Tag: Health Policy

Over 130,000 set to benefit from life-saving NHS health checks

[ad_1]

More than 130,000 people across the country will be better protected from diseases such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes as the government today rolls out a life-saving health check programme to workplaces across the country.

The health checks, which can be completed quickly and easily for employees at work, record a range of information about each patient, which is then used to determine their cardiovascular risk.

The programme will involve employers from a range of professions, including those from the building, hospitality, transport, and social care sectors.

Today’s announcement is part of the Health and Social Care Secretary’s commitment to supporting the government’s mission to boost economic growth by improving the health of the nation.

New programme will help rebuild the NHS

With every check providing the equivalent of an NHS appointment, these new health checks will save thousands of hours of valuable NHS time, helping to cut waiting lists and rebuild the NHS.

Andrew Gwynne, Minister for Public Health and Prevention, said: “We know so many deadly diseases can be avoided if we seek help in enough time.

“We’re working to improve access to treatment while also taking steps to address the preventable causes of cardiovascular disease.

“This innovative new programme is an important step towards community-focused healthcare and supporting economic and productivity through improving health, shifting the focus from treatment to prevention, easing the strain on the NHS and helping people to live well for longer.”

The convenience of health checks in the workplace

Over 16 million people are eligible for an NHS Health Check, but current data shows that only around 40% of those invited went on to complete one. This is especially true for men, who are less likely to get early help but who are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease at an earlier age than women.

This new programme aims to reach more people through their place of work and make it easier for them to understand and improve their cardiovascular health.

“Convenient and efficient NHS health checks in the workplace could spot thousands of people at risk of a range of cardiovascular diseases, and with high blood pressure the biggest risk factor for stroke, early detection will undoubtedly save lives,” explained David Hargroves, NHS National Clinical Director for Stroke.

“This new programme shows the NHS is committed to preventing ill health, and I urge anyone invited for a check to come forward and get support to improve their cardiovascular health.”

Developing digital services

In addition, the government has announced the development of a new digital version of the NHS Health Check, which will be ready for testing early in 2025.

The service will be available through the NHS App, meaning users can undertake their health check at home and have the results automatically written back into their GP electronic health record within a few clicks.

Local authorities in Norfolk, Medway and Lambeth have been selected to pilot the new digital health checks in early 2025.

The digital programme will deliver around one million checks in its first four years. To give patients more choice, plans are being made to make digital NHS Health Checks available nationally alongside the face-to-face programme.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 30, 2024
New initiatives will boost NHS commercial skills and efficiency

[ad_1]

Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the UK’s largest public procurement organisation, will fund two initiatives that aim to boost NHS commercial skills, improve efficiency and patient care, and reduce waiting lists.

CCS will provide NHS England with over £15m funding—an average of £5.3 million each year over the next three years—to support NHS Energy Management Capability and create a first-of-its-kind NHS Commercial Learning & Development Academy aimed at boosting NHS commercial skills.

This will offer the health service’s commercial staff access to a range of learning and development opportunities to deliver a best-in-class workforce.

The training programme supports the Government’s agenda to grow the economy by ensuring that contracting authorities are able to effectively manage all the key stages of commercial delivery.

This will also help support the delivery of wider NHS objectives, such as attaining better value and providing world-class patient care.

Commercial skills will drive energy efficiency in the NHS

The NHS uses energy to provide key care services for 1.6 million people every day. For example, energy is needed for staff to clean an area the size of Gibraltar and to provide 326,880 meals for patients and staff.

CCS’s investment will support NHS commercial and business colleagues in buying and managing energy consumption and deliver better training on best practice skills and ways of working to improve the way that energy is procured and managed in the NHS in England.

These improvements will significantly contribute to finding efficiencies whilst supporting NHS net zero ambitions.

The initiatives align with the new Strategic Framework for NHS Commercial, launched in November 2023, which marks a step change in the way that NHS Commercial will work.

Building on skills improvements

This latest investment is part of CCS’s ongoing strategy to fund commercial capability improvements across the public sector.

In 2022, CCS provided investment to support NHS England’s roll out of one e-commerce system as a common procurement platform across Trusts.

The platform is seeing accelerated adoption and is enabling the NHS to consolidate the procurement landscape and use commercial data more effectively.

