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National News
A "major system failure" in a GPs' out-of-hours service led to the death of 41-year-old Penny Campbell, according to an official report published yesterday which suggested patients should have more access to their doctors in the evenings and at weekends. This is one of the changes suggested by Gordon Brown as a priority of his new government, but doctors' leaders have already indicated that any adverse changes in their contracts will be resisted.
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Care trust apologises for fatal failure of out-of-hours GP service - The Independent 26th May 2007
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Care trust apologises for fatal failure of out-of-hours GP service - The Independent 26th May 2007
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Failings in out-of-hours GP care ‘will claim more victims’ - The Times 26th May 2007
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Brown: NHS needs better out-of-hours care - The Telegraph 25th May 2007
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Warning over GP cover row death - BBC Health News 25th May 2007
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Brown: NHS needs better out-of-hours care - The Telegraph 25th May 2007
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Warning over GP cover row death - BBC Health News 25th May 2007
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More details emerged last night of the way government advisers handled the haemophilia scandal which saw thousands of patients infected with imported blood. Yesterday the Guardian revealed that the Department of Health was warned of the HIV danger from US blood products in 1983, but its advisers on the Committee on the Safety of Medicines decided not to ban imported blood for fear the UK would not have sufficient supplies.
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Whitehall accused of HIV cover-up - The Telegraph 26th May 2007
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Government 'ignored risks of HIV from imported blood' - Daily Mail 25th May 2007
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Government 'ignored risks of HIV from imported blood' - Daily Mail 25th May 2007
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I am worried that my 12-year-old daughter is experimenting with cigarettes. She has come home from school smelling of smoke, and we have found a cigarette butt under her window. We have asked her directly and she has denied it, but we are still suspicious. Any advice?
Are we healthier now than we were in the 70s? It depends on how you define health. In the 70s, the Queen sent around 1,000 centenarian telegrams a year - today, the figure is closer to 20,000. However, I doubt that will continue. Look at the crowds at Wembley for the famous (I'm a Scot), or notorious (if you are English), football match in 1977, when the Scots (who won 2-1) brought down the crossbar and took home a smidgen of turf - there's not a fat fan to be seen. Now look at football crowds today - at some matches there are 40,000 beer bellies. That is a huge change, and will lead to early deaths from strokes, heart attacks and diabetic complications. We also see a lot of liver disease in young women - unheard of even 10 years ago. That's due to new drinking habits.
What it's all about? The hula hoop had its heyday during the 50s, although it dates back to ancient Egypt, where hoops were made from grapevines or stiff grasses. These days, many hoopers make their own from polyethylene tubing and the activity influences a range of exercise classes, among them Hulaerobics, a new body toning class in which you learn to hoop on your torso, arms and legs. Hoop dance classes are more aerobic and Beyonce is said to be a huge fan.
At least 140 people in London were contaminated with radioactivity as a result of the assassination of the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, according to government health advisers. Several hotel staff and guests were exposed to polonium-210, the radioactive isotope which was used to poison Mr Litvinenko, along with police officers, hospital staff, and a number of his relatives and friends.
My mother gets endless summons from NHS outposts. There's the diabetic clinic, the audiology clinic, the podiatric clinic. We dutifully take her but often they don't know who she is or why she's there. By comparison, trips to the psychogeriatric unit, the supposed controlling intelligence of her care, are pretty good. The consultant, who is Iraqi and looks like a short Peter Sellers, once visited her flat. Now she calls him "my friend Al Jazeera".
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Surgeons have lost patience with the Department of Health over the failed system for selecting doctors for training posts. The President of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), Bernie Ribeiro, withdrew yesterday from the review group set up by the department to find a solution to the problems caused by the Medical Training Application Service.
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Out of Time - The Times 26th May 2007
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Out of Time - The Times 26th May 2007
Summer is a’coming. The first swallow has been sighted, the smell of freshly cut grass is all around and the evenings are full of the sound of millions of hay fever victims sneezing. Reacting swiftly to this seasonal snotfest, the tabloid press has decided that unemployed junior hospital doctors have had more than enough time in the media spotlight and are again illuminating the pitiful shortcomings of everyday NHS GPs.
