Click for article
From October general practices in England will be financially penalised if they close during core working hours during the week, the chief executive of NHS England has said.
Simon Stevens told MPs on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee that changes to the GP contract, which will be introduced in October, will allow NHS England to scrutinise GP opening hours more closely and take action where necessary.
The BMA has published guidance which summarises key advice for those working in primary care, since they may be consulted by patients, including pregnant women, who are travelling to or returning from countries that are part of this outbreak (ie those countries with active Zika transmission).
To read the guidance go online here
The guidance is intended for primary care clinicians in England and Scotland.
It has been produced by Public Health England (PHE) in conjunction with the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).
The news about the Zika Virus outbreak in South America is changing daily.
There are several resources which can help you learn more and keep up to date on the topic: Public Health England has published information about the virus. Details can be found here
Information has also been published on the NHS Choices website follow the link here to an update on 29th January.
The National Library for Medicine in the US has published a list of resources and information here
The new Caring Together Induction Pack is now available online.
The intention is to promote the pack to all new starters with health and social care organisations commissioning or providing services for the people of Eastern Cheshire. Organisations include third sector partners and providers of social housing.
For the avoidance of doubt, the pack is not relevant to employees involved exclusively in commissioning or providing services outside Eastern Cheshire. This pack is to be made available with immediate effect to new recruits, either salaried or voluntary.
At the end of every third month, a member of the Caring Together team will send managers a link to a brief online survey for new recruits to complete. This will enable them to measure awareness of the pack and the extent to which it is achieving its aim of improving understanding of Caring Together. Consultees will have the option to remain anonymous as the purpose of the survey is not to test individuals’ knowledge or pay attention to people who don’t answer all the questions correctly!
While the principal aim of the survey is to ensure that new starters are introduced to Caring Together as soon as practicable, the pack can also be shared with colleagues more widely. Reference copies of the pack are also available in the Staff Library (Top Floor, New Alderley House).
Many thanks to all in anticipation of your support for this important initiative to promote understanding of – and engagement in – our transformation programme.
Self Care Week is an annual national awareness week that focuses on embedding support for self care across communities, families and generations.
This year the theme is ‘Self Care for Life’. Resources can be found here.
Most home care visits should be at least half an hour long to enable carers to provide the personalised and dignified care that elderly patients need when being supported to stay in their own home, says a guideline on social care services from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Click for article
Shorter visits would be appropriate only rarely, said the finalised guideline on home care, published on 23 September. This might be when the visit is part of a wider package of support, made by a carer who is known to the patient, or made to complete a specific time limited task, such as checking that a medicine has been taken or that a person is safe and well.
Click for article
NHS England has today (23 September 2015) published a six-monthly data report on patient safety incidents reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) between 1 October 2014 and 31 March 2015.
Acute hospitals, mental health services, community trusts, ambulance services and primary care organisations report incidents to the NRLS where any patient could have been harmed or has suffered any level of harm. The reporting of incidents to a national central system helps protect patients from avoidable harm by increasing opportunities to learn from mistakes and where things go wrong.
The latest NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare has just been published, with 102 maps detailing widespread variation in the quality, cost, activity and health outcome of healthcare in the English NHS. The indicators focus on a variety of services.
The Atlas is a collaboration with NHS England, Public Health England and NHS Right Care and can be accessed here
(Previous versions of the atlas are also available online.)
Recently highlighted in the media, information about the Atlas and its themes can be found here
You can read the recent Public Health England Press Release about the atlas here
The NHS Confederation also commented (see link) on the usefulness of the Atlas which provides intelligence and highlights variations in care across regions.
Click for article
T’ai chi can improve physical performance of patients with certain chronic conditions without exacerbating their pain or making them breathless, concludes a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The Chinese martial art t’ai chi consists of slow, gentle, and flowing movements that involve strengthening, balance, postural alignment, mind concentration, relaxation, and breath control.
A blog article by Professors Alistair Burns and Martin Rossor:
“The current national and international focus on dementia has been widely welcomed as a vehicle to raise the profile of, and attract attention to, what has been a hitherto relatively neglected area of scientific interest and clinical practice…
…The news a few weeks ago of the putative efficacy of a disease modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has ignited widespread public, professional and political interest and enthusiasm…”
Click for article
Click for article
Adolescents and young adults who use electronic cigarettes are more likely to progress to smoking tobacco cigarettes than those who do not, shows a small US study that researchers say supports regulations to limit sales and reduce the appeal of e-cigarettes to young people.
