Another 15 Minutes...Health News from Fade
Listen to this edition of Another 15 Minutes...Health News from FadeNew Section
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Nurses are to be balloted on whether they would be prepared to support industrial action over pay. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is sending papers to almost 200,000 members in England asking them whether they wish to be balloted on industrial action.
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Nurses consulted on strike action - BBC Health News 16th July 2007
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Nurses poised for first ballot in pay deal row - The Telegraph 14th July 2007
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Watchdogs criticise equality reform plans - The Guardian 16th July 2007
Official equality watchdogs are in revolt against government reforms to discrimination laws, saying that they repudiate the findings of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and will "do enormous damage" to disabled people. The attacks from the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission come amid anxiety about the government's commitment to promoting equal rights. Trevor Phillips, who heads the new unitary watchdog to be launched in October, has warned the government that his position will be "near unsustainable" unless it demonstrates that it will make tackling discrimination a priority.
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Chocolate maker Cadbury faces an unlimited fine for causing a national salmonella outbreak which struck down more than 40 victims. Birmingham Crown Court was told last week how the city-based confectioner failed to inform the authorities of dozens of tests which showed its processed materials and ready-to-eat products contained the organism.
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Cadbury outbreak blamed on cuts - BBC Health News 13th July 2007
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Cadbury allowed salmonella in chocolate to save cash, court told - The Guardian 14th July 2007
The Catholic Church in England and Wales has been warned there is still "room for improvement" five years after a landmark report recommended sweeping reforms to the way it tackled child sex abuse. A "great deal" has been achieved in a "remarkably short time" since the publication of the Nolan report aimed at improving child protection within the church, the Cumberlege Commission has said.
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Clergy 'lack the will to tackle child abuse' - The Telegraph 16th July 2007
Fortnightly rubbish collections are unsuitable for many areas and there is no proof they increase recycling, an influential committee of MPs has said. The Communities and Local Government Select Committee also called for better research into the public health implications of leaving rubbish in the street for up to 14 days.
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Bins: Even MPs are in revolt - Daily Mail 16th July 2007
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Fitness fix - The Guardian 16th July 2007
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Fitness fix - The Guardian 16th July 2007
Why do you walk? It's a great way to keep fit without getting bored in the gym. I love to walk through London, but also recently completed the 800km Camino de Santiago de Compostela - the route of the medieval pilgrims across northern Spain.
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In the biggest attempt yet to change the public perception of conditions such as depression and schizophrenia, three major charities are to run a TV campaign showing that many conditions thought of as incurable are treatable. It will also address some of the myths surrounding schizophrenia and try to show that the risks from people with the condition have been distorted.
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Charles Rodeck is a pioneer in foetal medicine, a field in which huge scientific advances can have a terrible emotional cost. Here he speaks frankly about the painful dilemma - to agree to a termination or take the risk of having a disabled child - which thousands of couples must confront every year
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State pupils given weekly target of five hours of physical activity - The Guardian 14th July 2007
Gordon Brown launched a drive to instil competitive sport in state schools yesterday as ministers insisted that even the least athletic pupils should take on their peers in healthy rivalry. Announcing a minimum target of five hours a week for sport and physical activity, including the existing two hours set aside within the curriculum, Mr Brown made clear the state sector should take a lesson from private schools and field more teams in different age groups to reflect pupils' different sporting abilities.
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Ministers are to be warned this week that independent clinics set up to take the pressure off mainstream NHS hospitals are responsible for unacceptable levels of mistakes. A report by health watchdogs will say clinics that rely heavily on foreign doctors have been responsible for a number of botched operations that had to be rectified by mainstream hospitals.
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No longer should we think of the poor as the junk food addicts of popular imagination. Following a £5m academic study, the Food Standards Agency, Britain's food watchdog, has concluded that people in the bottom 15 per cent of society eat pretty much as well – or, rather, as badly – as everyone else. The amount of fruit and vegetables, fat and fibre was only "slightly worse" than average.
