Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Home'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 148 results
  1. Event
    until
    NHS Confederation are bringing together organisations working to treat people closer to home. This conference will offer an opportunity for senior leaders across health and care to come together and explore health beyond the hospital. Health beyond the hospital is a chance to come together with others working in this space to explore how we can work collaboratively to support people in their homes and the community. It will focus on three key themes: people with health conditions (older people; people with multiple and complex conditions; and children and young people); data and digital; and innovation. This will be a key opportunity for members and non-members to network with peers, to share knowledge and experience, as well as listen to experts from across healthcare. By focusing on what we can do together and uniting around patients we can shift the conversation to focus on treating people where they live and keeping them well at home. Register
  2. Event
    until
    NHS England & Improvement has asked all Integrated Care Systems to extend, or introduce for the first time, the Virtual Ward model. The guidance starts a two-year funded transformation programme to support the development of Virtual Wards, including Hospital at Home. In this free webinar an expert panel will discuss how Virtual Wards can support elective recovery and improve patient flow during the critical Winter period. Our panel will also focus on the practicalities of setting up, rolling out and managing Virtual Wards across multiple treatments and care pathways. Headline discussion points: NHS winter pressures and tools to support delivery. Setting up, rolling out and managing Virtual Wards. Impact of Virtual Wards on the Healthcare system. Hospital at home & community based care models. What attendees will learn: What is a virtual ward and what needs to be in place to make virtual wards work. Innovation and initiatives that have been used previously to support delivery. How virtual wards can be rolled out across a system and new treatments/pathways introduced within a virtual ward. Register
  3. Event
    until
    This webinar is jointly sponsored by the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) and American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (AAP COQIPS) Join us for our first ISQua - AAP COQIPS webinar! In this interactive webinar you will learn about implementation tools and resources to decrease medication errors in the ambulatory paediatrics setting. These tools can also be applied to children with medical complexity, who are frequently at higher risk for medication errors due to challenges with care fragmentation, miscommunication, and polypharmacy. Register for the webinar
  4. Content Article
    The National Wound Care Strategy Programme, the AHSN Network’s Transforming Wound Care programme, and the Patient Experience Network have created a new resource to teach patients how to take a photograph of their wound to empower them to take an active role in their healthcare. Developed for patients by patients, based on experience and medical information, the resource provides hints and tips on best practice with taking wound photographs, including the mechanics of getting the best possible photograph and what photographs should and should not include to assist healthcare providers in providing the best possible care.
  5. Content Article
    'The Family Oops and Burns First Aid' is a free children's book written by Kristina Stiles, beautifully illustrated by Jill Latter, created to support children and their families learning about burns prevention and first aid principles together. The book describes an accident prone family who are not burns aware, who have to go to school to learn about burn safety and first aid principles within the home. The book is aimed at KS1 children and their families, and is available as hard copy book by request from Children's Burns Trust and also as an audio/video book via YouTube.
  6. Content Article
    Postpartum hypertensive disorders pose a serious health risk to new mothers; nearly 75 percent of maternal deaths associated with hypertensive disorders occur in the postpartum period. For the past decade, the obstetrics department at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) has tried to lower these risks by checking patients’ blood pressure after they are released from the hospital. Their initial efforts to have patients return to the office for an in-person blood pressure check shortly after discharge yielded disappointing results, so the team revamped their approach and ultimately developed an extremely successful program called Heart Safe Motherhood. The programme started when the team at HUP gave a small group of women a blood pressure cuff each. They told them they would receive text messages after discharge instructing them to take their blood pressure at 8am, and that they would need to send in the reading. At 1pm, they would get another text requesting that they send their blood pressure again. This article describes how Heart Safe Motherhood evolved to improve the likelihood of mothers submitting their readings, and how the programme was scaled up to five hospitals in the group. It looks at how the approach has helped tackled health inequalities and improved the safety of postpartum mothers.
