Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed to opt out of strict hygiene rules introduced by the NHS to restrict the spread of MRSA hospital superbugs.

Female staff who follow the Islamic faith will be allowed to cover their arms to preserve their modesty despite earlier guidance that all staff should be “bare below the elbow”.

The Department of Health has also relaxed rules prohibiting jewellery so that Sikh members of staff can wear bangles linked with their faith, providing they are pushed up the arm while the medic treats a patient.

The Mail on Sunday reported the change had been made after female Muslims objected to being required to expose their arm below the elbow under guidance introduced by Alan Johnson when he was health secretary in 2007.

The rules were drawn up to reduce the number of patients who were falling ill, and even dying, from superbugs such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile.

Revised guidance which relaxed the requirements for some religions was published last month.

Some Muslim staff and those from other groups may be allowed to use disposable plastic over-sleeves which cover their clothes below the elbow and allow the skin to remain covered up.

Derek Butler, chairman of MRSA Action UK, said: “My worry is that allowing some medics to use disposable sleeves you compromise patient safety because unless you change the sleeves between each patient, you spread bacteria.

“Scrubbing bare arms is far more effective.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7576357/Muslim-staff-escape-NHS-hygiene-rule.html

Labour was caught up in a new row over its use of personal data after emailing NHS professionals using their work addresses to ask for their support.

The move emerged after the party had been criticised for delivering campaign leaflets on the party’s cancer policy to 250,000 women, some of whom had the disease.

The postcards, produced by Tangent, which works for the Labour Party, said that the Tories would scrap a Labour guarantee that patients would see a cancer specialist within two weeks.

One of those who received the latest communication, a doctor, has complained that senior Labour figures are trying to pressure her into publicly backing the party against her will.

Labour is trying to organise a round robin letter from senior figures in the NHS saying that only Labour can be trusted to look after the health service.

The Twickenham GP, whose name has been withheld for fear of retribution, contacted the Conservatives in fury at the attempt to make her sign a petition.

The GP expressed concern that Amy Fowler, a development officer for the Labour Party, obtained her work e-mail address, which she claimed is not publicly available.

The petition that the doctor was being asked to sign, which is likely to have been forwarded to a newspaper, committed members of the health service to explicitly backing Labour.

It says: “We are a group of clinicians, staff and campaigners working in and with the NHS. Every day, every week, we see first-hand the quality of care which the NHS gives to patients when they need it most. At this election we are backing Labour as the party of the NHS which will do the most to improve it for all patients.

“There is more to do to improve the NHS, but it is this Labour Government which has shown commitment to the NHS by investing in more doctors, nurses, more services and new hospitals and GP practices. It is Labour who are making the tough decisions that will allow our NHS to be protected in the future from spending cuts which would harm patient care. And only Labour are prepared to put patients first, for example with guarantees to rapid access to cancer specialists and cancer tests.

“For these reasons we believe only Labour can be trusted to protect and improve our NHS at this election.” The e-mail came from Martin Rathfelder, from the Socialist Health Association, but was signed by Ms Fowler.

The GP said: “[This was] totally unsolicited by me. I have never been to any socialist events and would not mix my personal views with work. He says he got it from a list of trainers which is possible. I feel this is an absolute abuse of a publicly funded service. Don’t know anyone who would have nominated me.”

She added: “I am angry that they have e-mailed me at my work e-mail address and would very much like to know how they have obtained confidential NHS e-mail addresses. You might be interested to investigate a. where they obtained these addresses [and] b. whether it is appropriate to use the addresses in this party political way. Needless to say I do not support the petition!”

Paul Beresford, the Tory MP who represents the doctor, said: “This is a grossly unfair attempt by the Labour Party to draw NHS clinicians into political campaigning. They feel under threat of blacklisting if they do not sign up.” Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “The Labour Party need to explain how they have received these NHS e-mail addresses. If they are using the NHS private e-mail system to reach NHS staff for party political campaigning it is an abuse.

“We know from recent research that NHS staff support the Conservatives and not Labour because we are now more trusted to improve the NHS.”

