New Section
UK Health News
New Story
People living in northern England are more likely than their southern neighbours to smoke and drink to excess. Their mental health is poorer and life expectancy is up to three years shorter than in the south. The regional health divide emerged starkly in a health profile of England, published yesterday by the Department of Health. It showed the NHS has made great strides in reducing the number of people dying from cancer and heart attacks. Infant mortality is at its lowest level and fewer people are smoking. But more people consider themselves in poor health than when Labour came to power in 1997 and the inequalities between north and south are wider than ever.
Additional Story
British people are the fattest in Europe, says Government report - The Independent 23rd October 2007
Additional Story
Health report: some progress but we are still too fat and drink too much - The Times 23rd August 2007
Additional Story
Additional Story
New Story
Watchdog fails third of NHS trusts on value - The Guardian 23rd October 2007Additional Story
Additional Story
Heavy drinking takes its toll - The Telegraph 23rd October 2007
Additional Story
Boozy Britons sink 37 bottles of whiskey a year - Daily Mail 23rd October 2007
Additional Story
Diabetes up amid rising obesity - BBC Health News 22nd October 2007
Additional Story
Boozy Britons sink 37 bottles of whiskey a year - Daily Mail 23rd October 2007
Additional Story
Diabetes up amid rising obesity - BBC Health News 22nd October 2007
New Story
Almost a third of NHS trusts in England failed to provide adequate value for money in the last financial year, the government's spending watchdog warns today. The Audit Commission said the NHS as a whole achieved a £515m surplus in 2006-07 after a £547m deficit in the previous year. But 104 hospitals, ambulance services and primary care trusts failed to meet the minimum requirements of sound financial management. Steve Bundred, the commission's chief executive, said 31% of trusts scored bottom marks for meeting financial targets, managing assets and providing value for money, against 39% last year. He named 27 trusts that failed every financial test and warned: "There appears little hope that they can get out of trouble by themselves."
Additional Story
Additional Story
The funding feast over, now get ready to diet - The Telegraph 23rd October 2007
Additional Story
NHS finances improving but patchy - BBC Health News 22nd October 2007
Additional Story
NHS finances improving but patchy - BBC Health News 22nd October 2007
New Story
Stuart Jeffries on Liverpool's problem with binge drinking - The Guardian 23rd October 2007
Liverpool has a problem with binge drinking. It has the highest rate of emergency hospital admissions for alcohol-related injuries in England. But what is fuelling the booze culture - and is it too late to change it? Stuart Jeffries hits the city's bars and clubs to find out.
New Story
Government's citizens' juries cost £500,000 in four months - The Guardian 23rd October 2007
Government plans to re-engage the public in democracy through citizens' juries have cost the Department for Children, Schools and Families more than £500,000 in four months, according to figures released yesterday. Junior schools minister Kevin Brennan said the department had spent more than half a million pounds to fund five panels since June. The first, in Bristol, cost £57,047, he told shadow Commons leader Theresa May in a Commons written reply, while the total cost of the four others in London, Leeds, Portsmouth and Birmingham was £467,704. In July, Gordon Brown claimed the juries could revitalise interest in politics and give a voice to those from deprived areas.
At the weekend I filled in a quiz in this paper that showed I was working class because I think the Turner prize is a load of dreck, I have my tea at 7.30pm and drink cuppas with the builders. And I thought it was because my grandma was a street trader and my parents were self-made, fairly vulgar nouveaux riches. But does anyone care? Apparently so, because a new poll says so.
Tom Currie grinned ruefully as his six-year-old son Evan reeled off a list of his favourite school meals: chicken korma, sardines and rainbow trout. Evan even relishes the broccoli served up by the dinner ladies at St Michael's primary school in Dumbarton.
Do your fitness drives always end in failure? Perhaps the problem is in your head, not your workout. Sam Murphy on the psychological tricks that make all the difference
New Story
A young mental health worker was stabbed to death with four knives by a patient who had been freed from a psychiatric hospital after threatening to murder the Queen. Ashleigh Ewing, 22, was on a routine visit to the home of Ronald Dixon, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, when he launched an attack that left her with 39 stab wounds.
