Fewer but better clinics ‘will save more stroke victims’

Dozens of hospital stroke units should be shut and the service reorganised into fewer centres of excellence in order to improve care, the charity representing stroke survivors has insisted.

Centralising stroke treatment at a much smaller number of hospitals will increase patients’ chances of survival and reduce their risk of long-term disability, the Stroke Association says.

Juliet Bouverie, the charity’s chief executive, accused hospitals of risking lives by retaining stroke units when medical evidence suggests they should be moved. While reconfiguration is controversial, patients and their families generally understand that travelling longer distances to get a higher standard of care and reduce the risk of dying is worthwhile, she insisted.

“At the moment there are 126 hospitals in England which routinely admit stroke patients. That number needs to be reduced to somewhere between 75 and 100. But progress on that is very variable across the country and so unnecessary costs are being incurred and unnecessary mortality is happening,” she said.

She urged hospital and NHS chiefs to learn lessons from studies showing that scores of lives are being saved every year by the reorganisation of stroke units in the capital in the 2000s. “Previously there were more than 20 hospitals providing acute care in London and there was strong evidence that actually reducing the number of acute stroke units and creating a hub and spoke model [of bigger hospitals supporting smaller ones] on stroke would not only save lives but it would also save the NHS money.

“So they reduced the number of acute stroke units from 20 down to eight and the evidence shows that each year more than 100 patients extra are saved as a consequence. That’s now been replicated in Manchester, with equivalent numbers of lives saved.”

Tony Rudd, the national clinical director for stroke at NHS England, says: “The changes to stroke services in London have saved lives, proving it is right to concentrate expertise in selected centres. One advantage of the local planning arrangements is they can identify where there are opportunities to provide this more focused care for stroke patients.”

Centres of excellence would offer better care by having larger numbers of patients and would tackle the shortage of specialist doctors and nurses by concentrating them in fewer places. They could then offer patients clot-busting drugs and, potentially, 35 to 50 could undergo a new surgical procedure called mechanical thrombectomy, in which even large blood clots in the brain can be enclosed in a stent. Many more hospitals than the current handful should be offering the £7,000-a-time “game-changer” operation, said Bouverie.

Hospitals’ self-interest is “stalling” what should be an NHS-wide drive to improve stroke care, she claimed. “Too many hospitals are protecting their own interests and not doing what is in patients’ best interests. No hospital wants to give up some of those life-saving treatments, but it’s not in patients’ interests for these smaller hospitals to be delivering services.”

Too many of the sustainability and transformation plans drawn up by NHS leaders in 44 areas of England do not include clear ways of reorganising stroke care, despite evidence that fewer units reduce the risk of death and disability.

Hyper acute stroke units usually administer life-saving treatment for three days and then transfer patients to a stroke unit, with patients then moving to a rehabilitation unit or going home. Centres of excellence would help overcome the postcode lottery that means that 82% of stroke patients treated at Ipswich hospital, for example, receive clot-busting drugs within the recommended four hours but only 15% of those attending Wexham Park hospital in Slough.

Bouverie blamed the NHS for neglecting survivors after their discharge from hospital: “More than 46% of patients told us in our most recent survey that when they’re discharged from hospital they feel isolated and abandoned. They say that physiotherapy is not adequate and they’re not given access to the right psychological support. People are not getting access to speech and language therapy in a timely manner,” she added.

“Many stroke survivors have a physical disability, depression or psychological needs, suffer chronic fatigue or have aphasia, where they cannot speak. You’ve got stroke survivors at home with serious disability, often still in wheelchairs, unable to communicate, suffering the damaging psychological effects of what is a life-changing condition and not being given the proper support. ”

She criticised NHS bosses and ministers for refusing to draw up a strategy to reduce the UK-wide toll of 40,000 deaths caused by the 100,000 strokes that occur every year, despite the government’s pledge to reduce premature deaths. Stroke campaigners feel “ignored” because NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens is concentrating on improving cancer, mental health, maternity care and dementia services rather than prioritising Britain’s fourth biggest killer.

