Disabled people benefits warning

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 02:10 GMT Some 3.2 million people, including children, receive disability living allowance Many disabled people risk losing essential payments under planned benefits changes, a charity has warned.

Scope says the proposed test of claimants' need is flawed for focusing on the disability but ignoring relevant factors like housing and transport.

Thousands could be left with little or no financial support, Scope warns.

The government argues new payments will be more effectively targeted to those in greatest need, while cutting overpayments of £600m a year.

Some 3.2 million disabled people, including children, receive the existing disability living allowance.

It is in line to be replaced by the personal independence payment, which features in the government's Welfare Reform Bill.

A new medical assessment has been drawn up that will be carried out on disabled people of working age, of whom there are about two million.

But, according to Scope, that assessment "doesn't take into consideration all the barriers that disabled people face in daily life".

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I want to see money really getting to disabled people who need the help the most”

End Quote Maria Miler Minister for disabled people It highlights examples including unsuitable housing, inaccessible public transport, and a lack of informal support networks that "create significant extra costs for disabled people that in most cases are not related to the direct effect of an individual's condition and impairment".

Scope chief executive Richard Hawkes said: "We recognise that disability living allowance needs reforming and we fully support the government's ambitions to create a more active and enabling benefit."

But he added: "Without understanding the extent of barriers people face, the government has no hope to overcome them and genuinely enable people to take part in daily life."

The charity has designed an alternative assessment system that, it says, "will give disabled people the opportunity to address the barriers they face and therefore drive down costs in the long term, rather than placing a sticking plaster over them".

In response to the Scope report, minister for disabled people Maria Miller said: "At the moment disability living allowance doesn't have an in-built reassessment as part of it and we have £600m a year going out in overpayments as a result.

"I want to see that change so that the money is really getting to disabled people who need the help the most."

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U.S. health benefits recommendations coming October 7

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U.S. President Barack Obama waits to speak at the Families USA's 16th annual Health Action Conference at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill in Washington January 28, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:56pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key recommendation for medical coverage standards under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul will be released on October 7, according to the organization preparing the report.

The Department of Health and Human Services has asked the influential Institute of Medicine, an independent agency in Washington, to recommend how HHS should determine the basic health benefits for millions of Americans who will qualify for coverage sold through insurance exchanges beginning in 2014.

IOM spokeswoman Christine Stencel on Thursday said the agency will release the report on October 7, just a week later than the self-imposed deadline of the end of September.

Stencel has previously told Reuters that IOM will not produce specific benefits standards for the exchanges. Instead, the group is working toward recommendations on criteria and methods that would allow HHS to determine and update the essential health benefits package.

The findings will inform the final HHS decision expected by the end of the year. HHS has been subject to intense lobbying over which health services should be mandated by the government.

(Reporting by Alina Selyukh in Washington; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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Breast cancer study shows benefits of double therapy

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A woman undergoes a mammography exam, a special type of X-ray of the breasts, which is used to detect tumours as part of a regular cancer prevention medical check-up at a clinic in Nice, south eastern France January 4, 2008.

Credit: Reuters/Eric Gaillard

By Kate Kelland

STOCKHOLM | Sat Sep 24, 2011 6:04pm EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Giving breast cancer patients radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the same time significantly cuts the risk their tumors will come back and should be considered as a new treatment approach across the world, cancer experts said on Sunday.

The double treatment, known as synchronous chemoradiation, could also save lives among people with breast cancer, a disease that currently kills 425,000 women a year worldwide, according to the British experts who conducted a major scientific study.

They said the synchronous treatment, which the study showed has limited side effects and does not harm patients' quality of life, should be considered for use by all breast cancer doctors.

"The results have implications worldwide," Indrajit Fernando, a consultant clinical oncologist at the University Hospitals Birmingham Trust, told reporters at the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (EMCC) in Stockholm.

"Clinical practice needs to be reviewed."

