Friday 28 December 2012

Concerns over ambulance changes

Concerns over ambulance changes: Northamptonshire County Council raises concerns that the whole county will not be adequately served by new ambulance "hubs". BBC News

Hospital’s plea on visits to help stop winter bug

Hospital’s plea on visits to help stop winter bug:
Accident and emergency doctors and nurses at Kettering General Hospital are reminding people that A&E does not stand for “anything and everything” over the Christmas period. Evening Telegraph

Drugs and alcohol payment by results (PbR) pilot evaluation: scoping and feasibility report

Drugs and alcohol payment by results (PbR) pilot evaluation: scoping and feasibility report:
This report, commissioned by the Department of Health, looks at a pilot project which took a new approach to commissioning and delivering drug and alcohol misuse treatment.

Graphic anti-smoking ad launched

Graphic anti-smoking ad launched: A series of hard-hitting government adverts featuring people smoking cigarettes with a tumour bulging from them is being launched in England. BBC News - Health

Public must accept reforms if NHS is to survive, warns hospitals chief

Public must accept reforms if NHS is to survive, warns hospitals chief:
Hospitals must provide fewer services if it is to cope with growing demand caused by ageing population, says Mike Farrar. The public need to accept the closure of many hospital units and live healthier lives if they want the health service to survive, according to an NHS executive.
Hospitals will have to provide fewer services and beds if the NHS is to cope with growing demand caused by the ageing population, warns Mike Farrar, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals.
Health professionals must do more to keep people out of hospital and treat them in or near their homes, while politicians should back the urgent and far-reaching changes needed to keep the NHS sustainable rather than joining protest marches, he added.
Dr Paul Flynn, chairman of the British Medical Association's hospital consultants committee, said the doctors' union "agrees that the NHS cannot stand still". But he warned against the service undertaking "constant overhaul" so soon after the reorganisation of the NHS in England imposed by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and with £20bn of efficiency savings to be found by 2015.
He backed Farrar's call for patients to live more healthily to relieve the growing workload and to use medicines they have been prescribed, a move Farrar said would save £300m. Guardian