Health Direct wishes you a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.Health Direct wishes you a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year in 2012 and thanks you for your comments, posts and support throughout 2011.

We would also like to take the opportunity to thank and support all of those hard working professionals within the NHS- without whom we would all be paddleless.

The number of patients who contracted life threatening infections in NHS hospitals has almost doubled in two years to a record level, official figures have shown.Recorded cases of patients with a “nosocomial condition” – any infection acquired in hospital or a medical environment – also rose by more than a third last year compared with the year before.

A large proportion of the patients involved were aged over 75, the figures from the NHS Information Centre show. Illnesses related to such infections led to average stays in hospital last year of 31.1 days.

Experts blamed poor hygiene for the dramatic rise in infections, including superbugs MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C. diff) as well as norovirus and E.coli.

But the Department of Health dismissed the “misleading” figures, published online, saying that officials have “got better and better at tackling hospital infections”.

According to the new figures, supplied by NHS hospitals, the number of patients found by consultants to have hospital acquired infections rose last year reached a record 42,712.

That figure increased from the 31,447 recorded in the previous year and almost double the 22,448 documented in 2008/09.

Last year’s figures were the highest levels recorded in the 13 years in which the records have been publicly available. In 1998/99 there were just 335 such cases. The Centre did not provide a breakdown of illnesses.

It came as the Health Protection Agency said that there were 46 suspected outbreaks of norovirus in hospitals over the past two weeks, with more than half leading to ward closures or admissions restrictions.

The agency said the levels were within seasonal norms.

Commenting on the overall infection levels Joyce Robins, co-director of Patient Concern, said the figures were a “terrifying prospect for vulnerable elderly people who think they are going into hospital to get better”.

“It contrasts sharply with the happy propaganda that has been telling us that infection rates had dropped sharply,” she said.

A DoH spokesman said: “The NHS has got better and better at tackling hospital infections, demonstrated by the record lows we have seen this year.

“Because we are not complacent, we have introduced mandatory reporting of more hospital infections. That means that we have shone a light on the problems previously swept under the carpet.  But patients should be confident that the measures we have taken will continue the downward trend in hospital infections.”

The number of people being admitted to hospital after drinking too much alcohol has more than doubled in less than a decade, new research show.Some 1,173,386 people in England were admitted to casualty for injuries or illnesses caused by drinking in 2010/11, compared with just 510,780 in 2002/3, according to the research.

The figures for last year represent an 11 per cent increase on the previous 12 months, when alcohol-related admissions stood at 1,056,962.

Separate information published by Anne Milton, the public health minister, showed that since January an estimated 7,074 under-18s have been admitted to hospital due to alcohol abuse.

A recent report predicted that binge drinking will cost the NHS £3.8 billion by 2015, with 1.5 million A&E admissions a year.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, blamed Labour’s 24-hour drinking policy and accused the last government of “taking their eye of the ball” on the issue of binge drinking.

He said: “These figures are disturbing evidence that, despite total consumption of alcohol not increasing recently, we have serious problems with both binge-drinking and long-term excessive alcohol abuse in a minority of people.

“Our alcohol strategy, which we will set out in the new year, will outline what further steps we are taking to tackle this growing problem.”

Recent Local Alcohol Profiles for England figures also show that the number of hospital admissions for conditions attributable to alcohol are rising at a similar rate.

The number of admissions has more than doubled since 2002/03 and increased by nine per cent last year.

In 2002/03 there were 926 admissions per 100,000 people for conditions caused by alcohol, rising to 1,743 per 100,000 in 2009/10 and 1,898 last year.

The biggest increase over the past 12 months was in London, with a jump in admissions of 14 per cent, followed by the East of England with 10 per cent.

Health officials have issued a warning about the serious threat posed by the norovirus bug after an outbreak has seen cases jump by 20 per cent on this time last year.The winter diarrhoea and vomiting bug has affected 35 hospitals, with hundreds of beds unavailable after 27 wards were shut in the past two weeks to isolate infected patients and deep cleaned.

Overall confirmed individual cases across the country from July to mid-December are 19 per cent higher than during the same period last year.

Norovirus is extremely contagious and can be lethal to the elderly, very young or very sick patients.

People who have been ill are being asked not to visit friends and relatives in hospital until they are well.

Medical bosses at hospitals across the country are working to prevent the condition spreading and to reopen wards that were closed yesterday.

