News
Government announces £250m funding for extra hospital beds
Nine hundred new hospital beds will be delivered across the NHS as part of £250 million government funding to help treat patients more quickly this winter, the Health and Social Care Secretary, Steve Barclay, has announced. Thirty NHS organisations across England will benefit from the investment in urgent and emergency care services. This includes developing or expanding urgent treatment centres and same day emergency care services, which will help patients to be seen more quickly without being admitted to hospital. NHS England expects that the majority of schemes will be completed by January to help deal with winter pressures. This investment is part of the NHS Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan, published in January, which set out plans to provide over 5,000 additional permanent, fully staffed hospital beds in total, with the NHS on track to deliver this by winter. Examples of schemes include Peterborough City Hospital, where £12.5 million will be used to provide 72 hospital beds through the conversion of under-utilised non-clinical space. In London at the Northwick Park Hospital, a 32 bed modular acute medical ward is being created through a £22.6 million investment to increase the hospital’s capacity this winter. Several Trusts will develop or expand urgent treatment centres to treat patients more quickly, helping to reduce waiting times, including Hull Royal Infirmary, James Cook University Hospital, Airedale General Hospital and
Gene silencing therapy in Alzheimer’s disease
Worthing Hospital. Some Trusts will also use the funding to develop or expand same day emergency care services, including in Whipps Cross Hospital, Royal Surrey County Hospital, Croydon University hospital and Worthing Hospital. Same day emergency care services help to assess, diagnose and treat patients more quickly, without needing to be admitted to a hospital ward. Commenting on the extra funding, Siva
Anandaciva, Chief Analyst at The King’s Fund, said: “Any extra capacity in the NHS to help reduce winter pressures is a positive thing...But adding more beds to hospitals is only part of the equation. To improve care for patients the NHS also needs enough clinical professionals to staff these extra beds. While progress is being made to increase staffing numbers and deliver on the workforce plan, the NHS is facing 112,000 vacancies.”
Initial results from an early phase study investigating a new ‘gene silencing’ therapy for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) suggest the treatment has the potential to alter the course of the disease. The trial represents the first time a type of gene silencing therapy called RNA interference has been used to target a brain disease. RNA interference is one of the most promising advances in drug development today. It is thought that this novel mechanism will reduce the production of amyloid proteins, thus leading to a prevention of AD diseases including early- onset AD (EOAD), a debilitating disease that strikes in people below the age of 65. EOAD is the leading cause of dementia in younger people, severely impacting their lives and resulting in early mortality. There are currently no available treatments to halt or reverse the progression of this disease. Dr. Catherine Mummery, Consultant
Neurologist at the Dementia Research Centre, at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), is one of eight investigators world-wide and the only UK investigator supporting the trial, which is investigating a treatment called ALN-APP, a therapy based on RNA interference. 20 patients were enrolled in the first part of the trial. The results demonstrated sustained reductions in amyloid molecules following a single dose of ALN-APP.
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