Mr Lansley has written to Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, to demand that he apologises for the cancer postcards. He said: “Cancer sufferers across the country have condemned Labour’s scaremongering breast cancer leaflets, but still Gordon Brown and Andy Burnham refuse to apologise.”

When asked where he got the address, Mr Rathfelder replied that he obtained it “from a list of training practices”. However the GP said “I still feel it is an abuse of the NHS.”

From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7095225.ece

New nurses and midwives uniforms have been revealed.

The new nurses uniforms revealed

The new nurses uniforms are:
Hospital ward sisters/charge nurses and their deputies – navy blue
Clinical nurse specialist – royal blue
Staff nurse – hospital blue
Staff midwives – postman blue
Healthcare support workers – green
Nursery nurse – aqua green

Nurses and midwives at a hospital in west Wales have become the first to start wearing new national uniforms.

They have been designed to make it easier for patients to see who is in charge of hospital wards after research found many were confused.

They will be phased-in across Wales over the next few months.

Staff will be given more uniforms and hospitals are working to make on-site laundry and changing facilities available to control infections.

Wales is the first nation in the UK to introduce a national uniform.

The proposal for a national uniform was one of the recommendations within the Free to Lead Free to Care report.

It was published by an expert group set up by the Welsh Assembly Government to look at enhancing the role of hospital ward sisters and charge nurses.

The group found some patients were confused over who was in charge of a ward due to the range of uniforms used in different hospitals.

Chief nursing officer for Wales Rosemary Kennedy said: “It is essential that patients have confidence in the nursing profession.

“The national uniforms will help to remove any confusion over who is in charge, making it easier for people to direct a query and to have confidence in the reply they receive.”

There are about 36,000 nurses and midwives in Wales and providing them all with the new uniforms will cost a total of £1.4m.

Ward Sister Marie Williams raised the issue with Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart on a previous visit to West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen which has been the first to introduce the new uniforms.

She said: “I’m stunned that an initial conversation between myself and the minister has led to the launch of the new All-Wales uniform.

“I am sure the new uniform, along with the other changes to empower ward sisters, will enhance the sense of pride nurses have in their profession.”

From:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8608702.stm

Labour has become embroiled in a row about the use of personal data after sending cancer patients alarmist mailshots saying their lives could be at risk under a Conservative government.

Personalised cards addressed to sufferers by name warn that a Labour guarantee to see a cancer specialist within two weeks would be scrapped by the Tories. Labour claims the Conservatives would also do away with the right to be treated within 18 weeks.

The offending mailshot
Cancer patients who received the personalised cards, sent with a message from a breast cancer survivor praising her treatment under Labour, said they were “disgusted and shocked”, and feared that the party may have had access to confidential health data.

Labour sources deny that the party has used any confidential information. However, the sources admit that, in line with other political parties, it uses socio-demographic research that is commercially and publicly available.

The postal campaign started last month before the general election was called. This is the first election in which parties have been able to use internet databases and digital printing to personalise their mailshots.

Labour has sent out 250,000 “cancer” postcards, each addressed to an individual, asking: “Are the Tories a change you can afford?” Many of those receiving the cards have undergone cancer scans or treatment within the past five years.

- In the Labour constituency of Sherwood, Nottinghamshire, two of a group of eight women friends received the breast cancer card. They are the only two to have undergone cancer treatment. One of them, Phyllis Delik, 80, described it as “callous” and “despicable”. The second woman, Shirley Foreman, 58, who received the card a fortnight after undergoing surgery, said: “It is bad taste after what I have been through.”

- In the marginal east London constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, the card was sent to a 44-year-old television producer who had a potentially cancerous lump that turned out to be a cyst. She appeared to be the only person who received the mailshot among 50 neighbours. She said: “It’s crude and insensitive.”

- A card was sent to a woman who has died of breast cancer. Her 33-year-old husband was so upset that he sent a message to the Facebook page of Diane Dwelly, the woman whose case is featured in the mailshot, accusing her of being a pawn for the Labour party.

This weekend Dwelly, 48, from Rugby, admitted she had “probably been used by Labour”. She believed her photograph had been taken for use in a magazine for the National Health Service, not as part of Labour’s election campaign.

The cards are being distributed by Ravensworth, part of Tangent Communications, which has won accounts sending out mail for the Department of Health and Cancer Research UK.

