Homerton Hospital Is Bottom Of The List
In The Times today, there is an article, which is entitled Ambulance List Shows NHS Trust With The Worst Delays.
My local hospital is Homerton and it gets a very honourable mention.
At the other end of the scale, four trusts accepting patients by ambulance reported no delays of more than an hour, led by Homerton University Hospital in east London.
It is interesting that Homerton is down as one of the best.
My GP reckons it has improved greatly in the last few years. He also says, that they seem to have more spare capacity, than the other hospitals in the area.
The hospital removed my gallstones using endoscopy and I walked out to a waiting car. I could have taken the bus, if required.
I also had a knee X-rayed, where the GP gave me a chit and told me to just turn up unannounced in one of two specific three-hour periods. I was in and out in just over ten minutes.
Homerton seem to be thinking hard about their organisation and methods.
Could this be why they are the best on the list?
So what is our South London Mayor doing to improve transport to this much improved hospital?
He’s cutting out, one of the major bus routes to the hospital.
Have I Lived All My Life With A Leaky Heart Valve?
A few days ago, whilst looking for an old post, I came across this post called Medical Progress.
This was a paragraph.
On Wednesday the stroke doctor had told me that I had a leaky valve. Now sometimes I think I can tell when it starts to leak. Or am I imagining things. I just push myself too hard and then I get a bit breathless, but if I get a rhythm going, I can pedal for over an hour. Especially in Holland, where they have abolished hills by law.
Normally, I remember most of the posts I have written, but as it was twelve years ago, I think I can be excused forgetting it.
A couple of years ago, I had some heart scans that appear to be puzzling doctors, or at least one, who sent me a copy of an internal mail.
I wonder whether you could arrange a stress echo for this gentleman who transthoracic echo results are confusing. One GP echo suggested mild/moderate AS with a vmax which was inconsistent with this and a Barts echo suggested severe AS by valve area (0.9) but again a low vmax. It was suggested that this was low flow AS but the LV function is only mildly down so this does not really hang together. He does seem to have moderate MR on his most recent echo and a history of AF (on Warfarin).
He has no symptoms attributable to Aortic Valve disease.
Would a stress echo help here and if so would you be able to do this please. I’d value your opinion.
The outcome was that I went for the stress test. It was confirmed, that I had a leaking valve, but it wasn’t that serious and I didn’t have the stress test. It’s described in My Cardiac Echo Stress Test.
Conclusion
I am tempted to believe, that I’ve always had the leaky valve. Is that possible?
But then my medical history is a bit strange. Read My Unusual Body for a bit of background.
Five Million Britons Invited To Take Part In World’s Biggest Health Study
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
These two paragraphs outline the study.
Five million Britons are set to be invited to take part in one of the world’s most ambitious health projects as scientists seek ways to catch and treat disease earlier.
Our Future Health programme, a collaboration between the NHS, academics and the private sector, is an attempt to find ways to make a difference to people’s health sooner by monitoring millions of people as they age.
Note.
- Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford will lead the project.
- Three million invitations are set to go out this autumn.
- The aim is to recruit five million participants by 2025.
Count me in!
East Kent Maternity Deaths: Babies Might Have Survived With Better Care
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first paragraph.
Up to 45 babies might have survived if they had received better care at East Kent NHS Hospitals Trust, a damning independent review has found.
As a father of three, who has experienced the death of both his wife and youngest son, I know that this is a tragedy for too many families.
But episodes like these seem to come along regularly in the NHS. We have had two cases, where nurses were murdering babies, the notorious Harold Shipman and several abuse cases in mental health.
Is the monitoring of the outcome of patient treatment up to scratch?
In the 1970s, I was asked to do some programming for Bob, who was the Chief Management Accountant of Lloyds Bank and before that he had been Chief Accountant of Vickers. Bob had very definite ideas about how to ascertain the performance of various divisions and departments in a company or organisation.
He taught me a lot as we applied his ideas to check out the performance of various branches in the Bank. A lot of his experience was incorporated into Artemis and other programs I have written.
One of the things we did with bank branches was to plot groups of branches in simple scatter diagrams, so that those with problems stood out.
Does the government do similar things with hospitals and GP surgeries?
I even went as far as to suggest that my software Daisy could be used to find rogue practitioners like Harold Shipman. I was thanked for my submission to the report, but was not told my ideas were mentioned in the report.
Conclusion
I believe that more babies might have survived in Kent, if a statistician had been comparing results between hospital trusts and actively looking for problems.
I suspect the reason, there is no serious analysis, is that there is a belief in the NHS, that no-one ever makes mistakes or is evil.