Fewer but better clinics ‘will save more stroke victims’

NHS "will fail" this winter without cash injection, doctors tell Theresa May

Hospital doctors have warned Theresa May that the NHS “will fail” this winter and patient care will suffer unless she provides an emergency cash injection.

The leaders of 33,000 doctors from 30 medical specialties urged the prime minister to recognise that hospitals are “paralysed by spiralling demand” and warned of an exodus of personnel quitting the already understaffed NHS.

In a letter to May, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and a host of senior doctors told her that the NHS is trying to tackle so many problems with such limited resources that it is in danger of not being able to do its job of caring for patients.

“The NHS is the embodiment of your view that ‘We have a responsibility to one another’. Without urgent investment, the NHS will fail to live up to this responsibility this winter,” they say. The signatories include Prof Jane Dacre, the college’s president, as well as experts in cardiology, geriatric medicine and acute medicine.

In a direct challenge to May’s repeated view that the government has given the NHS enough money, they claim that only an urgent bailout will stop the service – which experts say is under pressure like never before in its 69-year history – running into even more serious difficulties.

They welcome the pledges to train more doctors and increase the NHS’s budget by 2020. But they say: “Frontline staff and managers across health and social care are clear: investment levels are not sufficient to meet current or future patient needs. As a result, in spite of rapid advances in clinical care, services are often too paralysed by spiralling demand to transform and modernise. Promises of future investment will not address the very real challenges we face going into 2017: the time to invest is now.”

Money is so tight that “the quality of patient care is threatened by demands which the health service does not have the capacity or resource to meet”, they add.

Downing Street declined to respond to the letter, but May has told Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, that the service will not get any extra money and that he should concentrate on making major efficiency savings.

The Department of Health replied on May’s behalf, but did not respond to the RCP’s plea for an immediate cash boost or warning that the NHS could fall.

It said : “We know the NHS is facing increasing demand from an ageing population, but this makes building a safer healthcare system more urgent, not less.

“Since just last year, we have 3,100 more nurses and 1,600 more doctors. We’re also joining up health and social care for the first time and investing £10bn to fund the NHS’s own plan to transform services and relieve pressure on hospitals.”

The doctors’ letter comes as more than 20 MPs from all three main parties and two former health secretaries call on May to set up an NHS and care convention to work out how to fund the soaring costs of medical and social care in the long term, given the ageing population.

The initiative has come from the Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb, who was a health minister in the coalition government. Backers include Dr Sarah Wollaston, the highly respected Conservative who chairs the Commons health select committee; three other select committee chairs; the ex-Tory health minister Dr Dan Poulter; Alan Milburn, the health secretary under Tony Blair in 1999-2003; and Stephen Dorrell, his Tory predecessor in 1995-97.

In a further sign of the government’s difficulties over its handling of the NHS, A&E doctors made clear that they believe Jeremy Hunt’s plan to downgrade the duty on hospitals to treat 95% of A&E patients within four hours is misguided. They were responding to the health secretary telling MPs on Monday that the four-hour target should not apply to the 30% of people who seek help at an A&E unit despite being neither an urgent or emergency case.

Dr Taj Hassan, president of the Royal College of Emergency medicine, which represents A&E medics, said Hunt was right to say that emergency departments should be for genuine medical emergencies only.

“However, it is exactly those patients who present as emergencies that pose the greatest challenges as a substantial proportion of these spend long periods of time in the emergency department, waiting for a bed. Seeking to target patients with minor illness should not be the priority,” Hassan said.

In new evidence of the chaos engulfing many hospitals, nurses report that some patients are waiting up to 23 hours in hospital corridors across the UK because beds are in such short supply. Hospitals are under such pressure that nurses are being told to discharge even patients who are not fit to leave in order to free up beds, the Royal College of Nursing claimed.

“Nurses from Scotland to London report serious concerns over the quality of the care they can provide in what for many are the worst conditions they have ever experienced,” said Janet Davies, the RCN’s chief executive.