  7. News Article
    NHS England’s plans to rapidly expand virtual wards are being ‘hastily rolled out’ and could put patients at risk while taking up significant staffing capacity, leading clinicians have warned. The Society for Acute Medicine and the Royal College of Physicians are among those who have raised concerns to HSJ about the huge increase in the use of the virtual wards model, under which patients are discharged home and given oximeters that fit on their finger so they can be remotely monitored by clinical staff. The concerns follow NHSE ordering trusts to ensure a minimum of 15% of hospital covid patients were being treated in virtual wards, in plans to help ease pressures on hospital wards announced just before Christmas. At the time NHSE announced the plans there were around 7,000 covid inpatients in English NHS hospitals, meaning around 1,000 patients should be in virtual wards. But the covid inpatient figure had more than doubled to nearly 16,000 by 5 January. The project is hugely significant because NHSE and trust chiefs want to use virtual wards much more widely – including for non-covid patients – and believe they represent a potentially game-changing option when it comes to alleviating pressure on hospitals and speeding up discharges. Many of the clinicians who spoke to HSJ were supportive of the principle of virtual wards but had serious concerns about the speed and timing of the rollout. They said there was a lack of evidence the approach was safe. Society for Acute Medicine president Tim Cooksley said virtual wards had potential for the future but that they “simply cannot be seen as a short-term mitigation measure which can be hastily rolled out mid-pandemic”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 January 2022
  8. News Article
    Is hiring more district nurses the smartest way to tackle the NHS care crisis as overstretched staff claim they are quitting hospitals due to intolerable pressure? District nurses are the unsung backbone of the NHS – going in to people’s homes to perform everything from wound dressings to support at the end of life. Yet what was once a thriving district nurse workforce has, over the past decade, been decimated. An ever-increasing caseload, limited resources and far more complex and challenging health needs have left them burnt out and fed up. As a result, they’re leaving in droves – at a time when we need them more than ever. The number of people dying at home is up by one third since before the pandemic, and those who do make it into hospital for care are discharged faster than ever to free up beds, long before they’ve made a full recovery. Ministers have tabled some ambitious ideas to address the vital need for at-home care, including a wave of new community health hubs, or more video appointments. But none are a quick fix, nor are they proven to solve the problem. Recruiting more district nurses could help alleviate these pressures, say experts, as well as tackling what threatens to be a spiralling crisis in community care. But this might be harder than it sounds. Read full story Source: Mail Online, 13 November 2021
  9. News Article
    A severe shortage of midwives has led to home birth services being closed or reduced by a number of hospital trusts across the UK, with pregnant women frequently left in limbo as to where they will be able to give birth. The Observer has found more than 20 trusts that have had disrupted home birth services in the past three months. Eight confirmed their services remain suspended due to staff shortages. They include East Kent Hospitals, Swansea Bay University Health Board and NHS Dumfries and Galloway – all of which report that the situation is under constant review. Home birth services at some trusts, such as Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust and University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, have been closed since August. Others have reopened after short suspensions or have written to expectant parents to say they cannot guarantee sending a midwife when there is high demand or staff shortages. The findings come a week after midwives across Britain staged protests to call on the government to address the “crisis” in maternity care, with staff suffering from chronic burnout and stress. Midwives are being driven out of the NHS by understaffing and fears they cannot deliver safe care, according to a recent survey published by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). Maria Booker, programmes director at the charity Birthrights, said: “Staffing pressures in maternity services are very real right now. But for many women the option to give birth at home is not a luxury but the only option that feels safe to them." “Some know they will labour better at home while some do not want to visit hospital during a pandemic. Others have a had a previous traumatic hospital birth. We cannot just accept that home birth and other choices go out the window every time a maternity service is squeezed.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 November 2021
  10. News Article
    The NHS is to introduce a revolutionary new treatment to tackle the leading genetic cause of death among babies and young children. About 1,500 patients in England with certain types of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) are expected to benefit from risdiplam, after a recommendation from the health watchdog. The drug, also called Evrysdi and made by Roche, is a syrup that can be taken at home and is the first non-injectable treatment for the condition. SMA is a progressive neuromuscular condition affecting the nerves in the spinal cord controlling movement and can cause paralysis, muscle weakness and progressive loss of mobility. The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, said: “In the last three years the NHS has revolutionised care for people with SMA, by securing access to a trio of innovative treatments – Spinraza, Zolgensma and now risdiplam – where three years ago clinicians had no effective medicines at all. “Spinal muscular atrophy is a cruel disease and the leading genetic cause of death among babies and young children, which is why NHS England has been determined to make these treatments available to people as soon as possible to help transform the lives of patients and their families.” Meindert Boysen, the deputy chief executive of NICE, said the watchdog was pleased to recommend a “convenient oral treatment for people with SMA that can be administered at home”. He said: “This will not only be less burdensome, and therefore have a positive impact on the lives of both people with SMA and their caregivers, but it will also reduce the treatment administration requirements for the NHS. “In practical terms, the availability of an oral drug should lead to greater adherence to treatment, along with giving access to a treatment to those who aren’t able to have other currently recommended options.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 November 2021
