NEWS
NHS chief executive praises the Lilac Centre following unique award
N
HS chief executive Sir David Nicholson visited St Helens
Hospital recently and praised the quality of care provided to patients at the award-winning Lilac Centre.
The purpose designed cancer care centre is the first across the whole Merseyside region to achieve the ‘Macmillan Quality Environment Mark’.
This new quality standard from Macmillan Cancer Support, looks at how a centre delivers the care that people affected by cancer receive and celebrates outstanding achievement and best practice.
Sir David Nicholson handing the Macmillan Quality Environment Mark plaque to Barbara Jost, Lilac Centre manager, with Simon Henderson, head of cancer environments, Macmillan Cancer Support (to the right of Barbara), Ann Marr, chief executive of the trust (to the right of Simon) and members of the Lilac Centre team.
After meeting with patients and staff, Sir David presented the award to the Lilac Centre. He said: “The time I get to spend on
the front-line of the NHS with patients and staff is valuable. My visit to St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
was particularly rewarding, especially seeing the hard work, dedication and commitment to quality of care in the Lilac Centre which was echoed by the patients that I met.”
Trust chief executive Ann Marr, said: “We were delighted to welcome Sir David Nicholson to the trust in recognition of the excellent cancer care we provide.
It is a tremendous achievement to be the first centre within the local cancer network to be awarded this prestigious quality mark. The Lilac Centre provides patients with an environment that is purpose designed to meet their needs and our staff deliver a professional, personalised and compassionate service.”
Undetected high blood pressure associated with more deaths from heart attacks
Y
our postcode could affect your risk of dying from a heart attack, a
new study from the University of Leicester has discovered.
Medical researchers from the University set out to determine why death rates from coronary heart disease varied around the country and found that living in a deprived area contributed to your risk.
The study has for the first time established an association at national level between detection of hypertension and death rates from coronary heart disease.
The Leicester team, from the department of health sciences, analysed whether variations in deaths between different parts of the country could be explained by characteristics of primary health care services (such as
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numbers of doctors, performance against national targets), as well as by characteristics of the population, such as deprivation, lifestyle (such as smoking) or the numbers of people with diabetes
Their findings have been published in the November 10 issue of JAMA.
Lead research and report author Dr. Steve Levene of the University of Leicester and a city GP, said: “We found that population characteristics were most important, including deprivation. However, 10% of the variation was also explained by how successful primary care services are at detecting people who have high blood pressure (hypertension). People who have hypertension are at greater risk of having heart attacks. No other health service factor that we examined was associated with
the variation. Our results were the same for 3 consecutive years, 2006, 2007 & 2008.
“We found that higher
proportions of white individuals, higher levels of deprivation, higher levels of diabetes, higher proportions of smokers and lower levels of detected hypertension were associated with higher levels of coronary heart disease mortality at primary care trust level in our models. Interestingly, when diabetes, age, smoking, obesity and deprivation are taken into account, coronary heart disease death rates are higher in populations with a greater proportion of whites rather than of non-whites.
“This is important because it suggests ways in which we can reduce deaths from coronary heart disease. Greater detection of hypertension may reduce
deaths from heart attacks. However, it is important to recognise the importance of deprivation, obesity and smoking. People need to be aware of the value of having their blood pressure checked, along with other steps to stay healthy including not smoking and controlling their weight. Any policy to reduce coronary heart disease death rates will need to address these problems as well.”
Dr Levene said the new study was important since it shows a practical way to reduce deaths from heart attack that can be implemented now at a relatively lower cost. It also suggests that medical practitioners and policy makers need to make better contact with the whole population rather than just those individuals whose diseases are known about.
Nov/Dec 10
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