The former head of the NHS in England, David Nicholson, has today backed Liberal Democrat plans to put a penny on income tax to rescue the health and care service.

He is amongst a group of 26 leading health experts including the ex-heads of the Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of GPs and Royal College of Psychiatrist who all backed the Lib Dem approach in a letter to the Observer.

The letter states:

"The human cost of this crisis is already painfully clear. Waiting times are rising, there is particularly poor access for people with mental ill health and operations are being cancelled.

"For these reasons, we strongly welcome the Liberal Democrats' commitment to raise income tax by 1p, to generate additional, ring-fenced revenue for NHS and social care."

When Steph Clayton's mother, Grace, fell suddenly ill, the new school year had only recently started. A teacher from Sheffield, now 60, she didn't feel she could take time off work. She wasn't with her mum when she died.

Prime Minister Theresa May has announced plans to introduce a year's statutory unpaid leave for people to care for relatives. Some have welcomed the move, but others say fundamental issues have not been addressed. Steph told the BBC that she approved of the proposals.

A woman who lost her job at a Belfast advice centre has been awarded £18,886 in damages, after being discriminated against. A tribunal found Maria McKeith's dismissal from the Ardoyne Association was linked to her role as primary carer for her disabled daughter.

This was contrary to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, it said. Ms McKeith worked part-time for the association from 2010 until she was dismissed in March 2015. The tribunal said she had been unfairly dismissed and that the Ardoyne Association "did not put forward any convincing or coherent explanation for its decision".

Responding to one of Theresa May's first intereactions of the campaign with a real voter, in which was confronted by a woman in Abingdon over cuts to disability benefits, Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron said:

"Theresa May has shown she just doesn't care about like Cathy who are seeing their benefits slashed and prices rise.

This week Labour pledged an additional £37 billion of NHS funding, which sounds to me, as Shadow Health Secretary, like poorly-thought-out, pie in the sky policy.

You can't solve the crisis in our NHS and social care services by simply imposing more top-down targets on staff and plucking numbers out of thin air.

Figures released today show that almost 500 operations at local hospitals have been cancelled at the last minute over the past year. This is yet more evidence of the need for more funding, according to Tim Farron, who has set out a plan to bring an extra £40million to Cumbria's NHS.

In the last year, 491 operations have been cancelled on the day of arrival at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, the Westmorland General Hospital and the Furness General. All of these have been cancelled for non-clinical reasons, such as a lack of beds or a lack of a surgeon.

Excellent healthcare is at the heart of our vision for Britain. As a leading liberal democracy, our public services should - and can be - the envy of the world. The Lib Dems are committed to making this vision a reality.

Last weekend, Tim Farron and I announced our five point NHS and care recovery plan, which laid out our health strategy for the next parliament - generating an extra £6bn funding boost.

The Liberal Democrats plan to break the grip of criminal gangs and protect young people by introducing a legal, regulated market for cannabis.

Why are we doing this?

Because the current approach to cannabis has been a catastrophic failure.

Unregulated cannabis is freely available and widely used, generating significant mental and psychical health problems - especially for young people - who are being harmed by increasingly potent products.

Today, we've announced our first election manifesto commitment; we will invest an extra £6bn a year in our NHS & Social Care system.

This new funding will be paid for through an immediate 1p rise on all rates of income tax.

This funding will be ring-fenced to be spent only on the NHS and social care and will provide vital services with the money they desperately need until a longer-term solution can be found.

The Liberal Democrats will set out a 'five-point recovery plan' for NHS and social care services in their manifesto.

The key element of this is a one percent rise on income tax, raising around £6bn per year, which will be ringfenced to be spent on the NHS, care services and public health.

In the longer term, we will introduce a dedicated Health and Care Tax, which will bring spending on both services into a collective budget and set out transparently, on people's payslips, what we spend on their services.

The manifesto will also call for a statutory independent budget monitoring agency for health and care. An 'Office of Health and Care Funding', similar to the Office for Budget Responsibility. This would report every three years on how much money the system needs based on meeting government health targets and to fund new initiatives, while also covering projected increases in demand.