Reasons to be Cheerful
Never thought I'd live to see the day that the DUP would plan to go into government with Sinn Fein. Somehow the world seems a better place for it.
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DUP,
Northern Ireland,
Peace,
Politics,
Sinn Fein
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
It ain't rocket science
Post from an old pocket pc. Seems to go. Turn it in the device it should have been, pre-blackberry vision. Preparation for Thai trip.
More Postcards
Postcard Front
Postcard Back
Ken, the friendly designer we've been working with to source postcards to advertise the Cheshire and Merseyside e-journals and e-books gets in touch. The proof of the postcard is in as you can see above. The concept is you can access e-resources wherever you happen to be with an internet connection....
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Marketing,
My Library,
Postcards
Johnny Rythm Says 'Goodnight to youse all'
Listen to this edition of Another 15 Minutes...Health News from Fade
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National News
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MPs criticise 'boom and bust' NHS planning - The Guardian 23rd March 2007
A "disastrous failure" in the government's strategic planning allowed NHS trusts to indulge in reckless recruitment of extra staff causing unsustainable pressure on the pay bill, a Labour-controlled Commons select committee said yesterday. Between 1999 and 2004 the number of nurses employed by the NHS in England increased by more than 67,000 - about 340% more than the Department of Health intended. Over the same period the number of GPs grew by 4,098 - or 105% more than the official plan.
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NHS 'recklessly' hired staff to meet its targets - The Independent 23rd March 2007
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Reckless NHS recruitment blamed for cash shortage - The Times 23rd March 2007
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Reckless boom in jobs caused crisis in NHS, say MPs - The Telegraph 23rd March 2007
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The great NHS staff disaster: From boom to bust - Daily Mail 22nd March 2007
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NHS staff planning 'disastrous' - BBC Health News 22nd March 2007
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Some of Britain's leading drug experts demand today that the government's classification regime be scrapped and replaced by one that more honestly reflects the harm caused by alcohol and tobacco. They say the current ABC system is "arbitrary" and not based on evidence. The scientists, including members of the government's top advisory committee on drug classification, have produced a rigorous assessment of the social and individual harm caused by 20 substances, and believe this should form the basis of any future ranking.
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Tobacco and alcohol 'are more dangerous than LSD' - The Independent 23rd March 2007
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Alcohol and tobacco cause more harm than Ecstasy, study claims - The Times 23rd March 2007
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Alcohol 'should be considered a Class A drug' say experts - Daily Mail 22nd March 2007
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Scientists want new drug rankings - BBC Health News 23rd March 2007
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The publishers of The Lancet are under fire from leading doctors who are complaining about their escalating involvement in arms fairs. Across three pages of today's edition the medical journal publishes letters from top doctors, led by the Royal College of Physicians, who say that Reed Elsevier's commercial interest in the arms trade undermines the journal's efforts to improve health worldwide.
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Bethany Walton leads me inside the art school she attends in Lincoln, powering enthusiastically up the stairs ahead of me. We are bound for the fine art room, whose paint-daubed denizens have headed off for lunch, leaving their sketches pinned artlessly around the room. With a flash of green nail varnish, Bethany shows me her latest work. She is on a one-year art foundation course, specialising in photography, and her recent images include a monochrome still-life of an egg box, open and filled with hollow shells. "I need to do that one again," she says thoughtfully, motioning to a shadowy area. "It's not quite dark enough."
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Mancunians spend more on alcohol at the supermarket than shoppers from any other region, according to a survey which also reveals soaring champagne sales alongside a slump in alcopops. After analysis of 8,000 weekly supermarket shops, Manchester was named Britain's booziest city, with its adults spending 20% of their bill on alcohol - a third more than anywhere else. Households spend an average of £600 on alcohol for home consumption each year.
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Women should be warned that babies born at home have a higher risk of dying, the health watchdog warns today. But prospective mothers should still be offered the choice of a home birth, as well as going to a midwife unit or hospital. Final draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) suggests that women should be reassured that the risk of their baby dying during childbirth is low wherever they are born - 5.1 deaths per 1,000 births - although risks are higher if serious complications occur at home, rather than in hospital.
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"Don't put women off home births" - The Telegraph 23rd March 2007
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Autistic children find it hard to interpret facial expressions. But the adventures of a cartoon cast of toy vehicles could help to change that. Charlotte Moore reports
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Older people are needlessly suffering because they fail to receive pain relief for chronic conditions such as arthritis, according to a survey published today. The poll by consumer group, the Patients Association, found care home residents were offered poor standards of pain relief.
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Nursing home residents 'in pain' - BBC Health News 22nd March 2007
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More than half of patients in mental hospitals are treated in mixed-sex wards, in breach of a government pledge to abolish them. The Healthcare Commission, the NHS watchdog, said yesterday that a census last March found 55 per cent of in-patients in mental hospitals and 57 per cent of intellectually disabled people were in mixed accommodation, putting their safety at risk.
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David Cameron tore into the Budget for "wasting money on an industrial scale" as he mocked the Chancellor as the pilot of a sinking New Labour ship. The Conservative leader derided Gordon Brown's 10 years at No 11, telling MPs: "His great experiment in tax and spending has failed. He is an out-of-date politician wedded to state control. The question everyone is asking is, 'Where has the money gone?'"
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Spending on the NHS in England will rise by £8bn in 2007-08 in what is certain to be the last of the years of plenty. Next year's rise, set before the Budget and confirmed by Gordon Brown yesterday, will be the biggest cash increase ever. It will mark the end of five years of record growth in NHS spending which has averaged 7 per cent a year in real terms since 2002-03.
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We are all tax cutters now. Or so the politicians would like us to believe. The Budget may be remembered less for the largely offsetting changes in income tax than for the broader shift in the political debate. All parties, Labour as well as the Tories and Liberal Democrats, want to be seen as favouring tax cuts. Gordon Brown now accepts the public’s resistance to higher taxes. This mirrors the Conservative acceptance of the thrust of Mr Brown’s spending plans. By contrast, since 1997 Labour has pushed up the tax burden, either explicitly via the rise in national insurance contributions to pay for the expansion in the NHS, or through stealth taxes.
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Thousands of patients with heart disease may be being denied their best chance of long-term survival. Rather than having a heart bypass to replace diseased arteries, more patients now undergo stenting, a procedure that props open the arteries with fine mesh grids. Stenting is popular because it is less invasive than bypass surgery. But three papers in the British Medical Journal question whether stenting is as effective or as cost-effective as surgery.
