Tuesday 12 December 2017

Award-winning initiative gives people the opportunity to shape their end of life care

Award-winning initiative gives people the opportunity to shape their end of life care Warrington CCG has landed a top prize in the HSJ Awards for their work to improve end of life care with personal health budgets.

Winning the 2017 “Compassionate patient care” award, Warrington is one of five areas across the country now giving people more of a say in the care they receive in their last weeks and months of life. Personal health budgets are part of a range of work being led by NHS England to improve end of life care. Hear patients, hospice staff and commissioners talk about the benefits of personal health budgets in Warrington in this short film. NHS England

Will change to organ donor rules mean more transplants?

Will change to organ donor rules mean more transplants? In an attempt to make more organs available for transplant, ministers are proposing a radical change by moving to a system of "presumed consent".

Current rules in England mean those willing to donate their organs, should they die, sign up to a donor register.

A consultation on the new system, which would see opting out of organ donation replacing opting in, starts on Tuesday.

Wales has already adopted an approach of presumed consent. Scotland plans to introduce a similar scheme. BBC News

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NHS trust treating brain-damaged boy gets anonymity over abuse fears

NHS trust treating brain-damaged boy gets anonymity over abuse fears Charlie Gard case sparks harassment concerns as doctors at unnamed trust in the Midlands seek to turn off life support

Bosses at an NHS hospital trust who wanted to stop providing life-support treatment to a brain-damaged baby boy recently won an anonymity fight after telling a high court judge that medics might be harassed by members of the public.

They feared a repeat of the abuse that staff at Great Ormond Street hospital in London received this year after a judge ruled that 11-month-old Charlie Gard should be allowed to die. Continue reading... The Guardian

NHS managers in England back Kerslake's underfunding claim

NHS managers in England back Kerslake's underfunding claim As King’s College hospital trust is put into special measures, NHS Confederation urges government to give service more funding

NHS managers have backed the claim by Bob Kerslake, the outgoing chairman of King’s College hospital, that the health service is being denied the money it needs to meet the rising demand for healthcare.

The NHS Confederation, which represents 85% of the NHS’s 240 trusts in England, urged the government to ditch its policy of giving the service small increases and instead realise that it deserved a greater share of national income. Continue reading... The Guardian

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Why is the NHS agreeing high prices for life-saving drugs?

Why is the NHS agreeing high prices for life-saving drugs? Sherri Coleman recently spent a week paralysed, imprisoned in her upstairs bedroom, because her doctors say they can’t give her the drug she needs.

‘If it hadn’t been for Violet, my 11-year-old daughter, and mum, Rose, bringing me drinks and food, I would have starved to death,’ she says in measured tones that belie the desperation of her condition.

Sherri, 41, was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, inherited from her father, that worsens with age, causing her body to become paralysed at random — the attacks may last anything from a few minutes to a number of days. The Daily Mail