RECENT NEWS

World Encephalitis Day is taking place this year on 22 February 2018. Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain that affects up to 6000 people in the UK every year, with the most severe of these often arising as a result of clinical negligence in the diagnosis and treatment of the condition.

Ulster Hospital has installed the world’s first CT scanner for heart disease. The scanner will replace invasive testing and it can instantly identify patients with serious cardiac problems.

One of the longest standing chief executives, Sir Andrew Cash has announced he will retire in July 2018 after 16 years leading one of the biggest NHS Foundation Trusts in the country.

The Government has announced that an expert group will be formed to work on introducing a new cap on the amount of costs that lawyers can recover in clinical negligence cases. The proposed cap will be applied to all cases up to £25,000 and is designed to help save the NHS up to £45 million a year.

NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, has published draft guidance recommending thyroid cancer treatments cabozantinib (Cometriq, Ipsen), and sorafenib (Nexavar, Bayer) to come off the Cancer Drugs Fund and into routine NHS use. NICE has also recommended that lenvatinib (Lenvima, Eisai), should be routinely available.

Medtech Accelerator, a joint venture with NHS innovation hub Health Enterprise East (HEE), has confirmed the outcome of its second round of funding. Figures reveal that a total of £670,000 has now been awarded by Medtech Accelerator to support innovation projects derived from within the NHS since its launch in 2016.

An application that provides parents of sick and premature babies with video updates has received central governance approval. The seal of approval from NHS Digital means that the web-based application, vCreate, is now recognised by the NHS and will enable hospitals to roll out the service more quickly and easily across their Trust.

Patients in Swindon with the most serious and rare forms of illness could soon benefit from a pioneering research project that aims to find cures for notoriously hard-to-treat conditions.

Researchers claim to have found a drug that relieves some of the worst symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, without any side effects.

Hospitals in Scunthorpe and Grimsby continue to operate under extreme pressure and the local community is being asked to help by choosing the most appropriate NHS service, which is not always A&E, and refraining from visiting hospital if they are suffering with diarrhoea and/or vomiting, until they have been without symptoms for at least 48 hours.

A specialist renal unit has opened at Frimley Park, making state-of-the-art inpatient kidney care available locally for the first time. The eight-bed unit enables hospital patients to receive dialysis treatment on site rather than face a transfer to another centre.

A piece of clinical training equipment which provides realistic simulations of childbirth is being trialled at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals.

An initiative run to ease the pressure on local hospitals during the busy winter period has been hailed as a success.

The lives of people with severe asthma in Sheffield and South Yorkshire are being changed for the better by teams of health professionals collaborating to deliver the latest treatments to patients.

Vulnerable patients recovering from hip fracture are facing unacceptable variations in care, warns the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP)

NHS Innovation Hub, Health Enterprise East (HEE), has announced a partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH), an internationally recognised centre of excellence in child healthcare.

A new service based in West Cumberland Hospital (WCH) Accident & Emergency (A&E) department is working to help people avoid a hospital stay and reduce pressure on health and care services.

Hospital-acquired pressure ulcers – also known as bed sores – on the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust’s inpatient wards are now at an all-time low. In 2010, pressure ulcers were reported at the rate of one nearly every day. Just seven years later, one occurs every two weeks (in 2017 there were just 31 cases reported across the whole 12 months).

President Trump sparked strong reactions following a tweet on 5 February in which he stated the National Health Service ‘isn’t working’.

A report published on 31 January by Picker and The King’s Fund has uncovered striking associations between NHS staff and patients’ experiences in hospitals and NHS trusts’ reliance on agency healthcare workers.