Tuesday 23 August 2016

New Service To Help Get Patients Home Quickly In Northants

New Service To Help Get Patients Home Quickly In Northants A new service has been developed to help speed up discharge for patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but still need some support in the community.


The Single Point of Access (SPA) Service is a result of partnership working between NHS Corby and Nene Clinical Commissioning Groups, Kettering and Northampton General Hospitals, Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Northamptonshire County Council and Olympus Care Services. About My Area

The £22 billion question: how can improvement be spread in the NHS?

The £22 billion question: how can improvement be spread in the NHS? In the mid-1990s, the service improvement methodologies developed by Don Berwick at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston, US, were first used in the NHS. In 2001 the Department of Health established the Modernisation Agency to develop and spread service improvement skills more widely throughout the NHS. And yet there is still a mountain to climb in terms of both service improvement and productivity, and there is significant variation across the country. Why is it that the best ideas are so hard to spread? The King's Fund

Demand management good practice guide

Demand management good practice guide This guidance is aimed at commissioners and providers in order to support effective management of demand for NHS services. It provides an overview of regional benchmarking of demand in England alongside a summary of actions and initiatives that can be taken to manage demand on a sustainable basis. NHS England

Teenage girls: Mental well-being 'worsening'

Teenage girls: Mental well-being 'worsening' The mental well-being of teenage girls in England has worsened in recent years, says research for the Department for Education. BBC News

GPC scraps ballot on mass resignation after NHS England agrees to talks

GPC scraps ballot on mass resignation after NHS England agrees to talks The GPC has scrapped plans to ballot the GP profession on mass resignations or industrial action after NHS England agreed to accept the BMA's Urgent Prescription as a 'basis for further discussion'. GP Online

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Make emergency care part of 'A&E hubs' to ease pressures, urge experts

Make emergency care part of 'A&E hubs' to ease pressures, urge experts Emergency care departments should become part of ‘A&E hubs’, offering patients access to a broad range of relevant staff, including GPs, concludes a joint report published by the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

The Medicine Needed for the Emergency Care Service draws on the consensus reached among experts from both colleges at a crisis summit held earlier this year. OnMedica

NHS could struggle post-Brexit without EU citizen staff, Department of Health officials admit

NHS could struggle post-Brexit without EU citizen staff, Department of Health officials admit One in 10 NHS professionals are EU citizens, prompting concerns over staffing levels amid post-Brexit uncertainty. The Independent

Secret documents reveal official concerns over 'seven-day NHS' plans

Secret documents reveal official concerns over 'seven-day NHS' plans Internal Department of Health papers drawn up for ministers detail string of dangers in implementing plan

The health service has too few staff and too little money to deliver the government’s promised “truly seven-day NHS” on time and patients may not notice any difference even if it happens, leaked Department of Health documents reveal. Continue reading... The Guardian

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I fail patients in my job as a psychiatric nurse and leave them feeling worse

I fail patients in my job as a psychiatric nurse and leave them feeling worse We try our best for people who need help in their darkest hours but with a lack of beds many are receiving inadequate care

It’s 5am. An hour ago the bed manager called me and asked me to ask a suicidal woman, who had already been in a busy London A&E department for 11 hours, if she would agree to being admitted to a hospital in Manchester.

I didn’t think it appropriate to wake someone at such a time in the morning but allowing her to sleep was not an option because we need the bed space. I approach the patient; she’s already awake. “I haven’t slept all night, it’s so noisy here” she tells me. “I feel awful; can’t I just go home?” I apologise and explain that the only available psychiatric bed is in Manchester. “No, it’s too far from my family”. I tell her I understand. She starts to cry; I want to cry with her. She feels depressed and worthless and I haven’t been able to help. How am I, as a psychiatric nurse, caring for her and helping lift her out of the awful dark place she finds herself in? I think about people who are in physical pain and ask myself whether we would expect them to wait without any treatment for over 11 hours. Continue reading... The Guardian

Virtual fracture clinics enable patients to receive care online

Virtual fracture clinics enable patients to receive care online Patients can get post A&E care and manage their recovery from fractures remotely saving time and money.

A physiotherapist and orthopaedic surgeon are transforming the way patients with fractures are treated and saving the NHS more than half a million pounds in an initiative which could become a national model.

Physio Lucy Cassidy and consultant James Gibbs have established a virtual follow-up clinic for patients with simple fractures or soft tissue injuries. In the past these patients would have come through A&E and have to return for a follow up appointment at a consultant-led fracture clinic. But today these patients receive all their post A&E care online. Continue reading... The Guardian

NHS operations face being axed to avert a winter crisis

NHS operations face being axed to avert a winter crisis In a bid to tackle the worst bed-blocking crisis in NHS history, senior doctors will be drawn away from operating theatres across Britain and into wards and A&E departments this winter to free up beds. The Daily Mail

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Big rise in patients falling victim to NHS surgical mistakes

Big rise in patients falling victim to NHS surgical mistakes Health campaigners have blamed inadequate staffing and pressure in the NHS for a rise in the number of hospital attendances caused by "mistakes" during medical care.

Between 2005 and 2015, the number of attendances by patients caused by an "unintentional cut, puncture, perforation or haemorrhage during surgical and medical care" rose from 2,193 to 6,082.

Peter Walsh, of the charity Action Against Medical Accidents, said that more complex procedures and better reporting of incidents could also partly explain the rise. The Daily Telegraph

Father who backs 'harmful' alternative cancer medication should have baby taken into care, says judge

Father who backs 'harmful' alternative cancer medication should have baby taken into care, says judge A
baby boy whose father advocates the use of "harmful alternative medication" should be taken into council care, a family court judge has decided.

The man had sold Master Mineral Solution (MMS) as a treatment for cancer and autism, social services staff told Judge Helen Black.

Staff said MMS was a sodium chlorite solution equivalent to industrial-strength bleach - and they said the Food Standards Agency had warned that it should not be taken.

They said the man advocated the use of MMS and his website included "paraphernalia for the administration of such products to babies". The Daily Telegraph