NHS "will fail" this winter without cash injection, doctors tell Theresa May

New prenatal test for Down"s syndrome "will not lead to more terminations"

A safer prenatal test for Down’s syndrome due to be introduced on the NHS is not predicted to lead to more pregnancies being terminated, according to one of Britain’s most eminent statisticians.

Sir David Spiegelhalter, professor for the public understanding of risk at the University of Cambridge, said that the best evidence available suggests that the blood test, which will be made available in 2018, would lead to an increase of around 20 in the number of positive diagnoses made each year through screening.

He added the test would result in far fewer women opting for invasive testing, reducing miscarriage numbers.

Spiegelhalter cautioned that this evidence sometimes appeared to have fallen out of view in debates in which some campaigners have warned that a generation with Down’s syndrome could be “screened out”.

“People feel very strongly about it, of course they do. It’s all the more reason to stand back and look at the figures,” he said. “There’s a mismatch at the moment between the official basis on which this is being rolled out and the discussion around it.”

According to the Department of Health’s own projections, Spiegelhalter said, more than 40 miscarriages would be avoided every year because far fewer women would be given amniocentesis, an invasive test in which a tiny amount of fluid is removed from the womb. He added, however, that it was impossible to predict exactly how families would respond to the new screening regime.

“There’s been a lot of concerns expressed about the increased number of terminations,” said Spiegelhalter. “In the assumptions under the current model that’s not the case. The estimate is that there wouldn’t be a change.”

The new test, which works by detecting tiny quantities of foetal DNA circulating in the mother’s blood, will be offered to about 10,000 women a year who are considered to have a higher chance of giving birth to a baby with Down’s syndrome, or two rarer genetic conditions: Edwards’ and Patau’s syndromes.

The test is offered after the standard screening that all pregnant women receive at 12 weeks, which involves an ultrasound and a blood test.

According to recent Department of Health figures, 7,900 women agreed to an invasive test and 46 miscarried. More than 3,000 chose not to have the test for fear of losing their baby or because they would wish to continue with their pregnancy regardless of the result. The figures showed 1,031 Down’s cases detected in a year.

The blood test, which predicts Down’s syndrome with more than 90% accuracy, means most high-risk women will be able to avoid amniocentesis. The government predicts that around 10,000 women would opt to have the non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT). Of these, the Department of Health predicts that most would be screened out and fewer than 1,500 would proceed to the invasive test, where 1,055 Down’s cases would be positively identified.

The motivation for introducing the new blood test is safety, but controversy has been building based on concerns that far more parents would be inclined to find out if their baby was affected by a genetic disorder, potentially leading to more pregnancies being terminated.

In a BBC documentary last month, A World Without Down’s Syndrome?, actor Sally Phillips, whose son Olly has Down’s syndrome, raised concerns about the new test and highlighted the joy that her son had brought to her family.

Spiegelhalter said he “in no way seeks to criticise the campaign groups”, but wants to give people access to the best evidence available. His analysis is due to be published on the website of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, which launched last week and will aim to provide unbiased statistics on public health and policy issues.

Philip Dunne, the health minister, said: “We want women to be able to access the safest screening tests available, so based on the clinical evidence, we have approved the use of a new non-invasive prenatal test for Down’s, Edwards’ and Patau’s syndromes. By offering non-invasive prenatal testing, fewer pregnant women will go on to be offered diagnostic testing which carries a risk of miscarriage.”

Lynn Murray, spokesperson for the campaign group Don’t Screen Us Out, said that the concerns of those opposed to the policy went beyond the projected screening statistics. “We are very disappointed that the Department of Health have approved the NIPT roll-out without consultation with the very group that this is going to have the biggest impact on, people with Down’s syndrome and their families,” she said. “The government has admitted itself that it has made no assessment of the impact this will have on the community of people with Down’s syndrome.”

