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NAPC News 3 August 2012

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Created on Friday, 03 August 2012 14:12

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NAPC News 3 August 2012

NHS Patients’ Data To Be Sold For Research

Millions of people’s medical records are to be sold to pharmaceutical companies, as the government announced plans on Wednesday to change the NHS Constitution to allow patients’ data to be sold.

Sue NH Trusts If They Withhold Drugs NICE Tells Patients

Sir Michael Rawlins, the chairman of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, has suggested that patients should sue local health authorities if they deny them drugs deemed cost effective for use on the NHS, arguing that ‘numerous trusts’ were acting unlawfully’ in denying patients NICE-approved treatments.

Office Of Health Economics

The Office of Health Economics has been awarded £457K grant on Measuring Public Preferences for Health States.

This grant from the Policy Research Programme of the National Institute for Health Research supports research to produce an EQ-5D-5L Value Set for England.

Commissioning Outcomes Framework

This week, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence published the first menu of 44 new proposed indicators recommended by the Commissioning Outcomes Framework (COF) Advisory Committee.

This menu of indicators will now be considered by the NHS Commissioning Board for potential inclusion in the 2013/14 COF and covers areas, including aspects of care given immediately after a stroke and also following hospital discharged after treatment for stroke; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; maternal care; and access to mental health services.

From April 2013, the COF will hold Clinical Commissioning Groups to account for improvement in quality of healthcare and patient outcomes through better commissioning.

The indicators are available on the NICE website at: http://www.nice.org.uk/aboutnice/cof.jsp.

New Pill Can Beat Arthritis

Hundreds of thousands of Britons crippled with rheumatoid arthritis are being given fresh hope by a powerful new drug.

Tofacitinib targets pathways in the cells that regulate inflammation and, unlike many treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, it can be taken orally, instead of by injection.

Found Mother Cells Behind Cancer Growth

Scientists say that the deadly ‘mother cells’ that drive the growth of tumours have been pinpointed for the first time, a breakthrough which could help in the development of a real cure.

Ben Simons, of Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Research Institute, said that knowing just which cells to target ‘might be a much better strategy to effect a real cure and prevent relapse.’

Scientists Call For A Longer Ban On Bird Flu Research

A total ban on research into the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus should continue until it is prove to be safe, senior officials within the US government have told scientists.

When details emerged last December of two experiments, where scientists deliberately mutated H5N1 to make it highly transmissible, flu researchers decided to suspend the work temporarily, following widespread public concern.

Reckitt Benckiser Growth Offset In US And Europe

Reckitt Benckiser this week reported a 4 per cent rise in first half year sales to 30 June 2012, excluding currency movements, acquisitions and disposals.

RBP, its pharmaceutical arm, whose Suboxone opiate addiction treatment came off patent in 2009, reported an operating profit of 2 per cent to £1.07bn.

Shire Appoints Senior Vice President

Shire has appointed Soren Tulstrup as senior vice president and franchise lead for its human genetic therapies business.

GSK

GlaxoSmithKline’s $3.6bn takeover offer for Human Genome Sciences was accepted by 79 per cent of the American biotech company’s shareholders this week by the deadline of 30 July.

Why Women Live Longer Than Men

The answer to the biological puzzle of why women live longer than men may lie in the tiny ‘power packs’ of the body’s cells, which harbour mutations that are more harmful to males than females, scientists have revealed.

Women Duped Over Benefit Of Breast Cancer Screening

The world’s largest breast cancer charity has been accused of ‘oscar winning’ tactics that over sell the benefits of x-ray checks, ignoring the potentially harmful effects.

Experts said the charity, which invented the pink ribbon logo for breast cancer awareness, was using misleading statistics. Negative effects were overlooked, including false alarms requiring biopsies and over diagnosis, where women are treated for cancers that would never have produced symptoms.

Inactive Children More Likely To Grow Up Short Sighted

Children who play outside have less chance of becoming short sighted research suggests.

Academics at Bristol University discovered that children who regularly played outdoors when they were eight or nine were almost half as likely to be short sighted by the age of 15 as those who did not.

The study is published in the journal, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science.

Meningitis Children Left With Long Term Effects

A third of children who survive meningitis will be left with devastating long-term conditions, research suggests.

One in three children who are treated for the disease will suffer mental health problems, epilepsy and learning difficulties, the study found.

Commissioned by the Meningitis Trust, the study looked at the effects of meningococcal group B disease, the UK’s most common type of bacterial meningitis. The Meningococcal Outcomes Study in Adolescents and Children (Mosaic) involved more than 570 children in England over a three year period.

Caffeine May Ease Symptoms Of Parkinson’s

Caffeine may help to control movement in people with Parkinson’s disease, scientists have found.

A research team at McGill University Health Centre in Canada studied 61 people with Parkinson’s disease, half of whom were given a 100mg dose of caffeine twice a day for three weeks, followed by 200mg twice a day for the next three weeks.

The remaining participants were given a placebo for the duration of the study period.

Analysis revealed that people who took caffeine regularly benefited from a noticeable improvement in motor symptoms.’ This was due to improvement in speed of movement and a reduction in stiffness’, said the lead author, Dr Ronald Postuma, professor of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University.

‘Research has already shown that people who drink coffee have a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, but until now no study had looked at the immediate clinical implications of this finding’, the researcher added.

The findings, which are published in the journal Neurology, could have important implications, as there are currently around 127,000 people in the UK with the progressive neurological condition.