Another 15 Minutes...Health News from Fade
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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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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 2007Additional Story
Patients miss out as NHS cash floods in - The Observer 18th March 2007
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NHS waste thousands on doctor interviews - The Sunday Telegraph 18th March 2007
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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?
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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
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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
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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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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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.
Drink campaign 'has wrong focus' - BBC Health News 17th March 2007
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
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 TB vaccines more effective - BBC Health News 18th March 2007
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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