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Poor ‘eating just as well as the rest’ - The Sunday Times 15th July 2007
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Rich or poor, we have a growing appetite for junk food - Daily Mail 15th July 2007
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Poor do not have worse nutrition - BBC Health News 14th July 2007
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Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors issue call for embargo in response to parents' concerns over children's exposure to radiation in the classroom. Local councillors are pressing for the suspension of the use of Wi-Fi in schools, in the first official revolt in Britain against the widespread use of the technology in the classroom.
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Office ‘smog’ risk to health - The Sunday Times 15th July 2007
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Office ‘smog’ risk to health - The Sunday Times 15th July 2007
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Many mental health wards in the UK are at best untherapeutic and at worst unsafe, The Lancet medical journal says. In a special report to coincide with the passage of the Mental Health Bill last week, the journal says many aspects of mental health care are neglected. Access to psychological treatments remains "pitiful", despite a ruling by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) that cognitive behavioural therapy should be available on the NHS.
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Patients are being targeted in a marketing war between rival independent and NHS trusts, which has provoked outrage amongst the health unions. The first salvos were launched this week at the start of a £450,000 campaign by Bupa hospitals to drum up business for its 23 private hospitals. Newspaper advertisements tell readers that there is now "somewhere surprising you could go on the NHS: Bupa Hospitals."
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Huge rise in allergy sufferers but too few specialists - The Times 16th July 2007
The number of patients suffering from serious allergic conditions has risen by more than a quarter in four years, but there is a serious shortage of specialists to treat them, The Times has learnt. Experts call upon the Government today to take immediate steps to combat the “massive epidemic” of severe allergic conditions, which can be fatal in the worst cases.
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You report the cost of the shambolic system for online job applications by junior doctors (MTAS) as approaching £2 million (12 July ). The true cost, however, is infinitely greater. In one ill-judged strategy the Department of Health has alienated a whole generation of young doctors. Two eminent medical professors and the chairman of the BMA Council have resigned, but there is as yet no indication of casualties among those responsible at the Department of Health.
Three years ago, when I was 12, I was raped by my friend’s brother who was 20 (he died in a car crash with his father last year). I have never told anyone about this and I’ve been trying to forget it by throwing myself into my school work and increasing my gymnastics training to 25 hours a week. At home, though, my mum says I have been rude and difficult. From when it happened until about three months ago, I felt angry at myself for not having struggled or screamed and that I lost my virginity at 12. What kind of a girl does that?
It has been claimed that chemicals in beauty products can harm our health. But, say experts, going barefaced may be a far greater hazard
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Huge rise in allergy sufferers but too few specialists - The Times 16th July 2007
The number of patients suffering from serious allergic conditions has risen by more than a quarter in four years, but there is a serious shortage of specialists to treat them, The Times has learnt. Experts call upon the Government today to take immediate steps to combat the “massive epidemic” of severe allergic conditions, which can be fatal in the worst cases.
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You report the cost of the shambolic system for online job applications by junior doctors (MTAS) as approaching £2 million (12 July ). The true cost, however, is infinitely greater. In one ill-judged strategy the Department of Health has alienated a whole generation of young doctors. Two eminent medical professors and the chairman of the BMA Council have resigned, but there is as yet no indication of casualties among those responsible at the Department of Health.
Three years ago, when I was 12, I was raped by my friend’s brother who was 20 (he died in a car crash with his father last year). I have never told anyone about this and I’ve been trying to forget it by throwing myself into my school work and increasing my gymnastics training to 25 hours a week. At home, though, my mum says I have been rude and difficult. From when it happened until about three months ago, I felt angry at myself for not having struggled or screamed and that I lost my virginity at 12. What kind of a girl does that?
