Government help may be needed for cost of new children's trust for Northamptonshire

Government help may be needed for cost of new children's trust for Northamptonshire Government help may be needed to fund the cost of setting up a new trust to oversee children’s services in Northamptonshire.

The admission came from county council leader Matt Golby during a debate on how much the transformation to two new unitary councils in 2021 would cost.

The county council’s overview and scrutiny committee was told that the cost of establishing the trust, which was announced by Secretary of State for local government James Brokenshire, was not included in the £43million budget estimate for the two new councils. Northamptonshire Telegraph

Achieving a digital NHS: Lessons for national policy from the acute sector

Achieving a digital NHS: Lessons for national policy from the acute sector As a new body, NHSX, becomes established to lead national policy for technology, digital and data, and with the Secretary of State firmly behind plans to create a fully digital NHS, this report seeks to understand how national policy for digitisation is working from the perspective of acute trusts. Do digital leaders feel the commitment to digital over the last two decades is helping to move things forward? And what could be done differently to support digitisation on the ground? Nuffield Trust

See also:

• Going digital: three crucial areas for NHS policy Nuffield Trust
• Inability to recruit key staff and untested standards undermine NHS technology push Nuffield Trust

Saving lives, supporting communities

Saving lives, supporting communities At the frontline of NHS emergency care, the ambulance service is probably the last place you’d expect to see volunteers – but you’d be wrong. There are now over 10,000 people who volunteer in ambulance trusts across England. The King's Fund

PHE calls on all NHS Trusts to ban smoking on hospital grounds

PHE calls on all NHS Trusts to ban smoking on hospital grounds Public Health England (PHE) has found that Trusts are making steady progress in becoming smokefree, with smoking now banned completely on the grounds of more than two thirds (69%) of NHS acute Trusts in England. Yet despite this progress, almost a third (31%) have not yet enforced total smoking bans across hospital premises.

See also:

• Almost one in three NHS hospitals still allow smoking on their premises The Daily Mail

MAC recommends all doctors are added to shortage occupation list

MAC recommends all doctors are added to shortage occupation list The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has recommended that all medical practitioners are now added to the shortage occupation list alongside a number of other suggestions for government. NHS Employers

We still need to talk about boards

We still need to talk about boards This briefing sets out NHS Providers' rationale for board leadership now and in the future. It argues that board leadership, and sound local accountability, are critical in managing risk, and must remain a key component of system working. The briefing is a revised version of a paper NHS Providers published in 2015. NHS Providers

GM fungus rapidly kills 99% of malaria mosquitoes, study suggests

GM fungus rapidly kills 99% of malaria mosquitoes, study suggests A fungus - genetically enhanced to produce spider toxin - can rapidly kill huge numbers of the mosquitoes that spread malaria, a study suggests.

Trials, which took place in Burkina Faso, showed mosquito populations collapsed by 99% within 45 days.

The researchers say their aim is not to make the insects extinct but to help stop the spread of malaria. BBC News

See also:

• Transgenic Metarhizium rapidly kills mosquitoes in a malaria-endemic region of Burkina Faso (abstract) Science
• Malaria mosquitoes wiped out with GM fungus in first controlled ‘real world’ tests The Independent

GP surgery closures in UK 'hit all-time high' in 2018

GP surgery closures in UK 'hit all-time high' in 2018 Research, disputed by NHS, shows 138 practices shut with smaller surgeries worst hit

GP surgery closures across the UK have reached an all-time high, affecting an estimated half a million patients last year, research has found. An investigation by the medical website Pulse found 138 doctors’ premises shut their doors in 2018, compared with 18 in 2013.

GPs said under-resourcing and recruitment difficulties were forcing surgeries to close. They said many smaller practices were merging with others to survive, which allowed them to avoid having to disperse their patient list to other practices much further away. The Guardian

See also:

• Revealed: more surgeries than ever closed last year Pulse
• Urgent action needed to prevent more 'heart-breaking' practice closures, says College Royal College of General Practitioners
• GP retention just as vital as recruitment, says RCGP responding to latest workforce figures Royal College of General Practitioners
• NHS has lost 700 GPs in three years The Daily Mail
• Record 138 surgeries closed down last year as more GPs take early retirement or change carer The Daily Mail
• The diary of a GP driven to despair The Daily Mail
• 2018 saw highest ever number of GP practice closures, with small local surgeries worst affected The Daily Telegraph
• Over half a million patients forced to swap GP surgeries after closures last year, investigation finds The Independent

Nasal flu spray to be offered to all primary school children next winter

Nasal flu spray to be offered to all primary school children next winter The flu vaccine in the form of a nasal spray will be offered to all children in primary school next winter in a bid to boost uptake, health chiefs have announced.

Currently the vaccine is not available in all schools and for many older children it is only on offer in injection form. The Daily Telegraph

Tourists are spreading superbugs across international borders, report warns

Tourists are spreading superbugs across international borders, report warns Holiday-makers are at risk of picking up and bringing home superbugs, according to a study looking at the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) worldwide.

Drug-resistant infections are already responsible for some 700,000 deaths globally each year, but it is estimated that this figure could rise to 10 million annually by 2050 if left unchecked. The Daily Telegraph

See also:

• Global Geographic Trends in Antimicrobial Resistance: The Role of International Travel (open access) Journal of Travel Medicine

Health Secretary Matt Hancock asks for help to halve childhood obesity in the UK

Health Secretary Matt Hancock asks for help to halve childhood obesity in the UK The Health Secretary today asked for help to deliver the Government's promise to halve childhood obesity over the next 10 years.

Matt Hancock called on England's Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, to prepare an urgent report by September on how best to help children lose weight.

Some 29 per cent of children aged two to 15 are now overweight or obese in England, with 16 per cent of them being obese. The Daily Mail

See also:

• Chief medical officer considers recommending tax on unhealthy food BBC News
• Chief medical officer considers taxing all unhealthy food The Daily Telegraph
• Matt Hancock backs parenting classes as calls for 'targeted support' to help combat obesity epidemic The Daily Telegraph