RECENT NEWS

As countries marked World Tuberculosis Day, WHO called for “global solidarity and action” to support a new 20-year strategy aimed at ending the global tuberculosis epidemic.

Drive Medical Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Drive Medical and a global manufacturer and distributor of durable medical equipment, has announced the acquisition of Park House Healthcare, a leading supplier of specialist pressure area care equipment, hospital and community beds, and service and maintenance provisions.

According to research carried out by University Medical Center Utrecht, patients with pneumonia can initially be treated with most common antibiotics, as they are just as effective as the more expensive alternatives. The fact that bacteria are less likely to become resistant to these beta-lactam antibiotics is an additional benefit.

The Health Foundation has published a report which underlines the challenges facing NHS finances. The report Hospital finances and productivity: in a critical condition?concludes that financial performance of NHS providers in England has deteriorated sharply since 2013, from a net surplus of £582m in 2012/13 to a net deficit of £108m in 2013/14. At the end of the third quarter of 2014/15 the deficit had grown to £789m. Other key findings included:

Details have been announced of the ‘Completing the Picture’ 2015 symposium, an educational event for biomedical engineering and clinical procurement specialists.

A leading dementia expert has called for greater attention to be paid to vascular health. At the Alzheimer’s Research UK Conference 2015, Professor James Nicoll, professor of neuropathology at the University of Southampton, highlighted evidence linking vascular disease and dementia, outlining a number of common risk factors including high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, inflammation and obesity.

A report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) claims that staff health and wellbeing in the NHS is ‘too often seen as an optional extra’ and highlights the fact that less than two thirds of Trusts (65%) have a staff health and wellbeing plan in place.

GAMA Healthcare has announced a new clinical research and education department. Heading up this new division will be a new clinical director, Martin Kiernan, who joined GAMA on 1 April 2015. Martin has worked in the field of infection prevention and control (IPC) for 25 years, most recently as former nurse consultant in infection prevention at Southport and Ormskirk NHS Trust in the North-West of England.

The coalition government will leave office with health services under significant strain and a real risk that patient care will suffer as the NHS heads towards a deficit, according to a major assessment of the NHS under the coalition published by The King’s Fund.

The Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015, which aims to improve safety and quality of care, has received Royal Assent. Among the measures introduced by the act is a duty on health and adult social care providers to share information about a person’s care with other health and care professionals. This means that doctors and other professionals providing a person’s care and treatment will have the information they need so they can treat patients more effectively.

A UK company working with hospitals to prevent thousands of deaths by predicting and preventing acute kidney injury (AKI) has won a national Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition to scale its technology across the health service.

Eastwood Park is now taking bookings for the second year of its hospital engineering apprentice summer school, at its specialist training facility in Gloucestershire.

A recent study by Grassi et al, published in the Journal of Clinical & Tranlational Endocrinology, has concluded that blood glucose control in diabetes patients who inject insulin can be improved through better injection technique, which includes switching patients to 4 mm pen needles.

Very low mammographic breast density worsens the prognosis of breast cancer, according to a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland. Disease free survivals as well as overall life expectancies were significantly shorter in women with very low density breasts in comparison to women with high density breast tissue.

A project which identifies people with progressive chronic kidney disease (CKD) earlier and improves access to treatment and patient outcomes has received £400,000 funding for expansion nationwide. The project is being led by the medical research charity Kidney Research UK, with funding from the Health Foundation.

A new report from The King’s Fund has called for fundamental changes in how health services are commissioned, paid for and regulated to deliver the vision set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View. The Forward View has been endorsed by all three main political parties and will set the agenda for NHS reform in the next parliament.

Most women (85%) would back the idea of more frequent breast screening if they are at higher genetic risk of developing breast cancer, according to research published by The Breast. Fewer women (60%) would be happy to be screened less often if they were found to be at lower risk.

The ‘time of year’ lottery faced by patients needing a knee or hip replacement on the NHS became worse in 2014, according to data from the Medical Technology Group. It suggests that timing is more critical than ever in determining how soon patients receive treatment.

The Wellcome Trust is working with the Government Office of Life Sciences to take forward a review that aims to transform the speed and efficiency that new medicines and technologies are adopted by the NHS and benefit patients.

Aquilant Endoscopy, the exclusive provider of Fujifilm endoscopy equipment in the UK, has been awarded City & Guilds accreditation for its endoscope care and maintenance course.