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covid verifier appThe NHS COVID Pass lets you share your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination records or test COVID-19 status in a secure way. It allows you to show others the details of your COVID-19 vaccine (or vaccines) when travelling abroad to some countries or territories. From Monday 19 July, you may be asked to demonstrate your COVID-19 status at places that use the service in England as a condition of entry to a venue or event. The NHS COVID Pass also allows individuals to demonstrate their COVID-19 status.

International travel - You can show the vaccination records contained within your NHS COVID Pass as proof of your COVID-19 status when travelling abroad. In addition to your NHS COVID Pass, you will need to follow additional rules when travelling abroad.

AEDEngland’s top doctor is sending out an army of volunteers to teach ‘Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation’ (CPR) and how to use defibrillators.  This initiative comes after international footballer Christian Eriksen was saved by quick thinking medics during the Euro 2020 football match. At 5.43pm, 12th June, Eriksen had a heart attack after receiving a throw-in, and collapsed to the ground. Thankfully the defibrillator was produced quickly, and together with the heart massage, it revived Eriksen.

Speaking at the NHS Confederation Conference on the day Denmark returned to action in Euro 2020, England’s National Medical Director, Professor Stephen Powis, is expected to say that ‘it is clear the footballer’s life was saved by urgent medical attention on the pitch – just like Fabrice Muamba nine years earlier’.

With only one in three people in England giving CPR when they witness someone going into cardiac arrest, Professor Powis says thousands more lives could be saved if more people knew what to do. He is announcing the launch of a new partnership with St John Ambulance to deliver an NHS programme encouraging everyone to learn CPR and how to use defibrillators. The health and first aid charity recently trained 27,000 vaccination volunteers in these lifesaving skills and will seek to train an additional 60,000 people as part of this new programme.

NHS rolls out technology to diagnose and treat patients with suspected heart diseaseThe NHS is rolling out revolutionary technology to diagnose and treat around 100,000 patients with suspected heart disease, five times faster than normal. Known as HeartFlow, the latest innovation delivered as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, turns a regular CT scan of the heart into a 3D image allowing doctors to diagnose life-threating coronary heart disease in just twenty minutes.

Previously patients would have to go in hospital for an invasive and time-consuming angiogram. Patients will now be seen, diagnosed, and treated, around five times quicker, offering more convenient care and helping hardworking NHS Staff to get services back on track after the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This is part of the NHS Long Term Plan goal to reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes by 150,000.

gammacoreA small, portable device that can zap away excruciating headaches is now available to anyone who needs it on the NHS. The gadget is held against the neck and delivers a low-level electric current to block pain signals, relieving pain from people suffering from ‘cluster’ headaches.

NHS England is expanding the use of the non-invasive gammaCore (electroCore) vagus nerve stimulator, after successful trials held over the last two years. The NHS Long Term Plan set committed to using the latest treatments and therapies to improve patient care. It is self-administered by the person or their carer. After applying conductive gel, gammaCore is held against the neck (over the cervical branch of the vagus nerve) and delivers a small electric current for about 2 minutes. This stimulation should be repeated 3 times. The device is small and portable.

Around 11,000 people are set to benefit from the device when they have the debilitating headaches.

NHS EnglandDuring the crisis, the NHS has managed with less than optimal technology – but that isn’t a sustainable position. The case for investing in new technology is clear but delivery has proved difficult in the past.

After a year of unprecedented speed, exemplified in both the development of a range of vaccines and in the response to the UK Ventilator Challenge, now is not the time to pause. Instead, it’s time to double down on technology, maintain a focus on rigorous analysis and modelling to guide decision making, and use data to drive the recovery and improve integrated care.

Patients must have better, more joined up care as, which require all parts of the NHS to work with each other and their partners, are rolled out across the country from next month. NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens today confirmed that the final 13 areas, serving 14.9 million people, will be formally designated “integrated care systems” (ICSs) from April 1, hitting a major milestone in the NHS Long Term Plan.

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