This is part of Unite’s request for a large school nurse recruitment campaign. It estimated that there are now 6,900 children to every specialist school nurse in England, using NHS workforce statistics.

Due to the cervical cancer immunisation for teenage girls and the government push to have a specialist school nurse for every secondary school and its cluster of primary schools by 2010, there is also concern about the increasing Read more »

According to a recent study looking at the Medicare population, the answer appears to be yes.

MedPage Today reports a study showing that elderly white patients had colon cancer screening rates ranging from 39 to 47 percent, compared to 29 to 38 percent in blacks and 23 to 33 percent in Hispanics.

First off, all those rates are dismally low. There should be no reason that colon cancer screening rates are below 50 percent.
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It appears so.

Chris Rangel points to a study showing that 21.2 percent of medical students (that’s more than 1 in 5), suffer from depression, compared to 10 percent in the general population.

Depression seems to hit its peak during the second year of medical school, and then gradually improves. In general, the rates of depression for students were generally higher than in residency.

Indeed, the second year of medical Read more »

As health care costs rise, more patients are switching to high-deductible insurance plans.

When that deductible hasn’t been met, doctors are becoming more aggressive in asking for their payment up front.

This move entirely makes sense, since like other businesses, physician practices are also wading through the difficult economic times.

According to the LA Times, 13 percent of a practice’s revenue comes from patients, Read more »

Medicare recently expanded their coverage for off-label use of cancer drugs.

These medications are among the most expensive, and especially in cases of end-stage treatment, there may not be a lot of evidence supporting their use.

For the most part, oncologists and patients (via the WSJ Health Blog) have hailed the decision, but others say that the increased ability to give off-label drugs “let physicians avoid hard discussions Read more »

Chief executive Niall Dickson tells the BBC today that there has been a deterioration in the level of compassion in the NHS in recent years.

He says: ‘It is to do with staff facing very difficult situations – because patients are sicker and hospital stays are shorter – rather than them all turning into nasty people.

‘If we can’t get compassion into our healthcare, the system is failing. It’s Read more »

New postgraduate training opportunities will be provided to GPs as part of England’s national dementia strategy, Mr Hope told the Daily Mail.

‘We want to see every GP trained to recognise the symptoms of early dementia and patients referred to specialist services in every area where they would get a proper diagnosis,’ he said.

Funding will also be provided for memory clinics, where treatment and support Read more »

The union is urging the DoH to double the workforce by immediately recruiting an extra 2,000 qualified school nurses.

The advice follows the data from the child measurement programme showing that one in five children aged 10-11 are obese.

There are more than 3,300 secondary schools in England, and the DoH has pledged to have a school nurse to cover each of these and their surrounding clusters of primary schools by 2010.
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