Tangent claims that it specialises in “highly targeted marketing”.

The cancer cards are part of a wider postal campaign targeting various groups. Others are aimed at parents whose children attend Sure Start centres, pensioners and the owners of small businesses.

Labour has so far sent out 600,000 cards. It plans to distribute 4.5m during the election campaign.

Janet Arslan, 40, a graphic designer who also lives in the Sherwood constituency, said: “When I received the breast cancer card at first I thought it was from the hospital.

“I did not think Labour would be that crass to deliberately target a terminal cancer patient like me.”

Damian Bentley, managing director of Tangent, said: “Our company does a lot for the Labour party but I don’t work on that side of the business.”

He failed to respond to a list of questions on how the addresses of the cancer victims were obtained.

Emilie Oldknow, 29, the Labour candidate in Sherwood, worked for the NHS before she became the regional organiser of the East Midlands Labour party. She is the fiancée of Jonathan Ashworth, Gordon Brown’s deputy political secretary and a member of his “kitchen cabinet”.

Oldknow has denied all knowledge of the cards.

“I had not seen the mailshot before and it wasn’t sent out by my campaign,” she said.

In an email to Arslan’s mother, she said her details had been “obtained from the electoral register, which is available to political parties”.

Experian, the data management company, confirmed that both Labour and the Conservatives use its Mosaic database, which divides voters into 67 groups. The databases can use anonymised hospital statistics, including postcodes and the diagnoses of patients, to identify the likely addresses of those with particular illnesses.

It cannot identify potential breast cancer sufferers because the disease affects adult women of all ages and backgrounds.

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: “For Labour’s campaign to deliberately distress or scare sufferers from breast cancer is shameful. Because we are going to increase the NHS budget in real terms and cut bureaucracy and waste, we will have the capacity to ensure that cancer patients are seen sooner than they are at the moment and to meet the quality standards that they expect.”

From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7094308.ece

Health Direct doubts labour spin about this approach being a “one off” as they have given themselves the right to snoop on all of your medical data- as well as their nightsoilmen at the Deptament of Health.

Highlighting once again the need for you to opt out of their expense white elephant that is the NPfIT propgram.

Private companies get access to millions of NHS medical records

September 29, 2008 By: Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic

The confidential medical records of millions of NHS patients could be handed over to private companies under controversial plans being drawn up by labour ministers.

Patients’ postcodes, medical conditions and treatments – and in some circumstances, their names – could be passed on to third parties without their consent.

http://www.healthdirect.co.uk/2008/09/private-companies-get-access-to-millions-of-nhs-medical-records.html

Bereaved families are being told that organs were removed from their loved ones without consent after a blunder affecting Britain’s donor register.

The records of 800,000 people were affected by an error that meant their wishes about the use of their organs after death were wrongly recorded.

An investigation has found that 45 of those for whom wrong records were stored have since died – and in approximately 20 cases organs were taken where consent had not been given.

Donors can give permission for any of their organs to be taken, or provide more specific agreements. A glitch in the IT system more than a decade ago removed the distinctions expressed by people.

Many donors have strong views about what can be taken. Often consent is not given for eyes to be removed, while some people who agree to donate organs are uncomfortable with the idea of their body tissue being used in research.

Joyce Robins, from the pressure group Patient Concern said: “This Government has got an absolutely dreadful record when it comes to data, but it is absolutely horrific that such sensitive details were handled in such a careless way.”

The NHS is about to contact approximately 20 families who allowed organs to be taken from their relations after being misinformed about what consent had previously been given.

It is illegal to remove organs without prior consent from the person who died or their next of kin.

A view is sought from relations before decisions are taken. In the cases where errors were made, it is understood that families were asked for permission, but their decisions were based on misinformation about the wishes of their relations.

After detecting the fault last year, NHS Blood and Transplant, which holds the organ donation register, was able to correct 400,000 of the flawed records. But 400,000 more people will shortly be contacted to be told that the wrong information may be held about them, and asked to provide consent again.

Until fresh consent is obtained, organs will not be taken from any of those people in the event of death.

The error occurred in 1999, when data held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which includes a request for consent in applications for a driving licence, was transferred to the organ registry.

