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Gordon Brown's plans to tighten the law on cannabis by increasing the penalties for possession suffered a fresh blow yesterday as the latest official figures showed the decision to downgrade the drug had been followed by a significant fall in its use. British Crime Survey statistics showed that the proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds using cannabis slumped from 28% a decade ago to 21% now, with its declining popularity accelerating after the decision to downgrade the drug to class C was announced in January 2004.
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Cocaine use 'rising among under-24s' - The Telegraph 26th October 2007
The letters (October 22 and 25) following Seumas Milne's article (Comment, October 18) contained several factual claims and counter-claims about independent sector treatment centres. A recent review by the Healthcare Commission reported patient satisfaction with ISTCs as significantly higher than with NHS providers. On ISTCs poaching NHS staff, the contracts for those centres currently in operation prevented ISTCs from employing anyone who had worked for the NHS in the previous six months.
Hospital superbugs such as MRSA are a result of poor leadership, Lord Darzi, the health minister, told MPs today, dismissing suggestions that excessive targeting or financial programmes were to blame. "It's a leadership issue," the peer told the health select committee.
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NHS bugs 'due to poor leadership' - BBC Health News 25th October 2007
A machine is helping obese teenagers to lose weight by encouraging them to eat more slowly and chiding them if they eat too fast. Doctors believe that some young people eat so fast that their brains do not have time to work out whether they are full or not. The machine, called a mandometer, weighs their food and encourages them to eat it one mouthful at a time.
Our guest contibutor looks at why a duke lives longer than a dustman There is no escaping the stark facts. Death knocks seven years sooner at the door of dustmen than dukes, of security guards sooner than solicitors. And new figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that that gap is refusing to close. The rich get richer and the poor get sicker, sooner.
The assumption is taking hold that the gradual increase in the abortion rate in recent years is a reflection of moral decline as women “use abortion as contraception” (leading article, Oct 25). An examination of statistics and wider social trends tells a different story. It shows us that women’s attempts to control their fertility, through use of contraception and abortion, take place today in a context that is very different to the 1960s. Abortion rates must be situated in relation to fertility statistics, and these demonstrate the rising age of childbirth, and a gradually increasing rate of childlessness.
Some years from now, when I turn 60, I will want all my family around me to mark the occasion. The NHS celebrates its 60th year in 2008, but the man responsible for the anniversary review, Health Minister Lord Darzi of Denham (letter, Oct 17), seems to have forgotten to invite the whole NHS family to the party. His “Our NHS, Our Future” advisory board consists of four GPs, two nurses and a patient representative — an intriguing ratio. Assorted eminent others are included, but pharmacy’s invitation seems to have been lost in the post, despite the Department of Health recognising pharmacy as “perhaps the biggest untapped resource for health improvement”. No doubt others are feeling rather left out too.
Pregnant women should abstain from drinking alcohol or risk damaging the health of their child, a leading medical expert warns today. The advice will cause confusion among expectant mothers, who were told only two weeks ago by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which issues public health guidance, that it was safe to indulge in one small glass of wine a day.
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Digital breast cancer screening tests pick up twice as many tumours as the analogue method mostly commonly used by the NHS, according to new research. A study carried out on 15,000 women found the digital mammograms, in which X-rays are transferred to screens, were more effective than the old style analogue mammograms, in which X-rays are captured on film.
When you think of the NHS now, you don't think of the billions of pounds being flushed through the system, the well-meaning doctors or nurses with a vocation. You think bugs – MRSA and C. difficile – mixed wards, dirty bathrooms, lack of dignity and death. It's enough to make you consider re-mortgaging your house and getting private health care. In fact, the number of people taking out personal private medical insurance policies has increased for the first time in six years to more than one million, and even Tesco has started providing PMI.
A GP who failed to refer a woman on to a breast cancer specialist has been judged negligent after the woman died from the disease. Mr Justice Gray sitting at Winchester District Court ruled that Dr Sarah Tottle had failed in her duty to Sharon Adshead. He awarded her husband Martin £325,000 in damages plus his legal costs.
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Campaigners have condemned the Government for its "patronising and insulting" advice for older people on how best to stay warm. Groups representing the elderly said the advice was particularly offensive as winter fuel payments for pensioners have not gone up in four years, despite soaring fuel costs.
Of all the weak arguments I have ever heard from the anti-abortion lobby, MP Nadine Dorries's comments (report, October 25) have to be some of the more ridiculous. To suggest that doctors working in the NHS have a "vested financial interest" in keeping abortion legal is absurd. The number of abortions at the late stage that the committee was considering is both low and stable, so does not create the "business" she suggests the doctors are keen to cultivate.
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Twin tonnes: Mother gives birth to 10lb 9oz and 8lb 3oz babies - Daily Mail 26th October 2007
Beth Ryder always wanted a large family. And as she cuddles her newborn twins - who weigh almost 19lb between them - she knows she has more than she ever wished for. Or can possibly carry at once. Baby Theo arrived at a bonny 10lb9oz while his twin sister Millie tipped the scales at 8lb3oz, making them the heaviest mixed sex twins ever born in Britain.
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Are you a tokophobic? The women who are too terrified to give birth- Daily Mail 25th October 2007
Rachel Smith shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Light-headed and desperate for air, she snapped shut the pages of the baby magazine she was reading and threw it across the room. Her pregnant friend, whose house she was visiting, watched bemused as Rachel stood up and dashed for the door.
Schoolgirls in England will be vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer from September 2008, ministers are set to announce. The programme will go further than experts recommended, with all 12 to 13-year-olds eligible for the jab and a catch-up campaign up to the age of 18.