Nationally data from the Health Protection Agency released last week shows that norovirus rates remain below the level expected for this time of year, possibly reflecting the mild weather until now.

The HPA declares norovirus season has started when 4.8 per cent of calls to NHS Direct are about vomiting. Last week there were 4.2 per cent of calls about vomiting.

The first sign of Norovirus is usually a sudden sick feeling followed by forceful vomiting and watery diarrhoea. Other symptoms include a raised temperature, headaches, stomach cramps and aching limbs.

The data showed that last week the North East and South West were the worst affected.

Three hospitals reported that 124 beds are unavailable as a result of the ward closures. It is thought that the true number across all eight hospitals will be more than 200.

Wards were also closed to new patients at Montagu Hospital in South Yorkshire while 82 beds were closed on two wards at Northwick Park in Harrow, north London.

Croydon Health Services said it had one ward closed to new admissions.

Two wards were also closed at Warwick Hospital and the Richard Wells Ward was shut at Bedford hospital to contain a bout of gastroenteritis.

Director of nursing and patient services at Bedford hospital, Eiri Jones, warned visitors not to sit on hospital beds and not to visit at all if they had been ill in the preceding 72 hours.

Queens Hospital in Burton had one ward temporarily closed after a number of cases of diarrhoea and vomiting while the Countess of Chester Hospital had visiting restrictions in place at four wards to contain the outbreak.

A 14-bed ward at the University Hospital Southampton Trust was closed and County Durham and Darlington said it had seen isolated cases but had not had to close any wards.

Visitors to Northern Devon hospitals were warned only close relatives should visit patients and Mid Essex Hospital Trust said it had closed wards last weekend because of a similar outbreak.

The Royal College of GPs say the virus has not been a major problem so far this year – although outbreaks can occur very quickly, as the complaint is extremely infectious.

A statement from the Health Protection Agency said: “Norovirus is highly contagious and can be transmitted by contact with an infected person; by consuming contaminated food or water or by contact with contaminated surfaces or objects. The virus spreads rapidly in closed environments such as hospitals, schools, nursing and residential homes.

“Anyone who thinks they may have norovirus should not to go to their doctor’s surgery or A&E as this could spread the illness to vulnerable people and health care workers.”

Living an unhealthy lifestyle could make you look older because high blood sugar causes the face to age more quickly, new research has found.People whose blood sugar levels are higher than average look older than those with low levels, experts said.

Blood sugar, which can rise as a result of an unhealthy diet or lack of exercise, was already known to cause ill health but the study is believed to be the first to link high levels to appearance.

Researchers found that every additional millimole per litre increase in blood sugar, which in healthy people is usually between five and six mmol/l, adds five months of ageing to their facial features.

They measured the blood sugar of 602 people, while a group of 60 independent assessors studied two photographs of their faces to come up with a “perceived age” score.

Healthy people with low blood sugar typically looked a year younger than those with high readings, and a year-and-a-half younger than diabetics, the study published in the Age journal found.

The ageing could be caused by a build-up of sugar which sticks to collagen – a protein in the skin which keeps it supple – and is difficult for the body to remove.

Alternatively, the glucose could hamper insulin production which is believed to play a central role in ageing, researchers said.

David Gunn, who led the Unilever study, said: “The higher glucose people had, they started looking older. Diabetics looked older again, and they have had the worst exposure to high glucose levels.

“This adds extra evidence that there is another reason to have a healthy lifestyle – because it is going to affect your appearance as well as your health.”

Diana van Heemst, of Leiden University in the Netherlands, who contributed to the paper, said: “The results from this study further underscore how important regulation of blood glucose levels is for wellbeing and health in advanced middle age.

“The associated benefit of looking younger might provide an extra motivation to bring about healthy lifestyle changes in 50-to-70 year olds.”

From:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/High-blood-sugar-speeds-up-ageing

Huge regional inequalities in the quality, quantity and costs of health care have been revealed by a new website.Treatments for cancer and dementia and access to care homes are among the areas highlighted in the NHS Atlas of Variation, which was published yesterday.

The annual study carried out across England is a detailed survey of the “postcode lottery” in NHS treatment.

Ministers say the results will help identify “unjustified” disparities and drive up standards resulting in “consistently high quality care”.

The report shows a stark contrast in the rate of prescribing anti-dementia drugs.