Jacqui Rock, Chief Commercial Officer for NHS England, said: “These exciting initiatives working in partnership with Crown Commercial Service will help the NHS continue to deliver on our commitments to patients and our workforce while providing the best value for money for the taxpayer.

“Our teams will be fully supported to deliver a best-in-class commercial function, ensuring the best purchasing decisions for the NHS and driving further efficiencies to help improve care for patients.”

[ad_2]

Source link

August 22, 2024
Population-level health research for a healthier Canada

[ad_1]

Dr Philip Awadalla, National Scientific Director of CanPath, explains how the population cohort works to facilitate health research with a vision that includes creating healthy environments, partnering with Indigenous communities, and fostering better data security practices.

The Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath) has become a cornerstone of health research in Canada and, as it hits 15 years since its launch, the longitudinal population health cohort is in its prime. Representing one in every 100 Canadians between the ages of 30 and 74, CanPath is not just a platform – it is a reflection of our nation’s commitment to understanding and improving health for all Canadians.

With over 330,000 participants who have generously contributed their health and biological information, we have created an unparalleled resource for researchers. CanPath makes genomic, environmental, lifestyle, and electronic health-related data available to the scientific research community. This data is the foundation for long-term population health studies that delve into the intricate interplay between health, lifestyle, and risk factors.

As our participants age, some may encounter health challenges like cancer or heart disease. At these critical junctures, CanPath data becomes invaluable. Researchers can examine this wealth of information to identify factors contributing to disease onset.

Supporting environmental protection and Canadians’ right to a healthy environment

Over the years, CanPath data has illuminated the health risks of air pollutants and their connection to chronic disease and cancer through studies published in Nature Communications and Nature. This research supports the principles of Canadian parliamentary Bill S-5, which aims to strengthen environmental protection and acknowledges the right to a healthy environment. It’s a reminder of our surroundings’ impact on health and the importance of policy in safeguarding our air quality.

We are excited to take the impact of our data further. Our upcoming Diet & Physical Activity study will enhance our environmental exposure data and explore the influence of retail food environments (RFEs) on diet quality. This study, a first in Canada, will assess how access to various food sources like restaurants and grocery stores shapes dietary habits on a large scale. It will examine the effects of RFEs on diet quality, considering factors such as the built and social environment and individual-level chronic disease risk factors. This aligns with the 2019 Canada’s Food Guide and aims to provide insights across communities and provinces.

Our partnership with the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE) has enriched our datasets with walkability, greenness, and air quality measures. These variables are linked to CanPath data and are available to researchers. This collaboration is a stride towards a comprehensive understanding of how our environment impacts health, particularly in the context of climate change.

By leveraging our extensive resources and data, we are poised to deliver timely insights into the effects of climate change on Canadians’ health.

Honouring Indigenous voices in health research

At CanPath, we are ensuring our research reflects the respect and partnerships we value with Indigenous communities. Indigenous communities are diverse and span Canada, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Over 7,000 CanPath participants have self-identified as Indigenous and shared their health and lifestyle information with us.

CanPath is committed to meeting the unique needs of Canada’s diverse communities through a transparent approach that upholds the principles of ownership, control, access, and possession (OCAP). To honour this commitment, CanPath is collaborating with Indigenous partners and scholars to develop appropriate processes for accessing and using Indigenous data and biosamples.

We approach this process with humility and dedication as we continue to learn from Indigenous scholars and partners. As we move forward, we’re dedicated to collaborating with Indigenous partners to ensure our research upholds the rights and values of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples.

By stepping back to listen and learn, we’re finding better paths forward, ensuring our research honours principles of Indigenous data governance and the spirit of collaboration and respect with Indigenous Peoples.

Advancing health research with secure data access

With our soon-to-be-launched trusted research environment, CanPath will provide researchers with a more secure and efficient way to access and analyse vital health data. With a generous $6.2m grant from Genome Canada, this cloud-based platform will revolutionise how researchers utilise the rich health data from over 330,000 Canadians in our cohort.

This new environment aligns with the practices of leading international data resources and adds an extra layer of security, ensuring that the privacy and integrity of participant data are maintained. By centralising data access, we eliminate the need to move large datasets around, making it easier for researchers to collaborate and integrate various data sources.

