Thursday 17 May 2018

Northampton General Hospital settles out of court with disabled worker over harassment claims

Northampton General Hospital settles out of court with disabled worker over harassment claims A disabled former medical secretary at Northampton General Hospital was sent out for the day to trial office chairs for her nerve damage and was suspended on her return. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Equity of outcomes: why we must do better

Equity of outcomes: why we must do better Helen Buckingham looks at the recent findings from the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review Programme, and asks what will it take for health leaders to once and for all put in place services that meet the needs of everyone who uses them. Nuffield Trust

Transformational change in health and care: five small steps to make a big difference

Transformational change in health and care: five small steps to make a big difference The growing demands in the health and care service reinforce the need for transformation. Much has been achieved already but more is needed, for example by focusing on staff and communities, and further understanding their lived experience. Our recent report, Transformational change in health and care, explores the stories of 42 people involved with transformational efforts in four sites. This work shows that five small steps can make a big difference to strengthening the work of transformational change – for example, by those in sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs), integrated care systems (ICSs), or more widely. The King's Fund

NHS England’s management of the primary care support services contract with Capita

NHS England’s management of the primary care support services contract with Capita NHS England and Capita misunderstood the risks in outsourcing primary care support services resulting in services to 39,000 GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists that were a long way below an acceptable standard. Capita’s performance against the contract has improved but widespread failures are still being experienced by primary care practitioners, says today’s report by the National Audit Office.

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Government must protect UK's pharmaceutical industry post-Brexit say Committee

Government must protect UK's pharmaceutical industry post-Brexit say Committee The Government must secure a post-Brexit deal for the pharmaceutical industry that ensures the closest possible regulatory alignment with the EU and the minimum border friction possible or risk harming patients and seeing the pharma sector losing its status as a world leader, say the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee.

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Burning Britain?: tackling 'burning injustices' that blight Britain

Burning Britain?: tackling 'burning injustices' that blight Britain This collection of essays, authored by prominent backbenchers from all the UK’s main national political parties, seeks to highlight some of Britain’s ‘burning injustices’, and provide solutions to help address them. The collection includes an essay on improving mental health provision. Bright Blue and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

NHS England wins legal case impacting new care model contracts

NHS England wins legal case impacting new care model contracts A judge has ruled against claims that NHS England’s plans to bring local health and social care services under one contract are ‘unlawful’.

The claims came from a campaign group, which brought a judicial review against NHS England’s plans to implement ‘accountable care organisations’ (ACO) to the High Court in Leeds last year.

The campaign group, 999 Call for the NHS, took issue with how the organisations would be paid through a ‘whole population annual payment’ (WPAP), which would see an ACO paid based on the number of patients in the area. Pulse

More than 50,000 dementia patients 'avoidably' admitted as emergencies due to cuts to social care, warns charity

More than 50,000 dementia patients 'avoidably' admitted as emergencies due to cuts to social care, warns charity More than 50,000 people with dementia are ending up in hospital for emergency treatment every year as cuts to "threadbare" social care mean minor conditions are becoming life-threatening, a charity has warned.

Avoidable emergency admissions have increased by 70 per cent in the past five years, according to a report by the The Alzheimer's Society.

The increase coincides with a 40 per cent cut to local authority budgets since 2012, as part of the government's austerity measures. The Independent

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Life-saving care happens daily in the NHS – one role is at the centre of it all

Life-saving care happens daily in the NHS – one role is at the centre of it all Advanced critical care practitioners are at the sharp end of clinical care for critically ill patients and play a vital communication role with families

In December 2010, Michael Belcher, then 68, was working long hours at the engineering firm he owned. He’d gone into work as usual, despite feeling ill with flu. Back at home, he went straight to bed and the next day, his wife, unable to wake him, called an ambulance, which took him to the intensive care unit (ICU) at Royal Devon and Exeter hospital. Flu had turned into sepsis, resulting in multiple organ failure. Belcher’s family were told he probably had no more than two days to live.

Seven years later, Belcher is not only alive to tell the tale, but running a new property development firm (his son now looks after his old business). He puts his recovery down to the team of hospital nurses and doctors who looked after him, but in particular, the care of one person, advanced critical care practitioner (ACCP) Carole Boulanger. “The care and empathy she gave to my family is quite remarkable,” he says. Continue reading... The Guardian

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Sussex health trust apologises for failings before death of student

Sussex health trust apologises for failings before death of student Sussex NHS trust ‘unreservedly’ sorry in case of Janet Müller, 21, who died after absconding from mental health ward

A health trust has apologised “unreservedly” for failings in the case of a 21-year-old student whose body was found in a burnt-out car after she absconded from a mental health ward.

How Janet Müller, a German national in her final year at Brighton University, ended up in the boot of a torched Volkswagen Jetta is a mystery. She died from inhalation of fire fumes within hours of going missing. Christopher Jeffrey-Shaw, 27, was convicted of manslaughter and imprisoned for 17 years.
Continue reading... The Guardian

'Shocking' lack of research into care of patients with Ebola

'Shocking' lack of research into care of patients with Ebola Too much medical machismo meant that basic questions on how best to treat patients with Ebola were not answered during the world’s biggest outbreak of the disease in 2014.

Nearly 30,000 patients became ill – 11,000 of whom died – during the Ebola outbreak which struck Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in 2014.

After the world was initially slow to respond to the disease, huge numbers of health care workers and researchers descended on the three countries to care for patients and to test out experimental new drugs. The Daily Telegraph

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