ProNurse

Most of the time we concentrate on bringing you the best nursing career advice, but occasionally we drift into what we tend to claim as stress relief. After all nursing is a career that can be mentally as well as physically draining. However, in this case it is all about us. As many of you will know we have a sister ...

By Roger Dobson Antibiotics are being investigated as a new way to treat chronic lower back pain. It's thought that up to one in four cases may actually be caused by infection and not by mechanical problems such as poor posture or improper lifting. In a Danish study, more than half the patients were either cured or much improved after ...

By David Delvin Don't go rushing to your doctor, don't take to your bed for days - and do get to know your sacro-iliac joints. Dr David Delvin exposes the myths about lumbar pain and explains what really works Every day of the year, the number of Britons who are off work with back pain would fill London's new Olympic ...

By Jeremy Laurance Patients were 'routinely neglected', says most savage indictment of NHS trust How hundreds died after basic care was ignored The worst hospital scandal in more than a decade has triggered the biggest review of safety in the NHS since the Labour government came to power. Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, announced an unprecedented five separate reviews of ...

By Mark Hennessy Hospital staff in England are badly trained to deal with dementia patients, and British government plans to improve care over the next five years must be "urgently" reviewed, a top audit body warned yesterday. Dementia affects more than half a million people in England alone, and the numbers will double over the next 30 years, while the ...

By Jeremy Laurance Mobile phones may improve memory and protect against Alzheimer's disease, scientists have discovered. In one of the most unexpected scientific findings for some time, researchers have found that the electromagnetic waves emitted by the devices may improve cognitive function. After years of health warnings about mobile phones, scientists in Florida admit they were as surprised as anyone ...

By Mark Williamson A raft of survey data last week provided ammo for the optimists who believe that the economy will start growing again this year, although these have been treated with derision in some quarters. News from The Halifax that house prices increased by 2.6 per cent month on month in May, combined with the first positive reading since ...

When the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) recommended in December 2006 that surgery be offered to grossly obese adults and children to control their weight, experts who attended the launch of its guidance said they expected "a few hundred" adults a year to have the operation - which costs 10,000 - rising to "a few thousand" in the future. ...

We are very pleased to announce that the ProNurse Newsletter is now live. It’s short and sweet with all the links to very best bits of the past fortnight. We know that nurses are busy people so now you can have a regular snapshot of the most talked about articles, quizzes and discussion topics come straight to your mail box. Now ...

By Mark Aitken Political Editor A hacker attack on the health records of Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond has sparked a huge security alert. Confidential computer files on the Prime Minister and Holyrood's First Minister were illegally targeted along with the records of scores of other high-profile Scots. We can reveal former Labour leader Jack McConnell and his culture chief ...

The Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, yesterday described the appalling treatment of patients at Stafford hospital as "ultimately a local failure". This misses the point. For one thing, Stafford is not the only NHS hospital that has put patients' lives at risk in recent years. Basildon and Colchester hospitals were also discovered to have jeopardised safety in 2009. What is more, ...

By Clint Witchalls Kick boxing twice a week, walking the dog two miles every day - Clint Witchalls thought he was healthy. Then a visit to the doctor revealed he was dangerously overweight... I've never really thought of myself as fat, but at a recent fitness assessment I was told I'm "pre-obese". I was shocked. How can I be pre-obese ...

By Kevin Braddock There is a new buzzword in foot care: Orthotics. The science of treating deformities and abnormalities in the muscular- skeletal system - traditionally associated with ungainly corrective footwear - has been given a hightech makeover. Now, off-the-shelf or custom-made insoles worn in shoes to correct the gait (walking style) and support weakness in the foot are created ...

By Jeremy Laurance What does your GP really think of his patients? Medic and comedian Dr Phil Hammond reveals all to Jeremy Laurance There is, says Phil Hammond, something missing from medicine. It is pleasure. Pleasure gets just two mentions in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine, and none whatever on the website of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE). ...

By Jeremy Laurance There can be few more potent symbols of the new caring age in which we are supposed to be living, post-credit crunch, than that of the man who voluntarily gave up one of his organs so that a perfect stranger might live. Paul Vandenbosch, a father of four aged 54, donated a kidney to a woman whom ...

The Department of Health is sponsoring the development of a new, on-line assessment tool.  The tool will be available to help Higher Education Institutions select individuals on to pre-registration degree/diploma programmes, as well as to help recruit registered nurses. Mendas Ltd, the firm of Occupational Psychologists developing it, are seeking volunteers to complete the on-line tool.   No prior experience or particular knowledge of ...

Watch the interview online with the author of The Unpopular Patient

What a surprise! the RCN are rolling over to have their belly scratched and Unison are outraged. The one interesting thing I picked up from this is that the National Insurance changes arent't likely to apply to NHS staff as the existing deal over changes to the pension over rides this.  

For women with a genetic predisposition for breast cancer, radiation from annual mammograms may increase breast cancer risk, Dutch researchers said. Marijke C. Jansen-van der Weide of the University Medical Center in Groningen, the Netherlands, said women who are at high risk for breast cancer need to begin screening at a younger age, because they often develop cancer earlier than ...

By Nigel Hawkes Many of Britain's hospitals are putting lives in danger. So says a consultancy whose dire warning dominated the weekend headlines. But is it right? And should it be allowed so much influence? Nigel Hawkes ventures a second opinion Who is this Dr Foster, the source of the weekend's headlines about the NHS? He seems to be saying ...