The mistake came to light when NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) wrote letters to new donors thanking them for joining the register, and outlining what they had agreed to donate. Respondents wrote back to say the information was wrong.

A spokesman for NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “We are taking it very seriously and are urgently investigating the situation.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Organs-removed-without-consent-after-IT-blunder

The biggest single supplier to the £12bn NHS NPfIT white elephant programme is on the brink of being fired from a key part of its contract after failing to meet a deadline to install systems at hospitals in the north west.

CSC, which holds the contract for two-thirds of England, missed the deadline to get the Lorenzo electronic medical record product up and running at the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust’s hospitals.

CSC originally said the system would go live almost two years ago, in June 2008.

The failure is the latest crisis for the much-troubled programme which is running at least four or five years late.

CSC and BT, which covers London, had each been given a deadline to get new systems running smoothly in a big, acute, hospital, with the Department of Health warning last year that it would “look at alternative approaches” if that failed to happen.

BT has since installed a system at Kingston Hospital to the health department’s satisfaction. Christine Connelly, the department’s chief information officer, said it now needs to go through a due process under its contract with CSC which could yet see a new deadline set and met.

But if progress is not made, she told the Financial Times, the department has the option of cancelling CSC’s contract to install the systems in acute hospitals and letting hospitals choose from other suppliers.

Morecambe Bay, she said, remained keen to continue and under the contract CSC has to be given time to propose a fresh deadline for deployment, with the programme then assessing the credibility of that and whether to agree it.

“We have to walk through this step by step,” Ms Connelly said. “In a contract as large and complex as this we cannot just set a deadline and say that’s it. We have to act responsibly and not expose the department and the taxpayer to risk.”

But, she warned bluntly, “we cannot wait for ever”.

CSC has contracts worth about £3.3bn to install hospital, community, mental health and GP systems, with the latter elements progressing much better.

But Ms Connelly said if CSC’s plan was not credible the NHS had the option of cancelling the acute hospital part of the deal, thought to be worth around £1bn. CSC did not respond to attempts to contact it last night.

BT, having hit its deadline, has agreed a contract variation, signed yesterday, which the department said would save the NHS £112m, or about 12 per cent of the contract value, as part of the £600m savings the health service is seeking on the programme as a whole.

As part of the deal, BT is now signed up to install much fewer full systems in London, with about half the hospitals likely to add clinical systems to their existing IT arrangements, rather than replacing everything, Ms Connelly said.

Allowing hospitals to choose other suppliers is already starting to happen in the south of England, although the first contracts for that have yet to be signed. That should start to take place from May this year, she said.

From: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6a9f7ee2-3d26-11df-b81b-00144feabdc0.html

Tens of thousands of NHS workers would be sacked, hospital units closed and patients denied treatments under labour’s secret plans for £20 billion of health cuts.

The sick would be urged to stay at home and email doctors rather than visit surgeries, while procedures such as hip replacements could be scrapped.

The plans have emerged as health chiefs draw up emergency budgets that cast doubt on pledges by Gordon Brown to protect “front line services” in the NHS.

Documents show that health chiefs are considering plans to begin sacking workers, cutting treatments and shutting wards across the country.

The proposals could lead to:
* 10 per cent of NHS staff being sacked in some areas.
* The loss of thousands of hospital beds.
* A reduction in the number of ambulance call-outs.
* Medical professionals being replaced by less qualified assistants.

The plans are contained in a series of internal NHS documents uncovered by The Daily Telegraph.

The final details of the plans are not due to be announced until the autumn, well after the country has gone to the polls for the general election.

The Conservatives and health campaigners said the public deserved to know the true extent of cuts at their local surgeries and hospitals before voting.

Last year all English health authorities were ordered by Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, to reconsider their plans after the recession forced the Government to freeze health spending from April next year.

This left a ”black hole’’ of up to £20 billion in health budgets up to 2014, prompting the drawing up of new proposals by the 10 strategic health authorities (SHAs).

They had until Friday to submit their plans to Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary. He is under pressure from the Treasury to show how money will be saved to help bring down Britain’s record £167 billion deficit.

