RECENT NEWS

Home-testing kits that can help detect early-stage bowel cancer will be rolled out to 58-year-olds in England for the first time, as part of a major expansion of the lifesaving screening programme.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared monkeypox a global health emergency. With the growing severity of the outbreak, it is vital for all clinicians to have access to the latest evidence-based information.

UK life sciences innovators eager to build their global business and showcase UK expertise to key international buyers are invited to join the Department for International Trade (DIT) at the world’s largest event for the medical sector.

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe to use in pregnancy and pregnant women experienced lower rates of health events post vaccination than similarly aged, non-pregnant vaccinated people, suggests a large Canadian study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

A new stroke toolkit developed by RightCare – in partnership with GIRFT and the National Stroke Programme – is now available to download.

A new type of MRI scan could help doctors diagnose prostate cancer more accurately and spare thousands of men harm from unnecessary biopsies, according to UCL research.

Hospital patients who develop deadly infections will be offered double the traditional course of antibiotics in a new trial. Patients with serious abdominal infections are usually given a two-week course, but often this is unsuccessful. Now, NIHR-funded researchers at the University of Leeds and the University of York are trialing a month-long course to establish whether it is more effective at clearing up the infection.

Following the discovery of type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus in sewage in north and east London, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has advised that a targeted inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) booster dose should be offered to all children between the ages of 1 and 9 in all London boroughs.

As part of an Independent Review on Equity in Medical Devices, led by Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead, the Government is seeking to tackle disparities in healthcare by gathering new evidence on how medical devices and technologies may be biased against patients of different ethnicities, genders and other socio-demographic groups.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the number of people with a higher level of antibodies (800 ng/ml) is falling swiftly. The findings have prompted calls for the Government to ensure its autumn top-up vaccine programme for over-50s starts as soon as possible, and consider extending the jab to all UK adults.

Connect Health, a national provider of NHS community services including MSK (musculoskeletal), chronic pain, rheumatology and mental health, has been selected to deliver the Oxfordshire Community MSK service, in partnership with Principal Medical Limited, an Oxfordshire-based GP-led not for profit, primary and community care provider and GP Federation. The new service commences in October 2022.

Staff have been praised for virtually eliminating the longest waits for scans, checks, surgical procedures and other routine treatment, reaching the first milestone in the NHS's ambitious catch-up plan.

Cherwell Laboratories has launched a new online video training library sharing educational content for individuals in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Cherwell’s Delivering Knowledge platform offers best practice information delivered by experts in monitoring of controlled environments, aseptic processes and sterility.

Roche Diagnostics UK & Ireland has welcomed NICE’s new guidance recommending routine use of placental growth factor (PlGF) based testing in the NHS in England and Wales to help diagnose suspected pre-eclampsia.

Medicines and medical devices valued at over £850,000, totalling more than 285,000 items, have been seized by officers from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as part of a global operation to tackle the illegal sale of medical products, with UK seizures estimated to be worth around 9% of the global total.

Nuffield Health has announced that all of its hospitals have now been rated as ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by UK regulators.

The antiviral drugs molnupiravir and nirmatrelvir–ritonavir (Paxlovid), when used to treat non-severe COVID-19, most likely reduce the risk of subsequent progression to hospitalisation and death, according to new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

A single gene therapy injection could dramatically reduce the bleeding risk faced by people with haemophilia B, a study at UCL has found.

A new concept called the ‘mediverse’ is being developed with the help of tech specialists at the University of South Wales (USW).

COVID-19 may have changed UK doctors’ end of life decision-making, making them more willing to not resuscitate very sick and/or frail patients and raising the threshold for referral to intensive care, suggest the results of a snapshot survey published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics.