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Search results for "nhs"
673 records
found from year 2005
| View search results from other years: 2006 2004 |
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| Saturday, 31 December 2005 13:33 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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A number of health experts have been recognised in the New Years honours.
Suzi Leather, chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority since 2002, said she was “delighted” after being made a Dame, while two senior doctors have been knighted. Stephen Moss, ex-nursing chief at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre also received a knighthood.
Deam Suzi has guided the HFEA at a time when technological advances have sparked controversy over fertility treatment and embryo research.
She has spent her career working in a number of health-related fields, including the Food Standards Agency and an NHS trust.
In the summer, she was appointed chair of the School Meals Review Panel tasked with improving meal standards following a television campaign by chef Jamie Oliver.
She said: "Personally I am delighted and touched to receive this honour.
"It is recognition of the importance of the work that I have been involved in."
Professor Graham Teasdale, an experienced neurosurgeon and president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and Professor Nicholas Wright, head of the Queen Mary School of Medicine in London, were both knighted.
Professor Wright, who is a cancer specialist and was director of clinical research at what is now Cancer Research UK for seven years during the 1990s, said: "It has really come out of the blue.
"I guess it is a reward for years of effort and hard work in medicine."
There were CBEs for Mary Naughton, chief nurse at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal College of Nursing president Sylvia Denton, Age Concern director general Gordon Lishman and Mental Health tzar Louis Appleby.
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| Saturday, 31 December 2005 13:09 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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The health minister Lord Warner yesterday claimed the government was on course to meet its target of no patient in England waiting over six months for hospital treatment, The Guardian has reported.
Figures showed that at the end of November there were 12,300 people waiting more than six months for treatment, a drop of 12,600 from the previous month and down by 49,800 on November last year.
The total waiting list for treatment now stands at 774,300. Yesterday's figures showed that at the end of November there were 22 patients waiting over nine months for treatment, with four waiting over a year.
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| Thursday, 29 December 2005 11:38 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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The NHS telephone advice line, NHS Direct, received a record number of calls over the Christmas weekend, figures have revealed.
The volume of calls between December 24 and December 27 was up five per cent on last year, while traffic on the NHS Direct website increased by 32 per cent on a year ago.
Call centre reports have revealed that the top three symptoms reported by callers were abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhoea, while sore throats, coughs, earache, toothache, fever and chest pain were also common complaints.
NHS Direct call centres handled 103, 086 calls over the four day break, while the website had 74,881 hits.
Mike Sadler, medical director for the service, said demand peaked on Tuesday morning as it appeared many patients were not aware that GP surgeries were closed and had turned to NHS Direct when they realised they would not get an appointment.
A spokeswoman for the helpline said the most noticeable change had been the shift of traffic towards the website.
"We have been trying to encourage people to visit the website first. It's full of useful medical information. After reading that patients can make a phone call if they think the condition is urgent," she said.
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| Thursday, 29 December 2005 11:03 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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One of Scotland's leading doctors has today (Thursday 29 December 2005) called upon the Scottish Executive to introduce a system of routine health impact assessments to be applied to all policies and legislation.
The British Medical Association believes that this move would best serve Scottish health priorities and would have a greater impact on improving the health and lives of the population, rather than focussing on politically driven targets which fail to address the fundamental problems at the root of Scotland’s poor public health record.
Dr Peter Terry, chairman of the BMA in Scotland said: "Scotland's doctors have welcomed the Health Minister’s commitment to introduce a long term public health strategy but this can only be achieved with a co-ordinated approach across all of the Ministerial portfolios of our administration.
"Many factors in society contribute to the public‘s health and by integrating health assessments into education and social policy, for example, every decision made would be an investment in the future health of our population. This approach would make a real difference to people’s health, more so than the introduction of politically driven targets.
"The NHS alone cannot deliver the wider Executive responsibilities for improving the public’s health. Linked strategies across departments are needed to make a real and consistent difference to health."
Dr Terry highlighted the recently published Kerr Report on the health service in Scotland which marked a turning point towards greater collaboration within the health service and across wider public services.
He said: "We have seen this approach work in some areas of policy-making, but achieving co-ordinated working on the ground between health, education, social services, housing and transport policy is a challenge that requires sustained cross-departmental collaboration and the development of synergistic policies.
"By conducting a routine independent assessment of public health impact as part of the legislative process, we can ensure that the Scottish Parliament is making laws that are improving the lives and health of its population."
