RECENT NEWS

A new state-of-the-art training centre has now received the go ahead and will be built at Eastwood Park in Falfield, South Gloucestershire. John Thatcher, CEO at Eastwood Park said:

The Forum for Injection Technique (FIT) has recently won two awards for their collaborative initiative ‘FIT4Safety – Injection Safety in UK and Ireland’, which includes the formulation and publication of the widely praised Safety of Sharps in Diabetes Recommendations (1st Edition).

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has announced proposals to tackle increasing pressures on NHS A&E services – starting with care for vulnerable older patients with complex health problems.

NHS Supply Chain has placed an order for 20 TrueBeam machines from Varian Medical Systems as part of a programme to replace older machines and roll out modern radiotherapy and radiosurgery treatments for patients in the UK’s public hospitals.

More needs to be done to ensure leadership talent is encouraged and barriers are removed for women in healthcare.

Abbott has announced the results from a study evaluating its High Sensitive Troponin- I (hsTnI) assay which says that it may help doctors predict which patients presenting with symptoms of a heart attack, such as severe chest pain, are at a higher risk for having a heart attack 30 days later.

Since its introduction last year over 2,400 patients with long-term conditions have signed up to use the myhealth@QEHB system, which allows patients to view and update their own medical records online.

New research suggests that failure by junior doctors in their annual changeover period to identify deteriorating patients and poor prioritisation skills are likely to drive a reduction in the quality and safety of patient care.

Around 3.3 million women in the UK are living with heart and circulatory disease. Recent study findings from the US, published in Global Heart, show that women are less likely to receive preventive recommendations – including cholesterol-lowering statins and lifestyle advice – than men with a similar risk.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended a new test for surgeons to use during operations to discover if breast cancer has spread.

Survival for testicular cancer has risen by almost 30% in the last 40 years, with nearly all men now beating the disease, according to Cancer Research UK.

Three new indicators to improve dementia care could be added to the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) incentive scheme for UK practices, as NICE unveils potential indicators for 2014/15.

Monitor has reported that NHS Foundation Trusts (FTs) intend to recruit 10,000 more clinical staff to raise the quality of care.

In a drive to improve patient care, the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) and the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI) have set out their views on the challenges and a way forward for emergency general surgery in the NHS.

Worcestershire County Council recently became the first county council in the UK to join forces with NHS Blood and Transplant in a bid to encourage more people to donate blood, sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register and discuss their wishes with their loved ones.

In Depth Managed Services, a cleaning and facilities management company, has launched a dedicated healthcare cleaning division.

Laboratory confirmed new diagnoses of hepatitis C infection (HCV) reported in England rose by more than one-third to 10,873 cases in 2012.

A new NHS procurement strategy has been announced by health minister Dr Dan Poulter, with the aim of cutting wasteful spending and allowing finances to be put back into the front line for patient care.

More than 70% of surgical patients experience post-operative hypothermia every year, which can cause adverse effects including wound infections, cardiac disturbances, coagulopathy, delayed emergence from anaesthesia and increased mortality.

University of Reading researchers have been awarded funding by Heart Research UK to discover new ways of treating heart failure.