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A doctor who authorised dozens of cremations without the proper paperwork could be struck off after the GMC ruled that his behaviour was dishonest, misleading and unprofessional. Stuart Edwards pocketed thousands of pounds by signing off cremation certificates without making the correct checks.
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Police have been asked to begin an investigation into accusations that Britain’s most successful fertility doctor committed a criminal offence by treating patients without a licence. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) referred the case of Mohammed Taranissi to Scotland Yard’s Specialist Crime Directorate after documents seized during a raid on his two London clinics in January suggested that he performed 104 procedures in the first half of last year at an unlicensed centre.
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A pioneering NHS diagnostic service has been suspended over doubts about the quality of its work. Family doctors from eight primary care trusts (PCTs) in the North West of England have been told to send no more patients to the centre run by Atos Origin, a French company, while the results of 1,600 ultrasound and MRI scans are reexamined.
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The Chancellor promised that the National Health Service in England would have an additional £8 billion to spend in 2007-08 and the UK as a whole an additional £10 billion. This was, he said, the biggest cash increase ever, a rise in cash terms of 10 per cent and in real terms of 7 per cent. However, the figures were not new, as they reflect promises made in an earlier spending review that will end next year.
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Children who contract meningitis as babies may suffer long-term damage that limits their educational attainments, the first study of its kind has shown. Research has revealed that about 25 per cent fail to pass any GCSEs above grade C, compared with just 6 per cent of children who have not suffered the infection. Almost 8 per cent of those who caught bacterial meningitis before their first birthday go to schools for children with special educational needs — about four times the national average.
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I have read that children who grow a lot before the age of 2 and after the age of 15 have a better chance of avoiding heart disease in adulthood. My 18-month-old son is very large for his age. Does this mean that he has a better chance of avoiding high cholesterol later in life?
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A father of three died after he contracted an infection from a hospital shower on the day that he was due to be discharged after successful treatment for leukaemia. The hospital had failed for many years to act on guidance about the safety of its ageing hot water system, a court was told. The failure led to Daryl Eyles, 37, contracting legionnaires’ disease from a dirty shower head. He had just been told that he was in complete remission after enduring months of chemotherapy.
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British universities are dishonest and undermining science by offering bachelor of science (BSc) degrees in homoeopathy, a leading medical researcher said yesterday. David Colquhoun, Professor of Pharmacology at University College London (UCL), said that the courses were fundamentally dishonest because homoeopathic medicine was not founded on science, yet was being presented as such by reputable universities.
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Principles of homoeopathy - The Telegraph 22nd March 2007
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Alternative medicine degrees 'anti-scientific' - The Telegraph March 22nd 2007
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Alternative therapy degree attack - BBC Health News 22nd March 2007
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After 30 years of medical service to our neighbourhood and leadership of the local health centre, my doctor is retiring at the end of this month. On account of his age? I suppose so, though lately I have diagnosed just a hint of weariness in him with the ways of our National Health Service. All the years I have known him, my doctor has been a strong supporter of the NHS.
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Pressure on the Government to abandon the flawed new system for recruiting new consultants grew yesterday as more senior doctors voiced their concerns. Calls for the computerised Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) to be revised are hardening into demands for it to be dropped altogether.
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Nearly 500 miss deadline for drawing up anti-discrimination plans, says Roland Gribben Almost 500 public sector bodies are being asked to explain why they have failed to meet a deadline for producing details of plans to counter discrimination against disabled employees, and have been warned they could face legal action. The Disability Rights Commission has given the institutions – which include executive agencies and regulators – until next week to provide answers before deciding whether further action is needed. Failure to furnish the details could result in the commission launching proceedings for contempt, and senior officials in the organisations facing a prison stretch if found guilty.
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Elderly people in nursing homes are being left in "shocking pain" says a survey today, with two in five saying they are in constant agony, and others admitting to having suicidal thoughts. The research, conducted confidentially among residents whose average age was 82, reveals the extent to which the frail and vulnerable are made to suffer unnecessarily.
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For most people talking on a mobile phone, cooking dinner in the microwave or driving in a car is simply part of modern living in 21st century Britain. But completing any such tasks is impossible for Debbie Bird - because she is allergic to modern technology.
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No justice for the baby killed by midwives' errors - Daily Mail 21st March 2007
A mother whose newborn baby died after mistakes by two midwives is horrified that both have been allowed to return to work. Gail Brandon's daughter Faye died at just 17 hours old after major errors by midwives Ailean Anderson and Jenny Gray.
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Campaigners have welcomed the move to cut VAT on nicotine patches and gum announced in the Budget. Chancellor Gordon Brown said he would reduce the rate from 17.5% to 5% from July 1 - to coincide with the introduction of the smoking ban.
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There should be a clampdown on private medical screening, government advisors are set to recommend. The National Screening Committee is considering how best to regulate the industry, Pulse magazine reports.
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The NHS should record the ethnicity of all patients to ensure people with mental illness are not discriminated against, a watchdog has said. The Healthcare Commission said some black and ethnic minority groups were three times more likely than average to be admitted to mental health hospitals.
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Thousands of patients with heart disease may be missing out on best care, an expert has warned. Stents - small tubes - are used at least four times more often than bypass surgery to treat clogged arteries.
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They entered nursing with high hopes of working in a valued profession which made a difference to people's lives. But the staff shortages and cash cutbacks have taken their toll on nurses such as Sarah Hector and Rob Carey who have joined the exodus of staff heading for Australia.
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Cases of tuberculosis are increasing, official figures show. Provisional data from the Health Protection Agency show a rise of 2% from 2005 to 2006 to 8,171 cases across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
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Cutting junior doctors' working hours will not reduce fatigue and the risk of errors on its own, a study says. Researchers found changes in rotas and working nights were at the heart of the problem in a poll of 1,400 medics.
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International News
Concerns about the anti-flu drug Tamiflu deepened yesterday after doctors in Japan were warned against prescribing it to teenagers because of several cases in which young patients committed suicide or harmed themselves. Japan's health ministry decided to act after a boy and a girl, both 14, fell to their deaths in suspected suicides last month and two 12-year-old boys suffered minor injuries after falling from buildings.
