NEWS
Marchers at the anti-cuts demo in London on March 26th. Image: Loz Flowers
Doctors ‘overwhelmed with information’ during swine flu pandemic
Key advice to doctors was ‘lost’ because of the sheer amount of information being issued by various different health bodies during the 2009-10 H1N1 flu pandemic.
The warning came from the BMA in its response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report on emergency planning.
The BMA’s head of science and ethics, Dr Vivienne Nathanson, explained:
“While doctors
Research into the number of NHS jobs under threat at trusts around the country shows that 53,000 posts have either been cut or may be soon.
The research by the anti-cuts lob- bying campaign False Economy, run by the TUC, was backed by the BMA, but dismissed as “scaremongering” by the Depart- ment of Health. It said savings made from efficiency gains were being re-invested in the NHS. A spokesman said that since May 2010, there are almost 2,500 more doctors, more nurses and more midwives.
But among the cuts detailed in the reports are 1,013 full-time jobs to go at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, 682 full-time equivalent posts at Wirral Univer- sity Teaching Hospital Trust, and 1,349 jobs at University Hospi- tal of North Staffordshire Trust,
which was told earlier this year by the Audit Commission that it had too many higher-paid nurses.
The 1,349 figure came from an FoI request, which showed staff numbers falling from 5,980 to 4,631 by the end of 2015.
But the trust rejected the figure, with its chief executive Julia Bridgewater saying: “There are no plans to make 1,350 staff redundant.
“The trust needs to make chang- es to the numbers of staff work- ing at the hospital between now and 2015 as we reduce beds in line with our new hospital and the move of services into the community. The programme to achieve this – Fit For the Future – incorporates a reduction of around 300 beds and the trans- fer of a significant number of our staff into a community setting,
providing care closer to people’s homes.”
Supporting the False Economy campaign, BMA chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum said: “Even cuts to ‘back-room’ staff frequently have an impact on clinical work- ers, who have to pick up the ad- ministrative burden.
“Cutting staff or services is not the only, nor the best, way to save money in the NHS. There needs to be a much greater focus on reducing waste, such as that created by the bureaucracy of the internal market and the expensive folly of the Private Finance Initia- tive.”
A Department of Health spokes- man said: “We promised to reduce NHS bureaucracy and plough this money straight back into patient care, and that is exactly what we are delivering.”
appreciate that events were moving extremely quickly during the most intense phase of the pandemic, we feel that key advice was lost because of the sheer volume of information that was issued by various bodies.
“We must learn from what happened and move to having one single portal of information during a health emergency.
“It is important that this information is linked to an academic journal so that doctors can be certain of its evidence-base. It also needs to be regularly updated in real time.”
The report highlights the lack of a government flu vaccination campaign in 2010.
Dr Nathanson added: “Flu vaccination awareness campaigns are effective at encouraging uptake of the annual flu jab and the BMA was disappointed that the Government chose not to run one last year – we hope it reconsiders this position for 2011.
The survival rate for early ovarian cancer has nearly doubled in 30 years, new figures show.
The five-year survival rate has increased from 21% in the early 1970s to 41% today; but survival falls to 20% for women diagnosed with Stage III ovarian cancer, and less than 6% for those diagnosed with Stage IV of the disease.
Dr James Brenton, based at Can- cer Research UK’s Cambridge Research Institute and an ovarian
cancer clinician at Addenbrooke’s hospital, said: “These latest fig- ures show improvements in treat- ment, such as centralisation of ovarian cancer surgery and uni- form access to chemotherapy, are making a difference in help- ing more women survive ovarian cancer, particularly those who are diagnosed earlier.
“But we face a real challenge in translating these improvements in survival to women whose ovarian cancer has already spread.”
10 | national health executive Mar/Apr 11
The figures are based on data from the East of England Cancer Registry.
Cancer Research UK, which re- leased the statistics, is helping to fund a trial of ovarian cancer screening involving more than 200,000 women, to see whether ultrasound scanning and a blood test can save lives.
Final findings from the screening trial are expected to be released in 2015.
“The Government should also consider running annual campaigns like the ‘catch it, kill it, bin it’ one to reduce the spread of infection.
“The BMA agrees that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation should conduct a comprehensive review of the evidence about the at-risk groups which should be included in the NHS flu vaccination programme,” Dr Nathanson concluded.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84