Less than a third of people with diabetes receive all the recommended regular tests, a national audit shows. The latest figures from the NHS Information Centre show children and the elderly in England are least likely to get the care they need.
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GPs in the UK are the happiest in Europe over pay, but are still worried about the future, according to a poll. The survey of 399 GPs from the UK, Italy, France, Germany and Spain, by French GP magazine Le Generaliste, was reported in GP magazine in the UK.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has confirmed that more than 300 jobs will be lost in Sussex as part of cost-cutting plans. The drugs firm said there would be 180 losses at its Worthing site and 130 at its base in Crawley.
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The NHS National Programme for IT is the largest non-military project in the world and aims to revolutionise healthcare. But the budget for the massive project was never properly explained and it was given a "ludicrously tight" time-frame a new BBC Radio 4 investigation reveals.
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International Health News
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Last week in this paper, Seumas Milne reported on the boa-constrictor-sized parasites of US private health insurance seeking to get their fangs into the British NHS. This magnificent new film from Michael Moore is a timely reminder of the grotesque mess that Americans have made for themselves with healthcare, and how insidiously easy it would be for the same thing to happen to us, little by little. Sicko is a full-throttle polemic, teeming with tremendous flourishes of showbiz sentimentality, gloriously outrageous stunts and exquisitely judged provocations. He shows how the American public - especially its hardworking middle classes - have been taken for mugs by the corporate fatcats of health insurance, particularly the inventors of an intensively marketed form of lower-priced insurance called the health maintenance organization, or HMO.
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Film reviews: Sicko, No Smoking, Lagerfeld Confidential and Saw IV - The Telegraph 26th October 2007
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Passionate encounters are inevitable among doctors and nurses working in emergency medicine - or at least that's what romance novels have us believe. A tongue-in-cheek study of the genre suggests the GP surgery is also a hot spot for romantic escapades.
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Net giants test web health - BBC Health News 24th October 2007
Google and Microsoft are set to go head to head in the lucrative consumer healthcare market. In October, Microsoft launched HealthVault, a website that allows users to gather, store and share health information online, whilst Google has been talking about similar offerings.
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Cheshire and Merseyside Health News
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THE answer may seem obvious, but scientists at the University of Liverpool are to carry out a major study investigating why cancer patients are susceptible to depression. The university hopes to recruit 400 patients to complete a series of screening tests to detect for signs of depression and demoralisation.
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AN ELDERLY woman who was admitted to hospital for a stroke died after contracting MRSA and having her leg amputated, an inquest heard. The family of widow Vera Roberts, 84, say they are now demanding a full apology and compensation from Wirral University Hospital Trust, as well as a review of nursing care.
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SOUTHPORT and Formby District General Hospital has revealed its latest weapon in the fight against MRSA. Alcohol gel stations, which were unveiled by Chairman Sir Ron Watson as part of Infection Control Week, will prevent the spread of the deadly superbug.
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A PATHOLOGIST, who gave evidence in the trial of Sally Clark, was this week waiting to discover if a judge plans to clear him of serious professional misconduct. Dr Alan Williams is appealing against a decision to ban him from Home Office court work and coroners' cases for three years.
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PATIENTS and staff from Knutsford's GP practices have been shown what the town's proposed super surgery might look like. Central and Eastern Cheshire Primary Care Trust took a group, which included GPs, nurses and reception staff, to Dene Drive Primary Care Centre in Winsford.
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Amy to be first in world to try new treatment - Wirral Globe 25th October 2007
PLUCKY Amy Garton-Hughes could be the first teenager in the world to be given pioneering anti-aging treatment currently being tested on mice. The 16-year-old from Wallasey, whose plight has been closely followed by the Globe, has a rare condition known as Cockayne syndrome, which affects her posture, hearing and sight.
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Cumbria and Lancashire Health News
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FLU jabs will be available from Morrisons supermarket in Ormskirk during October and November.
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WEST Lancashire Town Crier Don Evans certainly had something to yell about when he went to get his flu jab! Don, 69, is taking part in a campaign by Central Lancashire Primary Care Trust to encourage the over-65s and other ‘at risk’ groups to get a flu injection which, he says, really doesn’t hurt.
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A "TRAILBLAZING" safety project has saved the NHS £1.9million after prevented hundreds of children being hurt in accidents. And the Action on Children's Accidents Project (ACAP)'s success was the main reason why it won the "Working Together" category at the national Public Servant awards in London.
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Report: NHS cash balance improved markedly - Lancashire Telegraph 25th October 2007
FINANCES in the NHS have improved "markedly", according to the Audit Commission. But the picture across East Lancashire is mixed, the spending watchdog's annual review of health service spending has discovered. Auditors assessed NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) across England on how well they manage taxpayers' money, giving them a rating of inadequate, adequate, good or performing strongly.
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Greater Manchester Health News
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A MENINGITIS charity wants people in Bolton to be alert for signs of the disease. Sue Davie, chief executive of the Meningitis Trust, said: "Every year we see an increase in cases of meningitis over the winter months.
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A £10 million hi-tech health facility for Bury town centre came a step closer to reality this week. For the start of building work on the Moorgate Primary Care Centre was celebrated on Tuesday with a turf cutting ceremony.
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Radical health plans in focus - The Bolton News 25th October 2007
THE town's top health boss has given a cautious welcome to a radical report to improve the health of the nation. The controversial plans included making smokers pay for a renewable yearly permit to buy tobacco, companies designating an hour for employees to exercise, and shoppers paying for alcohol at separate supermarket checkouts - meaning they would have to queue twice.
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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