Should Hospitals Be The Power Backup Locations?
I was reading an article in The Times about how protestors were blocking roads in Central London and they’re inadvertently stopped an ambulance.
So this question occurred to me. Why I don’t know, but my mind has always jumped about and put thoughts together?
Consider.
- The latest generation of energy storage that could be used to back up the grid are coming down in physical size.
- Hospitals have complex power systems, as they use a lot of electricity.
- Hospitals need emergency power backup.
- Because of their high electrical use, hospitals will have a high capacity connection to the National Grid.
- Some modern treatments need a lot of electricity.
- Will ambulances be battery-powered and will need to be charged up, whilst delivering patients?
- Many bus routes terminate at the local hospital, so if the buses are battery-powered, these could be charged as well.
As an Electrical and Control Engineer, I feel that to put a town, city or are’s back-up battery at the hospital would be a sensible idea.
Hospitals should be designed to be health, energy and transport hubs for their communities.
Coeliacs On A Gluten-Free Diet And The AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine
I am coeliac and I am on a strict gluten-free diet.
I have not had a serious dose of Covid-19, but I may have had a very mild dose, after a meeting with about twenty Chinese students, that I described in Did I Have A Close Brush With Covid-19?
That would not be possible to check now, but I did have a bad reaction after my AstraZeneca vaccine, which I wrote about in July 2021 in Hay Fever, Coeliac Disease And The AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine. I also told my GP about it and he said he’d heard similar tales.
I had no reaction to my second AstraZeneca vaccine.
This year my hay fever was even worse. Is this due to my immune system being boosted by the vaccines?
Yesterday, at a funeral, I met an old friend, who is on a strict gluten-free diet and she had not had a serious dose of Covid-19. But like me, she did have a serious reaction to her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
I’d like to hear any experiences of coeliacs on a gluten-free diet during the pandemic.
Coeliac Disease And Atrial Fibrillation
I am 75 and coeliac and I had or have atrial fibrillation. Cardiologists tell me that, the atrial fibrillation led to my stroke in 2011.
I should also say, that my father was an undiagnosed coeliac and he died from a stroke younger than I am now.
I typed the title of this post into Doctor Google.
I found this paper on Cureus, which is entitled Celiac Disease and Risk of Atrial Fibrillation: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review.
I will show two paragraphs from the Abstract,
This is the Introduction.
Several studies have found celiac disease may be associated with a variety of cardiac manifestations. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common arrhythmias that can cause significant morbidity. However, the risk of atrial fibrillation in patients with celiac disease according to epidemiological studies remains unclear. The aim of this meta-analysis study is to assess the risk of atrial fibrillation in patients diagnosed with celiac disease compared to controls.
And this is the Conclusion.
A significant association between celiac disease and risk of atrial fibrillation was reported in this study. There is a 38% increased risk of atrial fibrillation. Additional studies are needed to clarify the mechanistic link between atrial fibrillation and celiac disease. Some of the limitations of this study are that all were observational studies, some were medical registry-based and there was high heterogeneity between studies.
One of the paper’s conclusions is more research needs to be done.
I know that I have a supercharged immune system, in that it seems to protect me from flu and the dreaded covids and it gave the AstraZeneca vaccine a good kicking. Research from Nottingham University has also shown, that coeliacs on a gluten-free diet have a 25 % lower risk of cancer compared to the general population.
So I asked Doctor Google if there was any link between the immune system and atrial fibrillation.
I found this paper on PubMed, which is entitled The Role Of Immune Cells In Atrial Fibrillation.
This was the Abstract.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia, but its mechanisms are poorly understood. Recently, accumulating evidence indicates a link between immune response and AF, but the precise mechanism remains unclear. It should be noticed that the relationship between immune response and AF is complex. Whether immune response is a cause or a result of AF is unclear. As the functional unit of the immune system, immune cells may play a vital role in the immunological pathogenesis of AF. In this review, we briefly highlight the evidence on relationships between immune cells and AF, and discuss their potential roles in AF pathogenesis. We hope this review could provide new orientation and enlightenment for further research on AF mechanism.
One of the paper’s conclusions is more research needs to be done.
Conclusion
I feel a lot of research concerning coeliacs, their immune systems and atrial fibrillation should be done and this could lead to a better understanding of atrial fibrillation.
Cummins Shows Hydrogen Internal Combustion-Engined Concept Truck At IAA Transportation Exhibition
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Commercial Motor.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Cummins believes hydrogen internal combustion engines (H2-ICE) will be suitable for the 10- to 26-tonne GVW range, and showed a concept vehicle at the IAA Transportation exhibition.
