NHS Stop Smoking Services: Service and Monitoring Guidance 2009/10

Smokefree
The provision of high-quality NHS Stop Smoking Services is a high priority. They have already helped many people to stop smoking successfully and are a key part of tobacco control and health inequalities policies both at local and national levels.1 Evidence-based NHS stop smoking support is highly effective both in cost and clinical terms. It should therefore be seen in the same way as any other clinical service and offered to anyone who expresses an interest in stopping.

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Cost putting troubled youths off getting help

Mental Health Foundation
Troubled young people are being put-off getting professional help because they can't afford the high costs, mental health experts warned today.
The study by Headstrong, the national centre for youth mental health, revealed almost two-thirds of youths feel they are unable to cope with the problems they face.

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Earlier help needed for rising number of depressed children

Mental Health Foundation
The needs of youngsters must be identified at the "earliest possible time", the First Minister said today, after a big rise in suicidal calls to ChildLine. Mr Salmond faced demands during First Minister Questions for Government action to raise awareness about depression which can lead to suicide.

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Commissioning Healthcare for People with Learning Difficulties

NHS Confederation
The commissioning of healthcare for people with learning disabilities has traditionally delivered variations between different areas in the accessibility and appropriateness of mainstream healthcare. This Briefing is intended to raise awareness of issues in the commissioning of services for people with learning disabilities that meet their specific needs and enhance the development of mainstream services that are fit for purpose.

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Health Inequalities: Third Report of the Session 2008-09

House of Commons Health Committee
During the course of this inquiry, we heard widespread praise and support, both in this country and abroad, for the explicit commitment this Government has made to tackling health inequalities. This has involved a framework of specific policies, underpinned by a challenging and ambitious target. The Government has also continued to switch resources to the neediest areas; the neediest PCTs will receive 70% more funding than the least needy in 2009-10.

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Saving Babies' Lives Report 2009

Sands Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity
Every year around 6,500 babies die before or
shortly after their birth; that is one baby every
hour and a half, or the equivalent of 16 jumbo jets
crashing every year. 4,000 babies are stillborn and
another 2,500 die within a month of their birth.
These are not rare events. One baby in every 200 is
stillborn. One baby in every 300 dies in the first four
weeks of life, the majority within the first few days.

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New mapping tool to tackle drug addiction

NHS National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse
A pioneering new tool for drug workers and clinicians to promote behaviour change in drug-dependent clients is endorsed today (19 February 2009) by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA). Extensive research has shown that this easy-to-use and innovative technique – which enables drug workers to visually represent their clients’ thinking in a series of personal maps – improves the engagement and motivation of drug misusers.

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The Primary Prevention of Hepatitis C among Injecting Drug Users

Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
Hepatitis C is a significant public health issue. It has been estimated that in 2003 in England and
Wales there were around 190,000 individuals infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). It is likely that over 80 per cent of current HCV infections are due to injecting drugs and that around 50 per cent of injecting drug users (IDU) in the UK are infected with HCV. Moreover, of those IDU who are infected, approximately half may be unaware that they are HCV positive. It is likely that HCV prevalence fell during the early and mid 1990s, but the trends have now reversed and among recent IDU HCV prevalence almost doubled between 1998 and 2007.

These statistics are set against a backdrop of an expansion of diagnostic and treatment services as part of the HCV Strategy and HCV Action Plan in England and the HCV Action Plan in Scotland.
In reviewing the evidence, we conclude that a single intervention may not, alone, be sufficient to
prevent the spread of the hepatitis C virus. The evidence suggests that the most effective way of
reducing HCV incidence among active IDUs is through a combination of Opiate Substitution Therapy (OST) and the provision of Needle and Syringe Programmes (NSP).

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Food and the Family: Weighing the Power of Culinary Nagging

Library of Economics and Liberty
Parents habitually try to influence what their kids eat. "Eat up." "Clean your plate." "No dessert until you finish your vegetables." "Soda? No, you get milk." At least in the modern U.S., parents' main goals seem to be to (a) Increase the total amount of food kids eat, and (b) Increase the healthiness of the food they do eat.Does all this nagging actually work? You can't answer this question just by correlating parents' nagging with childrens' eating. As usual, we have to consider the possibility that the cause of the correlation is partially or entirely genetic. Maybe health-conscious parents sire health-conscious kids, and the nagging is just a lot of hot air.What do the data say? The best paper I tracked down was John Hewitt's "The Genetics of Obesity" (1997, Behavior Genetics 27). It's got very strong results: Nature can account for all of the family resembance in the Body Mass Index; nurture doesn't matter at all.

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Gps 'failing to help people with eating disorders'

Mental Health Foundation
GPs are failing to help people suffering from eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, a charity said today. A new report from the charity Beat found that only 15% of sufferers felt their GP understood their disorder or knew how to help them.
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Shaping PCT provider services

King's Fund
Conference 31st March
The NHS Next Stage Review has encouraged the separation of primary care trust (PCT) commissioning and provider functions. The review also encourages PCTs to support greater choice and contestability of provision within primary and community health services and greater service integration. A range of organisational and governance models are now possible for community health services, which include becoming a social enterprise or creating an integrated care organisation.
The Department of Health will shortly publish guidance on future organisational forms and governance for PCT provider services, and following this, the focus for PCTs will move towards implementation.
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