Patients in north Lancashire are being described 25 times as many treatments and tablets to help “temporarily improve or stabilise symptoms” than in Kent.

The report suggests that one possible reason is the lack of awareness some GPs have about how to spot early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease – a concern shared by campaigners for those living with the illness.

It also highlights worries that some breast cancer patients are staying in hospital too long in some parts of the country as compared with others.

The survey notes that most patients undergoing breast cancer surgery can be “safely managed as day cases or with a single overnight stay” but that currently more than 20 primary care trusts have average lengths of stay “in excess of three days”.

For example, the same surgery carried out in parts of south Wales resulted in patients staying in hospital for a few days where in Hertfordshire they stayed only one night.

Access to care homes – paid for by the NHS for those receiving end-of-life care or round-the-clock intensive care – also varied considerably.

In Devon and Cornwall, with its high elderly population, the admission rate for those aged over 74 to care homes funded by the NHS was just under three per 100,000 of the population. The figure in Northumberland was 190.

Meanwhile the rate of angioplasty operations – which tackle blocked and narrowed arteries – was three times higher in Peterborough than County Durham.

The report measures 71 key indicators, including hospital admission rates, what treatments health trusts choose to fund, and how children are managed in the NHS.

It attempts to map the “utilisation of healthcare services that cannot be explained by variation in patient illness or patient preferences”.

Health minister Lord Howe said: “The Atlas of Variation lets us look at how the local NHS is meeting the clinical needs of their local population.

“This will help commissioners to identify unjustified variations and drive up standards so patients are receiving consistently high quality care throughout the NHS.

“We are committed to improving results for patients and our new NHS Outcomes Framework will hold the NHS to account for this. Commissioners will be able to apply contractual penalties if any organisation is failing to deliver improvements for patients.”

Home healthacre checks ‘fell significantly’ under the Care Quality Commission (CQC) quango warns NAO.Work on checking standards in English care home fell “significantly” after a new watchdog was introduced, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned in a new report.

It has accused the Care Quality Commission for failing to follow up a whistle blower’s warnings of alleged abuse of patients at the Winterbourne View care home near Bristol, of failing to “provide value for money”.

The CQC was established by Labour and cam into being in April 2009, bringing together three predecessor organisations – the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Mental Health Act Commission.

But the NAO report said work on inspecting health and social care organisations “fell significantly” after April 2009, “due to the Commission’s decision to prioritise registration over compliance”.

Besides checking institutions, the CQC also has responsibility for registering them.

The report found the CQC “diverted resources in a bid to meet the statutory timetable for registration”.

As a result, it completed just 47 per cent of its target number of compliance reviews of standards of care between October 2010 and April 2011.

Government recruitment restrictions meant 14 per cent of staff positions were vacant last September, with serious shortages of registration assessors and compliance inspectors.

The CQC was established with a budget six per cent lower than the money given to the organisations it replaced, the NAO noted.

Amyas Morse, the Auditor General, said the CQC has had “an uphill struggle to carry out its work effectively and has experienced serious difficulties”.

Margaret Hodge, chairman of the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee, said of the CQC: “This report raises serious concerns about whether it is up to scratch.”

Cynthia Bower, the CQC’s chief executive, said it was now “firmly on the right track”.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Care-home-checks-fell-significantly-under-CQC-warns-NAO

Taxpayers are paying five per cent more per year for hospitals built under Labour’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) because the debts are linked to inflation.Currently the combined debt for some 800 PFI projects, including 103 PFI hospitals in England, stands at about £300 billion, according to makers of the programme.

When a BBC Panorama programme contacted 85 hospital trusts with PFI deals, it found 80 of them said they were having to make increased payments due to inflation.

When most of the deals were set up, inflation was low and the outlook was for that to continue well into the future.

Most trusts decided not to protect their debts from rising inflation, against the advice of the Treasury.

By contrast, the companies building the hospitals insured themselves against losses due to inflation.

The PFI deals, under which companies build hospitals to be leased back by the NHS, typically run for 30 years.

Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who now chairs the Public Accounts Committee, admitted to the programme: “We should have been much more transparent about the costs. I think we got the balance wrong.”

Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the committee, said he thought taxpayers were being “ripped off”.

A spokesman for the Treasury said that protecting PFI debts against inflation was “not mandatory … because it is subject to individual authorities undertaking their own project assessments”.