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The Government advised women not to drink at all during pregnancy. But are the new rules sensible or just an example of the nanny state gone mad?
I often have oral sex with my husband but we’ve heard that there is a link to throat cancer. We both had several partners before we met; am I at risk?
On paper Kim Noble sounds scary. His shows, which are part comedy, part performance art, have a reputation for challenging and even annoying audiences, as well as being ground-breaking. While his work is sometimes classed as comedy – his double act with his regular stage partner Stuart Silver won the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe’s Perrier Award for best newcomer – he prefers to describe himself as an artist.
7. Longevity means looking after your heart WHO SAYS? It’s a given that the male heart is his Achilles’ heel, as many charities and most doctors will tell you. HOW WRONG IS IT? Depends on how you look at the stats. True, heart disease strikes blokes at a younger age than women. But crunch a few numbers and things get more interesting.
OK, for a start don’t call it a “slop bucket”. The Department for Environment (Defra) is quite upset about The Times’s use of this phrase, which conjures up brimming pails of pigswill or penal chamber pots. Instead, the small vessel to be kept in your kitchen, into which you must scrape your fish-heads, leftover tikka masala, chicken gizzards etc is a “caddie”. Which has pleasant associations with where your granny stored her tea or a stoical bloke frowning behind Tiger Woods.
With BBC’s Panorama this week pointing to the supposed dangers of wi-fi technology, back experts are pointing to a much more immediate danger from laptop computers. They say that they are creating a nation of slouch potatoes. While most British scientists believe that the risk of harm from wireless technology is theoretical, the risk laptops pose to our backs, shoulders and necks as we lean over them on the train, at home and at work is very real. Because they encourage bad posture, they’re causing an epidemic of musculoskeletal problems.
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The trend towards ever larger families is selfish and can inflict lasting damage on the children, says Janine di Giovanni When I read the news about Helena Morrissey, a city high flier who has just given birth to her eighth child, I had a memory from early childhood.
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Births on television always mean crisis. If it's a period drama, there are shouts for hot water and towels. If it's an American production, the whole episode might as well be entitled Primal Scream.
Airbags are damaging children's ears and lungs, according to new research. Children involved in crashes where the bags go off are five times more likely to suffer breathing problems and seven times more at risk of damaging their hearing.
The popular perception of teenage eating habits is that we are raising a generation of children who are either obese junk-food addicts or media-manipulated anorexics. We put five girls aged between 13 and 17 to the test by asking them to keep a food diary for a week. Sally Williams looks at the results
Recovery from whiplash injuries may take longer if patients undertake sustained chiropractic treatment, researchers have found. The authors of the study concluded that visiting a chiropractor more than six times or receiving chiropractic care from a GP was associated with a slower recovery time. A chiropractor treats diseases by adjusting a person's joints, especially those in the back.
Women face a huge postcode lottery for breast cancer screening with one in three NHS units failing to offer check-ups within three-year intervals. The worst units are screening just one in 14 women inside the recommended target time of 36 months, figures reveal.
Peppermint could offer hope to millions of migraine victims. Levomenthol, which is found in the Mentha piperitaherb – also called Black peppermint – has long been known to have healing properties.
When Palak Vyas went into labour she expected a long and painful delivery. But she was amazed when she gave birth just two minutes after her waters broke. The delivery was so quick Mrs Vyas, 30, had no pain relief and barely had time to return to her bed at West Middlesex Hospital in Isleworth.
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Dentists are warning people may be getting complacent after figures showed more than one in 10 people do not brush their teeth each day. The number of non-brushers is eight times higher than last year, according to the British Dental Health Foundation poll of over 1,000 people.
Hypnotherapy could help people with severe irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), researchers say. Doctors should consider using this and other "psychological" treatments such as antidepressants to help sufferers, King's College London experts say in the British Medical Journal.
