Latest news – Page 2480
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MPs pessimistic on NHS's ability to combat hospital-acquired infections
The NHS will not have the information required to get a grip on hospital-acquired infection until 2005, according to the House of Commons public accounts committee.
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Proposals unveiled for Scottish independent sector
Plans for improving the regulation of Scotland's independent healthcare sector have been unveiled by Scottish health minister Susan Deacon. The proposals have been developed following responses to the Scottish Executive's consultation paper, Regulating Private and Voluntary Healthcare, which was published earlier this year. They include the regulation of private hospitals, ...
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GDC increases lay members to counter public fears
The General Dental Council has voted to allow greater lay representation on its ruling body to counter public concern about complaints relating to NHS and private dentistry. At its meeting earlier this month, the council agreed to set up a 'smaller, more strategic' body which will comprise 11 lay members ...
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Law change paves way for probe into retired GPs
The Consumers' Association is celebrating a victory after a change in the law allowing the health ombudsman to investigate GPs who have retired from the NHS. The move follows a complaint from a reader of the association's Which? magazine, which highlighted a loophole in the law. An investigation into the ...
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Nurses get hotel treatment in trust recruitment bid
Plymouth Hospitals trust has offered 15 nurses, some with their families, a two-night break at a three-star hotel in a bid to improve recruitment. The £300 stay for a family of four at the Forte Posthouse Hotel on Plymouth Hoe offers nurses a chance to tour Derriford Hospital and an ...
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Night porter shifts up with a £250,000 book deal
A hospital night porter who took 10 years to write a book during quiet shifts has just signed a £250,000 publishing deal.
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When coughing up is essential
GPs are under constant pressure from health authorities to reduce prescribing costs, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the treatment of asthma.
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Type-righting lessons
The huge rise in the type-2 diabetes population - and the introduction of major new drug treatments - is set to pose some increasingly tough management decisions, writes Jenny Bryan
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Fresh insights into type 2 diabetes
Type-2 diabetes used to be called non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus because, at least in the early stages of the disease, people do not require insulin treatment.
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The new drugs and how they work
Until recently, the question of which comes first in type-2 diabetes - loss of pancreatic function or development of insulin resistance - was only of academic importance, since there was no effective treatment for insulin resistance.
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Breathlessness a key sign of COPD
The biggest-ever survey among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients has revealed the enormous detrimental impact COPD has on patients' quality of life and the significant burden the disease places on healthcare services.
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H pylori drug cash claim
Drug treatment to eradicate Helicobacter pylori in infected patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia may be cost-effective, according to a new meta-analysis by the dyspepsia review group (BMJ, 16 September 2000, p659).
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Channel blockers 'inferior'
Calcium channel blockers are inferior to less expensive antihypertensives in preventing cardiovascular complications of high blood pressure, according to a review by US researchers.
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In Brief
An agent that improves survival in metastatic breast cancer patients has been launched. Herceptin (trastuzumab), a humanised monoclonal antibody, suppresses tumour growth in the 20-30 per cent of metastatic breast cancer patients who overproduce a growth factor called HER2. It binds HER2 receptors on the cancer cell surface so that ...
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Keeping abreast
The NHS cancer plan gives the UK nine years to match the best breast cancer survival levels in Europe. As Wendy Moore reports, we could just do it
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Bring on the clones
Once thought of as beyond the pale, the cloning of human embryos is now being encouraged by the government. Jenny Bryan looks at what's in store
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A cure for Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and strokes?
Foetal and embryonic cells have already been used to try to repair nerve damage in people with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis or following a stroke. In the 1980s British doctors were among the first to transplant foetal tissue into the brains of people with Parkinson's disease in an effort to ...
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Seeing double: what is cloning?
Cloning is making genetically identical copies of living things. Scientists have been doing it since the early 1970s with antibodies, cells and genes but, until Dolly's birth, whole-animal cloning proved elusive.
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It's a bug's life
Antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics is a growing problem. But while more research is needed, new data suggests that hospitals might need to change their strategies for dealing with the problem. Rhonda Siddall reports
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Bucking the trend: new data on antimicrobial resistance
The MYSTIC surveillance programme collects data from centres throughout the world that use the antibiotic meropenem, to compare the antibiotic susceptibility of bacterial isolates in specialist and general units year on year.