Category Archives: Medical News

IT helping to Improve Patient Care at NHS Trusts

Clinical Dashboard The Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust believes that better information management is a key reason why it has been able to improve its standard of patient care. A few years ago the Trust developed a ‘Clinical Dashboard’ which tells Doctors and Nurses everything they need to know about a patient. The system, which was […]

BMA: Safer Rotas Required

The report, with has been undertaken by the British Medical Association’s Scottish Junior Doctors Committee (SJDC) claims that although work patterns appear to be compliant with the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) long periods of ‘unsociable hours could have serious implications for the health and wellbeing of doctors and negatively affect patient care’. However, with […]

Health Secretary Announces Plans To Change Out Of Hours Care

Under the new system family GPs will be handed responsibility for commissioning out-of-hours care (currently Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) hold responsibility for commissioning), however a return to the old out-of-hours system whereby GPs had to be on call to provide 24-7 out-of-hours care has been ruled out. Rather, General Practitioners in local groups or PBC […]

BMA Warns NHS Doctor Training Funds Must Be Protected

Dr Datta said “The NHS prides itself, quite rightly, on its highly trained staff, but the quality of doctors it produces depends on the quality of training provided. Alarmingly, our training is now under threat on many fronts: from the £20 billion worth of efficiency savings, politician-speak for cuts; from the understaffed rotas one in […]

Shortage Of Consultant Doctors

According to the study: The number of Consultant Level Doctors increased by 4.5% in 2008 Consultant Doctors in Acute and General Medicine increased by 23.3% Consultant Doctors in Stroke Medicine almost doubled from 27 to 50 A few specialities saw a fall in numbers: Geriatric Medicine fell by 1.6% Dermatology fell by 0.2% Allergy Specialists […]

Junior Doctors Working Off The Clock Due To EWTD

What is the European Working Time Directive? The European Working Time Directive (EWTD) ‘lays down the minimum requirements in relation to working hours, rest periods and annual leave’. The legislation became law in the UK on the 1st October 1998 as the ‘Working Time Regulations’ and although it applied to the vast majority of workers […]

NHS Spends £1 Billion Searching For Missing Equipment

The survey found that: Patient records and lab results go missing at least once a day according to over a quarter of hospital nurses Only 10% of nurses feel they have the time to check patient records thoroughly all 33% of nurses believe the use of physical patient records, instead of electronic systems, are responsible […]

Leading Doctors Support Centralisation of Services

The proposals seem to follow blueprints being laid down by specialist Indian Hospitals. Currently in India specialist hospitals, especially in heart surgery, are being developed in order to deal with the mass treatment of patients. Hospitals deal with a bulk number of patients, are provided with specialist cutting edge technologies and are staffed with a […]