RECENT NEWS

ata from the first annual report of Public Health England’s (PHE’s) English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance (ESPAUR), found that, between 2010 and 2013, there was a 6% increase in the combined antibiotic prescribing of GPs and hospitals. There was also an increase of 12% in the number of bloodstream infections caused by E.coliwith varying levels of resistance to key antibiotics for this infection of between 10 to 19%.

A poll of Royal College of Nursing (RCN) student members found that the recent decision to deny NHS staff a small cost of living increase has left the country’s future nurses feeling anxious about their finances, and underappreciated by the Government.

The Functional Gut Clinic has become the first gastrointestinal organisation to be granted UKAS accreditation under the Improving Quality in Physiological Services (IQIPS) programme.

New figures show that diabetes patients aged under 40 receive fewer vital checks and less often hit treatment targets than older age groups.

The NHS in England is to invest a further £120 million over the next two years on improving mental health services. The investment comes as part of a five-year ambition that will see new waiting times, standards and early intervention services introduced, helping to put mental health on an equal footing with physical health services.

Acute heart failure is the leading cause of hospital admission in people over 65, and accounts for more than 67,000 people being admitted to hospital in England each year. All people admitted to hospital with suspected acute heart failure should receive treatment from a dedicated specialist heart failure team.

Treatment with xenon gas after a head injury reduces the extent of brain damage, according to a study in mice.

A candidate Ebola vaccine is being given to healthy volunteers in the UK, The Gambia and Mali, as part of a series of safety trials of potential vaccines aimed at preventing the disease that has killed more than 1,400 people in the current outbreak in West Africa.

The Royal College of Physicians is calling on Government and politicians to ‘stop reorganising the NHS from the top down’, to ‘increase funding to avoid a crisis in care’, and to ‘commit to an NHS free at the point of delivery’.

New guidelines on cardiovascular assessment and management in non-cardiac surgery were presented at the recent ESC Congress 2014 in Barcelona.

BMI The Blackheath Hospital has officially opened a new operating theatre department as part of phase one of a £3.8 million investment project that will modernise the hospital’s theatre and upgrade its critical care provision.

A new report by the Health Foundation is calling for more support for providers of NHS care in England to ensure quality of care for patients does not deteriorate.

A new toolkit from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and The UK Sepsis Trust has been developed to help doctors recognise and treat sepsis on acute care wards.

Manchester scientists are establishing how to safely increase the radiotherapy dose given to lung cancer patients – potentially offering improved local control and survival.

Two independent reports show death rates following a joint replacement or hip fracture have fallen over the last ten years.

Each year, around 62,000 people in England have a serious allergic reaction to a drug which puts them in hospital. A recent analysis from the National Reporting and Learning System revealed that in many of the instances where people suffered harm, they had been given a drug to which they were already known to be allergic.

A stroke therapy using stem cells extracted from patients’ bone marrow has shown promising results in the first trial of its kind in humans.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has announced that independent hospitals will begin to be inspected under its new inspection approach. The chief inspector of hospitals, Sir Mike Richards has identified eight independent hospitals to be inspected. These vary in size and in the number and type of services they provide, including both NHS-funded care and solely private care.

The Department of Health has announced plans to recruit more physician’s assistants (PAs) to provide increased support in the diagnosis and management of patients in hospitals. There are already over 200 PAs working in the UK in a range of healthcare settings.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has launched an online learning module for healthcare professionals on reducing the side effects of oral anticoagulants. Anticoagulants are vital medicines for treating and preventing blood clots. However, if the patient is not managed correctly their side effects can lead to a small number of people needing hospital treatment. With the right precautions, many of these side effects can be prevented.