Monthly Archives: August 2011
Cornwall has been chosen as a HealthWatch Pathfinder
Cornwall is chosen as one of new HealthWatch pathfinders
Source: eGov monitor – A Policy Dialogue Platform Published Friday, 5 August, 2011 – 14:21
Under the Government’s health reforms local authorities will take on the responsibility for commissioning a local HealthWatch from October 2012. Local HealthWatch will replace LINKs (Local Involvement Networks) but will have greater powers to strengthen the patient and public voice in health and social care services. At a national level, HealthWatch England will be established as the independent patient champion within the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Earlier this year all local authorities were invited to apply to become pathfinders to test how a local HealthWatch might work in practice and support Government thinking on how they might operate. Cornwall was one of 157 councils from across the country to submit a bid. Of these 75 have now been chosen as Pathfinders, with Cornwall one of eight authorities selected from the South West.
We are so proud of our young son who cares for us
Carers’ Appeal: ‘We’re so proud of him’
Young Carers, Lisa and Neil Calvert with Poppie-May Simpkins (5) and Callum Britton (9)
“I’M really proud of him. He does a really good job and I don’t know how I’d manage if he wasn’t helping me.”
Lisa Calvert, 38, from Wisbech Road, South Lynn, is cared for by her son, Callum Britton, aged nine. Mrs Calvert suffers with type-2 diabetes, ankylosing spondylitis – a form of inflammatory arthritis in the spine – and depression.
She was also diagnosed with conversion disorder in 2005, a condition in which people experience neurological symptoms such as numbness, blindness, paralysis or fits without a neurological cause.
Dismay over rejection of MS pill trialled in Norwich
This will leave some MS patients with no effective treatment choice.
By KIM BRISCOE, Health correspondent Friday, August 5, 2011
6.30 AM
A mother-of-two who has been taking the first pill to treat multiple sclerosis has told of her “dread” of being without the drug, after it was initially rejected by the medicines watchdog.
“I dread the thought of it not being available to me and this decision makes me sad and cross that it won’t be generally available to anyone else.”
MS patient Amanda Cook
In draft guidance, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has rejected the drug fingolimod, which has been trialled in Norwich, recommending it is not made freely available to NHS patients in England.
