mixture of both.

And I'm passionate about access, which is why I did it as a volunteer for so long. and I have the skills and experience to do that. There was a recent study from the University of Bath that found that women returning later in life can end up in low-paid, low-hours work that potentially doesn't do a lot to improve their pensions. I wonder what you think about that, Joanne, in terms of the earning power of women in their late 60s and 70s.

Interesting. The job, both jobs, well, I do a charity job as well on a fairly low income which helped people with pretty much anything to do with housing or for income meeting and things like that. And it is quite a low income. But the view of a job is not particularly low. You're paid per 30 minutes. And I found it, I wouldn't say lucrative exactly, but it certainly is a nice additional. money to your pension or both the pensions I've got which are both quite low. I don't know. I think a lot of jobs are advertised that are low pay. But also you can,

I see on social media now, there's lots of things people can do that are not low paid. It's becoming more, I don't know, more competitive for older people as well as younger people. What do you think about confidence then, Joanne, in terms of returning to work, when you might be in an old age group? I think there is a certain issue with that. I'm quite lucky because I have always worked pretty much and I haven't got any lacking confidence with work. But I do come across a lot of people in my charity work

whose confidence is very low, but it's not only old people, it's young people as well. And I think particularly women, although I've come across men in the situation where they've had really high paid jobs in their mid-50s, maybe to early 60s, and it's really, really difficult for them to get back into work, I think. It's quite, I guess, quite soul-destroying if you're a high flyer,

and suddenly the job your ass is driving a delivery van or cleaning in the mornings, because I think they're the ones that are having the problems, women as well. And that kills your confidence without a doubt. You start off buoyant, but you can, tend to go down quite quickly. And some people too, I feel, as Karen said, sometimes she felt that she lacked the skills to do something, but she didn't realise she could tap into some really good skills that

she did have. And it seems to have worked for her now that her confidence is built from it. Well, we have had so many comments on this, as I was saying. Shirley got in touch to say, I kept working until I was 73, now do volunteer work at the local hospital and the charity shop. I'm now 81, she said. This one here says, I'm 71. I launched my second business at 63, built a tech platform at 67 and launched my book two weeks ago. We're living 20 or 30 years longer, but society hasn't changed or worked out what to do with those years. I expect to keep working for another 20 years or more. I can make a huge contribution

with my experience. Why wouldn't I? That's quite interesting, isn't it, Karen? This idea that we, you know, of course, are living longer. and we have more time into our retirement. Do you feel that want to contribute to society in that way? I think a lot depends on the person. Obviously, as you get older, health issues can become more of an issue. And you may have to adapt as you go into employment in retirement years. You may not physically be able to do the jobs that you did when you were young, fit and active.

So I think sometimes you have to look at transferable skills and that is not easy for a lot of people and I think opportunity. The opportunities need to be there and I think a lot of traditional employers look at young people as having the current skills. They don't look at older people's skills and experience and how they can be applied to the modern workplace.

Another message here says I'm still working and I'm 66. I'm a nurse. The work is physical and mentally challenging. The days are much too long and it's relentless. I'm more than ready to retire. I'm exhausted and too tired to actually have a social life. I work for financial security to pay bills, have heating and food. And Karen, your, Joanne, actually, you're part of the generation of women affected by the rising state pension age, so called Waspe women. Did that make a difference to you having to wait longer than maybe you're expected for your state pension? Yeah, it did. It was, to be honest, it was a bit of a surprise when that happened because when I was in my 50s, as I said earlier, I thought, oh, I'll be 60. I'm going to retire. And then suddenly it was 66. And by time I got to 66, I didn't really want to retire. This is where it's all come from, I think, because when I was 60, I was really ready to retire.

but when I got to 66 I wasn't for whatever reason. So things have changed for me. It did have an impact, obviously, on my whole thoughts and what I was going to do. I worked in local government for quite a long time, but never on long stretches. So I haven't got that big golden handshake that some people had. I did get the lump of sun and used it to do what I'm doing now, almost work less hours. but top it up with other money. But it was a surprise to me at the time.

