Posts

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”

Articles on Electric Mountain power station tour and US visas

Obviously, you don’t need a US visa to visit Dinorwig power station in Snowdonia, just a ticket from the Electric Mountain visitor centre. This buys you the chance to see a stirring film, then take a bus tour around an amazing piece of underground engineering that is capable of filling the gaps in UK power demand when millions of people put the kettle on.

I mentioned tea a lot in this article for the Register, such as the following: Continue reading “Articles on Electric Mountain power station tour and US visas”

What makes tumours tick? Genomics pave the way for tailored treatments

Advances in genetic testing are enabling healthcare professionals to personalise treatments for diseases and conditions including cancer, diabetes and HIV

It’s remarkable how genomics is being used in NHS healthcare, particularly in cancer, where tests now look at the DNA of actual tumours rather than patients. As I have covered previously for ComputerWeekly.com, lung cancer is being targeted through the National Lung Matrix Study. It’s now the case that 15-20% of lung cancer patients can receive targeted treatment based on genomics.

Gary Middleton, professor of medical oncology at the University of Birmingham and chief investigator of the National Lung Matrix Study, put it this way in my new article on this for Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network:

Lung cancer used to be a very simple disease. There were very few treatments and patients did very poorly. It’s really quite complicated now. Keeping on top of the new drugs and the new indications is difficult.

Continue reading “What makes tumours tick? Genomics pave the way for tailored treatments”