Monday 22 August 2016

Obesity strategy by Government is 'letting children down', Northampton-based charity warns

Obesity strategy by Government is 'letting children down', Northampton-based charity warns The new childhood obesity strategy is “letting down a generation of children”, a national diabetes charity based in Northampton has said. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Local government public health budgets: a time for turning?

Local government public health budgets: a time for turning? In her first month as Prime Minister, Theresa May has signalled that she will focus on inequalities and life chances. Unlike the first woman to occupy Number 10, she may even be one for turning, as evidenced by the Hinkley Point reappraisal. Given this fresh thinking, I wonder whether the Prime Minister will be interested in the current situation with public health budgets.

After a welcome commitment to better funding of public health services in the early years of the coalition (it’s easy to forget that growth in the local government public health grant initially outpaced clinical commissioning group allocations) the ex-Chancellor first slammed the brakes on, then made a £200 million in-year reduction, and finally announced in the Spending Review a further real-terms cut averaging 3.9 per cent each year until 2020/21. The King's Fund

Supporting nurses to prepare for the OSCE

Supporting nurses to prepare for the OSCE Find out how Cambridge University Hospitals is supporting nurses recruited from overseas to prepare to work in the UK in our new blog. NHS Employers

Abortion provider Marie Stopes suspends services

Exclusive: Hospitals ignore guidance and continue to dump work on GPs

Exclusive: Hospitals ignore guidance and continue to dump work on GPs NHS hospitals are ignoring changes to their standard contract that were intended to stop them dumping work on GPs, a poll suggests. GP Online

Significant fall in hospital deaths from pneumonia

Significant fall in hospital deaths from pneumonia But respiratory specialists warn against complacency as UK death rate is third highest in Europe. OnMedica

Worse treatment of poor people by GPs costs the NHS £4.8bn a year, study finds

Worse treatment of poor people by GPs costs the NHS £4.8bn a year, study finds Excess hospital admissions of people from poorer parts of England cost the NHS £4.8bn in a single year, according to new research.

An analysis by York university academics found there were264,000 excess admissions from less well-off areas between April 2014 and April 2015.

The researchers said they had not found out the exact reasons behind the problem, but added that poor people were not being looked after as well as rich people by GPs.

They said this was not necessarily the fault of the doctors, but could be a systemic problem or because poorer people were not going to their local surgery for some reason. The Independent

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Hospital doctors ‘miss signs of illness’ because of chronic staff shortages

Hospital doctors ‘miss signs of illness’ because of chronic staff shortages Survey reveals widespread concern that widening gaps in rotas are risking patient safety and leave ‘pressurised’ medics in tears

“Dangerous” medical understaffing in hospitals is so rife that signs of illness are being missed, blood tests delayed and newly qualified doctors left in charge of up to 100 patients.

Chronic shortages of medics are also leading to those with little experience of some types of illness taking responsibility for wards full of medically needy patients, or with complex issues, whose conditions they know little about and do not feel qualified to give proper care to, including in intensive care and stroke and surgical units. Continue reading... The Guardian

Women and BME community under-represented in top NHS roles – study

Women and BME community under-represented in top NHS roles – study Labour peer criticises ‘disgraceful’ prevalence of white men in senior positions after two-year drive to rectify problem

The NHS has been accused of a “disgraceful” failure to use the talents of women and people from ethnic minorities, after research showed they are badly under-represented in senior positions.

Despite a two-year drive to rectify the problem, far fewer people from either group chair an NHS acute hospital trust or ambulance trust in England than would be proportionate to their numbers in the population, freedom of information responses show. They are also much less likely to be non-executive directors of trusts than white men. Continue reading... The Guardian

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Whistleblowers being 'blacklisted by NHS' as staff records state they were 'dismissed' even after being cleared at tribunal

Whistleblowers being 'blacklisted by NHS' as staff records state they were 'dismissed' even after being cleared at tribunal When Maha Yassaie began to suspect that a colleague was taking money from drug companies to prescribe a certain product and that a GP had obtained controlled drugs to attempt suicide she naturally raised the alarm.

But after reporting these and other concerns about her colleagues the former chief pharmacist at Berkshire West Primary Care Trust was dismissed from her post.

To her dismay Lady Yassaie was told by an internal inquiry that she was “too honest” to work for the NHS. The Daily Telegraph

Health watchdog to review why so few hospitals improved after an inspection

Health watchdog to review why so few hospitals improved after an inspection The NHS quality watchdog is to review the way it carries out inspections after it emerged that almost three-quarters of follow-up visits showed that hospitals had failed to improve.

The Care Quality Commission has said it will try to “better understand” why such a small proportion of hospital trusts are improving their standards after receiving a critical report.

A total of 21 hospital trusts were subject to follow-up visits by the CQC in 2015-16 after an initial inspection identified flaws in care, with 17 failing to show overall improvement. The Daily Telegraph

London council criticised for 'encouraging women to have unprotected sex' in 'disgusting' poster

London council criticised for 'encouraging women to have unprotected sex' in 'disgusting' poster A poster campaign by a council was slammed as "disgusting and offensive" for apparently encouraging women to have unprotected sex on nights out.

Kingston Council's "get it, forget it" campaign aims to promote thecontraceptive coil - a copper device inserted into the womb that works that prevents sperm and eggs from surviving, but does notprotect against sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

The poster, displayed across the south west London borough, read: "You spent the night in Clapham but you left your pill in Kingston, it might be time to consider the coil."

Critics have said the posters do not warn people about the risks of contracting an STI and are giving a dangerous message to women. The Daily Telegraph