New prenatal test for Down"s syndrome "will not lead to more terminations"

Tough prison sentences "will not end FGM in Dagestan"

A Russian journalist who reports on female genital mutilation says introducing prison sentences for perpetrators will not bring about an end to the practice, after a report released last week said that FGM was taking place in remote villages in the republic of Dagestan.

Marina Akhmedova, based in Moscow, has recently returned from the North Caucasus region, where she interviewed survivors of FGM. She is calling for a programme of on-the-ground advocacy.

Responding to a draft bill introduced by MP Maria Maksakova-Igenbergs last week that called for the criminalisation of FGM, with sentences of up to 10 years, Akhmedova said such strict measures would only be seen as religious persecution and could drive the practice underground.

Speaking to the Guardian, she said: “It is really difficult to help these women as they don’t consider themselves victims. First you need to persuade them that they are victims. Targeting them will only drive them to do this in secret. If religious leaders say it is right for a girl to undergo circumcision, people will do it.”

She suggested that Russia needed to adopt an “accurate and moderate” approach and work with religious leaders as well as doctors and teachers to persuade them to abandon FGM.

A report published by the human rights group Russian Justice Initiative (RJI) said there was evidence that FGM of girls under the age of three was happening in remote, mainly-Muslim villages in Dagestan. It came to wider attention when two religious leaders responded with comments in support of the practice.

Ismail Berdiyev, the mufti and chairman of the North Caucasus Muslim Coordination Centre, said FGM does not contradict Islam and is a “purely Dagestani ritual” that is necessary “to limit the unnecessary energy” of women. He also suggested in a radio interview that all women should undergo FGM to curb their sexual feelings, later retracting some of his comments.

Vsevolod Chaplin, an Orthodox Christian leader, posted on Facebook in support of Berdiyev, saying that traditional practices should be allowed to continue without interference.

Maria Baronova, an opposition activist, responded to the report by standing outside Moscow’s main mosque with a sign saying “cut sheep not women”.

Akhmedova said Baronova’s protest amounted to an “incitement of ethnic hatred”.

“The mosque she stood outside belongs to Moscow Muftiyat, which has officially rejected FGM,” Akhmedova said. “Not all Muslims practise circumcision, and there was nothing in her actions that showed a desire to help the women of Dagestan.

“The opinion of religious leaders on the case in Dagestan is divided. The media made it out that this is a wholly Islamic problem, but this is not the case. Some of the women I spoke to themselves felt ashamed for not having a clitoris, but others suggested that it is a practice that they have done for years and will continue to do.”

RJI found that FGM is carried out predominantly in five mountainous areas, where the procedure is usually performed on girls under the age of three, but also on some up to the age of 12.

Vanessa Kogan, the group’s executive director, said: “The report would not have received nearly as much coverage if it hadn’t been for the outrageous statements made by Berdiyev and Chaplin. Their statements did not really contribute anything concrete to the questions surrounding the practice of FGM, but they spoke volumes about both Islamic and Christian religious leaders’ intentions to control women’s bodies and their sexuality.

“We don’t want to give the impression that FGM is a religious practice, and we want to keep the focus on the fact that the procedure is a gross violation of women and children’s rights. These communities are among the last to have converted to Islam in the region, and many experts interviewed expressed the view that the practice is rooted in pre-Islamic tradition adat or customary law.

“At the same time, we acknowledge that the support of religious leaders may be a key component in working to eradicate the problem.”

It can kill: the facts you should know about female genital mutilation

Kogan added no further research was planned, saying: “There is no evidence that FGM is being practised anywhere else in Russia on a systematic scale. As far as we know, FGM is limited to Dagestan and within Dagestan the practice is limited to certain isolated communities.”

Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, said the report was a concern and more research was needed to have a better understanding of the situation.

Mary Wandia, who works for the group, said: “We are only starting to get information on the prevalence of FGM in Russia but it is very concerning that all 25 women interviewed for this report had undergone it. We need further investigation.