Additional Story
Questions over schizophrenic's stabbing - The Telegraph 23rd October 2007
Additional Story
Why was the sick killer who stabbed a graduate allowed to walk the streets? - Daily Mail 23rd October 2007
DOCTORS like to complain about the Government and health policy, but it’s nice to see that they don’t restrict their moaning to the outside world. There’s a lot of squabbling between doctors themselves, particularly of the consultant v GP variety. Dr David Turner, a GP in Devon, opens a can of worms in Doctor (Oct 16) when he swipes at consultants who send letters to GPs asking them to prescribe their patient a particular drug. “If we prescribe what are often new and unfamiliar medications, and something goes wrong, we are liable [because] we signed the scrip,” he says.
TOP jobs require top people and the trouble with the NHS is that it doesn’t do enough to nurture the best. So says the bloke at the very top of it all, David Nicholson, the chief executive of the health service. “It’s increasingly difficult to fill the top jobs,” he told a conference of NHS bosses. “People don’t feel equipped to do them.” A “significant number” of chief executive posts had failed to attract a single applicant, he said.
IF NECESSITY is the mother of invention, then public sector staff are the midwives. Used to getting by with scant resources, they are adept at enacting a good idea with nothing more than a few paper-clips and a roll of gaffer tape. But sometimes it all goes wrong. Take stress diaries, for example – in theory, a great way for nurses to log and learn from periods of angst. Not so, says Mary Lindsay, in a letter to Nursing Standard (Oct 17). Using a stress diary just made her, well, stressed. “I ended up isolated as my colleagues thought I was writing reports about them and the patients thought I was bonkers.”
The large majority of parents who will be sent official warning letters if their child is found to be obese (report, Oct 22) will be receiving a statutory minimum income of one sort or another. The Government has refused since 1999 to take into consideration robust research into the minimum incomes needed for healthy living when setting the levels of the national minimum wage, unemployment and disabled benefits, pensions and tax credits. They are all below the Government’s poverty thresholds and even farther below the levels suggested by university research. The adequacy-based living wage for London researched by the Greater London Authority is £7.20 an hour, substantially higher than the poverty-level national minimum wage at £5.35.
New Story
Smokers have been warned not to drive while taking a drug designed to help them quit because it could make them sleepy or dizzy at the wheel. The medicines watchdog issued the guidance after two patients had accidents while driving when taking the drug Champix, which was approved for use on the NHS earlier this year.
Scientists have at last provided the answer to why children will not eat their greens – it is all in their genetic make-up. A study of twins has found that preferences for certain foods over others is inherited through the genes rather than what your parents forced you to eat as a child.
Additional Story
Diet choices 'written in genes' - BBC Health News 22nd October 2007
More than half of the 2.4 million people claiming incapacity benefit have been off work for more than five years, new figures have revealed. The damning statistics contradict Government assurances that the problem of widespread incapacity claims is being tackled by getting the long-term sick back to work.
The public services gap England and Scotland widened as ministers pledged to give children free access to dental checks at schools. The plans emerged as the first Scottish schoolchildren took part in a free school meals pilot scheme and just a day after the SNP administration said it would scrap prescription charges inside four years. Scottish ministers have also announced they will prevent the closure of local hospitals,
When a loved one starts putting on weight, it can be extremely difficult to broach the subject – even though their health could be at risk, writes Lesley Garner
The move to abolish prescription charges in Scotland highlights the shortcomings of our own approach to prescriptions in England (report, October 22). While 85 per cent of prescriptions are issued free of charge, the arbitrary and iniquitous system of exemptions means many people on low incomes are compelled to pay, while others with much higher earnings do not.
Concluding an account of her breast cancer diagnosis, Christa D'Souza describes the agonising moment when a surgeon revealed the results of her biopsy, and how, after seeking a second medical opinion in the US, she had to choose between a harrowing course of treatment or letting nature take its course…
New Story
The parents of a psychology graduate stabbed to death by a paranoid schizophrenic last night demanded to know why their daughter's killer was allowed to walk the streets. Care worker Ashleigh Ewing, 22, was sent alone to the home of Ronald Dixon, a 35-year-old with a violent past whose behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic.