  11. News Article
    People are dying at home without the correct nursing support or pain relief because of staff shortages, according to the end-of-life charity Marie Curie. One in three nurses, responding to a survey by the charity and Nursing Standard, say a lack of staff is the main challenge providing quality care to dying people. More than half of the nurses said they feel the standard of care has deteriorated during the coronavirus pandemic. Some 548 nursing staff across acute and community settings in the UK completed the survey in September. They raise concerns about the increased number of people dying at home and insufficient numbers of community nurses to support these people and their families. One nurse who responded to the survey said: "If more [people] are dying at home then there is a huge pressure on local district nursing teams which struggle with staffing as it is." Julie Pearce, chief nurse and executive director of quality and caring services at Marie Curie, said: "The pandemic has accelerated change across many care settings. "More people are dying at home and staffing to support this shift isn't there. "The data shows a hidden crisis happening behind closed doors and people dying without access to pain relief or the dignity they deserve." Read full story Source: The Independent, 27 October 2021
  12. News Article
    Parts of the South East saw “striking” levels of excess deaths occurring in people’s homes between July and October. Analysis of official data by HSJ shows the region, which excludes London, had almost 900 excess deaths in the 10 weeks to 2 October (around 10 per 100,000 population), which accounted for almost three-quarters of the national total in that period. Excess deaths means the number taking place above the seasonal average of previous years. Deaths in people’s homes — as opposed to in hospitals or care homes, for example — more than accounted for the total excess. Meanwhile, only 132 of the region’s deaths in this period mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate. Experts have described the South East numbers as “very striking”, but said it is not immediately clear what was causing it to be such a significant outlier. Possible explanations for excess mortality during the pandemic have included disruptions to normal health services, as well as anxiety among patients about attending hospital or GP surgeries. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 October 2020
  13. News Article
    More men than normal are dying at home from heart disease in England and Wales and more women are dying from dementia and Alzheimer's disease, figures show. More than 26,000 extra deaths occurred in private homes this year, an analysis by the Office for National Statistics found. In contrast, deaths in hospitals from these causes have been lower than usual. The Covid epidemic may have led to fewer people being treated in hospital or it may be that people in older age groups, who make up the majority of these deaths, may be choosing to stay at home – but the underlying reasons for the figures are still not clear. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 October 2020
  14. News Article
    Some 10,000 more deaths than usual have occurred in peoples’ private homes since mid June, long after the peak in Covid deaths, prompting fears that people may still be avoiding health services and delaying sending their loved ones to care homes. It brings to more than 30,000 the total number of excess deaths happening in people’s homes across the UK since the start of the pandemic. Excess deaths are a count of those deaths which are over and above a “normal” year, based on the average number of deaths that occurred in the past five years. In the past three months the number of excess deaths across all settings, has, in the main been lower than that of previous years. However, deaths in private homes buck the trend with an average of 824 excess deaths per week in people’s homes in the 13 weeks to mid-September. Experts are citing resistance from the public to enter hospitals or home care settings and “deconditioning” caused by decreased physical activity among older people shielding at home, for example not walking around a supermarket or garden centre as they might normally. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 September 2020
  15. News Article
    Patients have come to avoidable harm after a large private provider failed to deliver thousands of medicine prescriptions, according to a report from the Care Quality Commission. Healthcare at Home, which is based in Staffordshire but provides NHS-funded care and medicine supplies to patients’ homes across the country, has been rated “inadequate” and placed in special measures. A report published today said inspectors found more than 10,000 patients missed a dose of their medicine between October and December 2020 due to problems caused by the introduction of a new information system. Reviews have found some suffered avoidable harm as a result. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 May 2021
  16. News Article