He added said: “The Government has consistently expressed concerns about the misuse and costliness of PFI. That is why, less than two weeks ago, the Government launched a fundamental review of the PFI model, which will see the end of PFI as we know it.”

Eating fish could protect against Alzheimer’s disease and memory loss – but only if it is baked or grilled, researchers have claimed.A study by US scientists found that elderly people who eat fish at least once a week are three to five times less likely to develop the conditions than people who did not.

But it is essential that the fish is cooked in a manner that preserves the vital Omega-3 fatty acids which help protect the brain, researchers said.

Grilling or baking the meat provides the maximum levels of Omega-3, which increase blood flow to the brain, reduce inflammation and limit the build-up of harmful plaques which precedes Alzheimer’s.

In contrast fried fish has very low amounts of Omega-3 and consequently offers no protection whatsoever against dementia and age-related memory loss, known as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh studied a group of 260 healthy volunteers with an average age of 76.

In a study Eating Fish Reduces Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease to be presented at the Radiological Society of North America annual meeting they questioned the participants about how regularly they ate fish.

Brain scans carried out ten years later showed that those who did not eat fish regularly had suffered much more shrinkage in key areas of the brain linked to working memory.

A further five years on, they found that 31 per cent of non-regular fish eaters had gone on to develop Alzheimer’s or MCI, compared with between three and eight per cent of those who ate fish at least once a week.

Dr Cyrus A. Raji, who led the study, said further studies could help identify whether Omega-3 supplements yielded similar effects, and whether some types of fish offered better protection than others.

He said: “We know from other studies that salmon gives the maximum amount of Omega-3 fatty acids so it is very possible, but we did not look at which fish people were eating in the study.

“Studies like this definitely justify trials that will look at Omega-3 fatty acid supplements. Having said that, I would speculate that taking supplements is no substitute for a lifetime of eating fish.”

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “This study suggests that eating fish on a weekly basis may reduce the risk of cognitive decline, but it is not clear whether other underlying factors may have contributed to the lower risk in people who eat fish.

“As a number of controlled studies using fatty acids from oily fish have failed to show benefits for dementia, there is a clear need for more conclusive research into the effects of dietary fish on our cognitive health.”

Dr Anne Corbett, research manager of the Alzheimer’s Society, added: “This moderately sized study adds weight to existing evidence suggesting that eating fish reduces your risk of developing cognitive decline.

“However, this research did not account for lifestyle factors such as other foods or exercise which could also have had an effect. The best way to lessen your chance of developing dementia is to eat a healthy diet including fruit and vegetables along with taking regular exercise and giving up smoking.”

British women are the most overweight in Europe, according to official figures.Between the ages of 18 and 74, almost one woman in four is so fat their health is suffering.

The figure is far worse than most other countries.

By comparison, 12.7 per cent of Frenchwomen are overweight, 14.4 per cent of Spaniards and just 9.3 per cent of Italians.

Experts from the European Commission, which compiled the figures for the year 2008/9, are concerned at the number of young British women who are obese.

Across most of Europe, very few 18- to 24-year-olds are obese but in Britain 16.6 per cent of young women are too fat.

The data comes from the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) published by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office- Overweight and Obesity BMI Statistics.

The statistics showed British men are not far behind, with 22.1 per cent being classed as overweight, coming second only to Malta.

They found the share of overweight and obese people increases with age in all of the 19 member states for which data was available.

The figures also show the proportion of women who are obese or overweight falls as the educational level rises.

The high levels of obesity in the UK are in stark contrast to those in countries such as Romania, where just 8 per cent of women were classed as obese along with 7.6 per cent of men.

Obesity is defined as having a Body Mass Index of over 30. BMI is calculated by dividing one’s weight in kilograms by the square of one’s height in metres.

Earlier this year, a report by the World Health Organisation found that British men were among the fattest in Europe and that, as a nation, we do less exercise than almost every other.

The study ranked British men as the third fattest in Europe, with 67.8 per cent of males aged 15 or older either overweight or obese – only Greece (77.5 per cent) and Malta (73.3 per cent) were fatter.

The report also found that Britain is the ninth least active nation in the world, with 63.3 per cent of adults taking less than 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week.

Cardiovascular disease is Britain’s number one killer, accounting for more than 191,000 deaths every year.