Hospital patients 'still at risk'

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27 October 2011 Last updated at 18:45 GMT Patients at Romford's Queen's Hospital "remain at risk"

Patients are still at risk at an east London hospital, according to a health watchdog report after the deaths of two pregnant women.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) review began in June after the deaths of Tebussum Ali and Violet Stephens at Queen's Hospital in Romford.

Mrs Stephens died in April and Ms Ali and her baby died in January.

The Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust said it would improve.

The CQC report identified "serious problems" and placed requirements on the trust to deliver "fundamental and wide-ranging improvements".

Midwives suspended

The report said: "Despite some signs of improvement in recent months, patients remain at risk of poor care in this trust.

"While the most immediate concerns were around maternity services, failings were also identified in emergency care and in radiology.

Continue reading the main story Verbally abusive and unprofessional behaviour by some staff to patientsLack of leadership from senior managementVacancies repeatedly filled by agency staff, reducing quality of care"Widespread improvement is needed in patient flows, the management of complaints, staff recruitment and governance in order to improve patient experience."

An independent report found in the case of Mrs Stephens, who was admitted with potentially life-threatening pre-eclampsia, there was a failure to give a blood transfusion and a delay in making the decision to deliver her baby.

In the case of Ms Ali, who was also known as Sareena, the report found staff had failed to spot signs of her ruptured womb and tried to resuscitate her with a disconnected oxygen mask.

Tebussum Ali and her baby died in January

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the standard of care provided by the trust must improve substantially.

"We should be prepared to shine a spotlight on problems where they exist, because poor performance is not just a statistic or a line on a graph.

"It means patients being let down, or hurt, or worse."

The CQC inquiry found the most significant problems were at Queen's Hospital, although elements of poor care were present across both of the trust's main sites.

However the CQC said leadership of the trust was improving due to the efforts of a new chief executive and medical director.

Speaking after the publication of the report, the trust's chief executive Averil Dongworth said: "We are taking the findings of this report extremely seriously and have already started work to implement its recommendations.

"We recognise that there have been failures in the past, but we are determined to continue to improve until we are among the best trusts in the country."

She said seven members of staff had already or were in the process of being disciplined and there were more to follow.

The trust also said it had recruited an extra 72 midwives this year and had improved staff support and training.

Lawyer Sarah Harman, who is taking legal proceedings on behalf of 20 maternity patients of Queen's Hospital, said: "For patients to receive a reasonable standard of care there needs to be a significant change in the staff culture.

"Patients' concerns should be listened to and their complaints acted on.

"Had this happened in the past, the tragedies in the maternity unit this year would have been avoided."

Director of nursing Deborah Wheeler said the trust was unable to comment on the legal action.

The government has said plans to move maternity and emergency services to Queen's Hospital from King George Hospital in Ilford can go ahead, as long as ministers are satisfied that services are safe.

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Still Waiting For That Healthy Oats And Barley Revival

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Enlarge Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

Barley has fallen out of favor as horse feed, but beer brewers still need it.

Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

Barley has fallen out of favor as horse feed, but beer brewers still need it.

A press release that landed on my desk recently got me thinking about what American agriculture used to look like. There was a time, seventy or so years ago, when oats and barley covered large swaths of Midwestern farmland — 50 million acres in all. Those grains, high in oil and fiber, were grown to feed the millions of horses that powered American farms.

Then when the tractor arrived, workhorses disappeared, and oats and barley almost went out the same exit. The number of acres devoted to these humble "small grains" is down at least 90 percent from its peak in the 1940s. Oats have been hardest hit, despite aggressive marketing campaigns in recent years by oatmeal makers.

Barley still hangs on, thanks to breweries. "Barley can always go into beer. And people don't want to give up their beer," says Jennifer Mitchell Fetch, a researcher with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

 

But back to that press release: It announces that some Italian researchers have perfected pasta that's made from, yes, barley. If the pasta arrives in stores, it will carry a label saying that it "may reduce the risk of heart disease."