In Wednesday’s Budget, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, repeated that the £20 billion would come through “efficiency savings” and not key services.

Documents produced by several of the SHAs show how the cuts are, in fact, expected to fall on hospital services.

In the South East Coast region, which covers Surrey, Kent and Sussex, up to £1.6 billion must be saved.

A document marked “restricted” and circulated among SHA board members suggests 10,000 of the region’s 100,000 NHS workers may lose their jobs. “The new financial environment demands that the trend in workforce growth must be reversed,” it said, adding bosses must reduce employee numbers by 10 per cent “or further”.

The document said staffing in the acute sector, covering hospitals, “can be expected to decline faster and further” than elsewhere.

Job losses will be “starting in the coming year”, it states. Mr Brown has repeatedly promised Labour will not start making significant cuts to public spending until 2011. A spokesman for the South East Coast SHA said the document was a discussion paper and not a final plan.

In London, which faces £5 billion in cuts, documents show managers believe up to £2 billion can be saved from community care budgets, which cover GPs’ surgeries. This would include “changing how patients get in contact with and receive services, such as through greater use of the internet and email”.

An internal presentation by NHS Yorkshire and the Humber, which spans Sheffield, York, Hull and north Lincolnshire, made similar suggestions. The SHA, which is expected to make about £2 billion in cuts, proposed directing more patients to “teleservices such as NHS Direct”. Meanwhile, £450 million could be saved in London by banning clinical procedures “that have little or no benefit to those receiving them, for example some joint replacements”.

NHS North West, which oversees Greater Manchester and Liverpool, is expected to make about £2 billion savings. It is preparing to close an A&E unit in Rochdale during evenings before scrapping it altogether next year.

In the East region, covering Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, up to £2 billion is to be cut. The SHA proposes shifting services out of hospitals and making social workers take over some treatments. It is estimated that savings of about £2.4 billion will need to be made by NHS West Midlands, £2 billion in the South West, £1.3 billion in South Central, £1 billion in the North East and £800 million in the East Midlands.

All the Department of Health spokesman could say- as a way of confirmation: “We will be clear with trusts that they must not make short term cuts that harm patient care.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7529454/Hospital-wards-to-shut-in-secret-NHS-cuts.html

Elderly people have been left ‘waiting for God’ by the labour Government’s decision to shelve plans for a comprehensive National Care Service for at least six years, charities have warned.

Gordon Brown described Labour’s proposal for an NHS-style universal scheme as “bold and ambitious,” despite postponing the plan until the election after next.

Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, defended the delay, saying: “Rome wasn’t built in a day” as he unveiled a White Paper setting out the staged introduction of improved care for the elderly

MPs last week voted through the first part of the proposals, a law to provide free personal care in the home for 400,000 people with the “greatest needs”.

If Labour is elected, Mr Burnham said, this would be followed in 2014 by the provision of free nursing care for those in residential accommodation for more than two years.

Questions were raised immediately, however, over how ministers would meet the scheme’s £800 million price tag, after it emerged that most of the costs would be met from “efficiencies”.

The Conservatives also pointed out that care home residents would still be required to pick up their own accommodation costs, such as utilities and housing fees, which average £14,000 a year.

Labour had originally hoped to fight the forthcoming general election on a radical pledge to establish a comprehensive National Care Service, paid for by elderly people from a range of methods including an inheritance levy.

The plans were shelved at the last minute amid Tory accusations that the party was planning a “death tax,” leading to Cabinet fears that the proposal would prove unpopular at the ballot box.

Instead, Mr Burnham announced that a commission to be established during the next Parliament would seek a “consensus” on funding for a comprehensive, compulsory National Care Service “based in need rather than the ability to pay,” which would then be put to voters in the election expected in around 2015.

The Health Secretary confirmed that the “death tax” option remained on the table for the review, which would follow an earlier Royal Commission, chaired by Lord Sutherland, which concluded in 1999 and which the labour Government failed to act on.

Charities immediately criticised the delay – and questioned how the labour Government proposed to meet the costs of their more modest residential care plans when councils were already being ordered to make massive cutbacks.

Steve Barnett, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “We have significant concerns about the further delays in implementing a long-term solution.”