Looking forward to the year ahead, Dr Terry congratulated Scotland’s leaders for its courage in legislating for smoke free public places, coming into force in Spring.
"2006 could signal a real shift in Scotland’s health with the ban on smoking in enclosed public places, which comes into effect in March. The benefits of this will be evident from day one," he said.
"Scotland is leading the rest of the UK with its bold and comprehensive smoke-free legislation while Ministers at Westminster dither over inappropriate concessions. MPs should be looking north to follow our example rather than conceding to the arguments of the tobacco industry. Our Parliament should be proud of its achievements in health over the last 12 months – let us continue to make efforts to improve our national health in the coming years. We can all do better."
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| Wednesday, 28 December 2005 10:06 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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The future of the private finance initiative in the NHS has been cast into doubt following a review of Britain’s biggest hospital rebuilding project by the health secretary Patricia Hewitt.
The review was launched over concerns about the affordability of the £1 billion plan to rebuild the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and partly rebuild St Bartholomew’s. The health secretary also questioned whether such schemes best serve patient’s needs as healthcare provision rapidly changes.
Professor Chris Ham, a health policy expert at Birmingham University, warned last night: "This is an early signal of all that is going to happen to big PFI schemes in due course. The bigger they are, the bigger the financial hole that has to be filled. The more ambitious ones will be scaled back."
The review has been announced just days after the Barts and The London NHS trust agreed terms with its preferred bidder, Skanska Innisfree. The trust will now have to "reconsider its plans to ensure that [they] are both affordable and meet local needs".
In a statement, The Department of Health stressed that all PFI programmes were kept under review to ensure value for money. "This does not mean there is a freeze on hospital PFI projects," it said.
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| Tuesday, 27 December 2005 11:12 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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The Health Protection Agency and the Healthcare Commission the Government’s health watchdog has urged the health service to do more to minimise the risk to patients of Clostridium difficile (C. difficile).
More than a third of hospital trusts are failing to follow basic guidelines that could prevent the spread of the deadly hospital-acquired infection Clostridium difficile which kills 1,000 people a year.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has now written to every trust chief executive to give warning of the need to monitor and treat effectively the infection, which was linked to the deaths of 12 patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital earlier this year.
In the survey, released today, nearly 90 per cent of trusts admitted that they did not have a ward for isolating patients with C. difficile while more than a third said that they were unable to isolate routinely such patients.
Marcia Fry, Head of Operational Development at the Healthcare Commission, said: “This survey reflects the views of the trusts of their own arrangements for managing C.difficile. It is deeply worrying that a significant number of trusts are not managing to implement existing guidance on C. difficile.
“We recognise that these outbreaks are not easy to control, but trusts must do more to ensure that they have systems in place to protect patients from this potentially lethal infection. We and the HPA will be working with them on this”.
Professor Graham Medley, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Warwick University, said: “We understand all about these infectious diseases and how to control them, but what we lack is the political and economic will to change the current situation and reduce the incidences of these diseases.
“This is because a change would require restricting hospital visiting hours and having hospital beds free in case there is a need to isolate patients. That would result in an increase in waiting lists.”
A new strain of C. difficile has recently been detected in a number of NHS trusts in England. Outbreaks of this strain were first reported in Canada and the USA and have been associated with more deaths and relapses. Infections with this strain caused 109 deaths over a six-month period in Quebec last year and it was later identified at an outbreak at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “It is very concerning that trusts are not following guidelines to reduce infection rates. What’s the point of guidelines if they are not implemented?
“Hospitals should take every possible measure to prevent outbreaks of C. difficile. There is no clear line of accountability, there is no requirement for access to 24/7 cleaning, there is no measure for the availability of isolation facilities and there is no requirement to reduce excessive bed occupancy rates.” Today’s report is an interim study. A more detailed version will be published in the spring.
Jane Kennedy, the Health Minister, said: “Some trusts still have work to do. The new hygiene code currently under scrutiny in Parliament will make it a statutory duty for trusts to have all these systems in place; and the Healthcare Commission will have the power to issue improvement notices if hospitals are failing to carry out these measures.
“The Chief Medical Officer has written a firm reminder to all trusts today, to help ensure that they have all the relevant practice in place to minimise the risk of C. difficile infection”.
Questionnaires were sent to directors of infection prevention and control in all 173 acute trusts in England in October 2005. 118 responded.
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| Monday, 26 December 2005 10:14 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Scotland's health service watchdog has found that the number of elderly "revolving door patients", those repeatedly admitted to hospital, has increased by more than a quarter in a decade.
