June 2003

What the Newspapers said in late June and Early July 2003 - (Mainly the Evening Post!)

Dr Clara Greed from the University of the West of England says that public toilets need to be made a priority when making decisions about the design of cities and towns. \"Issues such as building design, levels of provision, locations, safety, layout and accessibility are critical in ensuring that an integrated approach is also one that all sectors of the community can feel comfortable with.\" In March of this year – toilets in Snuff Mills Park, Stapleton were named and shamed as the nation\'s worst.

A new drugs \'tsar\' has been appointed to oversee Bristol\'s Drugs Services Agencies. Ian White, Chairman of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Strategic Health Authority, has been given six months to transform the \'troubled sector\' by the Government Office for the South West.

Work has begun on the new 2.6 million pound Healthy Living Centre at Barton Hill. The new centre will provide a range of traditional and complementary health care facilities. The project is being funded by Community at Heart.

Professor Peter Fleming gave evidence at the trial of Trupti Patel. He told the Court during the six week trial that the reasons for the deaths of the children were consistent with a metabolic disorder. The level of ammonia found in the blood of one of the children was exceptionally high.

The controversial plan to build a supermarket at Westbury-on-Trym has been thrown out by the City Council. (It is unclear as to whether a new health centre will be built on the land).

Staff at two day care homes in Bristol, serving more than 300 disabled people, have been told that the future of the facilities is under review. The centres concerned are the Bristol 600 Centre in Knowle and the Lockleaze and Blake Day Centre. A member of staff pointed out that these two centres are the last two remaining facilities for physically disabled adults in Bristol.

A Sexual Health Clinic run in a condemned temporary building at the Bristol Royal Infirmary is turning away 400 patients a week because it cannot cope says a recent House of Commons report.

Dr Beryl Corner, 92, has recently proposed the first vote of thanks to the President of the Royal College of Physicians. The College Commentary states – \"Dr Corner made a charming and appropriate speech of thanks to the President, and later proved an avid conversationalist at the Dinner\".

Sir Liam Donaldson officially opened the Elizabeth Blackwell Library at Temple Quay in June. The library is based in the Government Office for the South West which recently moved to a new business park near Temple Meads Railway Station. It has more than three and a half thousand public health books and journals.

The cost to the NHS of treating asylum seekers with infectious diseases could be more than one billion pounds for each year\'s arrivals. The Evening Post recently reported on the creation of a £100,000 dedicated medical service for asylum seekers and refugees.

West patients made a record number of complaints to the Health Service Ombudsman in the last year says a recent report. The increase, which was mirrored right across England, was almost entirely due to the high number of complaints about NHS funding for care of the elderly and disabled.

NHS Direct which has a call centre in Almondsbury was set up in 1998 to help patients get medical advice without having to go to their GP or an A & E Department. The service takes more than half a million calls a month nationally. Undercover researchers from \'Which?\' found that the advice given was sometimes dangerous and inconsistent.

A long awaited reported into the treatment of a schizophrenic who bludgeoned his father to death has been published. An independent enquiry into the case of Matthew Martin was scathing in its assessment of his care leading up to the death of his father, Michael, in 1999. The enquiry made twenty recommendations.

A Bristol based Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Project has won a national accolade for its services to the community. The St James\' Priory Project in the City Centre is one of two hundred organisations in the UK which received the Queen\'s Golden Jubilee Award. Over the last ten years the project, based around Bristol\'s oldest church, has offered vital support and treatment to the city\'s homeless, especially those with a long history of drug and alcohol dependency.

Patients who need to be more active can get exercise on prescription under a new scheme launched in South Gloucestershire.

Exercises, more traditionally recommended for women to control incontinence, are as effective as Viagra in curing male impotence according to doctors in Taunton. More than fifty-five men with an average age of 59 who had experienced erectile dysfunction for six months or more took part in the trial. 40% of men regained normal function.