It has been claimed that chemicals in beauty products can harm our health. But, say experts, going barefaced may be a far greater hazard
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Doctors and scientists have come together to endorse the safety of the MMR vaccine, ahead of a disciplinary hearing today involving the researchers who first linked it to health risks. Andrew Wakefield and two other doctors, John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, deny charges of serious misconduct over their research on MMR. The trio published a paper in The Lancet in 1998 suggesting that there could be a link between the triple jab – against measles, mumps and rubella – and bowel disease and autism. The subsequent health scare led to falling rates of immunisation.
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The readers' editor on ... autism and the MMR vaccination controversy - The Observer 15th July 2007
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Reasons why autism could be on the rise - The Observer 15th July 2007
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Public health experts fear fallout from MMR hearing - The Guardian 14th July 2007
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'I wish the GMC could live a day in my life and see what I have seen' - The Independent on Sunday 15th July 2007
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Doctors back MMR as the jab's biggest critic faces a fight to save his career - Daily Mail 15th July 2007
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The readers' editor on ... autism and the MMR vaccination controversy - The Observer 15th July 2007
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Reasons why autism could be on the rise - The Observer 15th July 2007
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Public health experts fear fallout from MMR hearing - The Guardian 14th July 2007
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'I wish the GMC could live a day in my life and see what I have seen' - The Independent on Sunday 15th July 2007
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Doctors back MMR as the jab's biggest critic faces a fight to save his career - Daily Mail 15th July 2007
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The Government has given warning that wild birds migrating to Britain over the next few weeks may be carrying the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Debby Reynolds, the Chief Veterinary Officer, is ready to order birds to be kept indoors if farms are deemed to be at risk.
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AN NHS fertility clinic is proposing to treat single women and lesbian couples who have no medical problems. The reproductive medicine unit at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Trust believes it would be discriminatory to refuse artificial insemination to women who cannot conceive because they do not have a male partner.
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. . . but I hadn't reckoned on falling out of love with my husband as a result. The night my husband last touched me as if he really loved me, I was in labour. He was stroking my back, rubbing my shoulders, urging me on
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It was launched nine years ago as a love potion for impotent men. But Viagra is causing pain as well as pleasure. Lois Rogers reports on a surge in social side effects, including addiction, disease and divorce
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The benefits system is creating problems, not solving them. A powerful new report suggests ways out of the welfare morass undefined In the late 19th century, Charles Booth, born into a privileged family in Liverpool before making his money in shipping, did more to expose poverty in Britain, and in particular in London, than anybody else.
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I am deaf, and my ears frequently get waxy. I have hearing aids, but they are not much use if my ears are blocked. My GP has told me that it would be unwise for me to have my ears syringed as often as they seem to need it. Is there any alternative that would help?
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Everyone wants a Hollywood smile, but most of us don’t even do the basics to protect our teeth. Poor oral hygiene can lead to the build-up of plaque. This bacteria-containing film collects on teeth and feeds on sugars in food. In turn, it produces acid, which attack your teeth, leading to tooth decay and gum disease.
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Kit bag - The Sunday Times 15th July 2007
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Kit bag - The Sunday Times 15th July 2007
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What is the quickest and most effective way to help cuts and scratches heal?
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Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I spent hours every week exploring the woods and farmland at the edge of suburbia. My friends and I would shinny up trees, and look out across the fields and over the roofs of the ever-encroaching suburbs. Often I climbed alone, imagining myself as Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves. If I climbed high enough, the world would tip down and up and around, and I would surrender to the power of the wind. The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me and yet excited my senses.
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An “unjustifiable postcode lottery” means that some elderly people are 160 times more likely than others to get long-term care paid for by their local authority, according to a report. Age Concern found that Derby City Primary Care Trust paid for seven people to be looked after last year, or 0.26 people per 10,000, while Harrow PCT funded the care for 826 people, or 41.75 people per 10,000. Age Concern said that this was despite Harrow having a younger population. “Individuals face a postcode lottery in getting NHS continuing care. There can be no justification for such huge variations,” Gordon Lishman, director general of the charity, said.
