May - 2012

Toughbooks used at Birmingham Children's Hospital

Panasonic Toughbooks are to be used at Birmingham Children’s Hospital as part of a new food ordering and management system, which will collect and process patient meal orders.
It is the first hospital to use such a system with a phased roll-out planned across all wards. The project, developed in partnership with software developers Ambinet, has seen the trust create an application for electronic food ordering c...

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Call for organ donation lessons in schools

A call has been made for students at secondary schools and colleges to be made more aware of organ donation.
Keith Sudbury, who lost his son Adrian to leukaemia, wants educational establishments to include one lesson on how to donate stem cells, blood and organs and raise awareness by making donation part of the curriculum for students aged 16 and over.
The idea is being called “Adrian’s Law” and ...

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Ambulance delays rising

Ambulance waiting times are rising in the south east of England, it has emerged.
Ambulances are spending more time outside hospitals in Kent, Sussex and Surrey with South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) figures showing that ambulances had 36,000 hours "handover time" in 2011/12, 50% more than three years ago. The College of Paramedics has raised concerns over the issue and has said it is a major r...

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Computer game to help stroke patients recuperate

A PC-based computer game that will help stroke sufferers recuperate has been developed by scientists at Newcastle University.
Called the Circus Challenge game, it has been created with a computer game studio that could help patients recover motor functions by using wireless controllers to perform virtual circus acts such as lion taming and plate spinning. The project has received a £1.5m grant from the Health In...

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Prosthetic retina being developed

Scientists from Strathclyde University in Glasgow are working on a device to restore sight in people with a form of blindness.
They are aiming to create a prosthetic retina to tackle age related macular degeneration (AMD). It is still under development but features a thin silicon device with no wires and acts by electrically stimulating nerves in the retina, which are left relatively unscathed by the effects of A...

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Lorenzo for Humber

Humber NHS Foundation Trust has said it is on track to go live with Lorenzo at the end of the month.
The trust has conducted a successful test for the full implementation of the electronic patient record, though papers presented to the board in April 2012 revealed that the trust has also put contingency plans in place. Humber became the first mental health "early adopter" of the Lorenzo system after Pen...

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Half of hospital costs are on over-60s

Analysis of the Hospital Episode Statistics payment by results (PbR) data has revealed that the over-60s account for nearly half of hospital admissions in England and more than half of hospital income from admissions.
Figures show that 43% of all hospital admissions paid under mandatory PbR were of people aged over 60 and accounted for £10.9bn, or 51% of hospitals’ income from admissions that attracted a manda...

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Royal Berks to go-live with Cerner

Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has confirmed that it is planning to go live with Cerner Millennium this month, despite the publication of board minutes that reveal concern about its financial position and the management of such a major project.
Concerns follow £5.5m of investment in Millennium, an IT outsourcing contract with CSC, and the new Bracknell Clinic, which provides treatment for cancer and renal ...

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More help for women with postnatal depression

The NHS is set to offer more support to women who have postnatal depression or who have suffered a miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of a baby.
The government has announced that it will recruit an extra 4,200 health visitors, who will be given enhanced training to help them spot the early signs of postnatal depression.
The health visitors, who provide services for expectant and new parents after they...

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A regular coffee could help you live longer

Researchers have suggested that drinking coffee could extend your life.
In a study of 400,000 people aged 50-71, they found the more coffee people drank, the less likely they were are to die from a number of ailments such as heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries, accidents, diabetes and infections, though not cancer. The British Coffee Association said the research in the New England Journal of...

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Statins should be more widely prescribed

Researchers have called for the wider prescribing of statins to help cut the numbers of heart attacks and strokes.
The team from the University of Oxford found in their study of 175,000 patients, published in The Lancet, that even those at low risk could benefit from the cholesterol-lowering medication.
However, while they suggest the NHS should give statins to healthy people, there is widespre...

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83-year-old man is oldest living kidney donor

The NHS Blood and Transplant service has revealed that a man in his 80s has become the oldest live kidney donor in the UK.
Nicholas Crace, who is 83, made the decision to donate last year after his wife Brigid died.
He was no longer able to donate blood after the age of 70, or donate bone marrow as he needed to be under 40, but found there was no age limit to donating a kidney so took the decision to do...

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Ambulance 999 responses to change

Ambulances bosses have welcomed a change to 999 response times in England.
From June, operators will be allowed an additional one minute before they need to send ambulance crews to serious but non-life-threatening callouts.
The change follows trials in the West Midlands and London areas which showed that the extra time meant fewer double dispatches, where two crews are sent.
This change effect...