The watchdog have raised fears that many pensioners are being ejected from hospital beds before proper measures have been put in place to look after them in the community.
Liz Duncan, of Help the Aged in Scotland, said: "There does seem to be, for all categories of patients, as fast as possible turnaround from hospital treatment to going home. Sometimes for older people in particular it is a difficult situation, because if the home support is not absolutely in place and if they are not completely well, they could have a relapse at home.
"You can have this kind of revolving door of admissions if all the conditions, including home support, are not correctly in place”.
The report, compiled by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, revealed the number of pensioners discharged from hospital only to be readmitted within a year has increased by 26% since 1994-5.
The proportion of over-65s admitted to hospital twice or more in a year has risen from 354 per 10,000 in 1994-5 to 447 per 10,000 in 2003-4. Among the over-85s, the increase is even more marked, with the rate of men experiencing multiple admissions growing from 853 per 10,000 in 1994-5 to 1058 per 10,000 in 2003-4.
Joe Campbell, chairman of Scottish Care, which represents independent care home owners, said: “The problem came down to money if older patients are being put out of hospitals quicker than they should because of the backlog of routine operations which need performing, they have got to have care . . . But the big problem is if they require care they need to get it either from the council or independent care-at-home suppliers. Where is the money for that? There is no money”.
Dr David Stewart, consultant in geriatric medicine in Glasgow and deputy secretary of the British Geriatrics Society in Scotland, said: "Really the question is what percentage of these people came back for completely unpreventable reasons. The answer is, we do not know. There is a percentage where we could perhaps have done a bit better”.
The Scottish Executive has set a target to reduce multiple admissions among the elderly by more than 20% by April 2009.
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| Saturday, 24 December 2005 10:42 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Angry relatives lashed out at health bosses at Calderdale Royal in Halifax after loved ones died of the superbug Clostridium difficile.
A government report this week said hospitals are failing to stop the bug, which kills 1,000 people a year.
Liz Greenwood, whose father Leslie Slater, 79, died after bladder stone surgery, claimed conditions at Calderdale Royal in Halifax were "disgusting" and that staff ignored signs that he had the bug.
Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust said: "The concerns have been thoroughly investigated and a letter explaining the conclusions sent to the family”.
Relatives of Patrick Martin, 72, who died in March after a cancer operation, wants a public inquiry.
Daughter Jacqueline Johnson said: "The NHS cannot confirm or deny he had the deadly strain because they never tested him”.
Elaine Maxwell, nursing director at Oldchurch Hospital in Romford, Essex, said two cases of the same strain were found later "but at the time we were unaware any such strain existed".
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| Saturday, 24 December 2005 10:30 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Nurses have been left underpaid over the festive period after they were paid less than half of what they expected.
The nurses who work in the bank at Gartnavel Royal Hospital in Glasgow received an internal memo promising temporary bank nurses three weeks' wages ahead of Christmas.
But when the nurses went to cash points they had found that they had been just been paid £300 to survive on for the next three weeks.
About 100 nurses were left dumfounded when they realised their pay had been slashed.
They insist the memo sent to staff in early December stated they were due more. One 24 year-old nurse said: "We were told that if we have shifts confirmed until mid-January we would get three weeks' pay.
"I was expecting to get at least £700, so paid my rent thinking I'll have another £450 left over.
"They'd paid me £300. Now I've got nothing left for Christmas or New Year”.
Another nurse, who has been with Gartnavel for two years, added: "The next pay date isn't until January 13. What are we meant to do before that?"
Last night, a spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow said bank nurses were routinely paid in arrears, but admitted there was discretion for arranged shifts not yet worked to be paid in advance.
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| Friday, 23 December 2005 11:56 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Health experts have recommended that women with breast cancer be given radiotherapy as part of their treatment after NHS Quality Improvement Scotland revealed evidence that the procedure could help to reduce the risk of recurrence by two thirds.
The NHS QIS guidelines also recommend that chemotherapy should be considered for all women under the age of 70 with early stage breast cancer.
In incurable cases, patients should be treated by highly trained “palliative staff”, they say.
Lorraine Dallas, of Breast Cancer Care Scotland, said more resources were needed for radiotherapy in order to reduce waiting times.
She said: "Breast Cancer Care still has concerns in some areas of the country that there are delays in radiotherapy, and this can be a huge emotional stress on people.
"The guidelines act as a lever to ensure that where there are concerns that practice is not up to standard, resources are allocated to ensure guidelines are properly implemented."
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