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Patients with a slipped disc could be cured by transplant - The Independent 23rd March 2007
Surgeons have pioneered a radical cure for the slipped disc, a common cause of back pain, by using transplants from donors. In the first operation of its kind, orthopaedic specialists in Hong Kong replaced slipped discs in five patients, who had suffered long-standing pain, with discs removed from three women aged between 20 and 30 who had died in accidents.
The greed of Chinese doctors was revealed after investigative reporters gave tea instead of urine samples and were prescribed costly treatments for nonexistent ailments. The scandal broke only days after Gao Qiang, the Health Minister, gave warning that the failures and high cost of healthcare were causing widespread discontent and posing a serious threat to stability.
The campaign to add folic acid to bread in an attempt to stop hundreds of babies from being born with disabilities has been bolstered by research suggesting that the move was probably safe. A study carried out in Dublin found no evidence of health risks in average consumption of folic acid from fortified flour. One group of volunteers consumed bread containing the equivalent of 100ug (micrograms) per day of folic acid, a second group 200ug and a third 400ug.
Victims of chronic back pain were offered fresh hope with news of successful 'spinal transplant' surgery. Spinal discs from accident victims were transplanted into patients with disc degeneration in the cervical spine, the area nearest the neck.
Eating junk food raises women's risk of developing a range of cancers, researchers said yesterday. Two studies demonstrated the dangers of a diet that includes high levels of fat and processed foods.
Dr Haidr al-Maliki was as an army psychiatrist during Saddam Hussein's regime. He now works as a child psychiatrist at Ab Ibn Rushed Hospital in Baghdad. He lives with his wife and four children.
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Blood sugar 'boosts cancer risk' - BBC Health News 22nd March 2007
Women with high blood sugar levels are at an increased risk of developing cancer, a major European study finds. Diabetes causes high blood sugar, as does eating too much sugary food. The Swedish research, which looked at 64,500 people, linked raised blood sugar with pancreas, skin, womb, and urinary tract cancers in women.
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Cheshire and Merseyside News
A NURSE at Southport Hospital was punched in the face by a patient. Hospital spokesman Matthew King said: “I can confirm that there was an incident and that we treat such matters very seriously and are currently investigating the reasons behind it.”
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FIVE-YEAR-OLD liver transplant patient Jordan Roberts is making good progress just weeks after life-saving surgery. Mum Wendy Harvey is delighted with her son's progress, despite a setback when the youngster suffered a chest infection.
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Vow to repay dedication of hospital staff- Runcorn Weekly News 22nd March 2007
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MORE than 100 Merseyside parents have been sent “back to school” to learn how to control their unruly children. They were subject to parenting orders, introduced five years ago as part of the war on yob culture, because their offspring are persistent truants or are turning into hooligans.
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EXTRA services are not in place to cope with the closure of a Liverpool elderly care ward, a councillor claimed. Liverpool’s Liberal leader, Cllr Steve Radford, a member of the health and social care committee, said: “We don’t have the support services to look after vulnerable people.”
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A HOSPITAL car park that made more than £1m last year from charges is now putting its prices up by more than 300% Prices for a day’s parking at Fazakerley and Walton hospitals will rise from £1.50 to £5 from April 1.
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Elderly at risk if ward closes down - Liverpool Daily Post 21st March 2007
EXTRA services are not in place to cope with the planned closure of a 24-bed elderly care ward in Liverpool in less than a fortnight, it was claimed last night. Health officials believe it is more “efficient” to treat as many vulnerable patients as possible in the community.New Section
Cumbria and Lancashire News
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SHE’S been called names like ‘psycho’ and ‘nutter’ for harming her own body but now a Carlisle woman is writing a book to raise awareness of her condition. Annette Baillie, 39, has been going through the psychiatric system since she was 19.
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A DRUNK 14-year-old girl abused hospital staff who were trying to help her after she was found in Workington at 2am. Whitehaven Youth Court heard that police found the girl, from Workington, on Salterbeck Road on January 21. She smelled of alcohol and was taken by police to Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital.
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THE gap between health and social care is set to narrow thanks to a new partnership between Cumbria County Council and Cumbria Primary Care Trust. The Health and Wellbeing Board was recently set up to combine the expertise of both organisations.
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HEALTH staff were congratulated for their hard work at an Oscar style award ceremony. The first East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust's Excellence Awards celebrated the outstanding efforts of individuals and groups across the area including Royal Blackburn Hospital and Burnley General Hospital.
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A DOCTOR has admitted telling a series of fibs on his CV to get a better job but denied putting patients at risk. Dr Kelvin Chatoor, 40, claimed he had passed a Bachelor of Science with first class honours and that he was the top in a class of 2,700 pupils.
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Doctor cleared of 16 charges - Lancashire Telegraph 21st March 2007
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Baby died of rare disease - Lancashire Telegraph 22nd March 2007
A BABY has died after being struck down by a disease so rare that it affects two children in every million. Six-week-old Mohammed Iqbal died days before he was due to have a life-saving bone marrow transplant.
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A PATIENT who claimed she was groped by a doctor may have been suffering from the side-effects of powerful pain-killing drugs, a hearing was told. Pharmacology expert Prof Nicholas Birch said the patient, who cannot be named for legal reasons, may have been suffering from hallucinations around the time she believed she was indecently examined by Dr Shakir Laher, in January and February 2004.
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The Duke of Gloucester visited East Lancashire today to officially open the Royal Blackburn Hospital and the £30m Phase Five Development at Burnley General Hospital. Before unveiling a plaque to officially open the Royal Blackburn, which began taking patients last July, he said: "I would like to congratulate everybody who has played a role. It must be a relief to see it all working.
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A FORMER hospital vice-chairman has slammed the removal of a plaque bearing the name of her outspoken boss as "offensive and disrespectful". Indira Batra said bosses must put back the plaque, which honoured former hospital chairman Ian Woolley.
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A DENTIST has denied claims that he sexually assaulted two members of staff at a Blackburn practice. Martin Kono Abe is accused of grabbing one woman's breasts - on one occasion while she was working on a computer.
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Greater Manchester News
A HEALTH scanning project to cut waiting lists at Greater Manchester hospitals has been halted after the private company running it was accused of a series of blunders. Two contracts have been suspended with Atos Origin which was paid to carry out hi-tech checks on NHS patients.
TWO new state-of the-art health centres are to be built in Bury as the transformation of the town centre races on. Costing £10 million each, one of the Primary Care Resource Centres will be sited on Moorgate as part of the redevelopment of The Rock, while the other will be at Townside Fields, directly opposite the town hall.
