RECENT NEWS

A study has linked a small number of cases of cerebral palsy to antibiotics given to women in premature labour, according to a report by the BBC. The Oracle study was set up to investigate whether giving antibiotics to women with signs of premature labour would improve outcomes for babies. It found the antibiotic erythromycin had immediate benefits for women in premature labour (before 37 weeks gestation) whose waters had broken. It delayed onset of labour and reduced the risk of infections and breathing problems in babies.

An investigation is under way at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, after surgeons operated on the wrong patient.

Unison has threatened to call a strike if job cuts in the health service are forced through.

Progress has been achieved in reducing mortality rates from cancer and circulatory diseases.

The Anthony Nolan Trust Cord Blood Centre, which includes a processing facility and a cryogenic storage facility at the grounds of Nottingham Trent University, has been completed by Clean Modules.

People living in the west of Scotland are 50% more likely to get lung cancer than in the rest of the UK, according to a report by the National Cancer Intelligence Network.

Anaesthetists and other clinical staff throughout England and Wales will soon have access to a specially designed system where they can report patient safety incidents and “near misses”. The system has been jointly developed by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI).

Women who had a miscarriage in their first pregnancy have a greater risk of developing complications in their next, a study highlighted by the Royal College of Midwives has reported.

A survey by the Royal College of Physicians of 40 patients in England who had attended a falls clinic following a fall shows that while patients felt the clinics had helped them, they were not always sure about the purpose of the clinic and how it related to their own needs.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Collaborating Centre for Chronic Conditions have published a guideline which will help save lives of people with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that navigating complaints systems is not straightforward, particularly for health service users, and handling some complaints takes too long. There is little sharing of lessons from complaints or evidence that services are improving as a result.

The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), together with NHS Connecting for Health (in England) and Informing Healthcare (in Wales), is issuing a “Safer Practice Notice” recommending that the NHS number is used as the national unique patient identifier.

A cream commonly used to treat burns may actually delay healing, Cochrane researchers concluded after a systematic review of data. In addition, despite the wide range of wound dressings available for burns, there is no consensus on the most effective alternative treatment. Healthcare providers have used silver sulphadiazine (SSD) cream since the 1960s to minimise the risk of burns becoming infected, although concerns have recently been raised about its toxic effects on skin cells.

The NHS is failing to deal with some of the UK’s most severely injured patients because local NHS targets, designed to speed up routine operations, are leaving emergency patients stuck in the wrong hospital, the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) and The Royal College of Surgeons have reported.

The National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme has commissioned a new study to identify the most effective and efficient surveillance methods for women who have received treatment for primary breast cancer. Currently, there is no general agreement on the best way to monitor patients for recurrence or how often women should receive X-rays.

The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) has published evidencebased guidelines to address the management of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP), which is the most common hospital-acquired infection in intubated patients – increasing mortality by up to 75%. Following four years of data analysis, the guidance has been developed to tackle a range of issues including prevention, diagnosis and treatment, in order to reduce the inconsistencies in its management across the UK.

New research reveals that mothers giving birth by Caesarean section have a 20% higher risk of their baby developing Type 1 diabetes in childhood compared to those having natural births, according to the health charity Diabetes UK. On average 24% of pregnancies in England are delivered by Caesarean section, which is significantly higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended rate of 15%.

The BMA has referred to PFI as a “long-term millstone” around the neck of the NHS, “dragging down otherwise good organisations”. The BMA made the statement in response to the Public Accounts Committee report on the management of PFI contracts. The association believes that many of the contracts were poorly set up, biased towards the private sector providers and inflexible, leaving NHS Trusts struggling to meet repayments.

The Medway NHS Foundation Trust has introduced Mölnlycke’s Barrier range

A new cancer therapy developed by Dr Mark Lowdell, UCL Medical School, has been successfully trialled on a patient. The therapy involves a patented process to activate Natural Killer cells (NK) which occur naturally and attack tumours and virally infected cells. While some tumours are easily killed by NK cells, many are resistant to NK killing. The hypothesis for the trial is that NK cells have two controls – one to prime the cell and the other to trigger it to kill tumour cells.