A new Sexual Health and Advice Clinic for young men has been launched by the Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust. Sessions are being held at Chipping Sodbury Young Peoples\' Clinic.

The government has given the final go ahead for a new Hospice for terminally ill children near Bristol. (Previous issues of this website have contained details of the proposal at Charlton Farm on the Tyntesfield Estate at Wraxall).

A new team has been set up to respond to medical emergencies involving children. Paediatric specialists from Bristol are trained to bring seriously ill young people from across the South West to the high dependency wards at the city\'s Childrens\' Hospital. The team will be on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Latest Department of Health figures show that 23% of births at Southmead Hospital and 22% at St Michael\'s are caesarean sections. The national average is 22%, but has risen from 9% in 1980.

The Head Injury Therapy Unit at Frenchay Hospital has just celebrated its tenth anniversary.

There is to be a new addition to the play area at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. There will be a sensory garden for all the young patients to enjoy. \"The new garden will be an important addition to the play area and the support we have had so far has been amazing\".

Hospitals are cancelling 1 in 10 operations despite using the operating theatres for just 24 hours a week on average – an Audit Commission report discloses. 1 in 4 Acute Trusts in England have used their operating theatres for 65% of the time planned. Some were used for only 8 hours a week. Despite this – hospitals are still blaming lack of operating space for cancelling operations. The Commission recommends better use of existing facilities. One Trust in five says that it has admitted emergency patients to wards that lack adequate ward facilities.

Dr David Sanderman, Consultant Neurosurgeon, has called for all cyclists to wear helmets following a wave of negative publicity about the protective equipment. \"People underestimate the role of cycle helmets in preventing serious brain injury\".

Managers at North Bristol NHS Trust have asked their nursing staff to take an effective pay cut by ending the special incentive payment for working overtime.

Dawn Primarolo has launched a petition calling on the Strategic Health Authority to give extra support for plans for a Community Hospital in South Bristol. The Department of Health has announced that it will be giving nineteen million pounds for a new Diagnostic and Treatment Centre. The Bristol South and West Primary Care Trust is developing plans to expand this into a hospital, but more money is need.

Keynsham\'s Community Hospital could lose half its beds in a proposed shake up by Bath and North East Somerset NHS Primary Care Trust.

Paulton Hospital, also, has already lost 14 beds and is likely to lose another 6 beds.

30 families, including 13 from Bristol, have launched legal action for compensation claims of up to £50,000 each after hospitals in Bristol were found to have kept the organs of their dead babies. A joint High Court writ has been issued on behalf of the families.

A new £600,000 Brunel Satellite Dialysis Unit has opened at Southmead Hospital – equipped with the latest technology that will eventually provide more than 3,000 extra treatments a year for patients across the area.

A survey has claimed that the North Bristol NHS Trust will be one of twenty-three in the country to completely run out of money before the end of this financial year.

Professor Gianni Angelini, from the Bristol Royal Infirmary, says that cardiac surgeons in the UK may be turning down operations on high risk heart patients because of plans to publish individual doctors\' results in a national league table.

Sir Gabriel Horn has been awarded an honorary degree by Bristol University. He was Professor of Anatomy in Bristol in the mid-1950\'s and later moved to Cambridge. His research has focused on understanding the workings of the brain. He was elected an FRS in 1986.

Prince Michael of Kent opened new Eye Research Laboratories in Bristol in July. Research on inflammatory eye disease and retinal degeneration is being undertaken.

The two main Hospital Trusts in Bristol have again been given no stars in the latest health league tables. The NHS Chief Executive, Nigel Crisp, said that the city\'s hospitals were unique in the country in the scale of the management problems they faced. Managers at the hospitals were said to be angry because of the fact that the city\'s hospitals continue to excel at most clinical targets has not been taken into account.

The newly established Primary Care Trusts both received one star as did Avon Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

R Langton Hewer

(Joint Ed)