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. A recent study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in the United States found that in 2010 it killed around 425,000 people and was newly diagnosed in 1.6 million.

Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are usually given after breast cancer surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells in the breast, chest wall or underarm area, and to try to reduce the risk of a local cancer recurrence. The standard approach is to give chemotherapy first, followed by radiotherapy.

But the best timings for radiotherapy and chemotherapy have long been debated among cancer experts, so Fernando's team decided to study various schedules of radiotherapy with a type of chemotherapy called anthracycline-CMF chemotherapy in patients with early-stage breast cancer.

The study involved almost 2,300 women in Britain who had already undergone surgery to remove their tumors.

The results showed that compared with the standard approach, giving both treatments at the same time "reduces the risk of local cancer recurrence by 35 percent in women with early breast cancer," Fernando said.

After a follow-up of over eight years, the study found that only 41 patients in the synchronous chemoradiation group had suffered recurrence, compared with 63 patients in the group who had standard chemotherapy followed by radiation treatment.

At five years, tumors had recurred in only 2.8 percent of those who got both treatments at the same time, compared with 5.1 percent among those who received the therapies separately.

Although there were no differences in overall survival rates between the two groups after five years, Fernando said he would expect to see survival rates rise in larger groups of patients over a longer time period.

"Even a 2.3 percent reduction in local recurrence rates will have an impact worldwide when we consider that this is a very common cancer," he said, citing data showing that for every four local recurrences of the disease prevented, one death from breast cancer death can be avoided.

Fernando said he has already changed practice in his own clinic and will send his data to Britain's National Institute of Clinical Excellence, which advises on treatment guidelines.

Michael Baumann, president of the European Cancer Organization, said more follow up would be needed to assess potential longer-term side effects. "I am convinced this trial will spur a lot of discussion," he said.

(Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. National forests provide public health benefits

More than 170 million people visit national forests for recreation each year. And physical activity in connection with these visits 290 billion food calories. The is enough of pommes-frites-end end of the Moon and back - twice - according to a study in the journal of forestry.
During the most recent strategic plan the U.S. forest service includes conservation and more opportunities for leisure activities in the open air, are the benefits of exercise and leisure activities also by President Obama America's outdoor initiative, Americans with their landscape, and the first lady's move recognized outside campaign.
But how exactly are our national forests, so people, to develop a healthier lifestyle? A recent study may show some answers.
"We the extent that national forests use could be for the public health, by the estimate of net energy spent on a range of outdoor activities involved, the national forest of the visitors studied country," explains research Forester Jeff Kline. "We have this by the combination of data that describes national forest visitors rest in the free activities with data, the characterization of the calories consumed with any kind of physical activity."
Kline, a scientist with the forest service Pacific Northwest research station, and Oregon State University co-authors, Randall Rosenberg and Eric white, recently published their findings in the September issue of the journal of forestry. In the article "A national evaluation of physical activity in U.S. national forests," holds national forests to Americans, the guidelines for regular physical activity, which laid down by the centres can meet and prevention for disease control.
Main findings of the study are: walking, hiking, downhill ski, fishing, relax, camping, relax, and driving pleasure are the primary activities for two-thirds (68 percent) of all visits to the national forests. Annual energy investment in national forest recreation are 6.8 million adults and almost 317.000 children meeting the Centers for disease control and prevention guidelines regular aerobic physical activity for a year. The distribution of these health benefits vary with close and income. 52 Percent of rest visits of people that are within of 60 miles a national forest of life. These "local" visitors are rather lower household income groups as a non-local visitor, with 45 percent earn less than $50,000 per year compared to 25 percent for non-local visitors come from.
National forest in the Western States the largest share of all rest in the free visits (75 percent) and related net energy expenditure (75%). However provide national forests in the Northeast and Southeast proportionally more net energy expenditure, because they are generally closer to major population centres towards the West, and their visitors have more intensive physical activities.

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