“FGM can no longer be seen as a supposedly ‘African’ issue. It is a human rights violation which affects hundreds of millions of women and girls around the world. Recently, we have had better data from countries such as Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia, Colombia, Yemen and others, which shows that FGM is a global issue and needs to be urgently addressed.”

The United Nations warns that more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut, mostly before they reached puberty, and has recently classified it as child abuse.

FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. FGM has no health benefits and is recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.

Tough prison sentences "will not end FGM in Dagestan"

Failure to curb junk food ads ‘will hinder parents’ in fight against obesity

A failure to limit the way the junk food industry promotes itself to young people will make life far harder for parents trying to give children a nutritious diet, according to the royal society set up to improve public health.

Related: Theresa May’s climbdown on obesity is her first big mistake | Jackie Ashley

Experts in child health had hoped that the government’s long-awaited plan for fighting childhood obesity would include a comprehensive commitment to rein in the power of the food industry to advertise its more unhealthy products to children.

But, while the Department of Health is understood to have been supportive of the commitment, it was omitted from the plan unveiled last week during the summer recess following intervention by No 10. The decision dismayed many in the public health sector.

The watered-down plan, nine months in the making, was seen as a major victory for the fast food and fizzy drinks industries which have lobbied vigorously against measures that would stop them advertising at key times. Originally due to be unveiled by David Cameron, the revised plan under Theresa May’s new government has been savaged by TV chef Jamie Oliver and health bodies for not going nearly far enough.

Public Health England had produced a large body of evidence that suggested tackling the way the food and drinks companies target children was vital if the plan was to have an impact. But the government’s decision to ignore the evidence represents a huge missed opportunity, according to Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), which conducted interviews with children and their parents on what needed to be done.

“Everybody was advocating very hard for a ban on advertising junk food before the watershed and for family-based programmes like The X Factor,” Cramer said. “We’ve done quite a lot of research talking to young people who tell us that this – the stuff they see online, on bus tickets on posters near their school – makes an enormous difference. People are worried about the promotions, about the advertising. It’s all about pester power – 75% of parents we spoke to said their kids had seen an ad and they’d give in after half an hour of pestering.”

Cramer described the government plan as a good one but with “some big bits missing”. Only if a range of relevant government departments were to commit to preventative measures could the mounting problem of childhood obesity be adequately tackled, she suggested.

“If you look at teen pregnancies, that was a committed, longstanding strategy that went on for 10 years and now we’ve got the outcomes that are much better than predicted. If you really mean to do something about childhood obesity you can, but you need to get all these things working at the same time.”

The failure to constrain the advertising power of the fast food industry would make the job of councils trying to fight obesity all the more difficult, Cramer said. “For a local authority trying to take action against child obesity it doesn’t make their life easier. Junk food will still be advertised everywhere. It means the fight against childhood obesity will be much harder.”

She also echoed concerns expressed by some supermarket chains that voluntary plans to reduce sugar amounts in food would fail. “If you make it mandatory then, in a competitive sense, everyone knows where they stand. If it’s voluntary then the companies who do something will feel, ‘well the other guys aren’t doing it’. It needs to be a level playing field. We’ve got to do what we did with salt. The evidence is clear: most kids who are overweight or obese get their calories from sugar-sweetened beverages.”

Nearly 10% of all four- to five-year-olds and almost 20% of 10- to 11-year-olds are obese ,according to official figures. Obesity-related health issues now cost the NHS almost £5bn a year. The RSPH reports that half of all adults are predicted to be obese by 2050, more than doubling NHS costs to £10bn a year and with wider economic costs to the nation of almost £50bn.

“If we can reduce the number of children who are obese and therefore the number of adults who are obese we will not only be saving lives but saving the NHS money,” Cramer said.

Failure to curb junk food ads ‘will hinder parents’ in fight against obesity

"Will I lose my hair?": how wigs can be vital in dealing with cancer

Finding the appropriate type and colour is paramount, says best hairdresser Trevor Sorbie. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

3 many years in the past Sandra Jones was diagnosed with an aggressive variety of breast cancer. In an instant, the c-word stripped the globe she knew away from her. But, regardless of the worries and emotions she was experiencing, the 1st question the 45-year-previous necessary answering was: “Will I lose my hair?”

