RECENT NEWS

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has set out new financial diagnostic checks and the next steps for NHS Trusts wanting to apply for Foundation status. She announced a new diagnostic programme to be rolled out to all NHS Acute Trusts to improve financial management in the NHS and to test whether potential applicants are ready before they make the step up to Foundation status.

England’s sickest children and their families will have more choice about the way they receive their care, following the launch of a new guide from the Department of Health. The guide will show local health chiefs how to give more choice to the children who need it most, with a range of palliative care options that includes the right to be treated at home.

The results of the consultations around smoking and health care associated infections, which contributed to the Health Bill, have been published on the Department of Health website (www.dh.gov.uk).

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has welcomed the Turner report into pension reform and is calling on the Government to stand by its promise to protect midwives and other healthcare workers when it considers its response.

Despite a 23% increase in the nursing workforce in England since 1997, urgent action is needed if the UK is to avoid a return to the chronic nursing shortages of the early 1990s. This looming crisis is revealed in a recently published report from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

M"lnlycke Health Care AB, Regent Medical and Medlock have merged to form a new corporate organisation, the M"lnlycke Health Care Group. This announcement means that the new company will be able to deliver a higher quality service and range of single use surgical and wound care products and is committed to continued investment in research and development.

Patients will get quicker access to care thanks to the introduction of American style “ER” roles. A recently published consultation document lays out proposals for a new role, medical care practitioners (MCPs), which will help doctors and nurses to treat patients in both primary care and hospital settings, as physicians’ assistants do in the US.

Venous thromboembolism in patients, also known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT) due to its common manifestation in the deep veins of the legs, is being ignored in UK hospitals despite clear, evidence-based guidelines on the use of preventative treatments. The findings, which were published in the November 2005 edition of the Journal of Royal Society of Medicine, follow a 24-month survey on medical inpatients in two major English teaching hospitals.

A team of experts from Napier University has beaten off strong competition from the country’s leading universities to develop a unique online educational programme, Flying Start NHS.

The Global Partnership for Effective Diabetes Management has launched the first global recommendations designed to help physicians achieve recommended treatment goals for diabetes management. Despite increasingly stringent clinical practice guidelines, more than 60% of those with type 2 diabetes currently have glucose levels above the recommended targets (HbA1c less than 6.5%), putting them at risk for serious complications such as cardiovascular disease.

A new national guideline for fasting before surgery has been produced by the Royal College of Nursing.

The Department of Health has announced the appointment of Dr Keith Ridge as the new Chief Pharmaceutical Officer. Working closely with the profession and influencing policy, Dr Ridge will support the implementation of the intentions set out in the NHS Improvement Plan, and Choosing Health. He will drive forward work on independent pharmacist prescribing and the pharmaceutical public health strategy.

In an address to MPs on the importance of adequate wound care levels for long-term hospital patients, the Tissue Viability Nurses Association (TVNA) pointed out that the cost burden of pressure ulcers to the NHS – estimated to be as much as £2.1 billion per year – could be significantly reduced with intelligent investment in trained staff and new medical technology.

Patients with cancer are failing to receive appropriate treatment for anaemia and so are suffering unnecessarily from the debilitating fatigue it causes, according to results from a new pan-European survey of over 250 cancer patients in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK conducted during summer 2005.

New statistics published by Cancer Research UK and the UK Association of Cancer Registries (UKACR) have revealed that fewer middle-aged people are dying of cancer, while the number of new cases is stable. The figures reveal that lung, breast, bowel and prostate cancers will continue to be the most common types by far, but the incidence of some less common cancers is increasing.

Patients will be able to get quicker and more efficient access to medicines thanks to extensions to nurse and pharmacist prescribing announced by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt. From spring 2006, qualified extended formulary nurse prescribers and pharmacist independent prescribers will be able to prescribe any licensed medicine for any medical condition – with the exception of controlled drugs.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health have launched a clinical guideline on the identification, treatment and management of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) in children and adults.

At the organisation’s first national Stakeholder Conference in November 2005, NHS Direct’s medical director, Dr Mike Sadler, set out to delegates ways in which the organisation can use its skills, infrastructure and capacity to work with the rest of the health service in responding to the challenges of better information, better access to services and better co-ordination of those services – posed by the forthcoming White Paper on hospital care.

The recently published National Audit Office (NAO) report Reducing brain damage: Faster Access to Better Stroke Care, has revealed that the cost of stroke to the public purse is almost three times more than previously calculated. This means stroke is by far the most expensive illness in the UK, costing £7 billion a year. But this huge cost is not inevitable and, according to The Stroke Association, could be significantly reduced through increased public awareness and improved stroke services.

In her opening address at the three-day EU Patient Safety Summit in November 2005, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt described patient safety as a “global issue” and called for improvements in the way countries throughout the world work together to provide safer healthcare for their patients.