RECENT NEWS

The Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP), which operates across 15 UK regions, has appointed healthcare specialist Dawn Stott as its new managing director. Originally founded in 1964 as the National Association of Theatre Nurses, AfPP is regularly called on by the Government to shape best practice in surgical healthcare and to help pioneer improvements in patient safety. Dawn Stott has amassed 15 years’ experience in primary and secondary healthcare.

Following the success of the first Healthcare Innovation Expo, held in June last year, the UK Department of Health has announced that a second Expo will take place this October.

Working overtime increases the risk of heart diseases, according to results from a study following more than 10,000 civil servants in London.

Frost & Sullivan, a leading global research organisation, has presented its Growth Leadership Award, in the European surgical drapes and gowns market, to Full Support Healthcare.

Professor Dame Sally Davies will take up the role of Chief Medical Officer following the departure of Sir Liam Donaldson until a substantive appointment is made. .

Injections of human adult stem cells around damaged tissue following a heart attack could help to improve the organ’s pumping efficiency for a year, new research suggests.

A free educational symposium, which aims to improve levels of clinical knowledge among biomedical engineers, will be held at the Heritage Motor Centre, Warwickshire, 1 July 2010.

An Australian study has shed further light on the correlation between vitamin D and MS. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, shows that people born after the vitamin D-scarce winter months are roughly 30% more likely to go on to develop MS later in life compared with those born after the summer months.

The NHS has addressed many of the challenges it faced in 1997, but needs to change rapidly if it is to meet the challenges it faces in the future, according to a major review of the NHS by The King’s Fund.

A study published in the Cochrane Library suggests that the treatment of serious gum (periodontal) disease in diabetics with Type 2 diabetes may lower their blood sugar levels.

In a speech to the BMA’s annual conference of junior doctors, Dr Shree Datta, chair of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee called on the new Government to stop the erosion of training for doctors and safeguard the quality of the NHS medical workforce.

The Royal College of Midwives is calling for urgent action to deal with the growing problem of obesity in pregnancy, following the publication of a study by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford, into the scale of the problem in the UK.

Premature babies who undergo painful treatments while in intensive care become more sensitive to pain compared to healthy newborns, according to new research by scientists at UCL.

A five-minute screening test could cut the risk of developing bowel cancer by a third and save thousands of lives from what is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer, according to new research led by Imperial College London and published in the Lancet.

The Royal College of Nursing is calling on the new Government and NHS organisations for a “cast iron” commitment to ensure safe staffing levels, in the face of fears that nursing posts and expertise may be sacrificed under cost cutting measures.

An increase in paperwork is preventing nurses from spending enough time caring for patients, according to a new survey for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

The Scottish arm of the BMA has called on the Government to ensure that doctors who raise concerns about patient safety are not victimised by their NHS employers.

Hospital doctors who are frequently interrupted while working in a clinical environment spend less time on tasks and fail to return to almost a fifth of their jobs in hand, according to research published in the journal Quality and Safety in Health Care.

Research carried out by the Royal College of Physicians has identified large variations in the provision of medical cover at night, with some doctors being responsible for up to 400 patients.

A pioneering operation involving robotic technology is to be conducted for the first time at Glenfield Hospital Leicester. Dr André Ng, senior lecturer in cardiovascular sciences at the University of Leicester and consultant cardiologist and electrophysiologist, Glenfield Hospital, University Hospitals of Leicester, is the first person in the world to carry out the operation remotely on patients using this system.