    Virtual wards, at-home antibiotic kits and using artificial intelligence in GP surgeries are among new initiatives to be trialled as part £160m funding to tackle waiting lists in the NHS. NHS England announced the funding to aid in the health service’s recovery after the pandemic, after figures last month revealed the number of people waiting to begin hospital treatment in England had risen to a new record. A total of 4.7 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of February - the highest figure since records began in August 2007. But NHS England said indicators suggest operations and other elective activity were at four-fifths of pre-pandemic levels in April, which is "well ahead" of the 70% threshold set out in official guidance. It said it is working to speed up the health service's recovery by trialling new ways of working in 12 areas and five specialist children's hospitals. The so-called "elective accelerators" will each get some of the £160m as well as extra support for new ways to increase the number of elective operations, NHS England said. Tens of thousands of patients in the trial areas will be part of initiatives including a high-volume cataract service, one-stop testing facilities and pop-up clinics to allow patients to be seen and discharged closer to home. Other trials over the next three months include virtual wards and home assessments, 3D eye scanners, at-home antibiotic kits, "pre-hab" for patients ahead of surgery, artificial intelligence in GP surgeries and so-called "Super Saturday" clinics, bringing multi-disciplinary teams together at the weekend to offer more specialist appointments. Read full story Source: The Independent,
  17. News Article
    An antiviral typically used to treat influenza is a “good contender” for a drug that could be taken at home by people infected with COVID-19, according to a scientist who is trialling the medicine. Favipiravir, licensed as a flu treatment in Japan since 2014, has already shown potential in reducing lung damage in hospitalised Covid patients and speeding up the time taken to clear the virus from the body. But two UK trials, in Glasgow and London, are investigating whether the drug could be taken by people in the community before their disease has progressed, therefore keeping them out of hospital. The government has promised to “supercharge” the search for and development of a new generation of easy-to-take, at-home drugs that can reduce transmission and quicken recovery from COVID-19. A new taskforce, modelled on the team behind Britain’s vaccine procurement programme, is to oversee this work. It intends to deliver two effective treatments - offered in tablet form - to the public as early as autumn. Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 April 2021
  18. News Article
    Extremely unwell eating disorder patients are having to be tube fed at home by their families owing to a lack of hospital beds, as the Royal College of Psychiatrists reports a rise in people being treated in units without specialist support. Leading psychiatrists are urging the government for an emergency cash investment as the pandemic has prompted a rise in demand for treatment for conditions such as anorexia, amid “desperate pressure in the system”. In interviews with the Guardian, a number of parents told of the struggles of helping a severely unwell person from home. A number of families said they had no choice but to tube feed their children at home daily. Other parents said their children had been admitted to general children’s wards, where they were being treated by staff who had no experience of eating disorders. It is unclear how many patients are being treated at home, but Agnes Ayton, the chair of the Eating Disorder Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said she had heard of people being unable to find beds and being creative in the community: “There is desperate pressure in the system.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 April 2021
  19. News Article
    A cheap drug, commonly used to treat asthma, can help people at home recover more quickly from COVID-19, a UK trial has found. Two puffs of budesonide twice a day could benefit many over-50s with early symptoms around the world, said the University of Oxford research team. There are also early signs the drug could reduce hospital admissions. The NHS says it can now be prescribed by GPs to treat Covid on a case-by-case basis from today. At present, there are few options for treating people with Covid who are not in hospital, apart from paracetamol. This widely-available asthma drug works in the lungs, where coronavirus can do serious damage, and could improve the recovery of at-risk patients who are unwell with Covid at home. Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said he was "delighted" by the trial results so far and he said GPs could prescribe it after "a shared decision conversation" with patients. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 April 2021
  20. News Article
    Long delays for coronavirus patients to get through to NHS 111 call handlers while other seriously ill patients were told to stay at home have prompted a safety watchdog to launch an investigation of the phone triage service. The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) has launched an inquiry into the handling of coronavirus calls by NHS 111 – the first port of call for patients when they become unwell. During the pandemic the NHS 111 service set up a dedicated COVID-19 Clinical Assessment Service (CCAS) but concerns over the safety of advice given to patients saw nurses and non-medical staff stopped from taking patient calls in August last year. Now concerns from a number of patients and families have led the independent HSIB to launch a review of the service and to identify any learning and improvements. HSIB told The Independent the investigation was at an early stage and it was not yet certain of any direct link to patient harm. It said the number of patient cases could grow but that it had initial family concerns related to difficulties getting through to NHS 111, long delays in getting clinical call backs after an initial triage call and concerns that some patients were told to stay at home when they were seriously ill. Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 March 2021
  21. News Article
    Some of the country’s most clinically vulnerable people have yet to receive the coronavirus vaccination, Guardian analysis shows. Ministers had said all clinically extremely vulnerable adults would be offered a vaccination by 15 February, but more than a month later some people who are housebound because of health problems have yet to be offered a jab they can actually access. People whose disability or age means that they are unable to get to one of the mass vaccine centres around the country were meant to be visited by a “mobile health worker” at home, similar to that offered to care home residents. However, while government figures suggest that nearly nine in 10 people who are clinically extremely vulnerable have received a first dose, a number who are housebound are missing out, with some being expected to travel miles to a vaccine centre. Kim Liddell, 49, from Cheshire, is housebound because of the nerve condition cauda equina syndrome, and is still waiting for a home visit. “I’ve spoken to my GP practice and all I have been told is they are in the process of setting up clinics,” she said. “The worst part of this is my father died from Covid three weeks ago. And I am at massive risk as my son, who lives with me, is a teacher, doesn’t drive [and has gone] back to face-to-face teaching. I’m absolutely petrified. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 March 2021