The colourful jazz singer and art expert, George Melly, is embarking on his final series of concerts. He is 80, and has been determined to continue appearing on stage - despite having lung cancer and vascular dementia, which affects the brain after small strokes.
Four people have tested positive for a mild strain of bird flu which was first detected at a north Wales smallholding, the Health Protection Agency has said. A 1km restriction zone remains in place around the farm in Conwy after the "low pathogenic" H7N2 strain of bird flu was found in chickens which died there.
A doctor hailed as an expert in transsexualism has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council (GMC). Dr Russell Reid, 63, had denied rushing five patients into hormone treatment and sex-change surgery without properly assessing them.
A firm providing phone and TV services to hospital patients has been accused of pressurising vulnerable people. Ex-employees of Patientline, which has deals with 160 NHS trusts, said they were forced to approach ill patients to get them to sign up to the services.
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International News
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Nigerians follow US lead in suing tobacco companies for health costs - The Times 26th May 2007
Nigerians follow US lead in suing tobacco companies for health costs - The Times 26th May 2007
British American Tobacco is being sued by Nigeria’s two largest states, which are hoping to recover the costs incurred in treating smoking-related diseases in cases inspired by American state lawsuits of the 1990s, which led to a multi-billion-dollar settlement by the tobacco industry. Kano and Lagos, joined by another state, Gombe, and a nonprofit organisation, have also accused BAT of targeting young and underage smokers by sponsoring events such as pop concerts and of promoting the sale of individual cigarettes, which they claim reduces the effectiveness of mandatory health warnings.
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When Michael Moore, the former attorney-general of Mississippi, said in 1994 that the state was suing big tobacco companies, he said: “This lawsuit is premised on a simple notion: you caused the health crisis, you pay for it.” For the past 40 years, the tobacco industry had successfully defended every lawsuit brought by sick smokers. One internal memo by RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company said: “The way we won these cases . . . is not by spending all of Reynolds’ money but by making the other son of a bitch spend all of his.”
Smokers in England who are cast on to the pavements on July 1 when the tobacco ban comes into effect will at least be able to puff away with im- punity on holiday in Spain. Amid much fanfare, Spain introduced a smoking ban on New Year’s Day 2006 — an ambitious measure in a country where 50 per cent of people believe that smoking is an in- alienable right. It has one of the highest rates of smoking in Western Europe.
Mobile phones do not cause headaches despite claims by some consumers, a scientific study has found. Instead, people experience such symptoms because they expect them to occur. Dr Gunnhild Oftedal and his team at Norway University in Trondheim recruited 17 subjects who "regularly experienced pain or discomfort in the head during or shortly after mobile phone calls lasting between 15 and 30 minutes."
Researchers say they have developed the most detailed model of a human yet, a movable "4D" image that doctors can use to plan complex surgery or show patients what ailments look like inside their bodies. Called CAVEman, the larger-than-life computer image emcompasses more than 3,000 distinct body parts, all viewed in a booth that gives the image height, width and depth. It also plots the passage of time - the fourth 'dimension.'
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Drinking four or more cups of coffee a day may cut the risk of having a painful attack of gout, say Canadian scientists. A University of British Columbia team found blood uric acid levels - which are linked to the condition - were lower in people who drank more coffee.
A critical shortage of doctors and nurses means people are dying unnecessarily from HIV/Aids in southern Africa, according to a report. In some areas, drugs are available but there is nobody to administer them, the Medecins sans Frontieres report says.
"If a politician declares that the United States has the best health care system in the world today, he or she looks clueless rather than patriotic or authoritative." So says Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, an ethicist at the US National Institutes of Health.
A man is suing his former employer for $5m after being fired for visiting "adult" internet chat rooms while at work. James Pacenza claims he suffers from "sex addiction", and that his bosses should have shown him sympathy, rather than the door.
A US woman has been added to the list of those killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, after dying from dust generated by the towers' collapse. New York's chief medical examiner said he was certain the dust contributed to Felicia Dunn-Jones' death from a rare lung disease five months after 9/11.