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Charity attacks 'care lottery' for elderly - The Telegraph 14th July 2007
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Continuing care 'lottery' in NHS - BBC Health News 13th July 2007
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Charity attacks 'care lottery' for elderly - The Telegraph 14th July 2007
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Continuing care 'lottery' in NHS - BBC Health News 13th July 2007
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Patients who need sight-saving eye surgery could get their vision back more quickly and avoid infection with a revolutionary laser-surgery technique, surgeons say. Corneal graft surgery, one of the earliest forms of transplant operation, has been performed for more than 100 years without any fundamental changes to the methods used. But although the operation itself is fairly straightforward, recovery often takes a long time.
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The news this week that people who don’t even possess a debit card – known to BUPA surgeons as “NHS patients” – can book themselves in for cosmetic procedures via the same mail-order catalogue that they get their baseball caps, socks and panties from has outraged the members of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS).
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Dr Simon Fellerman (letter, July 12) wrote of the “trivial complaints” of his patients. How is a patient, untrained in medicine, to distinguish between an imminent heart attack and simple indigestion? The reassurance that patients seek is surely what GPs are there for.
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In January this year a calf named Dundee Paradise was born on a farm near Wolverhampton. She was no ordinary heifer. While her father was a normal bull, her mother was a clone, created from the DNA of a prize dairy cow. Though not a clone herself, she was the first progeny of a clone to be born in the UK. Dundee Paradise is safe from the slaughterhouse and will never even be milked for human consumption, but she is intended to represent the farmyard of the future. This week scientists predicted that in as little as two years burgers from clone-farmed cattle will be approved in the US. It will take much longer before anything similar is approved in Europe, but researchers believe cloning could become an important tool for animal husbandry.
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Hay fever made Ella Martin’s pregnancy hell as she couldn’t take antihistamine, says David Mattin. So she tried a new remedy . . . When Ella Martin, 25, discovered she was pregnant in November, only one thought kept her from complete happiness: hay fever. Every summer since her early childhood Martin had suffered the furiously itchy eyes, itchy throat and uncontrollable sneezing that characterise the seasonal allergy. Usually, she’d dose up on antihistamines to control the symptoms. This year, because of her pregnancy, that wouldn’t be an option. “I just thought, Oh God,” she says. “Being pregnant for the first time will be hard enough. But being pregnant, and hay fever?”
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People should automatically have their organs removed for transplant after they die unless they opted out while alive, Britain's most senior doctor is expected to say tomorrow in his annual report. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, is expected to call for a change in the law amid fears that people are dying needlessly due to a shortage of donors.
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Doctors: we must all donate organs - The Sunday Times 15th July 2007
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Doctors should have the right to remove people's organs after death - Daily Mail 16th July 2007
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Doctors: we must all donate organs - The Sunday Times 15th July 2007
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Doctors should have the right to remove people's organs after death - Daily Mail 16th July 2007
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A unique centre helps teenagers fight the stigma of HIV. Serena Allott reports With her big smile, blue jeans and white smock top, Chantelle, 20, looks like any other south London girl. There is nothing about her to suggest that she is HIV-positive. "I was 13 when I found out. It was the worst shock in my life. All I could think was, 'I'm going to die'."
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Grey skies this summer mean that children are more at risk of developing weak bones and other diseases, says Oliver Gillie After the worst midsummer weather on record, you may feel something is missing - not only the sun but the sunshine vitamin, D.
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Morale among nurses has reached an all-time low, according to a survey that paints a picture of a profession in crisis. A poll of 9,000 nurses found that despite the Government pouring billions of pounds into the health service many still feel overworked, undervalued and fear for their futures.
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How should doctors treat patients dying in agony, asks Max Pemberton As we swerved around the corner, we saw the cat lying in the middle of the road. Our car screeched to a halt and we sat in silence, staring at the black mass illuminated in the headlights. My friend Tasha turned to me, expectantly. ''Well go on then, Max, see if it's still alive,'' she said in almost a whisper. ''Why me?'' I objected. ''You're a doctor. You'll be able to do something,'' she said hopefully.