Dot Gibson, general secretary of the National Pensioners’ Coalition, added: “Social care in Britain has been in crisis for decades, but many older people and their families will not be able to wait until 2016 before they get any help.”

The over-50s group Saga warned that elderly people had been left: “Waiting for God – and for care funding.”

Emma Soames, Saga spokesman, said: “We’re disappointed by the delay, lack of detail and any figures. Overall, it seems like a lot of waiting just to be told that they are going to a Royal Commission – which they could easily ignore as they did with long term care in1999 – to draw up proposals for a change in the system for 2015.”

Opposition politicians also criticised the delay. Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: “The Government is in complete retreat and they have ended up with not a White Paper but frankly a train crash.

“We seem to have arrived at the point where Andy Burnham is saying he wants everyone to have free care but he doesn’t know how to pay for it.

“The death tax is alive and kicking – despite their attempts to bury it in the small print of policy in the hope people won’t notice. The simple fact remains that if Labour win the election, they’d introduce plans for a death tax to pay for care.”

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, added: “After 13 years in power spent ducking social care reform, we probably shouldn’t be surprised that Labour has once again hit it into the long grass.

“A White Paper without any commitment to substantial change in the next Parliament is barely worth the paper it is written on. We’re now being offered a series of piecemeal reforms that have not been properly thought through or costed.”

From:
Government plans for-elderly care branded a train crash

Go to the doctor for a sick note today and you may find yourself issued instead with a “fit note”.

For the first time in almost 90 years doctors will no longer simply certify whether a patient is fit for work or not, but will have a form allowing them to state whether the patient “may be fit for work” if certain conditions were met.

These include an employer offering a phased return to work, altered hours, changed duties or adaptations to the workplace.

There is considerable scepticism about the initiative as the employer does not have to take any notice of the “fit note”. But Dame Carol Black, the labour government’s health and work tsar whose 2008 recommendation led to the change, says she hopes the scheme will be the start “of a quiet revolution”.

The government, she notes, has spent billions of pounds on welfare-to-work programmes to get people off incapacity benefits and back to work. “But until now it has done almost nothing at the very start of the process that can lead people to dependence on long-term sickness benefits in the first place. The logical thing is to staunch the flow.”

Many people with back pain, neck pain, anxiety and stress are able to work with only limited adaptations needed from their employer, she argues.

Recent research by the insurer Aviva, however, shows two-thirds of employers have little or no knowledge of the change and how it will work for them. Just 5 per cent thought it would reduce absence rates that are estimated to cost the UK more than £100bn a year. The research also shows 57 per cent of employees do not believe their doctor is qualified to judge them fit for work.

The British Medical Association has supported the change in principle, but some GPs fear it could change their relationship with patients, turning them from patient advocates into judges of someone’s ability to work.

Dame Carol says she does not consider it “good advocacy” just to give people repeated sick notes when it is established that the longer people are off sick the less likely they are to return to work.

“What this is really about is a change of culture, and the way people think about work and what they can do,” she says. “It will be a slow revolution. I don’t expect rapid change. But it is the start of better early intervention.”

From: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5e715882-3a94-11df-b6d5-00144feabdc0.html

Facebook has been linked to a resurgence in the sexually transmitted disease (STD) syphilis, according to health experts.

The virus has increased fourfold in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside, the areas of Britain where Facebook is most popular, because it has given people a new way to meet multiple partners for casual sexual encounters.

Professor Peter Kelly, director of public health in Teesside, said staff had found a link between social networking sites and the rise in cases, especially among young women.
 
He said: “Syphilis is a devastating disease. Anyone who has unprotected sex with casual partners is at high risk.

“There has been a fourfold increase in the number of syphilis cases detected with more young women being affected.

“I don’t get the names of people affected, just figures, and I saw that several of the people had met sexual partners through these sites.

“Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex.”

In Teesside there were 30 recorded cases of syphilis last year, but the true figures are expected t be much higher.

Research has shown that young people in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside were 25 per cent more likely to log onto social networking sites than those in the rest of Britain.

A Facebook spokesman said: users should “take precautions” and be careful when meeting up with anyone they have met online.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7508945/Facebook-linked-to-rise-in-syphilis.html