Accepting the unacceptable? A physician’s perspective on frontline care

Accepting the unacceptable? A physician’s perspective on frontline care Elin Roddy is a respiratory and general physician at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Here she shares the challenges and pressures of delivering care in a busy hospital, ahead of of the publication of a report by The King's Fund on organising care at the NHS front line.

Concerns persist over patients' access to GPs and staffing levels

Concerns persist over patients' access to GPs and staffing levels The Public Accounts Committee report says Government pushing ahead with extended hours plan without real understanding of issues.

See also:

• Millions failed by NHS GPs who shut in the afternoon The Daily Mail
• Almost half of GP surgeries close during work hours, MP committee finds The Daily Telegraph
• Patients struggling to get GP appointments, watchdog finds The Guardian

'Exciting' blood test spots cancer a year early

'Exciting' blood test spots cancer a year early Doctors have spotted cancer coming back up to a year before normal scans in an "exciting" discovery.

The UK team was able to scour the blood for signs of cancer while it was just a tiny cluster of cells invisible to X-ray or CT scans.

It should allow doctors to hit the tumour earlier and increase the chances of a cure.

They also have new ideas for drugs after finding how unstable DNA fuels rampant cancer development.

The research project was on lung cancer, but the processes studied are so fundamental that they should apply across all cancer types. BBC News

Plain cigarette packs may be helping to drive down smoking prevalence

Plain cigarette packs may be helping to drive down smoking prevalence Plain standardised cigarette packs may already be helping to drive down smoking prevalence, suggests a review of the published evidence to date by the Cochrane Library.

The findings come as plain packs become the norm in the UK next month under the terms of the revised Tobacco Products Directive after retailers were given a year from May 2016 to sell off their old stock.

From May 21, all packs sold in the UK must be of a uniform colour, and in some cases, shape, with no logos apart from health warnings and other government information, while the brand name will have to appear in a prescribed font, colour, and size. Graphic health warnings will increase in size and will have to appear on the front as well as the back of packs. OnMedica

Tranexamic acid: Low-cost drug could save 30,000 women a year from bleeding to death in childbirth

Tranexamic acid: Low-cost drug could save 30,000 women a year from bleeding to death in childbirth A low-cost, widely-available drug could save the lives of tens of thousands of women a year if given quickly to new mothers who suffer deadly bleeding, researchers have found.

Severe bleeding after childbirth, or post-partum haemorrhage, is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. Around 100,000 women die each year from the complication.

A new global study published in The Lancet found deaths caused by bleeding reduced by a third when women were giving tranexamic acid within three hours of the onset of the haemorrhage. The Independent

Children's hospital units forced to close to new patients due to staff shortages

Children's hospital units forced to close to new patients due to staff shortages Lack of paediatric doctors and nurses across the UK also means care children receive is at risk, says the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Hospital units that treat children and very sick babies are having to shut their doors temporarily to new patients because they are “dangerously” short of specialist staff, a new report reveals.

Widespread shortages of paediatric doctors and nurses also means that the care children receive is being put at risk, according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Continue reading The Guardian

To be human to another human – this is why we nurse

To be human to another human – this is why we nurse Four nurses explain the moments that brought home why they went into the profession

A patient of mine had come into A&E because he wasn’t feeling well. The trouble with aneurysms is they aren’t always obvious, sometimes you might just feel a bit of back pain. He was sent for a scan, but went into cardiac arrest before he went in.

Those kind of situations affirm to you that you can do this. It’s not just a job – it’s a vocation. Continue reading... The Guardian

Andy Burnham demands NHS contaminated blood inquiry

Andy Burnham demands NHS contaminated blood inquiry Outgoing Labour MP says there was an industrial-scale cover-up over infection of haemophiliacs with HIV and hepatitis

Andy Burnham used his last speech as an MP to demand an inquiry into a “criminal cover-up on an industrial scale” in the NHS over the historic use of contaminated blood.

Burnham, who is resigning as an MP to stand as Labour’s candidate to be the mayor of Manchester, threatened to pass evidence to the police if the government failed to act. He said that MPs including himself had failed thousands of patients involved. Continue reading... The Guardian

NHS trust investigate 51 other 'serious incidents'

NHS trust investigate 51 other 'serious incidents' Rhiannon Stanton-Davies' daughter passed away at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust in 2009 and she claims it has not learned from its failures. New data shows the true scale of the crisis. The Daily Mail

NHS managers have helped fuel bed blocking crisis

NHS managers have helped fuel bed blocking crisis The Better Care Fund was set up in 2013 to help reduce the number of elderly people having to stay needlessly in hospital, but the costs have actually risen. The Daily Mail

NHS funding squeeze could see drugs firms leave Britain, pharmaceutical industry warns

NHS funding squeeze could see drugs firms leave Britain, pharmaceutical industry warns The world's biggest drugs firms could abandon Britain and delay launching medicines unless an extra £20 billion is pumped into the NHS, according to a leading pharmaceutical association.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) is demanding an increase in health spending from 9.9 per cent to 11 per cent of GDP in "detailed" election campaign requests, which has prompted criticism of "special pleading" from Tory MPs.

Lisa Anson, the new president of the ABPI, suggested that a funding squeeze on the health service could lead to an exodus of drugs firms from Britain, The Times reports.

Ms Anson, who is also the head of drugs firm AstraZeneca, also said the future of the £30 billion life sciences sector could be in jeopardy. The Daily Telegraph

See also:

• Drug giants threaten to abandon the UK The Daily Mail