New sensory garden created at Northampton crisis house

New sensory garden created at Northampton crisis house A sensory garden to provide support to autistic people has been paid for with a £240,000 government grant.

Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) created at the space at one of its crisis houses, The Warren, in Northampton. BBC Northampton

Legacy of Alfred Staden lives on at Northampton General Hospital

Legacy of Alfred Staden lives on at Northampton General Hospital The widow of a man who gave £560,000 in donations to the urology department at Northampton General Hospital returned to the hospital this month to meet some of the team he supported. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Corby gran's Covid death is part of landmark legal action

Corby gran's Covid death is part of landmark legal action Legal action being taken by 30 families against government, care homes and several hospitals includes the son of a Corby woman who died in the early days of the Covid pandemic.

The group will be claiming damages from the institutions in England over the deaths of their relatives. Northamptonshire Telegraph

NHS blood pressure checks at the barbers to prevent killer conditions

NHS blood pressure checks at the barbers to prevent killer conditions The NHS is expanding blood pressure checks available in local communities including barbershops, mosques and at a dominoes club, as part of a major drive to prevent strokes and heart attacks.

Thanks to the learning from the NHS covid vaccination programme, local teams are reaching out into their neighbourhoods to find potential health problems before they become more serious for patients at locations that are most convenient. NHS England

NHS rolls out world-first programme to transform diabetes care for under 40s

NHS rolls out world-first programme to transform diabetes care for under 40s Tens of thousands of people in England living with early onset type 2 diabetes will benefit from more intensive and targeted care, thanks to a world-first initiative being rolled out by the NHS.

Around 140,000 people aged 18 to 39 years old will receive additional tailored health checks from healthcare staff, and support with diabetes management, such as blood sugar level control, weight management and cardiovascular risk minimisation. NHS England

Call for more equal access to public defibrillators

Call for more equal access to public defibrillators People living in more deprived areas of England and Scotland live further away from an accessible defibrillator than those in wealthier areas, a study in Heart journal suggests.

Heart experts are calling for equal and quick access to the life-saving machines at all times of day and night.

They are used - alongside resuscitation or CPR - to give the best chance of survival after a cardiac arrest.

But in the poorest areas, the nearest machine is a round trip of 1.8km away. BBC News

See also:

• Automated external defibrillator location and socioeconomic deprivation in Great Britain (open access) Heart
• Nearest 24/7 defibrillators over a mile round trip in most deprived areas British Heart Foundation
• Defibrillators are too far away to save lives with the lifesaving devices an average of 19 minutes walking distance to reach, charity warns The Daily Mail
• Lack of defibrillators in Britain putting lives at risk, say researchers The Guardian

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS trust deaths report 'watered down to spare bosses'

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS trust deaths report 'watered down to spare bosses' A critical report into how a mental health trust mismanaged its mortality figures was edited to remove criticism of its leadership, the BBC has found.

In June, auditors Grant Thornton revealed how the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) had lost track of patient deaths.

But earlier drafts included language around governance failures that were missing in the final version.

NSFT and Grant Thornton said the changes were due to fact-checking. BBC News 

Chilling NHS warning that scandals will be covered up as staff say whistleblowers are ignored

Chilling NHS warning that scandals will be covered up as staff say whistleblowers are ignored More than half of NHS staff believe bosses would ignore whistleblowers amid fresh concerns hospitals could be covering up potential scandals following the Lucy Letby case.

New national figures seen by this publication reveal that in the majority of hospitals, most doctors and nurses do not believe their concerns would be acted upon if they were raised with senior managers. The Independent

See also:

• University Hospitals Birmingham: Whistleblowers fear no change at 'toxic' NHS trust BBC News
• How the rise of NHS managers silenced doctors The Daily Telegraph
• Lucy Letby case ‘only too familiar’, says father bereaved in Morecambe Bay maternity scandal The Guardian
• Lucy Letby case: more babies face harm unless NHS ends ‘defensive leadership’ The Guardian
• Lucy Letby: 'Defensive culture' in NHS meant concerns about killer nurse were not acted upon, says ombudsman Sky News

Ultra-processed food may cause ‘tidal wave of harm’ including stroke and heart attack risk

Ultra-processed food may cause ‘tidal wave of harm’ including stroke and heart attack risk Two new studies have found conclusive links between the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) with increased cardiac disease risk, including heart attacks and strokes.