HEALTH services in Bolton have received a record amount of cash in Gordon Brown's Budget. An additional £33.2 million will be ploughed into health care in the town - taking the total cash for the next financial year to more than £400 million.
VOLUNTEERS are being sought to help care for disabled children and young people. Bolton Shared Care is appealing for people aged over 18 to help out parents as part of national Share The Care Week, which runs until Monday.
BACKING has been given in Bolton to a national campaign to increase the number of ethnic minority organ donors. A major drive to tackle the growing "donor gap" has been launched by UK Transplant, the NHS organisation responsible for matching and allocating donated organs.
PATIENTS face longer waits for potentially life-saving scans after the private company running the mobile service at Bolton Diabetes Centre has been accused of a series of errors. The NHS ultrasound and MRI scanning service provided by Atos has been suspended while an investigation is carried out into claims doctors were unable to tell which results belonged to which patients in seven cases.
A DOCTOR is calling on schools to devote more time to sports studies and less to academic subjects. Leading Bolton GP Dr Ian James says it would be a perfect way to battle rising levels of obesity among children.
Lovely life with our Down's baby - The Bolton News 22nd March 2007
HOW would you cope if your baby was born with Down's Syndrome? Bolton Wanderers Football Club assistant communications manager Paul Holliday and his wife Nannette found out when baby Isabella was born two years ago. With World Down's Syndrome Day taking place this week, he tells his story. THIS week will perpetually provide a happy coincidence for my family. Two years ago yesterday my second daughter, Isabella Grace, decided to forsake the purity of her mother's pregnancy to experience life on the outside - all 10 pounds and half-an-ounce of her.
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Listen to this edition of Another 15 Minutes...Health News from Fade
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Ketchup, Nah! Catch Up!
Thursday
Another N3 news disaster day (see below for details on another day). Sort out The Commissioner in its blog format, do the Zookoda e-mail newsletters and disseminate them. Agree a plan of media whoredom with Katherine for the thing. Gill calls with issues around the Training and Development Group of the C&M group. Chat and hatch a more knowledge management focus for the thing. Agree to go along in the afternoon. Think we get close to something very good in the meeting. The notion is that to support the proposed Buddy (librarian mentoring scheme) the T&D group needs to create an environment where we share knowledge and aren't afraid to say 'I haven't a Scooby'. Dump a load of actions on poor Steve not least of which is a quick knowledge mapping idea. Some notion of a knowledge shop on BMJ Learning and its implementation. Gill shares the notion of a job jar, a notional place where you stuff the things you need to do but are just that bit too hard. I have plans for that for us at Fade. Wednesday Wake to the discovery that South Oxfordshire is involved in a power cut. The radio keeps bleating on about it (this is why I hate local radio and suspect that finally giving into the thing means I have turned into my Dad). Still the folks have a gas hob so by employing a saucepan with a personality crises (it thinks it is a kettle) we get a cup of char. They are it must be said amazed I'm off the coffee and beer for lent. Eat porridge with the old drear after the old fella has headed to Swindon. Power comes on, nick the old fellas PC to do the Istockphoto stuff and send a frantic mail to Mo and Suzanne. Then wander down the station with her as she walks to work. Take the piss out of her for turning into a senile delinquent because she's bought herself a leather jacket. Can't see her getting a big fuck off bike though! The train to Paddington is delayed (what can you expect it has to go through Swindon) and I stress that I'm gonna be late. I hate being late. Still get to Paddington somehow ahead of time. Grab a pen and a little red book and head off into the bowels of the tube. Euston Square and out into UCL land. Realise I've only got a vague clue as to where Tavistock Square is. Nip into Waterstones, check out a map and off I fly. The BMA is more imposing than I imagined. Sign in, see Angie from NLH, find the fuhrerbunker we're meeting in and arrive just as folk go round the room saying who they are. Meeting goes well apart from a powercut (it's me the leccy board are out to get me - either that or the BMA have run out of 50p pieces and that ain't likely - despite the fact that I don't think they are as greedy as Patsy Hewitt would have you believe). So most of the meeting is in a halflight of gloom. Very good to see Ingrid. Recommend BMA sandwiches though, couldn't see what was in them but they tasted very good! The fuhrerbunker inspires me to go visit the Cabinet War Rooms. I've been before but well worth a visit. Secure a mode of transport and a postcard. Write the postcard as I eat at a small Frankie and Bennies just off Trafalgar Square. Top stuff. Scribble a marketing mind map and travel back to Runcorn where I jump a taxi back to Halewood. Sleep beckons! Nice to catch up with the family here though. Tuesday Design meeting at Printing.com is planned. Mo calls to confirm the time and place. Suzanne arrives and we eventually find parking in the NCP opposite Hammy House. Hammy is currently cut back to the bare bones by the builders who are turning it into luxury appartments (pity the poor sod who finds their flat has a bedroom in what was the old gym, it had a unique smell - sort of Turkish wrestler's jock strap!) Mo is waiting for us at the venue. We sit down chat with the designer, the delightful Ken, give him the brief ( a lesson learnt from Dan Thurgood that has stood us in good stead over time and shocks the poor wee fella we're dealing with today because he don't often get one and claims not to have seen that sort of thing since uni!). Mo and Suzanne rescue some of the rough edges of the text I prepared at 8.00 this morning. Unfortunately Istockphoto don't want to play. Still don't when we get back to Reggie, so we agree to look later and share thoughts. Got to be impressed with the way Mo and Suzanne have operated on this it really has been a huge team effort on the part of the three of us. Cool collaborative working. Bit of a news disaster today. Suspect it's the vagaries of N3 that prevent an effective use of Blinklist which means we don't get the days news out. Still we've been fairly consistent in getting the thing out of late so not the disaster I think. Tracy gives me a lift to Garston, off to Didcot I head for the night to see the folks before a TDAG meeting in the Smoke on Wednesday. Given the current Trust financial situation grabbing a room in the Smoke might not be the wisest move so I opt for folks and trip from Didcot pre-return. The train trip is remarkably smooth, change at Wolverhampton, straight onto the Oxford train, arrive at Oxford and the Didcot train appears straight after it. Nice to see my olds at the other end too. Spend the evening chatting, watching a bit of cricket and some Speedway (Speedway? what the hell was that about?) The old drear arrives from her dyslexia meeting. Good to see them. Monday It's Monday and the day of the Cheshire and Merseyside Librarians meeting. The thing dominates the day for me and I do bugger all else but prepare for it. Nip over to the Meeting Place, fave local coffee house which will provide the venue this afternoon following the temporal misunderstanding between myself and Gill. They're sorted and things are set with flasks of coffee and tea ordered. Next thing is to burn the Marketing Toolkit which Mo, Suzanne and I have prepared, sort out the jewel cases so everything looks pretty. Stressed about the whole gig if I'm honest. Tracy pulls a rabbit out of the hat as she opens the cupboard to reveal that the laptops that will form our training suite have arrived. Just need to get IT to set up the wireless hub abd the machines themselves. Cool. Suspect Sally will be amazed the things are actually here! Need to use the wireless connection over there so drag a one of the laptops from the new mobile training suite over there. Not been set up by IT yet but we book the job, set it up enough myself to enable us to use it. Hooray the thing works fine. Ring Jean to tell her because she is doing a presentation on the GMOPAC on the thing. Drag the projector and wireless device over to the Meeting Place and having given Jean the grand tour of library and Reggie. Usual footie banter and I learn things about Otterspool Prom that I didn't want to know! Cataloguing banter too, yes it can happen! Thing is I know I'm right about cataloguing standards! Nice to see Scott from Coutts the very excellent booksellers we use (Tracy and I are hooked because we can see what's happening with an order at any point, we can download MARC records from them etc.) Meeting goes OK but the sound of steam interuppts every now and again. We leave later than anticipated but no pressure to get out from the folks at the coffee house despite the fact we're in an hour and a half past their closing time. I give Clare from JET a lift to Lime Street and head home. Nip to Ying Wah, get Monst to work and chill.Bad Blogger
Apologies about break in blogging, I've been a bad blogger which is a bit like being a bad dog....
