RECENT NEWS

The latest figures for the Health Survey for England have been released by NHS Digital, monitoring trends in the nation’s health and featuring new data on gambling, asthma and longstanding conditions.

A National Patient Safety Alert has been issued around the risk of ingesting superabsorbent polymer gel granules. National Patient Safety Alerts are shared rapidly with healthcare providers via the Central Alerting Systemopens in a new window (CAS).

NHS England and Health Education England have today launched ActNow, an e-learning tool developed for health service and care staff to help them reduce hospital delays for patients. Nearly 350,000 patients currently spend over three weeks in acute hospitals each year.

England’s most senior nurse has called on the NHS’ million-plus frontline workers to protect themselves and their patients this year by taking up their free flu jab. Ruth May, the Chief Nursing Officer for England, is spearheading this year’s drive to ensure that as many NHS staff as possible get vaccinated against seasonal flu – meaning they are both less likely to need time off over the busy winter period, and less likely to pass on the virus to vulnerable patients.

BAM Construction has been appointed by hub west Scotland to build Scotland’s biggest health centre to date in Parkhead, Glasgow.

Vanguard Healthcare Solutions says that over the course of the two-day show, over 350 visitors looked around its new mobile Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) unit at October’s Healthcare Estates 2019 event in Manchester.

A new £15 million health centre which has seen a GP and primary health care services successfully accommodated in both a refurbished former school and a modern addition opened in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria on 11 November.

Information on the estimated costs at list price of medicines used in hospitals and prescribed in primary care in 2018-19 has been published by NHS Digital.

Health Enterprise East (HEE) has recently launched a partnership with St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to help accelerate the development of innovative technologies.

A project at Ulster University aiming to develop a better way of powering mechanical heart pumps used to treat heart failure has received a grant of almost £250,000 from national charity Heart Research UK.

The NHS in England is to roll out dedicated support for members of staff who raise the alarm on unsafe practice.

Medopad has announced a strategic collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, to validate, scale and potentially commercialise the ReVeRe platform as a digital biomarker for Alzheimer's disease (AD). This deal was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

Health and life science sector specialist, Dr Mandy Dixon, has joined the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) as head of corporate engagement.

Eight new diagnostic ultrasound systems have been installed across The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to update obstetrics and gynaecology imaging services for the patient communities of the north-east sector of Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester has appointed a suite of suppliers to commence development of a next generation digital platform that will support the transformation of public services and empower people to take control over their own health, wellbeing and support.

Royal Philips has announced it is partnering with the Society of Radiographers to sponsor this year’s Society of Radiographer’s Radiology Awards 2019. The awards will reward the hard work and dedication of radiographers in the UK.

Oxford Drug Design Limited (ODD), a biotechnology company with a proprietary computational and machine learning platform, has raised a combined £2.2 million in funding from the Angel CoFund (ACF), o2h Ventures and other new investors, and grant funding from the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)'s UK-China research competition. This brings the firm’s total amount of grant and equity funding raised in 2019 to over £9 m.

England’s top doctor has welcomed new polling showing that patients and the public support NHS proposals focusing on fast treatment for those who need it in A&E.

The use of analgesics or anaesthetics before or during delivery has dropped from 67% of all deliveries in 2008-09 to 61% in 2018-19, new figures released by NHS Digital show.

The UK’s leading membership organisation for operating theatre practitioners has received significant funding for a new digital transformation project focused on patient safety.