Tuesday 5 December 2017

Awards for Northamptonshire health care workers who go the extra mile

Awards for Northamptonshire health care workers who go the extra mile Health workers who go above and beyond their everyday role to make a difference to patients, service users, carers and their families have been put in the spotlight.

Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has just held its third quality awards ceremony. Northamptonshire Telegraph

The future of the NHS must be settled through constructive argument not adversarial disputes

The future of the NHS must be settled through constructive argument not adversarial disputes The Budget has brought some welcome relief for the NHS in the form of £2.8 billion additional revenue funding and £3.5 billion capital investment over the parliament. Funding prospects for the next two years remain very challenging, but the Budget has at least created some breathing space to work through the implications for the NHS and patients. The King's Fund

How NEDs can support transformation

How NEDs can support transformation A report from NHS England and NHS Improvement summarises discussions held at two events earlier this year that brought together more than 200 CCG lay members and trust non-executive directors (NEDs).

One in five patients regularly miss GP appointments

One in five patients regularly miss GP appointments Up to one in five patients are regularly missing GP appointments in Scotland, with younger people the worst offenders, new research has found.

A study of more than 500,000 people in the country, published in the journal The Lancet Public Health, shows young males are most likely to not attend.

There is no centrally collected data on total number of GP appointments or how many of them are missed.

The study found 19% of patients missed more than two in a three-year period.

Younger, male patients aged 16 to 30 were found to be the worst offenders. BBC News

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A&E four hour performance figures well below 95% target

A&E four hour performance figures well below 95% target Only 82.45% of A&E departments are currently meeting the target of seeing patients within four hours of attending, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has reported.

The latest figures reveal that in the fourth week of November performance against the four hour target is well under NHS England's 95% standard, and has dropped considerably from 85.23% the previous week.

The underlying picture shows 15 increases and 38 decreases across the whole project group of 50 UK NHS Trust sites. Pulse

More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped

More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped Seven hundred fewer nurses started training in England in 2017, the first year since the Government scrapped training bursaries in a bid to allow more nurses to be trained, UCAS figures reveal.

The numbers of people accepted to study nursing in England fell 3 per cent in 2017, while the numbers accepted in Wales and Scotland, where the bursaries were kept, increased 8.4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.

It comes as the hospital performance watchdog said there were at least 36,000 unfilled nursing vacancies in NHS trusts and foundation trusts at the end of September this year. The Independent

Why wait for an appointment when you can see a GP via phone?

Why wait for an appointment when you can see a GP via phone? People are more comfortable with using tech than critics of the GP at Hand app, which I launched, claim

Last month, I, alongside several colleagues, launched a new digital service that makes NHS GPs available to people – initially in London – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via their mobile phones.

GP at Hand harnesses technology to cut down the wait for a routine GP appointment from the current average of around two weeks to just a matter of minutes via video consultation. Face-to-face appointments are available on the same day or next if needed. Like any other NHS service, it’s free and means patients can see a GP when and where they want. Continue reading... The Guardian

More than one in four nurses are obese, new study shows 

More than one in four nurses are obese, new study shows More than a quarter of NHS nurses are obese, with healthcare professionals more likely to be dangerously fat than those they care for, new research suggests.

Experts said the findings were “deeply worrying” and said patients would find it hard to stomach health advice from those whose weight was not healthy.

The research by London South Bank University and Edinburgh Napier University set out to assess obesity prevalence among healthcare professionals working in England.

It found that 25.1 per cent of nurses were obese, with a Body Mass Index (BMI) score of more than 30, compared with rates of 23.5 per cent in the general population. The Daily Telegraph

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Doctors push patients to pay £9,000 for non-emergency ops

Doctors push patients to pay £9,000 for non-emergency ops Doctors are recommending NHS patients pay up to £9,000 for non-emergency operations, from earwax removal to hip replacements, to beat waiting times as rationing fears rise.

The controversial move tells doctors to push 'self-pay' options, some of which cost nearly £9,000.

It is said to give GPs 'greater options to discuss with patients' but has sparked criticism from doctors and campaigners who brand the move 'shameless'.

This comes after news last week revealed patients are to be denied cough medicines, migraine pills and heartburn remedies under sweeping NHS rationing plans. The Daily Mail