However before I scribble about events for this week which will happen later tonight, a quick plug for the Commissioner the North West PCT Librarian's Current Awareness service for those involved in commissioning, which now has Supplement 2 added to its content. Well worth a look if mental health is your bag.
Tags:
Blogging,
CAS,
The Commissioner
Monday, March 19, 2007
Feeling Kinda Stretched
Listen to this edition of Another 15 Minutes...Health News from Fade
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National News
David Cameron promised a year of "grit" yesterday to build on the changes he has made to the Conservatives and cast his party as a government in waiting prepared to take tough choices. In his keynote speech to the Tories' spring forum in Nottingham, Mr Cameron tried to answer the fears of some party members and focus groups of swing voters that he is short on substance. "It's only when you do the tough things that people know you're serious," he said.
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Tories can save NHS, says Cameron - BBC Health News 18th March 2007
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Cameron champions NHS against Labour's 'pen-pushing' control freaks - The Sunday Telegraph 18th March 2007
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"I stuffed their mouths with gold," said Aneurin Bevan, recalling the only way in which he had been able to silence the shrill protests of the consultants who might otherwise have strangled the NHS at birth. After a weekend in which doctors took to the street in protest, ministers may take comfort from knowing that for the government to encounter resentment from medics is nothing new. But ministers may now face a deeper difficulty too, in the attitudes of taxpayers. Helped along by a Conservative party showing a new adeptness in presentation, the idea gaining ground is that the government has once again been dishing out the gold to the doctors, but that this time round it has not been having the effect it should.
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'It makes us so angry, such a waste' - The Telegraph 19th March 2007
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Patients miss out as NHS cash floods in - The Observer 18th March 2007
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£19bn for NHS but only £6bn for patient care - Daily Mail 18th March 2007
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NHS waste thousands on doctor interviews - The Sunday Telegraph 18th March 2007
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Junior doctors protest over jobs - BBC Health News 17th March 2007
The rights of workers with HIV are protected by the law - but many are still worried about disclosing their status to their employer, reports Matt Keating
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Leading retailers such as Boots and Tesco will be invited to bid to open GPs' surgeries in their stores in areas with too few doctors under an initiative to be announced by the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, today. Advertisements calling for "experienced healthcare providers" to apply for four contracts initially worth £30m over five years will be placed in the national and local press this month.
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Hewitt plans GP surgeries in supermarkets - The Telegraph 19th March 2007
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Patients to visit doctor at their local supermarket, Blair to announce - BBC Health News 19th March 2007
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Retail giants set to run GP clinics - The Sunday Times 18th March 2007
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Patients' lives could be being put at risk because one in 10 scan results are not reported to doctors, a report by the healthcare watchdog warns today. The Healthcare Commission found that the results of almost 10% of diagnostic scans - including x-rays, ultrasounds and MRI or CT scans - are never formally reported to the clinicians who order them.
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Waits for scan results 'too long' - BBC Health News 19th March 2007
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Scientists are planning to use a modified version of HIV in the battle to treat cystic fibrosis. If the experiments are successful, researchers hope to use the virus one day to cure babies of the condition while they are still developing in the womb. Cystic fibrosis, a debilitating disease that clogs the lungs with mucus, is the most common life-threatening inherited disease in the UK, affecting more than 7,500 people, and there is currently no cure. Researchers at University College London have been working on ways to treat it by replacing a faulty gene. Their work involves developing vectors - viruses that can successfully carry the correct version of a gene into the diseased body cells.
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Disabled Aids virus could provide cure for cystic fibrosis - The Times 19th March 2007
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They may not be the most traditional of crime prevention techniques, but Indian head massage, golf and cookery lessons are being used to help teenage boys in poor areas "de-stress" and stay away from the temptations of drink, drugs and offending. A national programme of activities for youngsters in the most deprived parts of England has seen boys queueing to try natural relaxation techniques, and reporting feeling calmer, more focused and less angry as a result. The aim is to offer youngsters alternative healthy activities besides traditional options such as football.
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British Airways has apologised to its most lucrative customers after twice using first class cabins in aircraft as temporary morgues in the last six months. The bodies of elderly passengers who died in cheaper and fully occupied sections of planes during the flights were transferred to empty seats in first class because of a lack of space to store them.
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Women will be told not to drink while pregnant or even when trying for a baby in controversial government guidelines which will mean warning labels being put on bottles of wine, spirits and beer. The plea for total abstinence follows growing fears over the rise among binge drinking among young women and concern that maternal drinking can cause possible brain damage in the womb. The new warnings are being fiercely resisted by the drinks industry on the grounds it contradicts the Department of Health's own official health advice to expectant mothers, which allows up to two units a day - the equivalent of a single glass of wine - once or twice a week.