I'm not one of these people that needs to protest about it, but it was a great disappointment, I think, the extra six years. And I'm lucky because I'm healthy as well, so it's not affected me. But if I hadn't been, if I hadn't been well and then suddenly had to start working another six years, I think that would have probably made me feel quite down. So just finally then, to both, of you. Let's start with Karen. What do you think employers need to do to make sure that there's maybe flexibility or that workplaces are suited to older women?

I think like the lady who just came on a moment ago who said she was a nurse and doing long shifts, it would be really good if that could be made more flexible as people get older because these ladies have got such a lot of skills to share and the nurses particularly seem to enjoy their work, if they could just be given a bit more flexibility, maybe work less days and perhaps paid a little bit more rather than the basic salary. I think that would help to some degree, certainly. And Karen, what about you? I think more flexibility is absolutely vital because a lot of people don't want to work full time. May anyone want to work perhaps one or two mornings a week. Obviously, as you get older, your health problems come into play, and I think that

needs to be taken into consideration and support provided and reasonable adjustments put into place for people who are perhaps suffering with health issues but want or need to continue to work. And that's where people like Prime Comrie come in because they specifically work with people of an older age group and are well versed into the support that's out there and can help negotiate with employers and so on. And offer training a lot of the time I think people need to be retrained because you may well have worked in an environment that is no longer viable in the modern workplace and you need to be retrained to do things. And I think the benefit to people is that continued social interaction,

topping up pension if needs be, and getting out there and still feeling worthy, active value are really important to your mental health. Yeah, I agree, yeah. Really good to talk to you both. Thank you so much to Joanne McLeod and to Karen Harris there. And so many of your messages have been coming in. I will continue to read some of them later in the programme if we can.

Okay, let's move on now. Serenity Falls, the latest creepy novel by the horror writer C.J. Tudor is out this week. Now, you might know C.J. from her debut, The Chalkman, which won the International Thriller Writers' Award for Best First Novel. And you may well already be a fan of horror. The genre is booming 2025's book sales were up 22% on the previous year. And C.J's new book is set in a seemingly idyllic town in the US, where crime is said to be non-existent. The main characters, Dan and Sadie, a British father and daughter, inherit a luxury home there.

They seize the opportunity for a fresh start and emigrate. But on day one, a dead body dressed in a furry amadillo costume, no less, turns up in their swimming pool. And that I can say, because I've read it, is just the start of a series of rather freakish events. I'm joined by CJ now. Now you are actually Kaz, Caroline, but I'm going to call you CJ because your regular good. Good. Your regular listeners will, readers will, of course, recognise you.

So as I said, Serenity Falls, is supposed to be this perfect place, isn't it? A utopia. There are things that are slightly odd, though. Curfews for adults. Mobile phone free areas, too. Yes. But, you know, some people might think of that as being a paradise. But what's it like? Tell us more. Well, yeah, they might. I mean, that's the thing with Serenity Falls. On the surface, everything is perfect, it's idyllic, it's beautiful. And all the strange little rules that they have seem like they're quite reasonable to start with.

You know, the curfew is so that there aren't, you know, teenagers on the street causing a nuisance or people perhaps don't have too much to drink and stay out too late and disturb their neighbours. And the mobile phones, obviously it's to make sure that people socialise and talk to each other. But everything has a slight edge to it. So as well as the curfew, quite quickly, my... main protagonists realize that there's a strange thing that everyone kind of goes to sleep at the same time and wakes up at the same time so they don't kind of know what's going on at night. And there are rules regarding sort of the reading material for the teenagers at school.

They don't like anything too unpleasant. They like things to be to be kept nice and not disturbing. And slowly you get this gradual impression. There's a lot of things being controlled in serenity to keep everything seemingly perfect and nice on the surface. but there's maybe something a little bit more dark and unpleasant lurking underneath. The first time I read that part about kind of everyone falling asleep at the same time and then waking up at the same time, I was thinking, that sounds great. It's not so much.

So as you were saying, it's kind of, you know, it starts very normal every day. As I said, the father and daughter get this unexpected windfall in a shape of a house and they upsticks from Rainy Manchester move to this very well written in the in terms of how hot serenity is in Florida. So they moved to this kind of very glorious kind of mini mansion. Are you going to read us a bit from the book now? And this is when strange things start to happen. It's when Sadie, a teenager, is woken at night.

