Carers are to be given legal rights under government plans to increase the assistance available to the six million Britons who look after other people.Ministers want to ensure that carers are given support to continue working or studying and to receive time off.

The rights of carers are expected to be put on the same legal footing as those of the people they look after.

There are estimated to be about six million people caring for husbands, wives, children, parents or neighbours, but the Government admits that “many do not get the emotional, financial and practical support they need”.

Paul Burstow, the care services minister, said: “Without the support of relatives and friends, many people who aren’t able to look after themselves would not be able to stay at home. Carers should have their needs looked after as much as the person they are caring for.

“A carer’s health often suffers because they don’t have time to look after themselves. Some often don’t have time to eat properly. So it’s vital we support them to look after their health and well-being.

He added: “None of this is rocket science. It is about the NHS seeing beyond the patient to support family carers. Carer stress is one of the biggest triggers for admission to care homes. That’s why we’ve given the NHS the clearest ever direction to make carers a priority.”

The details of the new rights for carers will be set out in the spring when the Government publishes its plans for reforming the social care system.

They are expected to include safeguards to ensure carers can work flexible hours and are not discriminated against in the workplace. Carers who are studying are likely to be able to ensure they receive state help at school or college.

A scheme that allows carers to take a break is also likely to be strengthened to protect leisure time.

“Caring is for many a full-time job,” said the Department of Health, “but many carers don’t realise they can get help and support from their community.”

A simple programme of assessing carers’ needs and providing tailored help to address them is expected to be introduced.

Ministers have promised to publish a white paper on elderly care reform in April next year.

From:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Carers-to-get-legal-rights-and-support-in-reforms

Hospital managers are planning to postpone thousands of non emergency operations today, because of the public sector unions striking over pension changes.Patients across the UK have been sent letters warning them of the disruption.

Diagnostic tests and outpatient appointments will also be delayed, but hospitals insist emergency and critical care will not be affected.

Managers say they are preparing as they would for Christmas or bank holidays.

An estimated 400,000 nurses and healthcare assistants, as well as paramedics, physiotherapists, and support staff like cleaners and administrators have said they will join the action on 30 November over changes to public sector pensions.

However, the main medical unions – the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and the British Medical Association are not taking part.

The Department of Health in England said it was expecting at least 5,500 non-emergency procedures like hip and knee operations to be rearranged.

More than 12,000 patients are likely to have diagnostic tests postponed, and 40,000 outpatient appointments are expected to be rescheduled.

On an average day, 28,000 patients have planned treatments or operations in England and there are 60,000 diagnostic tests.

However, managers say they are putting plans in place to make sure people can still get emergency or urgent care, in the way they do on bank holidays or at Christmas.
999 calls

Patients needing urgent treatment like chemotherapy and kidney dialysis will still be able to get it, and maternity units will remain open.

Calls to 999 will still be answered, but patients are being urged to think hard and only call if it is a genuine emergency.

The Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said health service workers should not take action that harms the interests of patients.

“I would ask staff to consider carefully whether going on strike is the right thing to do,” he said.

NHS staff are putting patient confidentiality at risk by sharing information about them on Facebook new research has revealed.Private records belonging to ill and vulnerable patients were breached more than 800 times over the last five years by nurses, doctors and administrative staff at 152 NHS trusts and hospitals.

Nearly half said there had been at least one breach in the past year, a report by the campaign group Big Brother Watch found.

In one incident at the Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust, a member of medical staff was dismissed after taking a photograph of a patient in bed and showing it to friends on the social networking site.

The report comes after the Information Commissioner said tougher powers were needed so that those who break data protection laws to obtain personal details could be jailed.

The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, showed there were at least 806 incidents in which NHS employees breached data protection policies between July 2008 and July 2011.

In 23 cases, medical staff posted confidential medical information on Facebook, sharing details about a patient’s name, medical condition or discussing their treatment.

There were more than 90 incidents where employees admitted to inappropriately accessing the medical files of colleagues, and more than 30 incidents where they looked up family members, the figures showed.

Their actions led to a total of 102 doctors, nurses and hospital staff being sacked.

The figures also showed unsecured confidential medical information was lost on 57 occasions across 24 NHS trusts.

Christopher Graham, the Information Commissioner, warned in July that a culture change was needed within the health service to ensure patients’ personal information was kept secure.

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said “urgent action” was needed to keep medical records safe.

“This research highlights how the NHS is simply not doing enough to ensure confidential patient information is protected,” he added.

“The information held in medical records is of huge personal significance and for details to be disclosed, maliciously accessed or lost represents serious infringements on patient privacy.”

