March 2003

• Avon Ambulance Service NHS Trust has launched a multi-lingual emergency phrasebook to help staff quickly find out what is wrong when a patient’s life is on the line. The phrasebook has more than 20 basic clinical questions in 31 languages including Welsh.

• Clinical waste boxes containing hypodermic needles, scalpels and other hazardous used medical equipment have been found dumped next to a path near a City centre primary school.

• Waiting times for a life-saving "test that diagnoses bowel cancer" have been reduced from 9 months to only 2 weeks at North Bristol NHS Trust.

• Doctors in Bristol condemned the Home Secretary for claiming that patients could receive Small Pox vaccinations at their surgeries. Dr Tom Frewin, who practices in Clifton, said that "we have not received any information about immunisation programmes and have not been told how any emergency situations would be handled".

• Ambulance bosses in Bristol have ordered 100 chemical protection suits amid ongoing fears of a terrorist attack.

• Bristol City Council has vowed "to make care for dementia sufferers a priority." Dr Burston said that one in 7 elderly people suffer from some degree of dementia while one in 4 suffer from depression.

• The Hawthorns Homeward Centre in Keynsham is a "halfway house" for people recovering from strokes before they are deemed fit to go home. The Centre is to be closed as part of budget cuts by Social Services.

• Men’s Health magazine has found that Bristol was the second healthiest city to live in. According to the survey Bristol has low suicide and murder rates and good out-door sports facilities. Bristol has the second highest life expectancy for men in the country with men living to an average age of 75.4 years.

• More than 4000 questionnaires have been sent out to people in the Avon area to find out what they think about local community services. This involves those services that people receive from their GP surgery, health centre or at home from district nurses, health visitors and other health professionals.

• Dr Tony Lavelle, a senior partner at a surgery in Clifton, is advisor to the RAC. He warns against the dangers of driving whilst taking antidepressants. The RAC Foundation is urging the Government to undertake an investigation into possible connections between road safety and drug taking.

• Disabled former Bristol head teacher, Patricia Chubb has been told that she cannot attend a reception at the Mansion House in Clifton because she is in a wheelchair. She was told that there is no wheelchair access at the building.

• The Advocacy Service, run by the Bristol Mind Charity has lost its lottery funding and is due to close. The service helps people who are living in the community to find help with housing benefits and discrimination. It provides help to those considering self harm or suicide.

• Bristol International Airport is one of 16 regional airports around the country which the Ministry of Defence has made available for use by the military. The main hospitals in Bristol have been told that they should be prepared to take injured soldiers.

• Hospitals in Bristol are set to miss a Government target because patients are forced to wait too long in the casualty department. The Department of Health has ordered that only 10% of accident and emergency patients should wait more than 4 hours to be admitted for treatment by the end of March 2003. The latest figures show that 27% of patients at the BRI endured a delay of more than 4 hours in the last quarter of 2002. The performance was only slightly better at Frenchay and Southmead hospitals where 21% of patients had to wait more than 4 hours and at Weston General Hospital, where the figure was 19%. The Liberal Democrats claimed that the true picture was even worse because the BMA believes that the figures are being fiddled.

• The BRI hopes to slash waiting times in Accident and Emergency by opening a new unit for patients who have been referred by their GPs. The hospital has closed an admission ward to make way for the new Medical Assessment Unit. They will treat patients with strictly medical conditions rather than people with injuries in need of urgent surgical treatment.

• The Avon Region of the NHS has run up debts of £59 million despite being twice bailed out by the Department of Health. North Bristol Trust and the Royal United Hospital, Bath, account for the bulk of the deficit. The problems are not unique to Avon and 5 strategic health authorities are expected to apply to the NHS Bank for a total of more than £140 million. Avon’s financial problems have already cost the job of the Chief Executive of Avon, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire SHA – Mark Outhwaite – after only 8 months in the job. He was sacked because his plans to cut the deficit, which he inherited on the formation of the SHA, were not considered likely to succeed.

• The local NHS in Avon has already received £45 million in extra funding from the Department of Health and has diverted £7.4 million intended for capital spending and has started selling properties. Without these measures the deficits at the end of March would have been £81 million – 6.5% of annual spending in Avon.

• The Audit Commission has released a critical Report on funding in the Avon area. The Report said that there had been deficits in Avon for years but the forecast deficit at the end of this financial year was projected to be nearly 7% of the entire budget. The Report was critical of the fact that the community care and acute hospital services had continued to spend over their limits, even though they knew that they could not afford it.

• Over the past year it was expected that robust financial plans would be put in place by NHS bodies in Avon to tackle the problem. This has not happened and the Department of Health expects the local NHS bodies to have better financial plans in place by the end of March 2003. Chris Born, Bristol Chair of the Chief Executive’s Group, which includes the chief executives from all the health authorities, said – "We have a tough task ahead. The PCTs are new organisations with enthusiastic plans for improving local health services but before we can move forward we have to get our finances in balance and this means making some tough decisions."

• The NHS in-house staffing agency which cost North Bristol Hospitals £1.8 million in the last year, is to be turned into a new health authority by the Government – NHS Professionals.

• Mr Raj Persad from Bristol and Professor Robert Branch from the University of Pittsburg in the USA embarked on a comprehensive study of why bladder cancer occurs in some people and not in others. The new research project will involve taking blood and urine samples from 450 people who have bladder cancer. Samples will be taken from another 450 people who do not have the disease. The two sets will be compared.

• Steven Gill, Consultant Neurosurgeon at Frenchay, report on a pilot study using GDNF (Glial Derived Neurotrophic Factor). This is injected through a mechanical pump to the most damaged area of the brain. It is said to increase movement and speech in Parkinson’s disease patients. More trials are needed to assess its continuing safety and efficacy.

• A major research programme into the effects of mobile phones on the brain is set to be implemented in Bristol this summer. Professor Alan Preece and his colleague, Dr Stuart Butler, from Frenchay, are conducting the 2 year study. The researchers will look at the electrical interference in the brain and any neurological patterns and responses that they create. A UK-wide study has cost £7.3 million to implement.

• Building work has started on a new research centre to be devoted to prostate cancer at Southmead Hospital. The new building will be next door to the Southmead Urological Department. The building is scheduled to be finished by December but completion will depend on raising a substantial amount of money.