Apparently, America's farm horses were enjoying a very healthy diet way back then. Oats and barley are excellent sources of various substances, including soluble fiber, that scientists have linked to lowered cholesterol and lower risk of heart disease.

In fact, the FDA started allowing food manufacturers to advertise such claims for oat- and barley-containing foods several years ago. And some farmers, especially in Canada, where they grow more oats and barley than in the U.S., thought that the old-time crops might be coming back, thanks to the legal green light. Food researchers experimented with barley-containing tortillas, crepes, pancakes, and noodles.

But the demand they were expecting hasn't happened. The latest figures, in Canada and well as the U.S., show that farmers will harvest a record-low amount of these healthy crops this year.

"I've been working on barley for ten or twelve years, and I don't know why it's not in the stores," laments Nancy Ames, from the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals, at the University of Manitoba.

Apparently, we still like our meat and potatoes better.

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Still Waiting For That Healthy Oats And Barley Revival

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Enlarge Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

Barley has fallen out of favor as horse feed, but beer brewers still need it.

Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

Barley has fallen out of favor as horse feed, but beer brewers still need it.

A press release that landed on my desk recently got me thinking about what American agriculture used to look like. There was a time, seventy or so years ago, when oats and barley covered large swaths of Midwestern farmland — 50 million acres in all. Those grains, high in oil and fiber, were grown to feed the millions of horses that powered American farms.

Then when the tractor arrived, workhorses disappeared, and oats and barley almost went out the same exit. The number of acres devoted to these humble "small grains" is down at least 90 percent from its peak in the 1940s. Oats have been hardest hit, despite aggressive marketing campaigns in recent years by oatmeal makers.

Barley still hangs on, thanks to breweries. "Barley can always go into beer. And people don't want to give up their beer," says Jennifer Mitchell Fetch, a researcher with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

 

But back to that press release: It announces that some Italian researchers have perfected pasta that's made from, yes, barley. If the pasta arrives in stores, it will carry a label saying that it "may reduce the risk of heart disease."

Apparently, America's farm horses were enjoying a very healthy diet way back then. Oats and barley are excellent sources of various substances, including soluble fiber, that scientists have linked to lowered cholesterol and lower risk of heart disease.

In fact, the FDA started allowing food manufacturers to advertise such claims for oat- and barley-containing foods several years ago. And some farmers, especially in Canada, where they grow more oats and barley than in the U.S., thought that the old-time crops might be coming back, thanks to the legal green light. Food researchers experimented with barley-containing tortillas, crepes, pancakes, and noodles.

But the demand they were expecting hasn't happened. The latest figures, in Canada and well as the U.S., show that farmers will harvest a record-low amount of these healthy crops this year.

"I've been working on barley for ten or twelve years, and I don't know why it's not in the stores," laments Nancy Ames, from the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals, at the University of Manitoba.

Apparently, we still like our meat and potatoes better.

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Smoking still high in U.S. mining, food service

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A miner smokes a cigarette during a break at the Gongxigou coal mine on the outskirts of Baokang, Hubei province, December 4, 2007.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

By David Beasley

ATLANTA | Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:47pm EDT

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Cigarette smoking remains stubbornly high among workers in the mining, food services and construction industries despite dramatic overall declines in the United States in recent decades, a federal study released Thursday showed.

Thirty percent of workers in mining, hotel/motel and food services smoke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which analyzed data from 2004-2010.

The construction industry had the next highest smoking rate at 29.7 percent.

"Since the first surgeon general's report in 1964, we've almost cut the smoking prevalence in half overall," said Ann Malarcher, senior scientific adviser at the CDC. "But then there are groups that are still at very high rates and are being left behind."

The management and education sectors had among the lowest percentage of smokers. Only 9.7 percent of educators smoke, according to the study.

Low education levels are a factor in high smoking rates, along with poverty and gender, Malarcher said.

"One of the things that has been studied is that persons with lower levels of education tend to have less access to health information," she said. "They tend to be less knowledgeable about the dangers of tobacco use."