The truck, which is based on a Mercedes-Benz Atego 4×2, is fitted with Cummins’ new 6.7-litre B6.7H engine. It is rated at 290hp, has a peak torque of 1,200Nm, and a range of up to 500km.
Alison Trueblood, Cummins executive director – on-highway business Europe, is extensively quoted in the article and it is worth reading what she says.
I believe that by providing a hydrogen infrastructure and converting trucks to hydrogen, by using similar techniques to Cummins could be a quick and effective way to improve air qualities in urban areas.
Ease Up IPA Goes Gluten Free!
The title of this post, is the same as that of this page on the Adnams web site.
I am now 75 and I have been drinking Adnams beer, almost exclusively since I was thirteen.
My father introduced me to halves of Adnams bitter, whilst playing snooker at Felixstowe Conservative Club.
Part of his logic behind doing this was to teach me to drink alcohol responsibly, like he did and to prevent me ending up like his father, who was a drunk, who died before the age of forty.
The other thing, that my father’s teaching did was give me a preference for good real ale. And especially Adnams!
As I write this, I’m drinking a bottle of their 0.5 % Ghost Ship.
I drink it for three reasons.
- Obviously, I like the taste.
- It is low-alcohol, so it doesn’t affect the action of the Warfarin, that stops me having another stroke.
- I also find, that because the beer is made with low amounts of barley to keep the alcohol low, it doesn’t affect my gut, despite the fact that I’m a coeliac.
I have yet to find a low-alcohol beer, that has had an adverse effect on my body.
But Will Ease Up Be Safe For A Coeliac To Drink?
These paragraphs describe how Ease Up is brewed and the testing of the product.
When producing Ease Up, we now use an enzyme called Clarex® which breaks down gluten-type proteins, reducing gluten content to below 20 parts per million (ppm). Only foods that contain 20ppm or less can be labelled as ‘gluten-free.’ According to Coeliac UK, research shows people diagnosed as coeliac can consume products with gluten present at or less than this level, but customers are advised to consider their own individual tolerances.
Clarex® is added in the fermentation vessel, where it mixes well during a normal, vigorous fermentation. Our beer is tested at the end of fermentation and then, after packaging, it is put on hold while it undergoes a thorough external validation process before it is confirmed gluten free and released. Just look out for the new, updated branding.
Note the phrase about individual tolerances.
Conclusion
It looks like Adnams have produced the ideal real ale to have in your pub, club or house, if you have some coeliac customers, family or friends.
Never did I think, I would ever write about disruptive innovation in the brewing industry.
Statins Are Not To Blame For Most Muscle Pain, Scientists Conclude
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the first two paragraphs, that outlines the study.
Fears over statin side effects are unfounded as they only lead to muscle pain in 1 per cent of patients, a comprehensive study has shown.
University of Oxford scientists say they have “definitively” proven wrong the widespread belief that statins are a common cause of muscle symptoms.
Can my experience, add anything to the argument?
- I am seventy-five years, 170 cms. in height and weigh just over sixty-two kilograms.
- I have been taking statins, at least since I had my stroke ten years ago.
- I have been diagnosed with arthritis in my left knee. I put this down to the fact, that my wife and I had three small children fifty years ago and lived in a fifth-floor flat with no lift. All the carrying up the stairs damaged the knee and it flares up every ten years or so!
- I have constant minor pain in my left humerus, which was broken by the school bully, when I was fourteen.
- When I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free, a lot of my muscle and joint pains were reduced.
- The pain levels seem to have risen again since going on statins.
This page on the NHS web site is an overview of Coeliac Disease.
In a section, which is called Who’s Affected?, this is said.
Coeliac disease is a condition that affects at least 1 in every 100 people in the UK.
But some experts think this may be underestimated because milder cases may go undiagnosed or be misdiagnosed as other digestive conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Reported cases of coeliac disease are around 3 times higher in women than men.
I also believe that the number of diagnosed coeliacs, is also affected by the fact that there was no test for coeliac disease in children until 1960 and that a reliable genetic test wasn’t available until the 1990s. This will lead to numbers of undiagnosed coeliacs in the older population.
Coincidence Or Just Facts?
Note that statin side effects only lead to muscle pain in one per cent of patients according to the report in The Times and one per cent of the population are coeliac.
Conclusion
I’m no medic, but I am a coeliac and an analyser of data. I believe that better analysis of the data may add some new insight.
For instance, as coeliac disease is three times higher in women, then if it is involved, then it would mean that the muscle pain ratios will have a sex component.
I also believe, that all medical research databases, should record, whether the participants are coeliacs.
The Anonymous Widower 