He added: “It is essential the NHS is transparent about these incidents and failing or refusing to disclose that a data breach has taken place is unacceptable.”

Three out of four nurses lack the time to talk to patients, a major survey of NHS trusts has revealed.The results of a survey involving almost 3,000 nurses by researchers at King’s College London will prompt further alarm over the standards of care in the NHS.

A quarter admit they are too busy to administer drugs on time and more than 40 per cent said at least one patient under their care had suffered a serious fall in the last month.

The findings were based on unannounced inspections at 100 hospitals to check elderly patients were given enough to eat and drink and were treated with dignity.

In some instances, watchdog’s inspectors saw patients rattling bedrails or banging on water jugs in an effort to attract the attention of nurses.

The report also claimed that some hospitals were “putting paperwork over people” with patients being left for more than ten hours without a drink.

The latest study involving 2,943 nurses looked at 31 NHS trusts across England. Researchers found there was an absence of humanity as without regularly talking to their patients nurses had no way of knowing their needs.

The survey revealed that 76 per cent of nurses did not have enough time to talk to or comfort patients and 40 per cent of staff were too busy to carry out necessary checks such as taking their temperature.

Thirty-nine per cent admitted they did not have enough time to record details about patient care such as whether they had been given anything to eat or drink.

Twenty-six per cent said they were too busy to administer drugs on time and 24 per cent had not been able to check skin for signs of pressure sores.

A further 44 per cent admitted that in the past month at least one patient under their care had suffered a serious fall.

And 26 per cent said that at least one patient in the same period had been given the wrong dose of drugs or developed bed sores.

Professor Peter Griffiths, of the national nursing research unit at King’s College London, told the Daily Mail: “Talking and comforting patients is very important as nurses need to know how they are and how they feel.

“It’s about having humanity, having a relationship with people. It’s important to understand what patients need. Sometimes staff feel that paperwork has to come first.”

The Royal College of Nursing admitted it was “not surprised” that so many nurses lacked the time to talk to patients.

Janet Davies, its executive director of nursing and service delivery, said: “We know many nurses are wilting under the strain of longer working hours, taking on the burden on unfilled vacancies and reduced staffing levels.”

FroM: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Three-in-four-nurses-dont-have-time-to-talk-to-patients

Nurses and midwives are being urged to get their flu jabs after figures reveal less than a third did last year.All front line healthcare workers are meant to be vaccinated to stop them going off sick with influenza and spreading the virus to patients.

Last year only 30% of hospital nursing staff in England got immunised compared with 43% of GP practice nurses, 38% of GPs and 37% of other doctors.

Nursing and midwifery groups say having the jab is a “professional duty”.

This is the first time the figures have given broken down by occupation.

The number of healthcare workers getting the vaccine had increased from 26.4% in the 2009 winter to 34.7% in 2010.

However, the majority of nurses who work with the most critically ill over the winter months and midwives who work with pregnant women, were left vulnerable to flu, its potentially life-threatening complications and passing it on to patients and family, says the Department of Health which released the figures.

The data also shows that only 25.2% of youngsters aged six months to two years in at-risk groups were vaccinated last winter, compared with 51.7% of those aged 16 to 65.

Those at risk include people with conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease and liver disease, as well as the over-65s and pregnant women.

Last winter people in at-risk groups were 11 times more likely to die from seasonal flu than people with no underlying health problems.

Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said: “It is never too early to start thinking about flu. So as NHS staff return from their holidays, I urge them to plan ahead and get vaccinated.”

Dr Peter Carter, of the Royal College of Nursing, said while NHS staff should not be forced to get immunised, they had a professional duty to do so: “Patients and healthcare staff suffer when nurses are off sick.

“It is vital that nurses do all they can to take responsibility for their own health and of those around them. The RCN will be working with our members to ensure they have access to all of the relevant information to enable them to make the right decision about the uptake of the vaccine.”

Louise Silverton, of the Royal College of Midwives, said: “Midwives are strongly advised to encourage all pregnant women to be vaccinated against seasonal flu.

“In addition midwives as key health workers should themselves seriously consider being vaccinated to prevent transmission of influenza to the women for whom they care and also to their own families.”

A National NHS Staff Seasonal Flu Vaccination Campaign launches later this month and will use resources like Twitter and Facebook, as well as leaflets, to encourage more healthcare professionals to get vaccinated.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14792570

NHS managers are trying to restrict access to crucial tests and scans in a move that could mean diseases being diagnosed later. 

An investigation has found that a quarter of Primary Care Trusts are either investigating how many patients individual GP practices send for examinations or looking for ways to reduce the numbers.