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RCN pledge to continue to oppose pension age rise

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Council has pledged to continue its opposition to the government’s planned pension reforms.
Speaking to the RCN Congress, Chief Executive and General Secretary Dr Peter Carter said the linking of the NHS workers’ pension age to the state pension age to be "absurd". While he acknowledged that some members had received "significant protection" from the chan...

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COPD patients could benefit from acupuncture

New research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine has indicated that acupuncture appears to be associated with improvement of dyspnea on exertion in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which experts fear could become a leading cause of death over the next few years.
A small trial has demonstrated clinically relevant improvements in dyspnea on exertion, with the managemen...

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Long delays in drug approval

A new study has claimed that patients are often left waiting the best part of a decade for new drugs to become available on the NHS.
Much of the delay, according to the work carried out by the Office for Health Economics, arises because of the time it takes for them to be approved for use on the NHS.
In some case, it takes up to nine years for drugs to be approved by the National Institute for Health an...

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Nasal sprays have little benefit for sinusitis

Researchers at the University of Oxford who analysed six previous studies have found that steroid nasal sprays have only a "small benefit" when used to treat sinusitis.The study's co-author Matthew Thompson said: "Looking at all the trials together, we found that nasal steroids seem to give a small benefit for patients with acute sinusitis. In fact, they work about as well as antibiotics do." He ad...

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myhealth@QEHB to roll-out

A major British hospital is to roll-out its patient portal which will allow people with long-standing conditions to view and update their medical records.
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust piloted the myhealth@QEHB portal with patients with a long-term liver condition but from July patients receiving treatment in specialties such as diabetes and prostate cance...

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NICE set to reverse decision on prostate cancer drug

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is set to approve a drug which can treat prostate cancer for use by the health service in England and Wales.NICE had previously rejected the drug abiraterone in February as being too costly but this provoked criticism from patients and charities.The drug costs around £3,000 a month per patient and can prolong patients' life expectancy by more tha...

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Test developed for schizophrenia

Researchers in the United States say they have developed a test which might be used to predict a person's risk for schizophrenia.Using a new approach to identify the full set of genes responsible for this complex mental illness, scientists now believe they have broken the genetic code for the disorder, which is currently thought to run in families.According to study co-author and medical neuroscience assoc...

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February - 2012

RIG supports Cancer Research Jubilee Luncheon

Once again RIG Healthcare are pleased to support the Jubille Luncheon to be held in St James's Restaurant in Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly. it is to be held on 30th April 2012 12.00-3.00 and the event is in aid of Cancer research and will include guest 'auctioneer' Jeffrey Archer.

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November - 2010

Drug companies 'exploiting rules to make exorbitant profits from NHS'

Consultants and patients' group publish open letter calling for inquiry into firms' alleged repackaging of drugs for rare diseases.

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Transplant patients given lungs of smokers due to shortage of organ donors

Desperate transplant patients are being given the lungs of chain smokers because the NHS is so short of organ donations.

Surgeons are also being forced to use diseased body parts from cancer sufferers, drug addicts and the very elderly.

Experts say that the waiting l

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NHS PAYS FOR PC JOBS AS NURSES ARE AXED

NHS bosses are spending millions of pounds to meet strict European equality laws while more than 1,500 frontline nurses are to be axed to save money.

More than 50 staff are employed at taxpayers’ expense to promote political correctness across the Health Service, documents h

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NHS website gets 100m hits a year

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Organ transplants reach record high

Record numbers of Britons underwent an organ transplant last year to save, extend or improve their lives, figures from the NHS show today.

Hospitals carried out a total of 3,706 transplants of organs including livers, kidneys, hearts and lungs in 2009-10, up 5% on the year before,

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A&E TIME-WASTERS COST NHS £27M

PATIENTS who turn up at accident and emergency departments with trifling ailments are costing cash-strapped hospital trusts in just one region £27million a year.

In the past six months an estimated 200,000 people have sought treatment at the 13 A&E units in Greater Manche

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October - 2010

Cancer drugs fund to be £200m a year

The cancer drugs fund to pay for medicines turned down for use on the NHS will be worth £200m a year, ministers have confirmed.

It had been feared the fund would be cut in the austerity drive as Lord Howe, health minister, appeared to back-track on the Tory election pledge b

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Spending Review: NHS gets 'bare minimum' funding rise

The NHS budget in England will get the above inflation rises it was promised this parliament, but by only the "bare minimum" margin.

Funding will rise by £10bn to £114bn over the next four years - the equivalent of a 0.1% a year hike in real terms.

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