The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, followed up a nationally representative sample of 694 teenagers and young adults aged 16 to 26 who had never smoked. Their attitudes showed that they were not susceptible to smoking cigarettes because they had responded “definitely no” when asked whether they would try a cigarette offered by a friend or whether they believed that they would smoke a cigarette within the next year.
Please note that the Library and Knowledge Service will not be staffed over this Bank Holiday weekend. You are still welcome to use the books, computers, self-service machine and other resources Saturday to Monday, using your staff badge to swipe into the building out of hours, but there will be no members of staff available for enquiries.
We will be available once again from 8.30am on Tuesday 1st September. We hope you have a good Bank Holiday!
Click here for article
New, joined up models of care being developed by the NHS risk overlooking the full potential of community health services which are vital for their success, according to a discussion paper launched 21 July by the NHS Confederation Community Health Services Forum.
Community health covers a broad range of ‘cradle to grave’ services including community and district nursing, health visiting, speech and language therapy, public health and school nursing. These services are essential if the NHS is to care well for the millions of people who have long-term conditions, the paper highlights.
Click for article
Vulnerable patients are being discharged from hospital unsafely and sent home to situations where they have inadequate support because of lack of coordination between health, social care, and community services, an investigation by the healthcare consumer organisation Healthwatch England has found.
The investigation was based on the experiences of discharge of 3230 people considered as vulnerable (elderly people, homeless people, and people with mental health conditions) and on information gathered from trusts through freedom of information legislation and from surveys of patients.
Click for article
Bereaved people in England rate the care provided by hospitals at the end of their relative’s life lower than that provided by hospices, care homes, and services in the community, show the results of a survey published by the Office for National Statistics.
Click here for article
With out-of-hospital care needing to become “a much larger part of what the NHS does,” according to the Five Year Forward View, the NHS Confederation’s new quick guide answers the simple question, ‘what are community health services?‘
Providing an overview of what community health services are, what they do and the staff that make up its workforce, the handy guide provides a picture of the role these services play in supporting and caring for people up and down the country.
NICE has updated and redesigned its guideline to support GP’s in recognising the signs and symptoms of 37 different cancers and to aid faster referral for the right tests.
The guideline focuses on the symptoms that a patient might experience and present with in surgeries. It should enable GP’s to monitor people presenting with less severe symptoms, so that fewer cancers are missed.
NICE hope that the guideline will make its recommendations easier for GP’s to use, speeding up the referral process and make diagnosis quicker.
Find the NICE Guideline: NG12 Suspected Cancer : Recognition and Referral
Read the full story here
Click for article
Personal financial incentives help people to change health behaviours, but these effects are lost within three months of the payments stopping, says a study of the overall effect of payments across various health related behaviours.
Researchers analysed 34 studies including 10 585 adults that assessed the effect of financial incentives on a range of health behaviours, including smoking cessation and healthier eating, measured for at least six months from baseline.
‘Hospitals are often seen as an impediment to integrated care. The concern frequently voiced is that their dominant role in the health system makes it harder for commissioners to shift resources into the community and to develop more co-ordinated services that cross organisational boundaries.’
This blog post talks about how the role of hospitals compared to other healthcare providers, particularly in the community, can change and develop as integrated care is brought in more. It also contains a link to the publication discussed in the blog post.
Doctors in the United Kingdom have been urged to encourage patients to take small amounts of regular exercise and told that they have a leading role to play in reversing the growing contribution of sedentary lifestyles to chronic ill health.
More than 40% of adults do not reach the minimum recommended level of 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise five times a week, figures reviewed in the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges’ report showed.
If you work at Eagle Bridge Health and Wellbeing Centre in Crewe and you need help finding information for research, patient care or just to keep up to date, why not drop into the library on the second floor? Steve Collman, Community Outreach Librarian, will be available on the 12th of February all day to give you help and advice.
As from 31 May access to the Journal of Health Visiting will be via this link: http://www.magonlinelibrary.com/
Login instructions:
* If accessing via Athens/Shibboleth, click sign in (top right hand corner)
* Pick Healthcare/Education as relevant to your subscription entitlement and select Journal of Health Visiting.
Did you know that Steve Collman, our Outreach Librarian for the Community is happy to take your questions on any aspect of literature searching. For instance:
So if you are based in the community please contact Steve in confidence by completing this form.
BMA agree to negotiations on junior doctors contract
The BMA Junior Doctors Committee has announced today (22 July 2013) that it is willing to negotiate with employers on a new contract of employment for junior doctors.
Library & Knowledge Service blog 