RECENT NEWS

In a strategic alliance with Howorth Medical, Maquet and Fulbourn Medical, OR Networks, developers of ORTV, has launched the OR3G Operating Theatre.

Improved levels of risk management standards in NHS hospitals would reduce MRSA infections by between 11% and 20%, according to new research by Professor Neil Rickman of the University of Surrey and colleagues.

Olympus UK has announced that the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford has won the top prize out of 130 entries at the prestigious 2007 Government Computing Awards for Innovation 2007.

Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust in Croydon has been chosen to pilot a new electronic tracking system to further improve the safety of blood transfusions, the National Patient Safety Agency and NHS Connecting for Health have announced.

Laerdal Medical has opened a purpose-built training facility at its head office in Orpington, Kent. The new centre facilitates realistic, scenario-based learning in simulated prehospital and in-hospital environments, utilising Laerdal’s innovative patient simulators and training products together with hi-tech, interactive AV equipment.

The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has appointed Martin Fletcher as its new chief executive. Martin Fletcher joins from the World Health Organization (WHO), where he had been based in Geneva.

The 37th annual conference of the Infection Control Nurses Association will be held at the Brighton Centre in Brighton from 24 to 26 September 2007.

Study results presented at the 17th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) show that the antibiotic telavancin, and the antifungal micafungin, both have the potential to meet a significant unmet need in the fight against serious hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).

Lodestone Patient Care has installed a range of high performance imaging systems from Siemens Medical Solutions at the BMI Sloane Hospital in Beckenham, Kent, part of the BMI Healthcare group.

The University of Durham has chosen eight SonoSite MicroMaxx hand-carried ultrasound systems to provide an anatomy curriculum that more effectively meets the future needs of undergraduate medical students.

BOC Medical has developed a new demand valve to administer Entonox.

Afurther advance in the treatment of kidney stones has been announced by Cook Urology.

As no appeals against its draft recommendations were received, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has published its guidance on the use of fludarabine monotherapy for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).

Many Alzheimer’s patients are dying earlier because of sedatives they are being prescribed, according to new groundbreaking research.

Anew partnership between NHS Direct and the Clinical Knowledge Summaries Service (CKS) will allow GPs and other healthcare professionals to access to patient information from their computers.

PENTAX and Australia’s Optiscan Imaging have developed new diagnostic equipment, the Confocal Endomicroscope, which is able to significantly assist in the early diagnosis of important gastrointestinal cancers.

TiGenix and Fidia Advanced Biopolymers (FAB), both active in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, have announced that they will join forces for the development and commercialisation of novel biological implants for the repair of damaged and osteoarthritic joints.

Baxter Healthcare has launched an educational programme to support hospitals in the implementation of the recently released NPSA Safety Alert 20: Promoting safer use of injectable medicines.

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust (RNOH) at Stanmore has taken a step towards improving patient care by appointing MediHome to provide Care-at-Home type services.

The UK’s first three-dimensional “virtual” radiotherapy training facility has been developed by the University of Hull and Hull’s Princess Royal Hospital.