The research, presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Amsterdam, found highly processed food sold in stores across the world, such as fizzy drinks, cereals and ready-to-eat meals, may lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. The Independent

See also:

• Should we be worried about ultra-processed foods? BBC 
• Ultra-processed food raises risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke British Heart Foundation
• The UK faces a 'tidal wave of harm' as ultra-processed food including sliced bread, cereal and ready meals put millions at risk of heart attacks and strokes The Daily Mail
• Low-fat foods could cause 'tidal wave of harm', new evidence shows The Daily Telegraph
• Ultra-processed foods: what are they and what are the risks to health? The Guardian
• Ultra-processed foods increase risk of cardiovascular diseases, studies find ITV News
• As experts warn ultra-processed foods increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, what are they and how can you avoid them? Sky News

Labour plan to bring back the family doctor impractical, says BMA

Labour plan to bring back the family doctor impractical, says BMA A Labour proposal for patients to be able to request a particular GP is “an impossible ask” given the shortage of doctors, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said, heralding another possible clash with Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary.

Streeting said on Monday that a Labour government would offer incentives for GP practices in England where patients were regularly able to see the same or a named doctor, and impose penalties on those less able to achieve this. The Guardian

See also:

• Labour to incentivise GPs to ‘bring back the family doctor’ The Guardian

Number accepted on to nursing courses in England falls 13%, data shows

Number accepted on to nursing courses in England falls 13%, data shows The number of students accepted on to nursing courses in has declined by more than 13% compared with the year before, the second successive steep fall, figures that Labour said were “incredibly concerning” for the future of the NHS.

As of 23 August, 15,420 students had received places on nursing courses in England, 13.1% fewer than the 17,750 who gained a place in 2022, analysis of UCAS data by the House of Commons Library showed. The 2022 total was itself 9.1% lower than the 19,520 in 2021. The Guardian

See also:

• Latest UCAS figures: acceptances onto UK nursing courses down 13% Royal College of Nursing

Community pharmacies closing at a rapid rate with deprived areas worst affected

Community pharmacies closing at a rapid rate with deprived areas worst affected As the government asks pharmacies to do more to ease pressure on GPs, Sky News analysis has revealed those in England are closing at a rapid rate – with nearly 1,000 lost since 2017, a third of them in the last year alone.

Between July 2017 and July 2023, the number of operating pharmacies in England fell by 914 from 11,723 to 10,809.

Deprived communities, where the need is greatest, have seen the biggest decline. More than one in ten pharmacies have been lost in the poorest 20% of areas in the last six years.

Probe into why NHS staff still aren't getting Covid jabs - as data shows only one in 10 got latest booster in parts of the country

Probe into why NHS staff still aren't getting Covid jabs - as data shows only one in 10 got latest booster in parts of the country A probe is underway to work out why thousands of NHS staff didn't bother getting Covid and flu vaccines.

The health service has paid 'behavioural insight' consultants £50,000 to explore medics' attitudes to vaccination in the North West, West Midlands and London.

Just four in 10 frontline NHS workers in England got the latest Covid booster jab and the figure falls to just one per cent at some trusts in those parts of the country. Meanwhile, fewer than half had the flu vaccine. The Daily Mail

See also:

• Covid jabs can protect patients by giving them antibodies against 21 other viruses - including potentially fatal SARS and MERS The Daily Mail

One in five patients are waiting more than two months to have cancerous tumours removed in parts of England - so how does YOUR area fare?

One in five patients are waiting more than two months to have cancerous tumours removed in parts of England - so how does YOUR area fare? One in five cancer patients are waiting longer than two months to have tumours removed in some parts of England, official figures show.

Waits are worst in North West and South West London, where 20.2 per cent of patients did not undergo surgery within eight weeks of a cancer diagnosis, according to Labour party analysis of NHS England data. The Daily Mail

See also:

• Labour blames postcode lottery in cancer care in England for delays The Guardian
• NHS cancer patients ‘facing post code lottery’ in waits for treatment The Independent

The legal loophole that means doctors don't have to declare if 'independent' research is actually funded by a drugs giant

The legal loophole that means doctors don't have to declare if 'independent' research is actually funded by a drugs giant When you take a powerful medicine, or have a medical device implanted in your body, you want to be sure its safety and effectiveness credentials are backed up by independent studies.

That is, free from medical companies' efforts to oversell the benefits or, worse, cover up the fact that their products may be useless or even potentially harmful.

Yet numerous studies show commercial money significantly influences researchers to sway clinical trial results in favour of the drug or device they are testing. The Daily Mail