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A survey of women who have recently given birth in hospitals has found that a fifth do not have a midwife or doctor by their side throughout the delivery. Health experts are alarmed because official guidelines state that women in labour should have continuous care. The growing shortage of midwives is leaving some maternity units struggling to cope, particularly as parts of Britain are seeing a rising birth rate.
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New mothers ‘left alone and scared’ by stretched NHS - The Sunday Times 18th March 2007
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My frail and forgetful 76-year-old mother would be safer and happier in a home. But I have no funds to pay for it and feel as if I'm abandoning her. What shall I do?
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In 1990, Sam Galbraith was given two years to live - three if he was lucky. Seventeen years later the neurosurgeon-turned-politician wakes up each morning feeling slightly euphoric. 'Sometimes I think I must be on heroin or something because I'm so well,' he says, shaking his head in disbelief. 'It's not as if I'm just grumbling along, struggling to make it through. I really do feel absolutely fantastic.' At the age of 61, he is the longest-surviving lung transplant patient in Britain, and possibly the world. He has confounded his fellow doctors and puts his survival down simply to the outstanding treatment he received in the NHS, and to his fair share of luck.
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Campaigners fighting a decision by Staffordshire County Council to axe 22 care homes and nine day centres won a respite earlier this month, after securing an emergency injunction stopping the authority from moving residents. It is estimated that 765 people in the area are affected by the council's proposals to close its homes by March 2008, including 463 in residential centres.
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The wife of Britain's most senior army officer has personally raised concerns about levels of care for families visiting wounded soldiers at Selly Oak hospital. News of the surprise intervention by Philippa Dannatt, whose husband is Chief of General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, came amid an escalating controversy over the alleged poor treatment of some injured soldiers at the Birmingham hospital caring for them. Angry complaints from relatives, first revealed in last week's Observer, claimed some of the soldiers were being deprived of urgent pain relief or were unable to sleep because of night-time noise. In the most serious case, the youngest British soldier injured in Iraq, 18-year-old Jamie Cooper, was reportedly forced to lie in his own faeces after his colostomy bag was left to overflow.
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It's not just wounded troops who suffer - The Observer 18th March 2007
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Specially converted sea containers imported from China are to be turned into temporary jails to ease the British prisons overcrowding crisis, The Observer has learned. The plan is to have the modules installed in five prisons by June at a cost of £3.5m each. Prisons earmarked for the new units include Stoke Heath Young Offenders Institution in Shropshire and Wayland Prison in Norfolk.
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Thousands of sandwiches were recalled from schools, hospitals and universities yesterday amid fears they could be contaminated with listeria, a potentially fatal food bug. The Food Standards Agency removed the sandwiches after listeria contamination was found in samples during routine tests carried out on behalf of Ashford local authority in Kent.
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Timebomb of listeria in poisoned sandwiches - The Times 17th March 2007
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A friend of mine earns her crust as a community health worker (that's the job title NHS trust bosses came up with when they realised they couldn't fit on to one name badge "Person engaged in a futile attempt to impart knowledge and install preventive medical measures aimed at the improvement and safeguarding of health among the flotsam and jetsam of society in the face of, er, massive and intractable governmental indifference, lack of funding, and systemic social ills"). A few days ago she went on a course about the spread of various non-fatal but none the less deeply unlovely, sexually transmitted diseases among the schoolchildren of her parish.
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We hear a lot about whether tea or coffee can be good or bad for you. What is the medical consensus? The balance of studies suggest they are beneficial rather than harmful. Tea and coffee in themselves are not nutritious, in that they don't give you calories you can use for energy. But they do contain plenty of chemicals that, if you were given them in a pill, you would classify as drugs. Tea, for example, contains flavonoids that, in theory, protect the heart and brain against free radicals. The initial Dutch studies of 'frequent', 'seldom' and 'never' tea drinkers found that men who had consumed the most flavonoids (in apples, tea and onions) had the least heart disease. Other studies agreed that people who drink at least three cups of tea a day have around 10% fewer heart attacks than non-tea drinkers. Cancer prevention studies haven't been consistent, perhaps because drinking very hot fluids may lead to cancers of the oesophagus.
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I had a miscarriage two months ago. I was only six weeks pregnant and have two small children. Although I felt sad, I was almost relieved. But my partner still seems upset and we are now quite distant from each other. Is this normal and will it get better? I feel a bit cross that he's miserable when I'm the one who had the miscarriage.
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Capoeira (pronounced cap-wearer) is a Brazilian martial art form, combining self-defence, acrobatics, dance, music and song. It was developed by slaves who used it to disguise the fact that they were practising fight moves. Capoeira is 'played' (it's known as the 'game', or jogo) in a circle called a roda, accompanied by music and singing. Only the hands and feet touch the floor.
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A black box emitting a high pitched pulsing sound designed to deter loitering teenagers is being used in thousands of sites around Britain just a year after its launch, prompting warnings from civil liberties campaigners that it is a "sonic weapon" that could be illegal. The Mosquito device, whose high-frequency shriek is audible only to those under around 25, has been bought by police, local councils, shops, and even private home owners, to tackle concerns over groups of young people congregating and causing disruption.
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The cost of giving up smoking could be slashed in next Wednesday's Budget, Gordon Brown hinted at a public health meeting in Westminster yesterday. He indicated he might abolish VAT altogether on stop-smoking aids - cutting the cost of a five week £100 nicotine patch treatment by £17.50 and reducing the price of anti-smoking gum and lozenges - to persuade millions more people to quit the habit in time for the government's ban on smoking in public places in England from July 1.
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Last-gasp Budget could hit smokers - The Telegraph 17th March 2007
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There is no more anyone needs to know about the strange hybrid of medieval and futuristic that is the British government's technology policy than to stand in the entrance of a major NHS hospital, wearing only a flimsy knee-length gown and whispering a snatched conversation with a friend on a mobile phone. This was my plight when, wheeled into St Thomas's with acute appendicitis, I was informed that I wasn't allowed to use my mobile phone because of "health and safety" considerations. The health and safety considerations of me freezing my arse off were not discussed.
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After 14 years of unsuccessful fertility treatment, a middle-aged couple desperate to have a baby will launch a poster campaign on London buses today in the hope of attracting suitable egg donors. Richard, 48, and Linda Weeks have spent £2,000 placing the ads in 50 buses in what could be their final hope of having a baby - doctors have warned Mrs Weeks, 54, that she is running out of time.