This initiative is a testament to CanPath’s unwavering focus on advancing health research. We are enhancing how we share data and ensuring we remain at the cutting edge of health research infrastructure.

Fostering collaboration

Our new approaches foster diversity and inclusiveness in research, encourage international collaboration, and ultimately enhance the cohort’s value in advancing global health. While we evolve our data access process, engage with diverse communities in Canada, and enrich the CanPath resource with more diet, physical activity, and environmental data, we’re ensuring that future health research and personalised treatments can benefit Canadians and the global scientific community. Our goal is to set a global benchmark for disease risk understanding and prevention. Reaching CanPath’s 15-year mark is exhilarating, and we are eager to witness the advancements that the next 15 years will bring.

Please note, this article will also appear in the 19th edition of our quarterly publication.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 21, 2024
UK Government pledges £85m to tackle antimicrobial resistance
[ad_1]
UK funding of £85m has been announced at a global event to support the international community in tackling the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global issue that makes infections difficult or impossible to treat.

Figures from NHS England show that there were 4.95 million deaths associated with bacterial AMR across 204 countries, with 1.27 million directly attributed. This led to the World Health Organization declaring it a global public health threat.

World leaders and experts, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the World Bank, are attending a global event hosted by the Royal Society to agree on priority actions to tackle this growing threat.

They will also listen to accounts from AMR survivors.

AMR is a growing global threat – we must act now

UK Health Minister Andrew Stephenson said: “Antimicrobial resistance could render our most vital medicines useless – it is a threat the world must take extremely seriously.

“This package of up to £85m builds on the world-leading work the UK Government is already doing to support low and middle-income countries to monitor, research and tackle this disease.”

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, if we fail to take sufficient action, the costs associated with treating resistant infections could compare to having a COVID pandemic every five years.

The event – The World Together Solving the Antibiotic Emergency – has been organised by the government in partnership with the Royal Society.

It will celebrate the successes of global action to tackle AMR and look ahead to commitments for what more the world can do collaboratively in the fight against AMR, looking ahead to the important milestone of the United Nations high-level meeting in September.

New projects to prevent the spread of antimicrobial resistance

The UK government will announce the following initiatives:

Up to £50m to partner with countries in Africa to improve access to essential antimicrobial drugs

Up to £25m, which will include partnering with countries and territories in the Caribbean to strengthen surveillance systems for AMR to enable accurate monitoring of threats

Up to £10m over the next five years to help establish a global independent scientific panel for AMR

These new projects build on ongoing international and domestic work to prevent the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

This includes the recently announced national action plan and a partnership with countries across Asia and Africa to tackle AMR and reduce the threat posed to the UK.
[ad_2]

Source link
May 17, 2024
EU4Health: Strengthening Europe’s healthcare systems
[ad_1]
The EU4Health programme, born in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, aims to bolster crisis preparedness and fortify the health systems of the European Union.

As the pandemic laid bare the vulnerabilities of national healthcare infrastructures, EU4Health emerged as a vital initiative to address long-term health challenges.

With a budget of €5.3bn allocated for the 2021-2027 period, the EU4Health programme represents an unprecedented financial commitment to health from the EU, signalling a prioritisation of public health and a significant step towards the realisation of a European Health Union.

EU4Health programme objectives

Engrained in Regulation (EU) 2021/522, the EU4Health programme sets forth four overarching objectives underpinned by ten specific goals. These objectives include:
- Improving and fostering health by promoting health and disease prevention through international health initiatives and co-operation
- Protecting citizens from health threats through enhancing prevention, preparedness and response to cross-border health threats. This will be achieved through national stockpiling of crisis-level products and the creation of a reserve of medical and healthcare experts
- Increasing access to affordable medicinal products, devices and crisis-relevant products
- Strengthening health systems by reinforcing health data, digital tools and services, and increasing access to healthcare. Via evidence-based decision-making, EU health legislation will be developed and implemented to integrate work across national health systems
Investing in health

At the heart of EU4Health lies a commitment to investment in urgent health priorities. This includes responding effectively to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and fortifying Europe’s defences against future cross-border health threats.

Moreover, the programme aligns with initiatives such as Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe. Additionally, it champions the digitalisation of health systems, addresses antimicrobial resistance, and promotes vaccination campaigns.