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Private IVF clinics are exploiting infertile couples by offering them unnecessary and expensive treatments, one of Britain's leading ante-natal specialists said yesterday. Prof Charles Rodeck, the founder and head of the unit for foetal medicine at University College Hospital London, said some clinics were so desperate for business that they were offering women procedures which would not necessarily increase their chances of getting pregnant.
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Private IVF clinics are 'exploiting women' - The Observer 15th July 2007
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Private IVF clinics are 'exploiting women' - The Observer 15th July 2007
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Complaints in hospitals are often appallingly dealt with because junior clerks fail to apply common sense, the Health Service Ombudsman has warned, writes Laura Donnelly. Ann Abraham said that distressed patients and bereaved relatives were often left battling bureaucracy when "a bit of courage and common sense" was all it took to resolve simple issues.
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Operation Holbein is the codename for the SFO's ongoing case against alleged price-rigging. Philip Lewis, the Serious Fraud Office's second in command, has a print on his wall of Portrait of a Gentleman by Hans Holbein.
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I've been having spells, a few days each time, of feeling demotivated, lethargic, tearful, anxious and exhausted by life. I sleep poorly and have terrible dreams that wake me up. But there are weeks when I feel 'normal'. My GP has prescribed antidepressants but as he suggests I'll need these for six months I'm not keen. I'm 43 and my periods are becoming shorter and lighter. Could my problem be early menopause, am I depressed, and what can I do to improve the situation?
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I believe in setting goals or, to put it another way, knowing what you want to do. I think it's important to have a purpose to your day, or even your life.
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Record numbers of middle-aged men are turning to liposuction as they struggle with bulging waistlines and sagging faces. The phenomenon has been dubbed the 'menopaunch' as men fork out thousands of pounds on their bodies rather than the more traditional midlife acquisition of a meno-Porsche to cheer themselves up.
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Like every new mother, Tracey Cooper was determined to give her baby the best start in life. When she brought her healthy 7lb 8oz daughter Dorothy home from hospital 24 hours after giving birth, she soon settled into a breast-feeding routine.
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Violent attacks on NHS staff are reaching unprecedented levels. Last year, an estimated 75,000 medical staff were the victims of drink and drug-fuelled assaults. And as the Mail reported recently, new figures show that just one in 1,000 such attacks leads to a prosecution. So what's it really like to work on the front line? Ambulance worker Tom Reynolds, 35, who lives in East London, tells his horrific story to Tessa Cunningham.
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The painkilling fields: England's opium poppies that tackle the NHS morphine crisis - Daily Mail 14th July 2007
In Afghanistan, British troops are fighting a ferocious and often lethal war to eradicate the country's opium poppy crop. Yet, as our soldiers risk their lives daily, large swathes of the English countryside are being turned over to the very same crop - with the full backing of the Government.
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Diabetes is costing taxpayers £10 million a week to treat, official figures have revealed. Spending on NHS drugs and other care for sufferers of the disease reached £562 million last year, up from £167 million in 1998, according to the Prescription Pricing Authority.
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This week Jason Braham attacked the drug culture in public schools for creating the monster who killed his daughter. Fashion designer Lucy Braham, 25, was butchered to death by William Jaggs, 23, a drug addict who went to Harrow School. He has been sentenced indefinitely to Broadmoor maximum security hospital.
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When Andrew Woods was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 23, doctors told him that aggressive chemotherapy was likely to leave him infertile. So he and his girlfriend Sally decided that their only chance of having a family was for his sperm to be frozen. He survived the treatment, they married and later started trying for a family.
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More people than ever are worried about skin cancer yet one in three do not use sunscreen to protect their skin, a survey has revealed. More than 75,000 new cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in the UK each year, and recent research predicts that the incidence of melanoma skin cancer will treble in the next 30 years.
