Pulse articles from July 2009

Pulse archives from July 2009

Darzi centre funding dwarfs GMS cash.
July 1, 2009... BMA chair's centre is among those getting on average three times more than GMS practices Exclusive By Gareth Iacobucci The GP-led health centre jointly run by BMA chair Dr Hamish Meldrum is one of many receiving vastly higher...

Pharmacists and GPs should share funding.
July 1, 2009... GPs and pharmacists should work together in similar alliances to those in GP partnerships, a report recommends. The London School of Pharmacy called for financial incentives to be shared between pharmacies and GP practices, and the use of...

Call for further study into insulin glargine-Ca link.
July 1, 2009... The European Association for the Study of Diabetes is calling for an investigation into a possible link between insulin glarg-ine and cancer after publication of six studies suggesting it. The studies, published online in Diabetologia,...

VASCULAR SCREENING: Vascular screening split as PCTs abandon Framingham.
July 1, 2009... Series of trusts defy NICE guidance and adopt QRISK instead, as RCGP throws weight behind the UK score Exclusive By Nigel Praities A dramatic split is emerging in the Government's vascular screening programme, with a series of...

PILOT SCHEME: PCT to offer private CVD tests alongside vascular checks.
July 1, 2009... A private company has signed a deal with a PCT to provide tests for cardiovascular disease not available on the NHS alongside the trust's conventional vascular checks programme. UniMedic, a private provider of cardiovascular screening, says...

GP referrals `surge' just PCTs counting patients twice.
July 1, 2009... Exclusive By Steve Nowottny The steep rise in GP referrals that has so panicked PCTs and placed practices under severe pressure may largely have been the result of IT systems counting patients twice, NHS managers are admitting. ...

DARZI REFORMS: Patients to get private care if wait is too long.(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... Patients could receive private treatment if the NHS cannot deliver care within waiting time targets as part of a package of new patient `rights'. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced patients would have a number of `enforceable...

DARZI REFORMS: GPs face battle as hospitals get access to PBC.(practice based commissioning)(general practitioners)
July 1, 2009... GPs face competition for service provision as Lord Darzi reveals plans to hand consultants commissioning rights Exclusive By Nigel Praities Practice-based commissioning is to be extended to cover hospital doctors in a move that...

BMA chair calls for end to NHS market.(National Health Service)(British Medical Association)(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... BMA chair Dr Hamish Meldrum has urged new health secretary Andy Burnham to put a stop to the Government's controversial market-led reform of the NHS. Speaking at the BMA's Annual Representative Meeting in Liverpool, Dr Meldrum appealed to...

GPs must agree to flu rule by PCOs for income protection.
July 1, 2009... Practices have been warned they will have to opt in to a military-style `command and control' system to qualify for income protection as the swine flu pandemic escalates. A PCT briefing document obtained by Pulse details how command and...

Plan to shift 51 million GP slots to pharmacy.
July 1, 2009... Diabetes and weight management among `quick win' appointments By Lilian Anekwe The Department of Health has plans to transfer more than 50 million `quick win' appointments from GPs to pharmacists, as part of a strategy to reshape...

GP donates kidney to a stranger under new rules.
July 1, 2009... A GP has taken his adherence to the Hippocratic oath to new extremes after becoming one of the first people in the UK to donate an organ to a total stranger. Dr Paul van den Bosch, a GP principal in Pirbright, Surrey, said he was simply...

New EMIS allows shared access.
July 1, 2009... Private software developers have developed an IT system that will allow GP practices to share records with out-of-hours providers and other organisations within the next two years. EMIS, the country's largest GP system supplier, last week...

Warning over macrolides and statins.
July 1, 2009... Patients who take macrolide antibiotics alongside statins may be at risk of serious muscle damage, research suggests. A large international study has found patients taking azithromycin and statins have a 64% higher rate of rhabdomyolysis...

IN BRIEF: Asthma drug warning.
July 1, 2009... Doctors should consider stopping leukotriene receptor-antagonist treatment for asthma or allergic rhinitis if patients develop neuropsychiatric problems, the US drugs regulator has advised. The Food and Drug Administration issued a...

IN BRIEF: Award for `lung-age' GP.
July 1, 2009... A GP who demonstrated the benefits of telling patients their lung age has scooped the prestigious RCGP research paper of the year award. Dr Gary Parkes's study of 561 smokers, published in the BMJ in March 2008, found giving patients over...

IN BRIEF: CQC fines private clinic.
July 1, 2009... A private health provider has been ordered to pay more than #15,000 in fines and legal costs after being prosecuted by the Care Quality Commission for offering medical services illegally. The Berkeley Clinic in Mayfair, London, provided...

IN BRIEF: GPs fear for the future.
July 1, 2009... The BMA's campaign against the commercialisation of the NHS has the backing of three-quarters of the profession, according to a new poll. A survey of 124 doctors by BMA News found 94% were worried about the future of their local health...

Call to halve antibiotic use in LRTIs.
July 1, 2009... Huge European variation in antibiotic use for acute cough - with similar outcomes - prompts call to cut rates By Emma Wilkinson Antibiotic prescribing for patients presenting with symptoms of lower respiratory tract infection could be...

Chest pain advice could be dangerous.
July 1, 2009... NICE draft guidelines on the management of chest pain could dangerously delay diagnosing patients with coronary artery disease, a study suggests. The research showed an increase in all-cause mortality in patients whose diagnosis was...

Prolonged rehabilitation slows down COPD decline.
July 1, 2009... Long-term pulmonary rehabilitation can slow decline of lung function in patients with COPD, according to researchers. Their study is the first to show benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation for disease progression, with patients receiving the...

