RECENT NEWS

As part of an Independent Review on Equity in Medical Devices, led by Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead, the Government is seeking to tackle disparities in healthcare by gathering new evidence on how medical devices and technologies may be biased against patients of different ethnicities, genders and other socio-demographic groups.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the number of people with a higher level of antibodies (800 ng/ml) is falling swiftly. The findings have prompted calls for the Government to ensure its autumn top-up vaccine programme for over-50s starts as soon as possible, and consider extending the jab to all UK adults.

Connect Health, a national provider of NHS community services including MSK (musculoskeletal), chronic pain, rheumatology and mental health, has been selected to deliver the Oxfordshire Community MSK service, in partnership with Principal Medical Limited, an Oxfordshire-based GP-led not for profit, primary and community care provider and GP Federation. The new service commences in October 2022.

Staff have been praised for virtually eliminating the longest waits for scans, checks, surgical procedures and other routine treatment, reaching the first milestone in the NHS's ambitious catch-up plan.

Cherwell Laboratories has launched a new online video training library sharing educational content for individuals in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Cherwell’s Delivering Knowledge platform offers best practice information delivered by experts in monitoring of controlled environments, aseptic processes and sterility.

Roche Diagnostics UK & Ireland has welcomed NICE’s new guidance recommending routine use of placental growth factor (PlGF) based testing in the NHS in England and Wales to help diagnose suspected pre-eclampsia.

Medicines and medical devices valued at over £850,000, totalling more than 285,000 items, have been seized by officers from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as part of a global operation to tackle the illegal sale of medical products, with UK seizures estimated to be worth around 9% of the global total.

Nuffield Health has announced that all of its hospitals have now been rated as ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by UK regulators.

The antiviral drugs molnupiravir and nirmatrelvir–ritonavir (Paxlovid), when used to treat non-severe COVID-19, most likely reduce the risk of subsequent progression to hospitalisation and death, according to new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

A single gene therapy injection could dramatically reduce the bleeding risk faced by people with haemophilia B, a study at UCL has found.

A new concept called the ‘mediverse’ is being developed with the help of tech specialists at the University of South Wales (USW).

COVID-19 may have changed UK doctors’ end of life decision-making, making them more willing to not resuscitate very sick and/or frail patients and raising the threshold for referral to intensive care, suggest the results of a snapshot survey published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

July 2022 marks the 75th anniversary of one of the UK’s longest established scientific and medical equipment manufacturers, LTE Scientific.

The GMC’s proposal to replace the existing statement in Good Medical Practice which sets out the threshold for regulatory action, risks significantly increasing the number of cases which fall well short of the threshold, creating further distrust of the regulator, according to the Medical Protection Society (MPS).

The Government says that women and girls across England will benefit from improved healthcare following the publication of the first ever government-led Women’s Health Strategy for England.

Stroke patients across the North East are set to benefit from the expansion of a successful telemedicine project in the hope of speeding up care and improving patient outcomes.

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) has welcomed commitment from DHSC to progress legislation that will finally strip the GMC of its power to appeal fitness to practise decisions in 2023.

A newly published survey of hospital and social care workers shines new light on the underlying issues causing delayed discharge, with thousands of patients left stuck in hospital for an estimated average of 12 days despite record high waiting times for patients requiring care.

Following the Government’s announcement that pay increases for NHS workers must come from existing budgets, NHS leaders are being forced to cut investment in the expansion of diagnostic capacity and new technologies, including improved IT infrastructure, two essential areas required to tackle the NHS backlog.

Skin cancer death rates in UK men have more than tripled since the early 1970s, according to new analysis released today by Cancer Research UK.