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Celebrity Health - Anita Roddick - BBC Health News 15th July 2007
In a series on celebrities and their health, the BBC News website talks to The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick about life with Hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver. Dame Anita Roddick first set up The Body Shop in Brighton in 1976 to create a livelihood for herself and her two daughters while her husband was away trekking on horseback from Buenos Aires to New York.
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Celebrity Health - Anita Roddick - BBC Health News 15th July 2007
In a series on celebrities and their health, the BBC News website talks to The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick about life with Hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver. Dame Anita Roddick first set up The Body Shop in Brighton in 1976 to create a livelihood for herself and her two daughters while her husband was away trekking on horseback from Buenos Aires to New York.
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A catalogue of failures in patient care has been revealed by a former head of an out-of-hours service. The problems occurred in the Merseyside area after responsibility for handling calls passed to Urgent Care 24 (UC24) last October.
When Maureen Dickinson was asked to help with a study into osteoarthritis and osteoporosis she was keen to help. She was pleased to think that the information researchers collected could help others with the condition.
Thousands of chemicals should be re-assessed for possible toxicity to human and environmental health, according to a new study. Scientists found that conventional tests underestimate how some substances accumulate along the food chain.
A shortage of facilities for women wanting an abortion pill means some are paying privately or having invasive terminations, the BBC has learned. The early medical abortion pill must be taken within nine weeks, sometimes with on-the-day hospital treatment.
Drinking a pint of milk a day may protect men against diabetes and heart disease, say UK researchers. Eating dairy products reduces the risk of metabolic syndrome - a cluster of symptoms which increase likelihood of the conditions - the Welsh team found.
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International News
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A substance derived from scorpion venom could be the key to more effective treatment for a wide range of cancers, researchers say. Turned into a "paint" which can distinguish even a small number of cancerous cells from healthy tissue, the venom would vastly improve surgeons' accuracy when removing tumours.
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Eating grapefruit is linked to higher risk of breast cancer - The Independent on Sunday 15th July 2007
Iceland is the leader in a league table judging the European country best able to give citizens a long and happy life. Estonia comes bottom of the 30-nation survey while the UK lurks below Romania, at number 21 in the chart. The European Happy Planet Index used carbon efficiency, life satisfaction and life expectancy to rate the countries. The survey, published by the New Economics Foundation and Friends of the Earth, reveals that Europe is now worse at creating well-being than it was 40 years ago.
A substance derived from scorpion venom could be the key to more effective treatment for a wide range of cancers, researchers say. Turned into a "paint" which can distinguish even a small number of cancerous cells from healthy tissue, the venom would vastly improve surgeons' accuracy when removing tumours.
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Eating grapefruit may increase the risk of breast cancer by up to a third. According to new research, eating as little as a quarter of a grapefruit a day may increase the risk by 30 per cent in older women. Breast cancer accounts for more than a quarter of all cancers in women. More than 40,000 cases are diagnosed and around 12,500 women die from the disease in the UK each year.
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Eating grapefruit can increase breast cancer by almost a third - Daily Mail 15th July 2007
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Eating grapefruit can increase breast cancer by almost a third - Daily Mail 15th July 2007
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HARVARD scientists have found another reason why we should use every ruse possible to cram fruit into teens: low intake sends their asthma rates spiralling. Amid reports this week that a government scheme to give free fruit to English schoolchildren is having negligible effects, Jane Burns, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, says her study of 2,112 teenagers shows that those whose diets are low in vitamin C are much more likely to suffer from weak lungs, asthma and wheezing.
Organic fruit and vegetables really are better for you, writes Judith Woods An increasing number of people have suspected it for years, but science, it seems, is finally catching up with common sense. A report stating that organic fruit and vegetables may be better for the heart and general health than crops grown conventionally comes as welcome news to those who have wondered whether it really is worth paying a premium for food produced without pesticides.