For numerous ladies undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy, it is not just a question of vanity. “Our hair is our crowning glory,” says Jones. “Shedding it is this kind of a daily life-altering and distressing encounter. It was about losing my identity and femininity.”

Jones had been produced redundant just weeks prior to obtaining the information, which set her on a path to an uncertain potential, with no work and the frightening prospect of invasive surgical procedure and weeks of exhausting therapy. Rather of crumbling underneath pressure, she made a decision to take handle and put together for the inevitable – by purchasing a wig.

The hairpiece was transformative. It allowed her to live her life, not as a sick individual but as a wife and pal. Without the wig, Jones believes she would have felt vulnerable and isolated, trapped by the stigma of being a bald girl. Realising other people may possibly not share her resilience, she founded Wigsense, a enterprise that offers a personalised services for girls undergoing healthcare hair reduction.

“Searching in the mirror for the very first time sporting a wig, I felt glamorous, assured and my self-esteem soared by means of the roof,” she recalls. “Without having it, I don’t know exactly where else I would have got the strength from.”

Discovering the correct fashion and colour is paramount, says leading hairdresser Trevor Sorbie. The multi-award-winning stylist, accountable for trend trends this kind of as the wedge and the scrunch, founded charity My New Hair to teach hairdressers to reduce the wigs of cancer sufferers undergoing chemotherapy. The thought is to subtly lower and shape them to make them look significantly less like wigs and far more like hair. Soon after a visit to ten Downing Street, he is also assisting to draw up a common nationwide policy for NHS wigs.

Sorbie left behind the glamour of catwalk exhibits and running a productive styling brand following witnessing the dehumanising impact of the illness on his sister-in-law Jackie, who died of bone cancer. He explains how he bought a wig to help her regain her confidence and really feel attractive. After he had customised it, Sorbie remembers, she looked in the mirror and burst out in tears of joy. Which is when the penny dropped. He determined to use his passion for hair styling to assist other females struggling from health care hair reduction come to feel equally particular.

“If a lady loses her hair, you’ve just lost half the lady. She loses her femininity, her confidence, her self-esteem. It is much more than just a illness, it has a damaging psychological impact,” explains Sorbie. And he says he has met four females now who would refuse treatment method for their terminal cancer rather than shed their hair.

Hairdressers, he believes, can play an crucial part in treating the psychological signs of health care hair reduction. Sorbie recalls operating in a hospice and seeing 1st hand the good effects of a wig. He was asked by a nurse to reduce a wig for a girl who was obtaining married that day, and had only hours to live. She was lying in bed wearing her wedding dress, her daughter was next to her and she was surrounded by streamers and balloons.

He says: “I was there for about twenty minutes cutting this wig and I tell you what, we have been laughing and joking. I wasn’t in a space with a female dying, I was in a area with a lady acquiring married. I left her with a smile on her encounter. For that quick time she was enjoying herself and her lifestyle.”

Sporting a wig during and soon after a program of chemo or radiotherapy is not necessarily a physically relaxed answer. A wig is a bit like a hat. It sits on your head and on a sizzling day you are going to sweat. The most crucial thing is that it has to be safe, otherwise it can irritate the scalp and leave a mark on your hairline if it is too tight. For some folks, chemo can also make the scalp really delicate. In that situation, you can put on a stocking in excess of the head as an additional layer to defend the skin.

Preparation prior to treatment method commences is paramount for each bodily and psychological wellbeing. It truly is crucial you get employed to wearing the wig beforehand and Jennifer Gorrie, cancer data nurse specialist at Macmillan, also recommends cutting your hair brief in advance and forewarning family members. Gorrie says this can be empowering for many girls, who come to feel that by taking handle and shaving their heads they have decided when the hair is going, not the chemotherapy.