Yes. Sadie blinks her eyes open. For a moment, she's disorientated. Music is playing somewhere, but she can't pinpoint where. Maybe her dad is playing something downstairs. The music is insistent and weird. It's an old 60s tune, Mr Sandman. Kind of tinkly and discordant too.

Sadie reaches over for her phone and glances at the time. 1.37am. Great. She props herself on her elbow listening. It's not coming from inside the house. It's drifting through the windows from outside. She flicks the bedside light on, sits up and swings her legs out of bed.

She walks across to the window. and pulls the blind. It takes her eyes a second or two to adjust, not just because of the darkness, because of the weirdness. An ice cream van is crawling slowly down the street. It's pink and white and decorated with cartoon characters.

Two large plastic corners stick out of the front like horns. The music she can hear is being piped from a speaker on the van's roof. She can't see the driver, but walking either side of the van, are two figures dressed in what appear to be white hazmat suits, like CSI crossed with Mr Whippy.

The figures have flashlights strapped around their foreheads, and they're each holding a device, like some kind of scanner. Occasionally one of them turns and points the scanner around. Sadie can see green lights at the end of the device. Are they testing for something? Some kind of chemical leak? Radiation? No, don't be stupid Sadie.

If it was anything like that, they'd evacuate people, right? So on earth is going on. Well, that's just one of the very weird things that's going on. A little bit weird. How do you, how do you kind of gather those kind of spine chills that builds and leads to that sense of unease? I really like things that appear quite sort of innocent on the surface, but are actually can be kind of creepy. I think a lot of things fall into that, you know.

A lot of kids stuff does, you know, like kind of kids' characters for example, the typical, the scary doll, you know, the music box, the tinkly music. And ice cream vans, I think, as well, bizarrely. There's something a little bit sinister about ice cream vans. And I mean, a lot of things in my books come from stuff that have happened or I've seen and I've kind of stored away to put in a story later. And years ago, my husband and I lived in Nottingham, and it wasn't a great area in Nottingham. And there used to be an ice cream van that used to come around our estate, but only at night.

it would go any summer, winter, it would only come around at night and you'd hear the music and it would creep around the estate and there were no kids on the estate and in hindsight it was probably there for sort of nefarious reasons you know we won't go into that

but it stuck with me that it was really weird and I thought you know I'm going to put that in a book at some point and so it seemed like the perfect book to put it in this seemingly innocent ice cream van but something weird is going on it's creeping around at night checking perhaps that people are asleep

Did you always know you wanted to write horror? Because you had various other jobs, didn't you? Oh, yes, yeah. I mean, I had lots of jobs, yeah. I always wrote, I always loved writing from a kid from a very young age. And then it sort of fell by the wayside, perhaps in my 20s when I, you know, had other jobs to pay the bills. But I was always writing kind of in the background. It just took me a long time, I think, to kind of knuckle down and actually try and finish a novel,

which I probably didn't do till my 30s. How does it feel then to now be doing the thing that you were always thinking of doing? I mean, it's amazing. I get to write full time. I consider myself very fortunate because not every author even gets to write full time. And yeah, I love it. It's amazing. As I say, I had a lot of jobs. And I didn't get published until I was actually 46. So it was kind of a long time coming. I spent about a decade trying to get published. Like a lot of authors, there are very few authors who are an overnight success. There's all the failed projects behind most of us. And you mark every book in quite an unusual way.

And I can see maybe some of them here with a tattoo. I do. Yeah, it became a bit of a thing. When my first book, The Chalk Man was published, I had a little Chalk Man tattoo done on my wrist. And then it's become something of a ritual now that every time I write a new book, I have a tattoo relating to it, essentially.

And so can you tell me a bit more about what you're working on now? Are you always writing? Yeah, there's always a new book in the pipeline. You tend to be talking about one book. And then working on the next one because, you know, you're pulling out perhaps a book a year, a year and a half. And there's always more ideas. There's always more things I want to write. So, yeah, I'm working on a kind of a, another kind of slightly mysterious.