Claims by German authorities that a man found in the country suffering from amnesia might be British appeared to be true last night after The Daily Telegraph established that he speaks English with a native accent. The man, who is aged about 60 and calls himself Karl Frankfurt, approached police last year at the railway station in Mannheim to tell them he had lost his memory.
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Women have been warned that yo-yo dieting can more than double the risk of developing kidney cancer. Scientists have found that women who repeatedly lose weight only to put it back on are at a significantly higher risk of the disease later in life.
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Brain target for stress disorder - BBC Health News 15th July 2007
Blocking a molecule in the brain may "cure" post-traumatic stress disorder, according to US researchers. They showed that inhibiting a specific enzyme removed fear in mice and report to journal Nature Neuroscience that the finding may lead to new treatments.
Scientists have discovered a protein which may help to slow, or even reverse symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's destroys nerve cells that produce the brain chemical dopamine, causing movement and balance problems.
Doctors in Vancouver, Canada, have warned that people who wear portable media players during a storm could be putting themselves at risk. In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, they describe burns and hearing damage suffered by a patient hit by lightning while using his iPod.
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'Indian register' for pregnancies - BBC Health News 13th July 2007
An Indian minister has proposed that all pregnant women register with the government and seek its permission if they wish to undergo an abortion. Women and child development minister Renuka Chowdhury says the move is aimed at stopping the aborting of unwanted female foetuses.
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Cheshire and Merseyside News
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AN AMBULANCE overturned in a collision with another vehicle in Southport early on Sunday morning, leaving its two crew members trapped and injured. No patients were onboard the ambulance, which was returning to its base in Skelmersdale when it was involved in the serious crash on Scarisbrick New Road, near the junction with Pilkington Road.
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THE head of Liverpool’s renowned fertility unit has called for parents given IVF treatment to be able to choose the sex of their child. Charles Kingsland, the head of the Hewitt Centre for Reproductive Medicine at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, told a parliamentary committee that the law should be changed to allow sex selection.
FURIOUS patients have hit back at campaigners who are trying to block a planning application for a new super-surgery on Wirral green belt land. The patients, including some with mobility problems and mothers of young children, told the Daily Post they feared “a tiny but vocal minority” would scupper their chances of securing new facilities planned on the former Warrens Nursery site at Arrowe Country Park.
A STUDENT from Warrington who has spent two years on the waiting list for a kidney transplant is appealing for people to join the organ donor register. Holly Shaw, 20, from Westbrook, Kingswood, was diagnosed with kidney failure in January 2005.
HUNDREDS of workers at a collapsed home care agency were reeling today after being told their wages won’t be paid. Lyndhurst Home Care director Len Collins made the announcement yesterday amid angry scenes at a Kirkdale Community Centre carers meeting.
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Care firm collapses - Liverpool Echo 13th July 2007
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Care firm collapse hits 500 patients - Liverpool Daily Post 13th July 2007
NORTH West Ambulance Service is the UK’s third best for treating heart attack patients before they reach hospital. A report from the myocardial infarction national audit project reveals the service is exceeding the national average by 4%.
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NORTH West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS) has been celebrating its first anniversary this week, following the merger of the four former ambulance services; Greater Manchester, Mersey Regional, Cumbria and Lancashire in July 2006. This milestone marks the end of a pivotal first year for what is now the largest ambulance service in the UK.
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Busy first year for 999 service - Warrington Guardian 13th July 2007
CHILDREN across Southport are being inspired to take over the kitchens in their homes, as they strive to create an award-winning recipe. Sainsbury’s on Lord Street is giving local youngsters the opportunity to take part in an Idea Card competition.
A range of 'new entertainment' is being laid on by many pubs in Wirral since the start of the smoking ban. It is expected that punters will flock to their local watering hole to enjoy the likes of video snail racing and karaoke sessions in a smoke-free environment.
