RECENT NEWS

Every hour and a half a baby is stillborn or dies shortly after birth in the UK – totalling 17 babies each day. This is four times the number of people who die every year of MRSA.

The Government has announced a new commission of experts to advise on the future role of nurses and midwives. The Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery will build on the existing work identified in Lord Darzi’s report High Quality Care for All and consider how nurses can further improve safety and champion high quality patient care.

Thousands of children and young people with diabetes are at risk of sight loss, kidney failure and heart problems because their condition is dangerously out of control, according to a report by The NHS Information Centre.

A team of medical scientists from the University of Leicester has published research which looks into the harmful substances in liquid medicines that premature babies are being exposed to.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has said the Government must work with health professionals and patients to ensure that the introduction of top-up payments does not result in a two tier NHS.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has found that there has only been a modest growth rate of consultant paediatricians working in the UK between 2005 and 2007 meaning that the specialty of paediatrics remains hard-pressed.

A study conducted at the University of Leicester, investigating levels of medicinal use by people with bowel diseases, has shown that the risk of conditions like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis has significantly increased for the children of people who have moved into the area.

Hospitals that treat patients in mixed sex accommodation will not be paid for their care, Health Secretary Alan Johnson has announced. These tough new penalties are part of a package of measures being introduced in a new drive to put an end to mixed sex accommodation and ensure it does not reappear.

Following close collaboration with NHS South West Essex which is responsible for the healthcare of over 420,000 people across Basildon, Brentwood and Thurrock, InHealth has been contracted to provide urgent MRI and ultrasound services at Basildon University Hospital.

A study led by Dr Marcus Cooke at the University of Leicester and funded by World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) UK is looking at whether consuming caffeine during pregnancy might affect the unborn baby’s risk of developing leukaemia in childhood.

The latest point-of-care ultrasound technology from SonoSite has been chosen by consultant orthopaedic surgeon Harry Brownlow, at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, to help in the diagnosis and treatment of a whole range of shoulder and elbow injuries.

A team of researchers have demonstrated a direct link between a particular genetic variant and vitamin D which can determine an individual's risk of developing MS. The new evidence emerged from a study published in the journal PLoS Genetics which found that the most important gene implicated in susceptibility to MS, the variant gene DRB1 can be switched on by vitamin D in laboratory experiments.

Royal Philips Electronics and Immunetrics have entered into a joint development agreement to explore future-generation approaches to the problem of infectious disease in critical care. This announcement was made at the annual Congress of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Medical guidelines on the diagnosis and management of ME and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are being challenged through a judicial review. The case against the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is generating considerable interest among the 250,000 people in the UK who have ME, as some patients hope the legal proceedings will lead to the withdrawal of the guideline. However, the charity “Action for ME” said that it supports the NICE guidance.

The Healthcare Commission has announced that Newham University NHS Trust has made substantial improvements to its maternity services, with more beds, more staff and better management of risk. The Commission published a report detailing progress at the Trust since it conducted a formal review of the services in 2007. The review was conducted at the request of the Trust, after almost 800 women were not booked for antenatal care appointments in late 2006 and early 2007, despite being referred for this service.

A Swiss cancer clinic is among the first in the world to use a new, faster radiotherapy technology from Varian Medical Systems to treat a child patient. A 12-year-old girl with Hodgkin's lymphoma was treated using Varian's RapidArc technique at the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI) in Bellinzona.

New guidance from NICE recommends the use of two systems to maintain the condition of kidneys from deceased donors before they are used for transplants in the NHS. Before a transplant can take place, time is needed to match the kidney to the recipient, to transport and prepare the recipient and the kidney and finally to implant the kidney.

A new study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, reveals that an obese woman in her first pregnancy has a particularly high risk of delivery of a low birthweight baby, of pre-eclampsia and of premature birth.

An increase in meningococcal group B infections (MenB) was recorded by the Health Protection Agency between late December 2008 and early January of this year for England, although the annual number of cases for 2008 remains similar to previous years.

As the birth-rate in the UK continues to rise, new recruitment data reveals demand for midwives has increased by almost 20% over the last year. This comes at a time when midwifery is no longer among the professions included on the Government’s recently published list of jobs open to immigrants from outside the European Union.