The King’s Fund warns against further hospital bed cuts

The King’s Fund warns against further hospital bed cuts With hospitals full to capacity, NHS plans in some areas to cut hospital beds are undesirable and unachievable, warns The King’s Fund in a new report.

New analysis for the report finds that the total number of NHS hospital beds in England has more than halved over the past 30 years, from around 299,000 to 142,000, as more people with mental illness and learning disabilities are cared for in the community and medical advances have reduced the time many patients spend in hospital. Although it finds that most advanced nations have reduced hospital bed numbers in recent years, the report shows that the NHS now has fewer acute hospital beds per person than almost any other comparable health system. The King's Fund

See also:

• Hospital bed numbers – can the downward trend continue? The King's Fund
• Number of NHS hospital beds has halved in three decades The Daily Mail
• Number of NHS beds has halved in 30 years, major study warns The Daily Telegraph
• Struggling NHS faces 'unrealistic' bed cuts Sky News

Is investment in GP services increasing?

Is investment in GP services increasing? The government and the national NHS bodies have made attempts to recognise and address the issues facing general practice. In April 2016, NHS England published the General practice forward view, which outlined a range of initiatives and investment for general practice. Among the measures it introduced were a programme to address some of the administrative burdens placed on GPs, initiatives to improve mental health support for GPs and support to deal with rising indemnity costs. Many of the measures focused on recruitment, both through training more GPs and by recruiting from abroad, although figures so far suggest that the government’s target of 5,000 more GPs by 2021 will not be met. The King's Fund

Resilience and recovery: What the NHS can learn from the education and criminal justice sectors

Resilience and recovery: What the NHS can learn from the education and criminal justice sectors Following Mid Staffs and other high-profile failures of NHS care, the Health Foundation commissioned research into what the NHS can learn from other sectors.

A team from the University of Leicester and Cardiff University examined failure, recovery and resilience in the criminal justice system (policing, youth justice, prisons) and education. The research examined the journey to recovery for six previously failing or poorly performing organisations, to identify the key strategic themes and actions that are relevant for health care policy and practice.

Urgent action needed to tackle staffing crisis

Urgent action needed to tackle staffing crisis Hospitals and health care providers must examine whether they have enough staff to deliver safe patient care this winter as the RCN discloses the concerns of frontline nursing staff.

More than 30,000 members responded to a survey seeking to gain a snapshot of their experiences on the last shift they worked.

The results, published in a new RCN report, paint a perturbing picture of staff stretched to the limit and compromised patient care.

Over half said there were less nursing staff on shift than planned and that care quality suffered as a result. Royal College of Nursing

See also:

• NHS staff shortages 'mean patients dying alone' in hospitals BBC News
• Patients are dying ALONE in hospitals, report reveals The Daily Mail
• Nurses so overworked they are forced to leave patients to die alone, survey finds The Daily Telegraph
• NHS nurses are too busy to care for patients properly, research shows The Guardian
• Shortages are compromising patient care, new report warns OnMedica

Adult and older adult mental health services 2012-2016: An analysis of Mental Health NHS Benchmarking Network data for England and Wales

Adult and older adult mental health services 2012-2016: An analysis of Mental Health NHS Benchmarking Network data for England and Wales What does the data show about the current state of secondary NHS mental health care?

The NHS Benchmarking Network have made their mental health data available to the Centre to provide an independent commentary on what the data suggests about mental health provision in England and Wales between 2012 and 2016. This briefing is the result of our analysis, and highlights some key findings. Centre for Mental Health

See also:

• Mental health services from 2012 to 2016: what do we know? Centre for Mental Health
• Mental health patients being failed as services face 'potent mix' of workforce cuts and rising demand, shows report The Independent

UK breast cancer progress 'stalling' as NHS continues to miss opportunities to prevent more deaths, landmark new report finds

UK breast cancer progress 'stalling' as NHS continues to miss opportunities to prevent more deaths, landmark new report finds Progress on breast cancer in the UK is “stalling” as a lack of leadership continues to prevent research breakthroughs from reaching patients and see the NHS miss clear opportunities to save lives, a major new report by leading charity Breast Cancer Now has found.