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AN MEP for Warrington is calling for the introduction of fire safe' cigarettes. Arlene McCarthy, Labour's chairman of the consumer protection committee, launched a written declaration asking for the introduction of self-extinguishing cigarettes to help prevent 1,000 deaths and 13m euros worth of damage. The North West MEP led the motion in the European Parliament on Monday.
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Out-of-hours service 'failures' - BBC Health News 14th July 2007
A catalogue of failures in patient care has been revealed by a former head of an out-of-hours service. The problems occurred in the Merseyside area after responsibility for handling calls passed to Urgent Care 24 (UC24) last October.
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Cumbria and Lancashire News
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AN ANNAN grandfather, who is suffering from kidney cancer, has been left devastated after learning that the cancer drug Sutent will not be available on the NHS. Michael Egan, 63, has been battling the disease for 17 months.
A GRANDMOTHER prosecuted for growing four cannabis plants in a walk-in wardrobe was back in front of a judge yesterday. But this time Patricia Tabram was not in any trouble. Instead the 69-year-old, who was convicted and sentenced in March for cultivating the illegal drug, was at Carlisle Crown Court to have part of her sentence dropped.
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Lessons in health let school lead in education stakes - Carlisle News & Star 13th July 2007
AN INFANT school in Workington has been praised for encouraging kids to eat healthily and stay fit in a recent Ofsted inspection. Pauline Robertson, headteacher of Victoria Infant School in Islay Place, was criticised for discouraging junk food in packed lunches in the past but says the new regime has played a big part in the school’s excellent ratings.
Cumbria County Council chief executive Peter Stybelski says his outlook on life and work has changed since he underwent a kidney transplant in March, writes Julian Whittle. And he is urging everyone to register as organ donors so others in his position can have the same chance of life-changing surgery.
WAITING times are dropping after specialist nurses at Royal Blackburn Hospital began taking some key clinical decisions instead of doctors. East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust has claimed that the success is down to the new clinical decisions unit at the new Haslingden Road super-hospital.
A SAFETY first approach has seen an East Lancashire health team nominated for a national award. East Lancashire Primary Care Trust's accident prevention team is in the running at the 2007 Public Servant of the Year Awards, which will be announced in London on October 16.
I THINK the smoking ban in public places is wonderful. Many years ago I worked in an open plan office. My unborn child was forced to inhale and absorb nicotine and the hundreds of other chemicals from second-hand smoke.
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Counting cost of cigs ban - Lancashire Telegraph 13th July 2007
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IT'S not just smokers fuming at the ban. This improvised ashtray certainly seems to have taken the brunt of the new law - which bans smoking in enclosed public places.
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Smokers kept in the picture - Manchester Evening News 13th July 2007
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Smoking is not a human right - The Bolton News 13th July 2007
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Smokers kept in the picture - Manchester Evening News 13th July 2007
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Smoking is not a human right - The Bolton News 13th July 2007
A MAN awaiting a life-saving kidney transplant fears time is running out for him after his donor was refused entry into Britain. Doctors were poised to operate on father-of-one Saeed Ahmed after lining up his uncle Mohammed Aslam as a match.
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EXPERTS from across the world have travelled to Bolton to see how hospital bosses have transformed their management style. The Bolton Improving Care System, which was launched in August 2005, encourages managers to work with medical staff to improve care and waiting times and reduce death rates at the hospital.
A COUNSELLING and mentoring project in Bolton is offering a new service due to increased demand. The volunteer-run Respect project, based in Chorley Old Road, is putting on a new counselling session from 6pm to 9pm on Thursday evenings.
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Welcome debate on day care - Altrincham Messenger 13th July 2007
A NUMBER of readers have written recently expressing concern about social care provision for adults in Trafford. There are three main points I wish to make that might help the debate: a debate, incidentally, that I very much welcome. Readers have commented about the closure of some of our day care centres and elderly persons homes. It is a mistake to assume that closure of a building equates to the closure of a service.
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