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NHS Hospitals remain under significant pressure with bed occupancy at the second highest level recorded this winter in January. More than 19 in 20 beds were occupied across adult general and acute hospital wards (95.7%) in the week ending 15 January, according to the weekly statistics.
Over 14,000 beds were taken up by patients who no longer needed to be there last week – the second highest ever recorded and 12% higher than the same period last year (12,498). The NHS continues to manage high numbers of patients in hospital who have flu with an average of 3,447 beds occupied each day by people with flu. (3,226 were in general and acute beds and 221 in critical care beds). However, the latest data indicates that flu numbers in hospital have fallen over the last two weeks, down from 5,441 in the week ending 15 January.
Read more: NHS pressure continues as hospitals deal with high bed occupancy
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Life Sciences Council Joint Statement on a new agreement to accelerate the delivery of the future UK HealthTech regulatory system.
The reform of the UK’s Medical Device regulation offers a golden opportunity to drive innovation and growth in the UK’s Life Science sector while ensuring patient safety remains at the heart of the regulatory approach, but there is an urgent need for action to ensure we do not lose this opportunity.
Senior members of the Life Sciences Council, Will Quince MP, Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, Dr June Raine, CEO, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Peter Ellingworth, CEO, Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI) have today announced a new agreement to accelerate the delivery of the future UK HealthTech regulatory system. Acknowledging the Chancellor’s priorities of stability and growth supported by regulatory reforms, and the importance of the success of the system to UK patients and the Life Science sector, they have formed an advisory group on behalf of the Life Sciences Council to drive the delivery of the ambition of the Life Sciences Vision to have a best in class regulatory system.
Read more: Life Sciences Council Joint Statement on Medical Devices Regulatory Reform
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A world-leading fibre optic laser therapy will be rolled out by the NHS for people suffering with epilepsy - who have not responded well to other forms of treatment.
Offering hope to thousands of current and future NHS patients, the cutting-edge laser treatment, targets the part of the brain that is causing the seizures without the need for invasive surgery. A nationwide first, the treatment will benefit up to 150 NHS patients every year with the first surgeries set to take place in early 2023.
The laser requires just a 1.5mm-wide probe into the skull with the fibre optic laser at the tip of the probe reaching and destroying the epilepsy-causing brain tissue from the inside by heating it. Carried out in an MRI scanner, the clinical team accurately navigate through the brain avoiding blood vessels and other critical structures, and can monitor the temperature of the surrounding areas to ensure healthy brain tissue does not overheat. The small wound heals quickly meaning patients can go home the next day with minimal risk of infection or other side effects and can return to their usual work and activities within a week.
Read more: NHS launches laser beam brain surgery to treat epilepsy
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To support the NHS during this period of sustained significant pressure, The NHS has taken action to boost capacity ahead of winter. Recognising the fundamental importance of primary care in underpinning NHS services, a critical part of this plan is to increase capacity outside of acute trusts, which includes the scaling up of additional roles in primary care, increasing the flexibility for primary care networks (PCNs) to do this, and taking further action to support general practice.
To enable this, the NHS are taking several steps over the next few weeks to support the expansion of general practice capacity and reduce both workload and administrative burden. The measures will help general practice focus on access pressures and facilitate system collaboration, working with local providers to manage urgent demand and help address workload challenges.
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Almost three-quarters of medtech companies in the UK and Ireland (74%) struggle to make their data compliant with the interoperability requirements of healthcare IT systems, new research by InterSystems suggests.
Healthcare Services and Solutions that connect, interoperate, and automate across people, processes, systems and data sources.
In-house skills shortages are revealed to be the biggest difficulty with interoperability for more than a third of the 100 medtech companies surveyed (35%). Almost one-in-four respondents (38%) say achieving interoperability cost-effectively is one of the severest barriers to the growth of their business. Nearly half (47%) say frequent changes to data standards cause them significant problems.