GPs reject cervical Ca blame.
July 1, 2009... Minister accused of spinning findings of screening review to blame GPs for missed cases By Lilian Anekwe The Department of Health has been accused of spinning the findings of an independent review on cervical screening in order to lay...

Bone density monitoring of no benefit.
July 1, 2009... Routine bone density monitoring of women on bisphosphonates is pointless and potentially misleading, researchers say. In a study of almost 6,500 women taking alendronate or placebo, bone density at hip and spine showed little variation...

Diabetologists spark drugs turf war.
July 1, 2009... Specialists tell GPs not to use gliptins or exenatide without their supervision, despite NICE's recent approval By Lilian Anekwe Consultant diabetologists have launched an attempt to prevent GPs from prescribing a range of newly...

JOURNAL WATCH: Bone boost in over-70s.(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... An exercise programme which involves standing on each leg for one minute, three times a day, does not improve bone mineral density of the hip in all postmenopausal women, but may improve bone density in those over 70, according to a study. ...

JOURNAL WATCH: Risks of social isolation.(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... Socially isolated older people have a more rapid rate of motor function decline than those with a social network, a US study concludes. More than 900 participants rated their level of participation in common social activities and this was...

JOURNAL WATCH: Potassium threat in CKD.
July 1, 2009... High serum potassium levels are a real and immediate threat to patients with chronic kidney disease, a US study has found. Researchers analysed the records of 245,808 hospital patients and found rates of hyperkalaemia were more than three...

Darzi's primary care pledges... and how they've panned out.(briefs)(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... Pledge: To develop more than 100 new practices in the most deprived areas of the country, and 150 GP-led health centres to supplement existing services, one in each PCT One year on: The Government says a third of the 152 centres were open...

LETTER: Don't panic over swine flu - let nature do its job.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... From Dr H Tegner, Wiltshire I'm a supposedly retired GP working locum sessions in Wiltshire. I have had direct experience of two previous flu epidemics. The first was in 1957 at my boarding prep school when virtually every boy fell ill....

LETTER: Acupuncture course taught me it's a sham.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... From Dr Anand Deshpande Westhoughton, Lancashire I couldn't agree more with Dr Euan Lawson (`Is acupuncture a sham?', pulsetoday.co.uk/ debates). Several years ago I qualified as an acupuncturist. Dr Lawson suggests `it's time acupuncture...

LETTER: RCT is too high a hurdle for acupuncture.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... From Dr Mike Cummings Medical director, British Medical Acupuncture Society I ran both the courses mentioned by the protagonists in your acupuncture debate (`Is acupuncture just a sham?' pulsetoday.co.uk/debates). Both were in London in...

LETTER: Opt-in model for care record is only fair way.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... From Dr Neil Bhatia Yately, Hampshire Dr Prit Buttar is absolutely not `denying patients the benefits' of a Summary Care Record by opting them out (`Should GPs opt all their patients out of the care record', pulsetoday.co.uk/ debates). He...

LETTER: I was victim of RCGP exam culture bias.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... From Dr Purandhar Nosina Dundee, Scotland I am one of the victims of this so-called `culture bias' and am devastated by the new clinical skills assessment (`RCGP investigates racial bias in new membership exam', pulsetoday.co.uk/news). The...

LETTER: QOF changes not ruled by political aims.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2009... From Val Moore, NICE implementation director I am writing in response to your article `NICE says political agenda will drive its QOF changes' (pulsetoday.co.uk/ news). The article states that new clinical indicators for the QOF will `only'...

PULSEVIEWS: We need to tackle obesity by getting inside patients'.
July 1, 2009... Our conventional approaches to obesity just aren't working, says Dr Natheera Indrasenan. It's time to give NLP a try How often have you heard an overweight patient say `I don't eat a thing doctor, but I can't lose weight'? Often they have...

NEAR MISSES: The 71-year-old with `normal' PSA test results.
July 1, 2009... Every GP has to go through lists of laboratory results looking out for the abnormal ones. But what happens when a `normal' reading is anything but for that particular patient? Dr Sabby Kant remembers such a case The case It was a busy...

SNAP SHOT DIAGNOSIS: Large, solid mass on thigh.
July 1, 2009... When this patient presented with what he thought was a muscle injury, Dr Ayakannu Kandiah was reminded of a previous case The patient This 62-year-old man was a long-standing patient of mine who had type 2 diabetes but he was...

BUSINESS BRIEFING: Getting to grips with the new complaints system.
July 1, 2009... Changes to NHS regulations mean that GPs handling complaints must work with patients to resolve them quickly and use the cases to improve services. The Medical Protection Society's Terri Bonnici and Sarah Whitehouse explain the new rules ...

CASE STUDY: DEALING WITH A COMPLAINT AT A LOCAL LEVEL.
July 1, 2009... Mr Brown, aged 77, rings his GP practice to try to make an appointment with the doctor. He is unsuccessful and the negative experience causes him to write a letter of complaint: `Your receptionist was very rude and unhelpful. She said I...

ASK THE EXPERT: Can a partner stop superannuation contributions?(Brief article)
July 1, 2009... Can a partner stop superannuation contributions and raise their drawings? Q One of our full-time equity partners has stopped superannuation contributions (as a result of advice he has received as he is over 60 and about to negotiate...

It's the listening that counts.(Report)
July 1, 2009... There are some patients Phil knows he will never cure of their perceived ills, but a sympathetic ear goes a long way - and helps keep complaints at bay I'm a nice doctor. That might come as a surprise to regular readers of this column, but...