I like to mix genres. So most of my books mix up genres of some sort. And the title for the next book is The Last Caretaker. Okay. And it mixes up a few things, shall we say. And we mentioned horror, didn't we? Yes. Why do you think there is this kind of resurgence in horror?

I think it was 22% increase in sales we were saying in 2025, I think. So what is it, do you think, that we're liking about this genre at the moment? It's interesting, isn't it? I think horror never really went away. Certainly TV and movies, horror's always been very, very popular. You know, some of the highest-grossing films tend to be horror movies. Again, it's even more popular, I think, in movies than ever. It fell out of fashion a little bit, I think, perhaps in the early 2000s horror novels.

But it's really nice to see it having this resurgence. And it's funny, isn't it? I think it was very popular in the 80s at a time of perhaps, you know, a lot of political unrest, the Cold War, all those types of things. And I don't know whether when there's a lot of trouble in the world and the political climate, but whether we almost look for the comfort of things that can be resolved, horror, monsters, things that have a happy resolution that scare us in a safe way. Because, you know, generally the monster is defeated and Goodwin's over.

It's interesting. I mean, it's wonderful to see it coming back. And there's a lot of female writers in the field now as well, doing really well. So that's really great to see as well. Just briefly, you probably heard the discussion we were having about retirement. Yes, I did, yeah. I mean, I know that, you know, you're not near that, that kind of typical, typical retirement age. Well, not that far away. You know, is it something that you think about or just, you know, presumably as a writer, you can continue?

Well, yeah, hopefully. I mean, I plan to sort of keep on writing as long as I can. But it is interesting. I can't imagine I'm 50, well, I'm 55 this year. I can't imagine just stopping. And any work you enjoy or love, I think, you know, if you enjoy it, you perhaps want to continue it. And I think we're all staying healthier longer now. We're all productive for longer.

And obviously, you know, if you want to retire, that's great. You know, kick back enjoy it. But if you're doing something you enjoy, then I think you should be able to keep doing it. CJ, it's been lovely talking to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Serenity Falls, CJ Tudor's latest book is out this week. I just have time to read a couple of comments because we have had so many of them. This one here says about retirement, by the way, says I'm still working age 72 from choice. I had some time off sick last year and hated it. After 43 years working as a social worker still gives me not only mental stimulation and sense of fulfillment and purpose but social connection with my lovely team and joy in the families I support. hope never to have to retire, she says. And Alex in London says, thank you to your wonderful contributors for restoring my confidence. I love my job, but I recently started a career break for caring

responsibilities. I'm only 49 have been despairing about how I might get back into the workplace in my 50s. Twaddle. Of course I can do it. Thank you, Alex says. Well, thank you, Alex for getting in touch with us. Now, I just need to mention that we were talking earlier about the 10 NHS staff who've been removed from duty or suspended after accessing medical records. of three-year-old Noah Woods. We have had a statement from the NHS and they told us, NHS staff suspected of improperly and unlawfully accessing patients' medical records will face immediate suspension, have their access to NHS computer systems cut off under a zero-tolerance crackdown on snooping staff. That is all from me today.

I'm back tomorrow at 10, but for now, thank you very much indeed for listening. That's all for today's woman's hour. Join us again next time. 25 years on from the deadliest terror attack in history, why are thousands of grieving families still fighting for answers? In early 2000, two young Saudis arrived in San Diego. They'd never been to America, spoke almost no English, and had no idea how to open a bank account or rent a flat. Within weeks, they'd done all of it. Twenty months later, they hijacked a plane and crashed it into the Pentagon. Jane McMullen investigates the hidden story of a man who helped two of the hijackers

and reveals a story that the U.S. and Saudi governments have fought to keep secret. From Radio 4, this is Intrigue, a 9-11 story. Listen first on BBC Sounds. How did Katzai become one of the biggest girl groups in the world? I'm Asma Khalid. And I'm Tristan Redmond, and together we host a global story podcast from the BBC. In this episode, we give you everything. there is to know about Katzai. They've gone from their first EP to a sold-out US tour in just two years,

but has their stratospheric success revealed a darker side of the K-pop model? Search for the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.