  22. News Article
    People will be able to check if they have bowel cancer by swallowing a tiny capsule containing miniature cameras, in an extension of patient self-care. In what experts described as a trend towards more NHS at-home care, hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of people in England will be able to avoid the discomfort of having a camera inserted into their bowel by instead swallowing a capsule the size of a cod liver oil tablet. Pictures transmitted from inside their body during the painless procedure will help doctors judge whether the person has bowel cancer, the second deadliest form of the disease in the UK. The boss of the NHS in England said the procedure, known as a colon capsule endoscopy, is an example of “sci-fi” medicine increasingly deployed to improve care. One of the country’s top doctors said the capsules illustrated a major shift of healthcare out of hospitals that will see more and more diagnosis and treatment of illness done at home. Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We’re aware that some patients are reluctant to seek help for certain cancers because the diagnostic tests available can be invasive, so this is a fascinating development and we will be very interested to see the results of the trial. “GPs are preparing for an upsurge in cases of suspected cancer cases post-Covid, and the capsule cameras and new test for cervical cancer are welcome developments that could enable more patients to monitor and manage their own health at home without embarrassment or discomfort.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 March 2021
  23. News Article
    Elderly and vulnerable people could be forced to move out of their own homes into institutional care unless the chancellor invests billions of pounds to shore up social services and reform England’s broken care model, The Independent has been told. In an exclusive interview ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Budget on Wednesday, James Bullion, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), warned the care system risked “catastrophic failure in some areas” without urgent changes to the way vulnerable people, including younger disabled people, are looked after. He warned the number of people needing care had doubled in some parts of the country since March, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Ministers are planning to bring forward reforms to social care later this year, but Mr Bullion, who leads social services in Norfolk, said the system needed at least £4bn over the next two years “just to keep the show on the road”. He warned the sector had been rocked by more than 30,000 deaths in care homes from Covid, with a 40% turnover in staff, higher sickness, and more than 100,000 vacancies on top of rising costs. “We’ve got social care providers who are very much more fragile and at risk than they were a year ago. We were able to pay premiums to providers to keep going, but we've now reached the point where the revenue consequences of the last year will come home to roost. And we're very worried about the impact on the social care market and whether it will still be there for us in a way that it’s been in the past year if we take that support away.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 March 2021
  24. News Article
    About 31,000 women in London are being offered "do-it-at-home" tests to check for early warnings of cervical cancer, as part of an NHS trial. It could be a way to encourage more women to get screened, experts hope. Embarrassment, cultural barriers and worries about Covid, along with many other factors, can stop women going for smear tests at a clinic or GP surgery. Smear-test delays during the pandemic prompted calls for home-screening kits from cervical cancer charities. The swabbing involves using a long, thin cotton bud to take a sample from inside the vagina, which is then sent by post for testing. If the results reveal an infection called human papillomavirus (HPV) they will be invited to their GP for a standard smear test to closely examine the cells of their cervix. Dr Anita Lim, from King's College London, who is leading the YouScreen trial, said: "Women who don't come for regular screening are at the highest risk of developing cervical cancer. "So it is crucial that we find ways like this to make screening easier and protect women from what is a largely preventable cancer. Self-sampling is a game-changer." Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 February 2021
  25. News Article
    People who need to receive their covid vaccinations at home are missing out because their eligibility is not being recognised by GPs, experts have warned. There have been numerous reports of housebound people being told they are ineligible for a home visit in recent weeks, with some home care providers saying only a minority of their elderly clients have been vaccinated so far. Chit Selvarajah, policy manager at the charity Independent Age, said: “We have heard from people who say they are housebound being told they weren’t considered as housebound and told to go to a vaccination centre as they are not eligible for a home visit." “We don’t know how many people have been vaccinated but it’s likely to be very small numbers at the moment.” Ruthe Isden, head of health and care influencing at Age UK, believes some older people have “slipped into being effectively housebound” over the last year, and are not yet registered as such on GP databases. She said: “The pandemic has hit the fast forward button on ageing for a lot of people. They’ve aged a long way in a short period and seen their health really deteriorate, and often they are not going to proactively identify themselves as needing more help." “It’s vital we are thinking systematically about reaching this group. At the moment, there seems to be considerable variation in how people are followed up.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 February 2021
×
×
  • Create New...