NAPC News 4 February 2010

Spending On NHS Hospitals And Equipment Will Fall By 22 Per Cent

The National Health Service budget for building hospitals and buying medical equipments is set to fall sharply, figures have indicated. The capital budget for the NHS in England will be reduced by more than a fifth in the next financial year, with a total reduction of £1.4 billion, according to Channel Four News.

Extra Cash For Air Ambulance To Provide 24 Hour Service

London's air ambulance will become the first in the country to provide a 24 hour service for crash and trauma victims. Ambulance chiefs are increasing funding to provide round the clock support from the service based at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. The ambulance services said the changes would give Londoners an extra 30 hours a week of specialist care from next month.

RCGP Warns Not To Collect Certificates For Revalidation

The Royal College of General Practitioner's (RCGP) latest guides to revalidation and CPD have clarified the requirements for GPs and warned that the quality of activity was just as important as the time spent.

In the third version of its revalidation guide, the college has implemented plans to simplify the CPD credits system. The RCGP said that, in essence, one hour of education was one learning credit. But GPs were able to claim two credits for each hour of education if they could show how it benefited patients, their practice or themselves.

Credits will be self-assessed and verified at annual appraisal, so GPs must ensure that they do not over-estimate the value of their learning. The College's revised CPD guide warned that it was the demonstration of the learning achieved and relevance to the work that GPs undertook that defined the credit. ‘In short, the RCGP did not advocate the collection of certificates. Rather a collection of self-assessed acquired knowledge relevant to the individual's working situation is required'.

The RCGP suggested that the indicated time on certificates often had little or no bearing on actual time spent and encouraged GPs to claim the actual time,

Over the five year revalidation cycle, GPs must gain at least 50 learning credits a year. The guide gave examples of relevant work. Completing one of the RCGP's Essential Knowledge Updates and its linked challenge would earn 10 to 15 credits, doubling the amount of credits where an impact on practice was demonstrated. Attending a day's meeting on a specialist area could earn six credits.

The RCGP has also said that instead of two clinical audits, GPs may be able to submit one audit and a quality improvement project every five years.

Out Of Hours Providers To Face Public Ratings Report

Out of hours providers are to be compared publicly this year, according to a group of primary care experts, which advises the Department of Health and other organisations.

The Primary Care Foundation has completed two exercises on the quality of PCTs and their out of hours providers. It has decided to make the next round of data publicly available and to ask patients to rate their care.

Henry Clay, a partner at the Primary Care Foundation, said research had found that overall out of hours care was done by local GPS and was of good quality. There were some governance issues, he said. But much of this was done by GPs patients saw and trusted every day.

In it latest report, Improving Out of Hours Care, the Primary Care Foundation said the way urgent calls were dealt with was a priority for improvement.

The Conservatives have reiterated plans to hand commissioning of out-of-hours to GPs. A poll in the GP press last year found that just 38 per cent of the profession wished to take back out of hours responsibility.

Plans To Reduce GP Appointment Times In London

Plans to reduce primary care costs could see GP appointment times cut by a third in London.

NHS London has told Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) that they must have plans to deliver against ‘affordability assumptions' that included slicing 15 per cent off the drugs budget and imposing a flat fee per consultation outside of core hours.

London's PCTs are looking to shift work from hospitals to primary care as cuts of £5 billion by 2017 loom for NHS London, according to London's NHS on the Brink, a report commissioned by the British Medical Association's London Regional Council.

From 2011, NHS London faces a 4 per cent rise in activity with no growth in real-term budgets, according to the author of the report, John Lister. He went on the say that the affordability assumptions were a ‘potted summary' of McKinsey research into making £20 billion savings across the NHS.

GPC negotiator and West London GP, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, said the plan to cut appointment times was ‘quite ludicrous'.

NHS London is to discuss its plans with London GP leaders. A spokesman said the plans were based on best practice.

Charity Reveals Regional Blood Pressure Variation

A significant proportion of Britons have high blood pressure and certain parts of the UK appear to have a particular problem, new research suggests.

Data collected by the Blood Pressure Association (BPA) revealed that 36 per cent of people tested in Northern Ireland had high blood pressure, compare with 29 per cent of people in Scotland.

A closer look at the figures showed that in England, 39 per cent of study participants in the West Midlands had high readings, while the South Central region recorded a prevalence of 29 per cent.

Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of the BPA, which tested 103,000 adults between September 7th and 13th 2009, expressed concern at the number of people with high blood pressure.

High blood pressure is a symptomless condition, which causes half of all strokes and heart attacks in the UK, he revealed. Professor MacGregor urged everyone to find out their blood pressure and to seek advice on how to lower it, if necessary.
Britons Still Ignorant About Salt And Health

The majority of British people realise that eating too much salt is bad for their health, but do not understand the reasons why, a survey has found.

A poll of 2,063 people over the age of 16 commissioned by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash), found that the vast majority of people knew they should limit the amount of salt in their diets. However, the reasons for doing so were less well-known, with only 34 per cent of respondents recognising the link between a high salt diet and stroke, an djsut four per cent realizing it could increase their chances of developing the bone-thinning disease, osteoporosis.

Professor MacGregor, Chairman of Cash, said the evidence linking salt to conditions such as stomach cancer, osteoporosis, kidney disease, obesity and stroke had been building for years and must not now be ignored.

According to Cash, the average Briton consumes around 8.6g of salt per day, despite the fact that health experts recommend eating no more than 6g. Some of the main contributors to salt in our diet include cereals, processed meats and dairy products.

Midwife Shortages Leads To Delivery By Dad

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trusts has apologised to a father who delivered his partner's baby at the Royal Blackburn Hospital because of shortages of midwives at the hospital.

Thomas Howard, aged 33 of Blackburn, assisted his partner's delivery when she started bleeding after the midwife assigned to her left the ward.

Removing Cigarette Branding Could Have Negative Effects

Plans announced this week by the Secretary of State for Health to halve the number of smokers in England by 2020, including outlawing branding on cigarette packets, have been criticised by cigarette manufacturers. British American Tobacco said removing branding from packets would make it far easier for criminal to flood the market with mass produced fake products for sale on street corners, which the company says would make them more accessible to young people.

Legal Aid System Overspend Criticised

A report by the Public Accounts Committee criticised the management of the Legal Services Commission, describing it as lax and deficient. The report criticised the £25 million overpaid to law firms last year and has called for a cap on the amount lawyers representing defendants using legal aid services can receive in fees.

Lancet Retracts MMR Link To Autism

The research paper that triggered claims linking autism to the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella was this week formally retracted by the Lance, a week after the GMC ruled that its author, Dr Andrew Wakefield, had breached ethical guidelines.

Richard Horton, Editor of the Lancet, said he had decided in 2004 not to retract the paper after an investigation by the Royal Free Hospital concluded it was ‘entirely satisfied; with its ethical scrutiny. Mr. Horton said that the big flaw was that everyone takes the whole system on trust, and where trust broke down, everything collapsed. He went on to say that the Lancet now imposed much tougher peer review on controversial papers, withholding those judged likely to spark public misinterpretation.

Premature Birth Gene Identified

Genes that can double the risk of a premature birth have been identified. The breakthrough could be used to identify women at high risk. The gene variants were found by scientists from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Maryland.