Implementation and collaboration

EU4Health operates through annual Work Programmes, categorised into four primary strands: crisis preparedness, health promotion and disease prevention, health systems and healthcare workforce, and digitalisation.

The programme offers financial support to qualifying entities, healthcare organisations, and NGOs from either EU Member States or non-EU nations affiliated with the programme.

A comprehensive stakeholder consultation process, including consultations and events, preceded the establishment of EU4Health. Stakeholders, including representatives from civil society, patient associations, academia, and healthcare organisations, play a crucial role in shaping the programme’s priorities and strategic direction.

Furthermore, EU countries and associated non-EU countries actively participate in the consultation process, ensuring alignment with national health policies and priorities.

Various entities are integral to the realisation of EU4Health’s goals. EU countries collaborate closely with the European Commission to steer the programme’s direction through the EU4Health Steering Group and Programme Committee.

Stakeholders contribute valuable insights, while the European Parliament remains informed about its progress. Ultimately, the European Commission oversees the programme’s implementation, with the Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) playing a pivotal role in its execution.

EU4Health is poised to transform Europe’s healthcare landscape, providing much-needed support to strengthen health systems, respond to crises, and foster collaboration across borders.

With its robust funding and ambitious objectives, the programme heralds a new era of health resilience and co-operation within the European Union.
[ad_2]

Source link
March 13, 2024
Spring Budget puts UK on track to become science and technology superpower

[ad_1]

Yesterday’s Spring Budget unveiled an ambitious package of announcements designed to boost the UK’s science and technology sectors, unleashing innovation to drive growth, create jobs, and improve lives.

Alongside tax cuts for workers, harnessing science and technology to benefit the public sector was at the heart of the Chancellor’s Spring Budget, which will improve economic security and opportunity for everyone.

Secretary of State for Science and Technology Michelle Donelan said: “Technological and scientific innovation can drive immense public and economic benefits.

“That is why I am focused on delivering this government’s record-high investment to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower.

“Whether channelling technological advances into the public sector or doubling down on our leadership in AI advances and safety, we are unleashing innovation to drive economic growth and prosperity for everyone.”

The Spring Budget will allocate new funding for life sciences

In a further boost for the UK’s world-class life sciences sector, charities, including Cancer Research UK, will receive £45m to help launch the next generation of medical research careers.

The move will assist in the fight against some of the biggest global health challenges, including diseases such as dementia, cancer, and epilepsy while creating innovations that will help grow the science and technology sectors.

© shutterstock/FOTOGRIN

The Spring Budget also backed science and tech businesses through investments in critical life science manufacturing projects worth £92m. These projects are set to increase health resilience while supporting innovation and job creation.

This is part of the wider government plan to keep building a stronger economy where hard work is rewarded, ambition and aspiration are celebrated, and young people get the skills they need to succeed in life.

Cementing the UK’s commitment to AI safety

To ensure the UK remains an international leader in AI safety and to support the transition to an AI-enabled economy to fuel growth, funding to the world-leading Turing Institute will be boosted to £100m as part of the Spring Budget.

This will help cement the Institute’s leadership in setting research agendas and supporting the adoption of AI by UK businesses and governments.

The funding is in addition to the £100m already invested in establishing the UK’s AI Safety Institute, the world’s first state-backed institute dedicated to AI Safety.

The Spring Budget also announced innovative new pilots to improve nationwide data access whilst placing data protection and security at the centre of the UK’s approach.

Two new Data Access Pilots in education and adult social care will help generate new AI services to support teachers alongside promoting better data access and supporting productivity in the social care sector.

Fostering science and technology in the space sector

To help foster a resilient UK space sector, the full £160m Connectivity Low Earth Orbit programme was launched to ensure British R&D is at the forefront of satellite communication innovation.

The programme is key to offering connectivity and high-speed broadband to remote and rural communities, helping to bridge the digital divide and level up across the UK.

The Spring Budget also announced that £10m has been made available for the SaxaVord Spaceport – the UK’s first licensed vertical spaceport.

Building on the growing spaceport capability across the country, the funding will help deliver on the National Space Strategy goal for the UK to become the first European country to launch a satellite into orbit.

[ad_2]

Source link

March 7, 2024