Category: Healthcare

After Brexit, the NHS will have to home-grow its people

The NHS was never going to get an extra £350m a week from Britain leaving the European Union. Boris Johnson, who spent the last few weeks on a bus pushing this claim, is a political corpse. But missing out on this money will not be the health service’s biggest Brexit challenge.

It looks likely that a post-Brexit Britain will control immigration more tightly than it has as part of the EU. As NHS England head Simon Stevens said during the referendum campaign, the health and care sectors depend heavily on 135,000 EU staff, about 5% of the total workforce. Continue reading “After Brexit, the NHS will have to home-grow its people”

Injured at Glastonbury? Three little words will help medics find you

New app What3Words, also used by emergency teams in a cholera outbreak in Tanzania, can help medical services locate ill festivalgoers amid a sea of tents

What3Words, which provides addressing services that work in the most desolate corners of the earth where people live in the most basic conditions, also covers the Glastonbury Festival.
Continue reading “Injured at Glastonbury? Three little words will help medics find you”

Into the woods: how walks are improving mental health

A trailblazing approach to mental health by Forestry Commission Scotland and local health boards is seeing service users go on activity-filled woodland walks

For Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network I have covered Branching Out, a programme run by Forestry Commission Scotland that uses the theraputic powers of woodland to help groups of mental health patients. Since it was launched in Glasgow in 2007, it has spread to most of the NHS boards in Scotland. Continue reading “Into the woods: how walks are improving mental health”

Leave out dodgy numbers on EU and NHS

The Vote Leave campaign bus has ‘We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead’ written on its side. This number is, to be polite, a bit dodgy. Due to the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, the actual amount is about £250m a week, or £13bn a year. The EU then spends more than £4bn in the UK, mainly on farmers and badly-off parts of the country, which would push the figure down to about £165m a week. Continue reading “Leave out dodgy numbers on EU and NHS”

Unhealthy valleys: Wales’ problem with ill-health

Greater Glasgow gets a lot of coverage for its poor health through having the lowest average lifespans in the UK. Although residents of the Welsh Valleys – the post-industrial areas north of Cardiff – don’t have such short lives, they are most likely to be living with poor health. The three UK council areas where more than 10% of adults say they are in bad or very bad health are in south Wales: Neath Port Talbot (10.5%), Blaneau Gwent (10.7%) and Merthyr Tydfil (11.1%). Continue reading “Unhealthy valleys: Wales’ problem with ill-health”