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Salt consumption falling but still 50 per cent higher than advised - The Independent 19th March 2007
Salt consumption in Britain has dropped but is still on average 50 per cent higher than the recommended amount, new research claims. Tests on 1,287 adults showed their average salt intake was 9g per day compared to 9.5g when tests were done in 2001. But consumption is still higher than the Government's national target of 6g per day, the Food Standards Agency said.
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A huge gap is opening up between the affluent inhabitants of the countryside and the hidden, growing band of families living below the poverty line in rural areas. Far from idyllic, small villages are frequently a place of poverty, inequality, bigotry and isolation.
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Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago. More than 22,000 people were treated last year for cannabis addiction - and almost half of those affected were under 18. With doctors and drugs experts warning that skunk can be as damaging as cocaine and heroin, leading to mental health problems and psychosis for thousands of teenagers, The Independent on Sunday has today reversed its landmark campaign for cannabis use to be decriminalised.
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Were we out of our minds? No, but then came skunk - The Independent on Sunday 18th March 2007
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Debra Bell: The cannabis diaries - The Guardian 17th March 2007
A remarkable breakdown of England's sexual health, detailed for the first time here in this map, shows a startling spread of diseases around the country, with high concentrations of infection around ports and in inner cities. The map, produced using a borough-by-borough breakdown of sexually transmitted diseases around England, charts the rise of diseases such as chlamydia and genital warts and shows big rises across the country.
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Middle-class men desperate to be slim are fuelling a near three-fold increase in liposuction operations, new figures show. Weary of dieting or shuttling to the gym, men are following the example of thousands of female counterparts and having their excess fat vacuumed away.
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Mental-health experts are fighting over how best to treat emotional distress, and our minds are their battleground. Dr Cecilia d'Felice looks at the competing factions and asks, who will emerge victorious?
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Have scientists finally discovered the answer to addiction? - The Independent 17th March 2007
A ground-breaking trial in Scotland is leading a growing number of experts to think there's a cure for addiction. But what is NeuroElectric Therapy, and does it really work?
Alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver has more than doubled among 25 to 34-year-olds in the past ten years. Figures for England, given in a parliamentary answer to the Liberal Democrats, show a rise from 270 cases in 1996-97 to 642 in 2005-06
I have a pet theory. It isn’t charitable, but I might as well own up: I believe that gullibility has become a national sport. Many of us are disinclined to exercise even the mildest critical faculty when confronted with dubious information sheathed in pseudo-scientific jargon. The latest evidence is a new book, The Intention Experiment, by Lynne McTaggart. Ms McTaggart is a crusader against the evils of modern medicine, such as vaccination and surgery. Now, modern medicine isn’t perfect, but it has saved lives — including my own — and it is a triumph of science. Nonetheless, Ms McTaggart is planning to use the scientific method to push a theory of her own, namely that the power of thought can change the world.
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Tony Blair will say today that Labour must go on reforming public services to stay in office as he unveils the reports from his last policy review. These include plans to speed up proposals to allow people waiting for acute operations to go to the hospital of their choice.
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Gordon Brown has proved the Mark Twain of British politics. He, too, has been in a position to read his own obituaries. There have been dozens of assessments of his ten-year tenure at the Treasury in the media over the past few days; there will doubtless be many more before what is generally assumed to be his final Budget speech is delivered on Wednesday. It cannot be said that all of this analysis, worthy though it is, sparkles with originality. It boils down to: “Three cheers for the Monetary Policy Committee, a slap on the back for avoiding the euro and isn’t it shocking that higher public spending has not produced far sharper improvements across the public services.” That’s it.
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PARENTS should be given a statutory right to paid time off work when their children are ill, according to Harriet Harman, a senior minister and a candidate for Labour’s deputy leadership. She has called on Gordon Brown to stop employers penalising mothers forced to stay at home because their youngsters are unwell
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AFTER 30 years in the NHS, Tony Lunt belonged to that big pool of middle-ranking executives who are looking for the next, possibly decisive, promotion to take them into their fifties. However, becalmed in an assistant-director post in Coventry, the 48-year-old was not at all sure he had the leadership capabilities to take that next step up.
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SO the brightest minds in Downing Street have decided that the average nurse does not smile enough (News, last week). Perhaps those vast cerebra could meditate upon why that might be. My local hospital has, for the past year, been threatened with closure, nurses who have served it for years have to reapply for their own jobs, the recent pay award is below the rate of inflation, their junior doctor colleagues are demoralised beyond reason by a catastrophic attempt to reorganise their training, and the hospital seems to contain many ineffectual managers who do not appear to have very much to manage apart from the numbers, yet attract good salaries with never a night shift nor a thought for the disadvantaged patient.
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Besides affecting the ability to have children, does a hysterectomy have other consequences, eg hormonal? Name and address withheld Yes. A hysterectomy may induce an early menopause. This doesn’t always happen, but when it does it is thought to be caused by the inevitable disruption of the blood supply to the ovaries that occurs during surgery or may be a consequence of it.
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With 40,000 British children now being prescribed drugs to counter hyperactivity, the parents of a son with ADHD tell Victoria Lambert how diet can make a big difference When 36-year-old lecturer Karen Gray was told that her son Jac, then six, was "hyperactive", she wasn't terribly surprised.
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Terminally ill and seriously disabled people face being unable to take holidays under new EU legislation. Restrictions imposed by the EU working time directive will in effect end holiday care services because the rules will double the costs of carers accompanying patients.
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I suffer from receding gums but have healthy teeth. My gums sometimes bleed and are red instead of pink. I eat healthily, with little sugar and plenty of fruit and veg. I chew gum, floss, brush with an electric toothbrush twice a day and use alcohol-free mouthwash. Please can you advise me on the best remedy, as I am petrified of my dentist
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It's not just offshore outsourcing that can produce unusual juxtapositions. The outsourcing of back-office operations within the UK can also lead to some unlikely pairings. University Hospital Birmingham and BAE Systems are not natural bedfellows, but both organisations have been sharing the same payroll services under an unusual joint venture that could serve as a model for many other large companies.
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Drink campaign 'has wrong focus' - BBC Health News 17th March 2007 More public health campaigns, such as the "tombstone" television advertisements in the 1980s warning of the dangers of HIV/Aids, are needed to combat soaring rates of obesity, drink problems and sexually transmitted infections, David Cameron said yesterday. The Conservative leader said Britain was facing a "public health crisis", which was increasing the pressures on the NHS.
