MPs condemn delay in new cancer test approval
The integrity and independence of the NICE review process demanded, she said, that government did not intervene in its decisions or timetables. However Blears assured the delegation that in the meantime she would do everything within her power to ensure that laboratory and medical personnel were trained using the new technique and were ready to use liquid based cytology as soon as NICE had approved it.
Despite their frustration, the delegation agreed that it was positive that the government was aware of the apparent advantages of liquid based cytology over current laboratory practice and hoped that eventually this new technique would be adopted across the whole NHS.
Geraldine Smith, MP, Patsy Calton, MP, Pamela Morton from the Jo's Trust, a patient group for cervical cancer, Joe Jordan, Medical Director of the Birmingham Women's Hospital and Euphemia McGoogan, Consultant Cytologist and head of the Scottish Screening Programme all attended the meeting.
Further information on the work of Jo's Trust is available on: www.jotrust.co.uk
Smallpox jab for key staff
health workers and some military personnel are set to be vaccinated against smallpox, the government has announced.
Although Number 10 insisted the move was not in response to any specific threat, it added that ministers will also be buying a second supply of vaccine to ensure enough stocks will be available for the whole population.
"What is clear is that since September 11 we have to be alive to the threat of terrorism. The government would be failing in its duty if it did not plan a scenario that everyone hopes would not come to pass," said the prime minister's official spokesman.
Under the government's plans, there are to be 12 regional disaster centres.
A special smallpox care centre for up to 40 patients, with at least 143 staff, not counting intensive care workers, would have to be established in areas where any smallpox case was confirmed.
The government is currently resisting calls for widespread vaccination because of the complications associated with the jab. The strain which was routinely offered in the UK until 1971 caused approximately one death per million vaccinated (roughly 60 people if the whole nation was inoculated) with one in a 1,000 suffering a serious reaction. Children are particularly vulnerable. As many as one is seven would briefly suffer from a migraine-like headache.
Recent think tank reports
Realising the Promise - Community Pharmacy in the New NHS, David Taylor and Sarah Carter. Copies from: the Department of Practice and Policy, School of Pharmacy, University of London.Website: www.ulsop.ac.uk. £12 + post and packaging.
New Practitioners in the Future Health Service, Rachel Lissauer and Liz Kendall. Copies from: IPPR. Website: www.ippr.org.uk.
Unfinished Business - is a crisis in care still looming?, Janice Robinson. Copies from: King's Fund. Tel: 020 7307 2591. Website: www.kingsfund.org.uk.
Getting Back Your Health, Phillip Booth. Copies from: Adam Smith Institute. Website: www.adamsmith.org.uk. Tel: 020 7222 4995. £10.
Unions reject paramedic role for firefighters
Unison, the health services union, has condemned suggestions that firefighters should also train as paramedics as a part of the government's proposed "modernisation" package.
The union, which represents 85 per cent of ambulance workers, said the roles were not interchangeable. "It is insulting to paramedics to suggest that firefighters could take over their role at the scene of an emergency," said Maggie Dunn, senior national officer at Unison.
It took three years, she said, to become a fully trained paramedic for what was a "highly skilled and specialist job" and it was not practical to expect firefighters to do this in addition to their own.
Under government plans, fire engines could also carry resuscitation equipment, particularly because they are frequently the first to arrive at the scene of an emergency. "All ambulances carry fire extinguishers but that doesn't make them fire engines - and giving fire engines defibrillators doesn't turn them into ambulances," said Dunn.
The suggestion that firemen take-on a paramedic role was put forward by the Bain report and mooted by the government as a part of a package of reforms currently under negotiation in the firefighter's dispute over pay.
In an interview with BBC Online, striking firefighter Marc Richards condemned the proposals, saying that firefighters were not a "cheap alternative" to ambulance personnel and should not be used as such. "All they have looked at is trying to use the fire service as a substitute to the ambulance service because we can respond quicker," he said. "By all means look at giving us defibrillators but please also fund the ambulance service properly."
The suggestion that emergency control rooms should be merged to save money was also misguided said Unison. "Ambulance controllers aren't dispatchers like a local minicab service," said Dunn. "They give telephone advice to keep the patient alive and suggest treatment. They also ensure that the ambulance crew know the facts of what the patient needs before they arrive on the scene - which could make the difference between life and death."
Plug and play with the MDA
the nhs needs proper support when buying equipment if it is to have IT fit for the 21st century - and the Medical Devices Agency is there to provide it, an e-health conference heard in November.
"All of these new digital technologies need experts to help unravel the mysteries of the new specification terminologies," said Ian Chell, an MDA senior medical device specialist and conference Chair, "and the MDA and its' evaluation centres can help with such support."
It was essential, Chell told the conference, that the same standardisation that enabled a person to buy a printer in any high street shop with the confidence that it would plug into their home PC and work, should apply to healthcare IT equipment and medical devices. "Centralised purchasing and technical support can help each healthcare organisation to ensure they buy equipment that will interoperate with other healthcare organisations and the MDA and PASA [Purchasing And Supply Agency] can help in this way."
The conference also heard from Dewinder Bhachu of St George's PACS (Picture Archiving And Communications Systems) who outlined the advantages of the digital storage of images, such as x-rays. When asked how reliable the system was, Bhachu said the use of jukebox DVD back-up meant that, in his experience, he had never seen an image lost. "Fifteen to 20 per cent of images disappeared from the traditional method of storage," he told delegates. "The loss of digital images is very small in comparison."
The development of such central banks means that radiologists no longer have to work from one hospital department as they can access the images of several hospitals from a remote location - including their own homes.
And with the current chronic shortage of radiographers in the UK - in Europe as a whole, only Poland has less - the advantages of remote radiological reporting is clear, said Consultant Radiologist Dr Richard Harries.
David Rainey, the General Manager at BT Health, also told the conference that two remote, separate, securely managed sites could now store a whole health region's data.
The conference, "e-Health and the Department of Health: the Wider Picture", was organised by the MDA and was attended by a wide range of NHS and industry healthcare representatives including senior MoD staff and delegates from as far afield as Canada.
Food for thought
five key measures aimed at improving the national diet were drawn-up at a recent Parliamentary Food and Health Forum conference.
The five pledges to improve nutrition are:
1) Industrial and commercial support for public health issues2) Better information provision and health education enabling consumers to choose the healthiest option3) Better research identifying what needs to be known from both a scientific view and a consumer focused angle4) To develop a strategy for eliminating food poverty5) Developing a new government food strategy that can be enhanced through widespread media coverage and promotion through relevant parliamentary channels.
These pledges are expected to form the basis of the forum's meetings next year. The National Diet and Nutrition Survey into the nation's eating habits, the biggest of its kind since 1987, has found that many people in Britain are still not eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Although we are eating more fruit and vegetables than 15 years ago, most adults, it found, were eating less than three portions - with young people's low consumption giving particular cause for concern.
Record TB rise in London
london has third-world levels of tuberculosis, an expert has warned MPs.
Dr Chris Dye, the World Health Organisation specialist on TB, told MPs at a parliamentary briefing that the incidence of the infection in Britain had reached its highest levels in a decade - with several London boroughs (Brent, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Ealing) exceeding the national rates in China and parts of Africa and Asia.
Although the "deeply worrying" rise reflected world-wide trends, there is a threat that London may face the kind of epidemic faced by New York a decade ago.