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Killer banana rumour grips China - BBC Health News 25th May 2007
A rumour spread by text message has badly hit the price of bananas from China's Hainan island, state media say. The messages claim the fruit contains viruses similar to Sars, the severe respiratory illness which has killed hundreds of people worldwide.
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Cheshire and Merseyside News
YOKO ONO unveiled a charitable foundation in Liverpool this morning and was launching the city’s first regular flight to New York this afternoon. The 74-year-old artist opened the John Lennon Child Health Foundation and gave a personal donation of £50,000 to the flagship children’s hospital.
SIR David Henshaw is the new star of a podcast urging people to look after their health. The ex-Liverpool council chief executive stars in the download, which says north west people need to take respons-ibility for being more healthy.
THE closest bird flu case to Merseyside has been confirmed. A case in north Wales has been verified by experts. Ten chickens have died at the farm near Corwen, on the border of Conwy and Denbighshire, and the rest were being slaughtered yesterday.
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Merseyside starts bird flu guards after N. Wales outbreak - Liverpool Daily Post 25th May 2007
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NOT far off a million pounds was wasted by Warrington PCT through inefficient drug prescriptions, the National Audit Office has claimed. The NAO studied spending in Warrington and across the country and found more than £300m of £1.5bn expenditure was going to waste annually.
THE hospital radio station is opening its doors to the public this week. Radio General is celebrating its 50th anniversary and is inviting staff, patients and residents to see how it works.
PLANS for a new medical centre in Knutsford could draw vital trade away from the town centre. Ken Andrew, who owns Hal Whittaker's in Princess Street, said opening a pharmacy in the medical centre could put existing chemists out of business.
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Cumbria and Lancashire News
TWO cancer victims have spoken out about the insensitive and obstructive way travel insurance companies have treated them. Despite being cancer-free since 2004, 54-year-old Joyce Pape, of Crofton, near Thursby, struggled even to get a policy for a bus trip to Torquay.
A GROUP from Wigton will help get a desperately-needed health centre up and running in northern Uganda – while staying in the mud huts they helped to build on their last visit. The Dedicated Women in Development (DeWoDe) group has been helping women in Kobulubulu to build and equip the centre over the last five years – in an area which has no electricity or running water.
THE Cathedral in Blackburn is being forced to display no smoking signs in a move branded "lunacy". From July 1 the grade II listed building, parts of which date back to the 19th century will have to put up A5 sized signs as public buildings go smoke free.
MORE than 4,600 people have quit smoking in East Lancashire over the last 12 months, according to the latest figures. In the Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale areas, 1,905 smokers gave up the habit during the 12 month period to the end of March.
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Help us enjoy our meal out - Lancashire Telegraph 25th May 2007
A WOMAN who has an intolerance to gluten has urged East Lancashire restaurants to do more to help people with the disease. Eileen Marsden, 57, has coeliacs disease, an auto-immune condition triggered by eating the protein, which is found in wheat, rye and barley.
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Greater Manchester News
MENTAL health services in Manchester have been placed on the government's critical list. Cash-strapped Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust which started the financial year £4.5m in debt, will have to report its financial progress to regional health bosses every fortnight.
A WOMAN who aborted a foetus at 34 weeks has been given a 12-month suspended sentence. Campaigners welcomed the outcome of the trial after the horrific background to Maisha Mohamed's life was revealed.
A WOMAN has been spared jail after being convicted of aborting a seven-and-a-half month old unborn baby. Maisha Mohammed, 22, is the first expectant mother in Britain to have been convicted of child destruction - which carries a maximum sentence of life.
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Cases of superbug soar at hospital - The Bolton News 25th May 2007
THOUSANDS of patients at the Royal Bolton Hospital will be fast-tracked through tests for superbugs after bosses missed national targets. As many as 9,000 patients, who are deemed at high risk from contracting either MRSA or Clostridium Difficile and have been admitted from planned surgery, will be screened.
Full links to the articles detailed can be found at www(dot) fade the blog 2 (dot)blogspot (dot)com, This has been a Podcast of Another 15 Minutes ... Health News from the Fade Library.
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