The stress of modern life is playing havoc with sexual relationships, researchers claimed yesterday. Work difficulties, financial worries and tiredness caused by longer hours are said to affect up to 15million Britons.
Gaining weight at any time can increase the risk of breast cancer by up to 50 per cent, warn researchers. But women can counter this by losing the excess pounds and returning to a "healthy" size. This then reduces the risk back to that of those who kept their weight stable.
New Story
Ministers knew of the botched handling of a clostridium difficile outbreak at an NHS trust five months ago and should have acted then, the Conservatives say. An initial report into errors at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, where as many as 90 people died of the infection, was issued on 3 May.
Parents in England may be warned if their children are found to be overweight, under government proposals. Children in England are currently measured at the ages of five and 10, but parents are informed of the results only if they request them.
Campaigners are appealing against a decision they claim is restricting doctors from prescribing osteoporosis drugs on the NHS. Currently only one drug - alendronate - is approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
New Story
Implant cracks stammering problem - BBC Health News 22nd October 2007
The story of a British woman whose problems with a severe stammer have been greatly reduced after treatment with an electronic ear implant has led to hundreds of others seeking similar help. Last year Heidi King, from Norfolk, travelled to the US to be fitted with an earpiece echoing her own voice.
New Section
International Health News
New Story
Why men should go with the grain - The Times 23rd August 2007
Men who eat whole-grain cereal every day are nearly 30 per cent less likely to suffer heart failure than those who do not, a new study has shown. The findings add to existing evidence that whole-grain foods are healthy. But not all cereals contain whole grain, and the new study shows that those cereals that lack it do not have the same health benefits.
New Story
Increased exposure to sunlight, which increases levels of vitamin D in the body, may reduce the risk of advanced breast cancer, say researchers in the American Journal of Epidemiology (Oct). The study of more than 3,000 women, led by the Northern California Cancer Centre, found that women with high sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer, though this effect worked only if the women had naturally light skin colouring.
New Story
The power of positive thinking might help, but it won’t beat cancer - Daily Mail 22nd October 2007
People who are told that they have cancer are often advised to stay positive. But doing so does nothing to help you to survive the disease, according to a study. The self-help guru Louise Hay extolled the virtues of positive thinking in her book, You Can Heal Your Life, which has sold 35 million copies worldwide over the past 20 years. Some small studies have suggested a benefit.
Additional Story
Optimism 'no bearing on cancer' - BBC Health News 22nd October 2007
New Section
Cheshire and Merseyside Health News
New Story
A TEENAGE girl from Wirral could be the first in the world to have a pioneering anti-ageing treatment to combat a crippling genetic illness. Amy Garton-Hughes, 15, from Wallasey, has a rare genetic disorder which leaves her bent double, and losing her sight, hearing and teeth.
New Story
Stuart Jeffries on Liverpool's problem with binge drinking - The Guardian 23rd October 2007
Liverpool has a problem with binge drinking. It has the highest rate of emergency hospital admissions for alcohol-related injuries in England. But what is fuelling the booze culture - and is it too late to change it? Stuart Jeffries hits the city's bars and clubs to find out.
New Section
Cumbria and Lancashire Health News
New Story
Lancashire shows off drugs initiatives - Preston and Leyland Citizen 22nd October 2007
HEALTH and crime officials from across Europe are heading to Lancashire this week to see how drugs and alcohol services tackle addiction. More than a dozen experts from Germany, Romania, Ukraine, Finland, Slovenia and Russia form part of the delegation, hosted by Lancashire Drugs and Alcohol Action Team.
New Section
Greater Manchester Health News
A GRANDFATHER-of-four has blasted a decision to end compensation for people diagnosed with a condition showing asbestos exposure. The House of Lords has decided to end compensation for sufferers of pleural plaques, a scarring of the lungs, which leads to an increased risk of developing a fatal asbestos-related disease.
New Story
Dedicated Kay is a top carer - The Bolton News 22nd October 2007
A mum who used her experiences of looking after her ill parents to help her at work has been named Carer of the Year' in a national competition. Kay Goodier from Harwood, is a home carer for the elderly and disabled people across Bolton. She has worked for the Anchor Trust, which provides support for people who need help to stay in their own homes, for two years.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment