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A 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.
Read more: NHS rolls out cluster headache-busting device across the country
During 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.
Read more: Using technology to implement Integrated Care Systems (ICSs)
Prime Minister’s roadmap for England to ease lockdown will allow the EBME Expo to go ahead on 30th June
The EBME website is pleased to announce that due to the lockdown roadmap outlined below, the EBME Expo will be able to go ahead on 30th June to 1st July 2021 at the Marshall Arena, Milton Keynes. We will ensure covid precautions are in place in line with the government advice. Those of you who registered for last year’s event are already automatically registered for this year.
If you have not yet registered, please book you place here: https://www.ebme.co.uk/registration-options
Read more: EBME Expo proceeds as Prime Minister’s roadmap eases lockdown
Patients with COVID-19 are set to benefit from faster treatment, improved outcomes and shorter hospital stays thanks to the use of the latest artificial intelligence.
The National COVID-19 Chest Imaging Database (NCCID) was established to fulfil the NHS AI Lab’s mission of enabling the safe adoption of AI technologies, with an immediate focus on combatting the pandemic.
A joint initiative between NHSX, the British Society of Thoracic Imaging (BSTI), Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust and Faculty, the NCCID is designed to enable the development of software that helps doctors and researchers to:
Read more: Using chest imaging AI to support COVID-19 research and development
Digital services provided by the NHS have seen a huge increase in usage throughout 2020 as a result of social distancing and the need to access healthcare remotely. Since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, tech services provided by NHS Digital have seen unprecedented levels of usage by both patients and frontline staff. Some of the NHS technologies that have seen the biggest increases are listed below:
NHS website
The NHS website is one of the biggest health-related websites in the world; usually attracting around 360m visits a year, which is around 30 million visits a month. It has been a key platform in the NHS’ response to the coronavirus pandemic and at the time of publishing had already had an estimated 803m visits this year. The number of users peaked in March 2020 with 120m estimated visits (the highest ever) and again in September 2020 with 81m estimated visits. There have been 160m direct visits to the coronavirus hub landing page since the end of January 2020.
Read more: Coronavirus pandemic prompts surge in number of people using NHS tech in 2020