RECENT NEWS

NHS Blood and Transplant has supplied the first units of convalescent plasma to hospitals and the first transfusions have taken place.

A two-week course of antiviral therapy with interferon beta-1b plus lopinavir-ritonavir and ribavirin, started within seven days of showing COVID-19 symptoms has shown potential for treating COVID-19.

​The number of heart attack patients seeking urgent hospital care has dropped by more than 50% during the COVID-19 outbreak, according to an extensive worldwide survey by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

Horiba Medical has announced that the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) in partnership with the Cornwall Foundation NHS Trust have recently purchased and installed five new Microsemi CRP point-of-care (POC) haematology analysers.

The Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP) has launched their second nationwide survey in a bid to better understand the challenges faced by those working within the operating theatre and associated areas.

NHS England and the NHS Confederation have announced the creation of a new centre to investigate the impact of race and ethnicity on people’s health.

Step Communications has launched a free App to download digital copies of the Clinical Services Journal and Pathology in Practice.

NHS England has today welcomed the publication of updated risk assessment guidance which provides practical measures to advance the way risk assessments are carried out for BAME, at risk and other vulnerable staff groups working across the NHS.

Althea – a managed service and maintenance provider – has delivered a major radiology equipment investment at Peterborough City Hospital.

Getinge has partnered with Semcon to develop a new digital platform that will easily identify where the greatest risks for infections are during surgeries.

A study published today in BMJ Open Respiratory Research has revealed that, contrary to guideline recommendations, 68% of clinicians managing bronchiectasis patients do not test them for nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infection prior to starting macrolide treatment.

MedTech Navigator, the development programme from leading NHS medical technology hub Health Enterprise East (HEE), has launched its Innovation Grants as the latest offering to support SMEs.

According to many observations, certain virus infections may play a part in the autoimmune attack that leads to type 1 diabetes. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and at the universities of Jyväskylä and Tampere have now produced a vaccine for these viruses in the hope that it could provide protection against the disease.

iM Med has announced it has been selected to supply the cutting-edge Steelco Endoscopy Capital Equipment range directly through the NHS Supply Chain Endoscopy Capital Equipment framework.

Now available from BioConnections, COVID-19 Ag Respi-Strip detects the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antigens in a nasopharyngeal swab in 15 minutes in more than seven out of 10 patients with the high viral load (Cycle threshold [Ct] <25; an inverse measure of the target [virus] concentration) found in the acute phase of COVID-19.

NICE has developed a series of rapid guidelines with NHS England/ Improvement on the active management of patients in a number of clinical areas.

Researchers from the UT Southwestern Medical Center, in the US, have found that blood pressure readings show marked differences between opposite sides of the body and different anatomical sites in patients, highlighting the significant and sometimes extreme variability of this measure even in the same person, depending on where it is taken. The findings, published in Scientific Reports, could impact how blood pressure information is collected.

The virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is stable for several hours to days in aerosols and on surfaces, according to a new study from National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University scientists in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation is calling for better data on the scale of the impact of COVID-19 on the care sector, including daily reporting of deaths in the sector:

A new clinical trial led by the University of Warwick and Queen’s University Belfast seeks to find alternatives to ventilators to treat patients who are critically ill with COVID-19. Researchers will deliver a clinical trial that aims to recruit approximately 4,000 patients in order to find effective alternative solutions for patients with COVID-19 to reduce the need for treatment with a ventilator and improve patient outcomes.