Of course, not everyone feels the need to wear a wig. A lot of females with medical hair reduction pick to cover their heads with a scarf or a hat. It really is a personalized choice, but for several individuals, being bald is a agonizing reminder of their diagnosis both to themselves and other folks. A wig can be much more than just a self-confidence increase it can aid a girl flourish on the street to recovery.

"Will I lose my hair?": how wigs can be vital in dealing with cancer

Artificial blood "will be manufactured in factories"

“Although equivalent research has been conducted elsewhere, this is the initial time anybody has manufactured blood to the acceptable high quality and security specifications for transfusion into a human getting,” explained Prof Turner.

There are ideas in place for the trial to be concluded by late 2016 or early 2017, he explained. It will most likely involve the treatment of 3 sufferers with Thalassaemia, a blood disorder requiring standard transfusions. The behaviour of the produced blood cells will then be monitored.

“The cells will be safe,” he explained, adding that there are processes whereby cells can be removed.

The strategy highlights the prospect of a limitless provide of manufactured variety-O blood, free of charge of ailment and compatible with all patients.

“Although blood banks are nicely-stocked in the United kingdom and transfusion has been largely protected because the Hepatitis B and HIV infections of the 1970s and 1980s, several elements of the planet nonetheless have problems with transfusing blood,” mentioned Prof Turner.

Even so, scaling up the method to meet demand will be a challenge, as Prof Turner’s laboratory circumstances are not replicable on an industrial scale. “A single unit of blood is made up of a trillion red blood cells. There are two million units of blood transfused in the United kingdom each and every yr,” he said.

Currently, it expenses about £120 to transfuse a single unit of blood. If Prof Turner’s approach is scaled up effectively, it could substantially lessen expenses.

Dr Ted Bianco, Director of Engineering Transfer at the Wellcome Believe in, said: “One need to not underestimate the challenge of translating the science into regimen procedures for the clinic. Nowhere is this a lot more obvious than in the challenge Professor Turner and colleagues have set out to deal with, which is to change the human blood donor as the source of provide for lifestyle-conserving transfusions.”

For the minute, factories of blood stay the things of fiction.

Artificial blood "will be manufactured in factories"

Britain "will not act" on sugar guidance

The disclosure is likely to trigger controversy, since Professor Ian Macdonald, a nutritionist who has worked for Coca-Cola and Mars, is amid five of eight members of the panel who have been accused by anti-sugar campaigners of “worryingly close” ties with the rapidly meals and confectionary market.

The nutritionist, who is chairman of the carbohydrate doing work group at the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) is recognized to be critical of some of the claims created by anti-sugar campaigners, which he considers “irresponsible” and “ill informed”.

In an interview just before the new WHO guidance was published final week, Macdonald explained: “The place, I’ve been informed by the officials, is that actually we would get note of it, but we would not act on it. The government will act on the tips that comes from [the United kingdom specialist panel].”

On Sunday Government officials confirmed that their advice will come from SACN, even though they stated the committee was anticipated to meticulously consider the proof which led WHO to make its recommendations.

Britain "will not act" on sugar guidance

Britain "will not act" on sugar tips

The disclosure is most likely to trigger controversy, due to the fact Professor Ian Macdonald, a nutritionist who has worked for Coca-Cola and Mars, is between 5 of eight members of the panel who have been accused by anti-sugar campaigners of “worryingly close” ties with the fast food and confectionary business.

The nutritionist, who is chairman of the carbohydrate working group at the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) is acknowledged to be essential of some of the claims created by anti-sugar campaigners, which he considers “irresponsible” and “ill informed”.

In an interview just before the new WHO guidance was published last week, Macdonald mentioned: “The position, I’ve been informed by the officials, is that actually we would take note of it, but we would not act on it. The government will act on the suggestions that comes from [the Uk expert panel].”

Yesterday Government officials confirmed that their guidance will come from SACN, although they stated the committee was anticipated to very carefully consider the evidence which led WHO to make its suggestions.

Britain "will not act" on sugar tips