News and hot topics Flashcards
7 Day NHS
By 2020, all trusts will be expected to meet following standards, 7 days a week:
- Patients wait no longer than 14 hours to initial consultant review
- Diagnostic tests have 24-hour turn around time, 12 hours for urgent, 1 hour for critical
- Access to consultant directed-interventions
- Daily consultant directed ward rounds for A&E and twice daily for high-dependency patients
‘Weekend effect’ = patients more likely to die at weekends
GPs will be expected to stay open on weekends and hospitals to provide the same level of care as they do on week days.
Concerns:
- Increase in cost
- Is opening GPs on weekends even neccessary?
- NHS staffing is already understrain
Junior doctors contract
- Increase in basic pay by 13.5% on average
- Change to ‘unsociable hours’
Junior doctors went on strike in 2016
- A new contract was agreed by the BMA, NHS Employers and the health secretary
- It was rejected by 58% of the BMA but Hunt brought the contract into force anyway
- Further strikes were called off due to risks to patient safety
- A group of junior doctors tried to fight Hunt in court but lost
Doctors and the media
Fictional doctors:
- Creates steryotyoes about doctors
- Expectation of one time cure with no side effects (miracle cures)
- Rare and life-threatening diseases get much more air time
Social media:
- Easy to expose or ridicule medical profession
- Doctor ratings can affect patient trust
- Impact on doctor-patient relationship
Public opinion:
- Largely remains high
- When impacted can lead to self-diagnosis or self-treatment
Positives:
- Doctors can offer free medical advice and information
- Can be used to promote public health campaigns
- Strengthen national and international medical relations for exchange of info
Doctor shortage
- Currently 100,000 vacancies within mental health services, NHS hospitals and community services and a further 110,000 vacancies within adult social care services.
- In last 5 years, health education funding has been cut by 17%
- 2018, announcement of 1,500 new medical school places and 5 new institutes
- Numbers rose slightly but did not have the impact expected
- Change in immigration laws has meant a lack of international medical staff, which the NHS has always heavily relied on
Forgetfullness a sign of genius?
- Two neuroscientists, Frankland & Richards from Toronto Uni, claim forgetting names, dates and words is a sign of intelligence
- Bad memory is actually a mechanism in the brain which makes space for relevant information
HumanHospitals of Love
- Rising levels of anxiety, depression and suicide
- NHS are collaborating with Camerados (a social movement designed to increase human connection)
- Together they have been erecting 15ft teepees in hospital entrances as safe places to connect and support each other
- Trialled in Blackpool Victoria Teaching Hospital in 2017 and has recieved extra funding to pilot the same project in Rotherham Hospital
Artificial neurons
- University of Bath has developed artificial neurons that have been proven to help repair parts of the human body
- Proven to work in the replication of respiratory neuron responses being replaced by implanting tine bioelectronic chips
- Thought it might be a possible cure for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s
- What do you think about using this type of technology?
- Medical ethics considerations?
- Dangers?
- Pro’s and con’s?
Developments in contraception
- ‘Once a month’ works by dissolving the pill slowly in the woman’s stomach to slowly release pregnancy preventing hormones into the bloodstream
- It is a star-shaped capsule that starts to unfold to release hormones from each point
- Is bigger than normal pills so stays in the stomach for several weeks
- Normal pill is 99% effective but this new version is 91%
- Do you agree that this would give women more control over their fertility?
- How effective do you think this pill is?
- Pros and cons
Death and sperm donations
- Drs Hodson and Parker have suggested men donate sperm just before death (similar to organ donation) in order to compensate for the lack of sperm donors
- At the moment the majority of sperm donations have to be flown in from abroad
- Question of consent, confidentiality and practicality
- Whether children born from this process would be entitled to some details about their donor, as children of regular donors are allowed
Questions:
- Ethical issues?
- Agree or disagree?
- Is there another solution to this problem?
Brexit and the NHS
Regulation of pharmaceuticals:
- European Medicines Agency used to do this
- UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices are safe
- Drugs will have to be seperately approved by the MHRA and EMA before reaching the market
- This costs more time and money
Funding the NHS:
- Effect of leaving the EU may effect goverment taxation
NHS staffing:
- EU nationals make up 62,000 NHS workers
- Over 100,000 positions are understaffed in the NHS
- Locum cover is expensive
Is the NHS in crisis?
- Spending 12x as much on healthcare as we were 70 years ogo
- Just under 10% GDP spent on health (over 11% in Germany and France)
- Spending has slowed down following the 2008 recession
- Waiting times are getting worse, % of patients being treated inside 4 hours in A&E is down compared to 2010
- Patient satisfaction has been falling since 2015
- Ageing population increasing pressure on the NHS
Questions:
- What factors are linked with health system funding?
- Problems the health system faces
- Problems of an ageing population
Nursing strikes and the NHS
- Between Dec 2019 - Jan 2020, around 15,000 nurses across Northern Ireland striked in protest of pay and staffing levels
- NI has a separate payment system for nurses than the rest of the UK and pay rises here have not matched those in the rest of the UK
Does AI have a place in medicine?
- AI could have the ability to better screen, diagnosis and even treat quickly and more effectively
- Could be limited by the social side
- Human-centered medicine is hard to get machines to perform