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When Spider-Man dons his costume, he gains superhuman speed and agility. When children do the same, they increase their chances of ending up in hospital. Doctors say the increasingly popular trend of dressing up like superheroes can cause youngsters to hurt themselves as they try to copy the characters' death-defying feats.
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Bystanders who try to help heart attack victims with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation could be doing more harm than good, it is claimed. First-aiders are currently advised to employ both mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions.
Alcohol awareness campaigns focus too much on young binge-drinkers rather than older people drinking at home, senior doctors have said. The Royal College of Physicians believes adult alcohol intake is a much bigger health hazard - fuelled by an abundance of cheap alcohol.
Haunted by her mother's poor bone health Vivienne Moore has spent over £5,000 protecting herself. Her mother's osteoporosis was so severe that even a sneeze could, and did, break a vertebrae.
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The mineral zinc may play a role in the development of a common cause of blindness, research suggests. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness among elderly people in the developed world.
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A project using teddy bears to show primary children what is involved in a visit to hospital has been held at an Aberdeen school. The Teddy Bear Hospital came to 30 primary two children at Mile End.
Hospital staff and patients in Surrey are saying farewell to one of their most popular volunteers - Bodkin, a 13-year-old black Labrador Retriever. Bodkin and owner Frank Hardy have been visiting East Surrey Hospital, Redhill, for 10 years befriending patients.
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MMR vaccine confidence 'growing' - BBC Health News 16th March 2007
Fears over the MMR vaccine are becoming a thing of the past, Department of Health figures suggest. Around 74% of mothers now say the vaccine is safe or carries a slight risk, compared with 60% in 2002.
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International News
The moment of the day children most look forward to in one children’s home in the heart of Hamburg is just before lights out, when they are asked if they want a massage. Most do. So for 10 or 15 minutes, each child will have his or her back and shoulders rubbed by whichever female social workers are on duty. “It’s the most relaxing part of the day. I love it,” says 15-year-old Janina, who on her own admission was so aggressive before she came to live in the home six years ago, she used to spit at her mother and chew the carpet.
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Racing games 'breed' bad drivers - BBC Health News 19th March 2007 New Story
Older TB vaccines more effective - BBC Health News 18th March 2007
Playing computer racing games may make drivers take more risks on the roads in real life, research suggests. Virtual racing seems to lead to aggressive driving and a propensity for risk taking, particularly among men, say the German authors.
Older versions of the BCG vaccine may be better at preventing cases of tuberculosis than more commonly used modern vaccines, say French scientists. Genetic changes in strains over the years have rendered newer vaccines less effective, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report.
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A part of the brain associated with emotional learning and fear shrinks in people with autism, research suggests. Teenagers and young men with autism in the study who had the most severe social impairment were found to have smaller than normal amygdalae.
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Passive smoking may pose a different risk to African American children than their white counterparts, US research suggests. The study, featured in the journal Chest, examined 220 children with asthma exposed to cigarette smoke. More than half were black.
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Euthanasia doctor avoids prison - BBC Health News 16th March 2007
A French doctor has been given a one-year suspended jail term for poisoning a terminally ill woman. The trial in the southern French town of Perigueux made euthanasia an issue in the presidential election campaign.
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Cheshire and Merseyside News
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AN investigation is continuing into whether vital equipment at Liverpool’s women’s hospital has been contaminated. The hospital’s sterile and decontamination unit remains closed while NHS officials hunt for clues but the investigation has not led to any disruption.
A PIONEERING pancreatic cancer drug will be trialled on 1,000 Liverpool patients in a bid to find a way to prolong the lives of people diagnosed with the killer disease. Professors from the University of Liverpool and Cancer Research UK’s cancer trials unit in the city will run tests to see if combining drugs and vaccines will lead to a breakthrough in the effectiveness of treatments.
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New initiatives for school meals - Southport Visiter 16th March 2007
HEALTHY school dinners and new initiatives are helping tackle childhood obesity and improve youngsters’ lifestyles, Southport headteachers said. The new menus and fun activities have been given a big thumbs up by the pupils and parents amid concerns childhood obesity has reached epidemic levels.
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Cumbria and Lancashire News
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A NEW, £1m kidney dialysis unit has been officially opened at the West Cumberland Hospital. The new unit will save many patients in west Cumbria from having to travel to Carlisle for essential treatment three times a week.
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TO TURN the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven into a modern facility would cost over £50m – and would then still need further significant investment, say health bosses. Peter Scott, finance director and deputy chief executive of North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “The current West Cumberland Hospital is poorly laid out, meets only basic healthcare requirements, has £30.3m of backlog maintenance and a further requirement to invest £20m in limited refurbishment to meet current needs.
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NHS staff treated me wonderfully - Lancashire Telegraph 16th March 207
IN spite of all the criticism we have about the NHS, after a recent stay in Ward B20 of the Royal Blackburn Hospital, I cannot praise the staff enough. Nothing was too much trouble for them and although some days they were short of staff, they all managed to keep a smile on their faces.
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Greater Manchester News
HUNDREDS of doctors from the north west travelled to London and Glasgow to protest against the government's attempts to reform medical training. Junior doctors caught up in what has been called a `farcical' reform of training were joined by medics of all ages.
THE Royal Bolton Hospital has been praised in Parliament. Both Bolton South-east MP Dr Brian Iddon and health minister Andy Burnham, who is also the MP for Leigh, highlighted the work that has been done at the hospital to increase efficiency and reduce waste - allowing staff to dedicate more time to saving lives.
HOSPITAL doctors, GPs and patients believe allowing medical records to be viewed outside surgeries will lead to safer care. Bolton will become the first place in England to enable medical staff to look at patients' records outside the GPs' surgery.
HEALTH minister and Bury South MP Ivan Lewis has branded waiting times for hearing services as "outrageous". Mr Lewis said he was issuing guidance to hospitals on how they could cut waits and treat thousands of extra patients before December 2008.
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Patients' input is the way forward - Bury Times 16th March 2007
FAIRFIELD and North Manchester general hospitals are unleashing "power to the patients " in a series of events aimed at highlighting how patient involvement can change NHS services. Pennine Acute Trust is holding a patient and public involvement awareness week between Monday March 19 and Friday March 23.
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