Amid unprecedented financial pressures for the NHS, the charity’s landmark ‘Good Enough? Breast cancer in the UK’report assesses the most up-to-date UK data to investigate the current state of play for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease on the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The full report outlines 18 key recommendations for immediate action needed across the UK – by October 2018 – to improve the management of breast cancer on the NHS.

See also:

• Treatment and funding shambles costs thousands of lives The Daily Mail
• Red tape rows leave 1,000 women a year to die from breast cancer The Daily Telegraph
• Cheap drug could cut 10% of UK breast cancer deaths, charity says The Guardian

More than a third unaware of the dangers of diabetes-related foot ulcers

More than a third unaware of the dangers of diabetes-related foot ulcers More than a third of people in the UK are not aware that foot ulcers are a serious complication of diabetes.

More than a third of people in the UK are not aware that foot ulcers are a serious complication of diabetes, despite being a leading cause of diabetes-related amputations, a new survey by Diabetes UK has revealed.

The survey of 2,055 adults, conducted for Diabetes UK by YouGov, found that while 79 per cent of people know that an amputation is a major complication of diabetes, 36 per cent did not know that foot ulcers were also a complication, which, when unhealed, are responsible for as many as four-in-five diabetes-related amputations.

See also:

• Obesity is causing 160 amputations A WEEK The Daily Mail

How you could help stop a flu pandemic

How you could help stop a flu pandemic We seem to be suffering from a global amnesia. Ask any passerby - as we did - “What was the most catastrophic cause of death in the last 100 years?” and you receive the usual suspects: WWII, perhaps WWI. There are also some less obvious replies: Chernobyl, the Boxing Day Tsunami, Hiroshima. Very, very rarely will anyone say Spanish Flu, and yet that particular pandemic killed up to 100 million people.

There have been three others since then. Even more astonishing is that the UK Government considers another flu pandemic so dangerous to our society that it tops the list of the newly updated National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies.

So it’s particularly timely that the BBC has just launched the BBC Pandemic App on the iOS App Store and Google Play.

This free app is part of the biggest experiment of its kind, a citizen science experiment that aims to spread a virtual pandemic - an outbreak of a simulated infectious disease around the entire country. BBC News

Third of young people say their mental health has deteriorated since Brexit vote, survey shows

Third of young people say their mental health has deteriorated since Brexit vote, survey shows One in three young people say their mental health has declined in the past year, with nearly half citing the Brexit vote as a cause of anxiety, new research shows.

A poll of more than 4,000 18-30 year-olds in England and Wales shows that a third of young people (32 per cent) feel more anxious now than this time last year, with leaving the EU, money worries and the cost of housing being the main reported causes.

The findings, carried out by Populus for charity the Young Women’s Trust, have prompted concerns that youthful optimism has been replaced by worry and anxiety due to financial troubles and uncertainty about the future. The Independent

Brexit in any form poses major risks to NHS, academics say

Brexit in any form poses major risks to NHS, academics say Paper in the Lancet says Brexit will damage the NHS whichever form it takes, with a ‘no deal’ potentially catastrophic

Brexit may seriously damage the NHS, whichever form it takes, with a no-deal outcome proving catastrophic, according to an analysis of the health consequences of Britain leaving the EU.

The paper in the Lancet claims that Brexit could have “profound effects” more widely for health in the UK and also hit access to healthcare for the estimated 190,000 British pensioners in the EU. Continue reading... The Guardian

See also:

• Health must be top of the agenda during Brexit negotiations says RCGP Chair Royal College of General Practitioners
• Brexit 'potentially catastrophic' for the health service, experts suggest in Lancet journal  The Independent

My seven broken bones inspired my dream career as a radiographer

My seven broken bones inspired my dream career as a radiographer My careers adviser told me to think about something else as a job. I’m glad I didn’t listen

A nasty fall from untied shoelaces, a severe whack from a hockey stick, an accidental punch in the nose, a minibus accident, a collision with a door frame, a party game gone wrong and a wild dodgem car ride – what do all these things have in common? These random, unfortunate events all led to me breaking a bone on each occasion – a grand total of seven bones during my childhood and early teenage years. Continue reading... The Guardian