In addition, a handful are identifying “excessive” use of the tests or setting upper targets while others have completely stopped letting doctors have direct access to the scans.

Experts said the tactics could lead to patients being diagnosed later with diseases such as cancer, which research shows lowers survival chances.

Dr Clare Gerada, head of the Royal College of GPs, said: “This is about money and finances driving behaviour by the PCT – not about putting patients first.”

Cancer Research UK’s director of policy, Sarah Woolnough, added: “It is very worrying to hear of PCTs setting referral targets and decommissioning direct access to tests that could speed up a cancer diagnosis.”

Meanwhile, official figures show that even patients who are being referred to hospitals for tests are being forced to wait longer than a year ago.

Department of Health statistics show that 10,700 patients were waiting more than six weeks for any one of 15 key diagnostic tests at the end of July, a rise of 7,000 on the figure for the previous year.

The Government has told health service managers to improve direct access to diagnostic scans such as MRI, CT and ultrasound in order to improve early diagnosis of cancer and heart disease.

But an investigation by GP magazine suggests that many trusts want to reduce the number of patients sent directly to tests at specialist centres in order to save money.

Of the 116 Primary Care Trusts contacted, 28 per cent said they had either started looking into how many referrals GPs carried out across their area, or were planning to do so. A quarter are helping practices reduce inappropriate access.

Nine trusts said they had found surgeries that either sent too many or too few patients for tests while two are considering introducing upper and lower targets.

Five PCTs have scrapped direct access altogether to at least one type of test.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a leading member of the British Medical Association, said restricting access to scans risks “turning back the clock” on plans to diagnose disease early.

“An intelligent approach would be to have guidelines for appropriate use of diagnostics and incorporate them into the pathway.”

The moves are the latest example of how managers are rationing patient care in an attempt to make unprecedented efficiency savings totalling £20billion across the NHS by 2015.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/NHS-managers-restricting-access-to-crucial-scans-and-tests

The head of a scandal hit NHS hospital has claimed there is something “fundamentally wrong” with nurses and the nursing profession.Sir Stephen Moss, chairman of Stafford Hospital and himself a nurse for 40 years, said that “too many patients and families” are being let down but that staff shortages are not to blame.

He suggested the problems lie in the training nurses receive as well as the way they work on hospital wards, and plans to lead a new campaign to improve standards.

His comments come in the wake of a series of scandals at NHS hospitals in which vulnerable patients have been neglected with sometimes fatal consequences.

At Stafford Hospital, which Sir Stephen arrived at in 2009 to help turn around its fortunes, as many as 1,200 patients are feared to have died unnecessarily over three years as managers became preoccupied with cost-cutting.

A recent report by the Health Service Ombudsman condemned the NHS for failing to meet “even the most basic standards of care” for pensioners, while spot inspections by the Care Quality Commission have uncovered geriatric wards where doctors are prescribing water to elderly patients to stop them becoming dehydrated.

Unions and professional bodies have suggested that the problems are down to staff being over-worked or forced to focus on Government targets rather than providing personal care.

But other commentators have claimed that too much care is now provided by cheap healthcare assistants, who do not need to meet national training standards and who are not regulated by a professional body; or that nurses think they are “above” feeding and cleaning patients now that they have to be university-educated.

In an interview with a local newspaper, Sir Stephen said: “Not everything in nursing is bad, but after the events at Stafford Hospital, the recent concerns at New Cross Hospital [in Wolverhampton, where high death rates are being investigated] and others around the country you can’t tell me there isn’t an issue here that needs addressing and we have to do something about it.

“There is something fundamentally wrong with the nursing profession and the way it is focused at the moment.  We are getting a lot right but we are also letting down too many patients and families. We can’t just stand by and not do something.”

Sir Stephen is drawing together a group of seven “big hitters” in the health service to suggest ways that hospital care can be improved.

Their plans, to be disclosed in September, will focus on how nurses can be trained for “the real world of the NHS rather than the classroom”.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/NHS-boss-something-fundamentally-wrong-with-nursing

Doctors are being warned to take extra care when using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The British Medical Association guidance highlighted a series of potential pitfalls doctors face.

In particular, it said there was a risk the lines between personal and professional lives could be blurred.

It comes after a series of cases in which NHS staff and other public sector workers have got into trouble through their use of social media.

In 2009, a group of doctors and nurses were suspended for posting pictures of themselves on Facebook lying down in unusual places, including a hospital helipad.

And last year a civil servant found herself in the newspapers after using her Twitter account to make political points and saying she was struggling with a hangover.

Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA’s medical ethics committee, said: “Medical professionals should be wary of who could access their personal material online, how widely it could be shared and how it could be perceived by their patients and colleagues.”

