Monday 10 July 2017

Construction on new 60-bed unit to relieve Northampton's strained A&E will start this month

Construction on new 60-bed unit to relieve Northampton's strained A&E will start this month Northampton General Hospital has been given the go-ahead to construct a £12 million emergency assessment unit for its A&E. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

A&E at KGH visited almost 350 times by just 10 people last year

A&E at KGH visited almost 350 times by just 10 people last year The 10 most frequent attenders at KGH’s A&E department racked up almost 350 visits in 12 months last year.

A Freedom of Information request by the Northants Telegraph revealed they totalled 345 visits - close to a one a day between them - in 2016.

The visitors included a 35-year-old female who attended 47 times and a 59-year-old male who visited 46 times – almost one visit a week.

Kettering General Hospital’s lead nurse for urgent care, David Anderson, said: “As a general rule the patients who attend the hospital’s A&E department on a very regular basis have underlying personal problems.

Lifesaving organ donors have kept more than 500 people alive in Northamptonshire

Lifesaving organ donors have kept more than 500 people alive in Northamptonshire More than 500 people in Northamptonshire owe their life to organ donors - a new study has found.

NHS Blood and Transplant, whose annual Transplant Activity Report has been published today, shows the UK-wide number of people alive thanks to transplants has reached 50,000.

Here in Northamptonshire, 548 people are currently alive thanks to the lifesaving transplants, including 46 in the last year alone. NHS Blood and Transplant is now urging people in Northamptonshire to help even more people to survive by joining the NHS organ donor register. Northamptonshire Telegraph

Survey of medical clinical academic staffing levels 2017

Survey of medical clinical academic staffing levels 2017 This report raises concerns over the falling number of clinical academic staff in UK medical schools. It finds that since 2010, the number of medical clinical academics has declined by 4.2 per cent with the reducing occurring disproportionately at the senior lecturer level. The survey results also highlight the need for a rapid expansion in the number of clinical academics in general practice in order to meeting the growing demands for primary care. Medical Schools Council

Mental health care 'risks being over-run'

Mental health care 'risks being over-run' Mental health services in England risk being overwhelmed by a combination of rising demand and staff shortages, a survey of NHS trusts suggests.

The poll by NHS Providers, which represents trusts, found seven in 10 mental health leaders expected demand to increase this year.

But fewer than one in three was confident they had enough staff to deliver services.

Ministers said extra money being invested would help improve care.

It comes as an investigation by BBC Radio 5 live Daily found the growing demand for mental health support was being felt in the ambulance service too. BBC News

Charlie Gard: Great Ormond Street Hospital applies for new hearing

Charlie Gard: Great Ormond Street Hospital applies for new hearing Great Ormond Street Hospital has applied for a fresh hearing in the case of Charlie Gard following claims of "new evidence relating to potential treatment for his condition".

It comes after seven medical experts suggested unpublished data showed therapy could improve the 11-month-old's brain condition.

Previously, the High Court said it was unlikely a US doctor offering to treat Charlie would be able to cure him.

GOSH said it would "explore" the data.

Charlie's case will be heard by Mr Justice Francis on Monday at 14:00 BST, according to a High Court listing. BBC News

Sector leaders call for mental health to be central to STPs

Sector leaders call for mental health to be central to STPs The health sector has today come together to call for mental health to be made a central component of local STP plans.

Following the release of NHS Providers’ state of the sector report, which warned that mental health services were struggling to deliver existing services under immense pressure, organisations from the NHS and the third sector have called on the government to act to save the ailing sector.

Many have also told the prime minister to deliver on promises made to put mental health on the same level of importance as physical health. National Health Executive

Nine ways to save the NHS – by healthcare professionals

Nine ways to save the NHS – by healthcare professionals Charge for missed appointments, divert funds to social care and fine drunk people – readers weigh in on how to solve problems facing the health service

Drink- or drug-related problems should always be dealt with in regional drunk tanks which are already being used in many areas, and patients charged to make the service profitable. Alternatively, this could be paid for by a sharp rise in alcohol tax. In the A&E I often work in, it’s not just the weekend evenings we have drunk patients, it’s 24/7; you can walk in at any time of day and there will always be a few drunk people or drug users causing a nuisance. Continue reading... The Guardian

Giving Google our private NHS data is simply illegal | John Naughton

Giving Google our private NHS data is simply illegal | John Naughton The Royal Free hospital’s attempt to gloss over its transfer of more than a million health records to the AI developer DeepMind is boneheaded and dishonest

In July 2015, consultants working at the Royal Free hospital trust in London approached DeepMind, a Google-owned artificial intelligence firm that had no previous experience in healthcare, about developing software based on patient data from the trust. Four months later, the health records of 1.6 million identifiable patients were transferred to servers contracted by Google to process the data on behalf of DeepMind. The basic idea was that the company would create an app, called Streams, to help clinicians manage acute kidney injury (AKI), a serious disease that is linked to 40,000 deaths a year in the UKContinue reading... The Guardian

After a nightshift in A&E, I’m so tired I fear for my life driving home. I’m not alon

After a nightshift in A&E, I’m so tired I fear for my life driving home. I’m not alone Other professions offer taxis home for night workers. But cost-cutting in the NHS means there are no facilities for exhausted staff. Lives are at risk• Saleyha Ahsan is an A&E doctor

Around 4am on an A&E nightshift I begin to think about the drive home. It’s the time at which I’m feeling my worst, digging deep to keep working at somewhere near optimum. There are only four hours left before I go home but those four hours stretch in some weird nightshift time continuum. It’s also the time when the sickest patients tend to come into the department – the “death hour”. There is a requirement to shift into a higher gear of working as we try to save the lives of people who have woken up to die.

When I say that I fleetingly think about the drive home, it’s not because I’m counting down the hours until I finish. I’m thinking more along the lines of, “I am knackered. How am I going to drive home without crashing into a tractor or something?” You start to think about your own mortality. It’s not a baseless fear – 57% of doctors in the position have said they’ve had an accident or near-missContinue reading... The Guardian

Anixety, depression and stress affects one third of Brits

Anixety, depression and stress affects one third of Brits One third of British workers are suffering from anxiety, depression or stress, a new survey has found.

A survey of 2,000 people in junior and senior jobs found 34 per cent of employees in the UK are facing health and well-being problems.

And two in five workers said they have taken time off because of mental health issues, according the research.

The survey did not explore why mental health problems are on the rise, but a leading mental health expert said the results reflect a loss of home and life balance.

Ian Hamilton, a researcher from the University of Leeds, told MailOnline that pressure to answer emails and calls could be blurring the line between home and work, sparking a new mental health crisis for British workers. The Daily Mail

See also:

Breastfeeding support unavailable to millions of women

Breastfeeding support unavailable to millions of women Researchers from Cardiff University have revealed that breastfeeding support is missing in many parts of the country, with help from peer supporters only being available in 56 per cent of the UK. The Daily Mail

Number of children being referred to gender identity clinics has quadrupled in five years

Number of children being referred to gender identity clinics has quadrupled in five years The number of children being referred to gender identity clinics has quadrupled in the past five years, figures show.

Experts have warned that the huge spike is, in part, due to the promotion of transgender issues in schools which they say has encouraged to question their identity, and “sowed confusion” in their minds.

Figures from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), which is the NHS's only facility for transgender children based at the Tavistock Centre in north London, show that 84 children aged between 3 and 7 were referred last year, compared to 20 in 2012/13.

The number of children referred to the service under the age of ten had also seen a four-fold increase, from 36 in 2012/13 to 165 last year. The Daily Telegraph