The CDC survey found the highest smoking rates among workers ages 18-24, males, those with high school or less education and those without health insurance. Midwestern workers had the overall highest rates.

The CDC recommends that employers increase their anti-smoking efforts, including imposing smoke-free workplace policies and providing health insurance coverage for smoking cessation treatments.

Adult smoking has decreased 42.4 percent since 1965, the CDC said. But the decline has slowed in the past five years, dropping to 19.3 percent of adults in 2010 from 20.9 percent in 2005.

Smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States, killing an estimated 443,000 Americans each year. Smoking costs about $193 billion annually in direct health care expenses and lost productivity.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Greg McCune and Bill Trott)

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Anti-depressant use still rising

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27 September 2011 Last updated at 14:00 GMT It is estimated that 11.3% of Scots, over the age of 15, take anti-depressants on a daily basis The number of anti-depressants being prescribed to people in Scotland is continuing to increase, according to the latest figures.

Statistics from the Scottish government suggest that more than one in 10 of the population are on the drugs.

In the last financial year a total of 4.6 million anti-depressants were prescribed in Scotland, up more than 350,000 on the previous year.

Labour accused the SNP of "ditching" efforts to cut anti-depressant use.

It is estimated 11.3% of Scots, aged over 15, take the drugs on a daily basis.

The rate of growth in the prescribing of anti-depressants increased from an annual growth of 7.6% in 2009/10 to 8.1% in 2010/11.

The continued rise in anti-depressant use comes despite a Scottish government pledge to reduce it.

In 2007 the SNP said it wanted to bring the yearly increase down to zero, and then by a further 10% each year.

Scottish Labour's public health spokesman Dr Richard Simpson, who is a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry, said: "The fact that the number of Scots on anti-depressants is the highest level since records began - with more than one in 10 Scots now on the drugs - is extremely troubling.

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It is scandalous that more than 10% of people aged 15 and over are reliant on anti-depressants”

End Quote Mary Scanlon MSP Scottish Conservatives "Back in 2007 the SNP set a target to bring the use of anti-depressants under control, but when the going got tough the SNP ditched the target."

"I know from my experience as a doctor that mental illness can be devastating for those who experience it. However, for all but the most serious cases, the daily use of drugs should be a last resort.

Dr Simpson said there needed to be a greater focus on early intervention and other alternative therapies.

The latest Scottish government statistics also showed a variation in the percentage of the population using anti-depressants across Scotland, with 8.3% of people living in Shetland taking the drugs compared with 12.9% in Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Five health boards - Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Forth Valley and Tayside - had rates of use above the Scottish average.

GPs wrote the vast majority of those prescriptions with the remainder written by authorised prescribers such as nurses and dentists.

The figures also included prescriptions written in hospitals that were dispensed in the community, but exclude prescriptions dispensed within hospitals.

The Scottish Conservatives also criticised the SNP for its "failure" to meet promised targets for tackling people's reliance on anti-depressants.

Holistic approach

Mary Scanlon MSP said: "It is scandalous that more than 10% of people aged 15 and over, a figure which therefore includes many young people, are reliant on anti-depressants.

"Investment in mental health with early diagnosis and early intervention is critical to get patients the support and treatment they need - when they need it."

The Scottish Liberal Democrats said the government's mental health strategy, currently out for consultation, needed to explore the "burgeoning" problem of anti-depressant use.

The party's health spokeswoman Alison McInnes MSP said: "While anti-depressants have a role to play, we need to see a much more holistic approach to mental health problems in Scotland.

"We need to be confident that doctors have the time to explore alternatives to anti-depressants before reaching for the prescription pad."

Further prescription statistics, just published by the government, show a big fall in the number of drugs being prescribed to tackle obesity in Scotland.

In 2010/2011 the number fell to 95,000, a decrease of almost 30% on the previous year.

The reduction is estimated to have saved the NHS more than £1m. A separate survey suggests 65% of people in Scotland are overweight and 28% are obese.

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