The guidance advises both doctors and medical students to adopt conservative privacy settings where they are available.

It also warns them against making informal or derogatory comments about patients or colleagues as well as not accepting current or past patients as friends on Facebook.

The message was echoed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which has also issued its own guidance this week.

NMC official Andy Jaeger said: “What you regard as just an amusing story could end up causing serious offence more easily than you think.”

From: http://www.searchclinic.org/doctors-warned-over-facebook-risks.htm

Serious concerns have been raised by the NHS care regulator about the way some hospitals in England look after elderly patients.
The Care Quality Commission said three had failed to meet legal standards for giving patients enough food and drink and treating them in a dignified way.

The CQC, which carried out unannounced inspections, also raised concerns about three other NHS hospitals.

The commission has published the first 12 results of 100 such inspections, called for by the health secretary Andrew Lansley after a long campaign by the Patients Association, which highlighted poor care for the elderly.

While its inspectors said there had been many examples of people being treated with respect and given excellent care, in other cases people had not been helped to eat and drink, “with their care needs not assessed and their dignity not respected”.

All six hospitals about which concerns were raised must now say how and when they will improve. The worst three offenders will have to improve or face action from the regulator.

The inspections looked at nutrition and found cases of patients not being helped to eat, poor monitoring of patients’ weight and people not being given enough to drink, with water being out of reach for long periods of time.

In one case, a member of staff at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said they had to prescribe water on medical charts to ensure patients got enough to drink.

Inspectors also looked at dignity and respect, noting that elderly patients were sometimes not involved in their own care and were given no explanation of the treatment they were to receive or asked for consent.

Staff also treated people in a disrespectful way, spooning food into their mouths without engaging them.

The reports acknowledge examples of excellent care where treatment was explained in a way patients could understand and they were treated with respect and dignity.

Jo Williams, chair of the CQC, said the inspections had built a detailed picture of the care being received by elderly patients in NHS hospitals in England.

“Many of these reports describe people being ‘cared for’ in the truest sense. Sadly, however, some detail omissions which add up to a failure to meet basic needs – people not spoken to with respect, not treated with dignity, and not receiving the help they need to eat or drink.

“These are not difficult things to get right – and the fact that staff are still failing to do so is a real concern. These are the basics that help ensure every patient is treated like an individual – not a nuisance to be ignored or a task that must be completed.

“This is what we expect for ourselves and for our own families, and what every patient should expect from the people who care for them.”
Enforcement powers

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said that everyone admitted to hospital deserved to be treated as an individual, with compassion and dignity.

More CQC reports will be published over the summer with the findings of the programme of inspections released in the autumn.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13545780

Nurses have suggested they should undergo an annual health and well-being “MoT”.
The physical and psychological assessment could take place alongside yearly appraisals, according to nurses at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) conference in Liverpool.

They believe the plan would help staff set a healthy example to patients and argued that there are more checks on wheelchairs than NHS staff.

Claire Topham-Brown, a critical care nurse from Peterborough, said: “There is no denying that nursing is a physically demanding job. You do need a certain level of physical fitness.”

She told delegates during a discussion on the issue that one activist had “observed that we take better care of wheelchairs than we do of the staff.

“Bizarre but true – we now risk-assess everything, yearly, monthly, weekly and sometimes daily. But when do we ever assess that vital, delicate and most valuable part of the machine – namely me and you?”

She said it was not just about the physical and psychological nature of nursing work but also the culture and environment in which they operated.

“Don’t we deserve an annual MoT?” she said. “It would allow our employers to be more proactive and supportive instead of reactive.”

Ms Topham-Brown was supported by other nurses, including Karen Webb, the RCN’s director of the eastern region of England.

She suggested support was even more important given the expansion in nurses in training in recent years, which could lead to an increase in the numbers not fit for a career in nursing.

She said students had a health check before joining a course but their psychological suitability was not tested.

“It is about making sure people have the right attributes,” she added.

In her local area, screening had been launched to “make sure that the people coming in have the right attitude to what is essentially customer care”.

She said nurses also had a duty to deal with public health issues, such as obesity and well-being.

And those nurses who were overweight themselves could be supported.

“It would be about supporting those people in that position to help them lose the weight.”

The Government’s NHS Health and Wellbeing report, published a year ago, said the NHS needed to do more to improve the health of staff.

NHS staff take an average of 10.7 days off work a year – more than the public sector average and nearly double the 6.4 figure for the private sector. Staff sickness is thought to cost the NHS £1.7 billion a year.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/call-for-annual-health-check-for-nurses