NHS Prevention Programme Reduces Type 2 Diabetes By A Fifth
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
Participants are given free Fitbits or smart watches to help them lose weight
These two paragraphs outline the program.
An NHS scheme that sends obese patients to slimming classes and gives them free Fitbits has cut diabetes rates by one fifth.
The NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, also known as Healthier You, offers health advice alongside free cookery and exercise sessions online or in person. Participants are given NHS-funded Fitbits or smart watches to monitor their activity to help them lose weight.
Note.
- Manchester University have analysed the project.
- Those on the scheme lost five pounds on average.
- The Healthier You programme is available in all parts of England.
It sounds like the programme has been a success.
I’d like to hear of peoples’ stories about this programme.
Coeliacs And Migraines
Yesterday, I watched BBC Morning Live about migraines.
I used to suffer from migraine-like symptoms, especially, if I was in a room with small tungsten downlights. One real tennis court at Cambridge caused them and the other didn’t, as the lights were different.
In 1997, I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free.
I’ve not had the symptoms since!
I also stopped nail-biting, which I’d done since I was about five. Incidentally, I’ve had others tell me, they stopped nail-biting after being diagnosed as a coeliac and going gluten-free.
On the program, the doctor has just said that women have a 1-in-5 chance of having a migraine, whereas with men it’s 1-in-15.
The NHS web site says this about who’s affected by coeliac disease.
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.
Now there’s a thing!
Funding Available For Rail Construction Innovation Projects
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
These are the two introductory paragraphs.
Innovators from across the UK are being invited to submit proposals for the Innovation in Railway Construction Competition, which is making £7·44m available for ideas which could be tested at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence in South Wales.
The competition is being run by Innovate UK with GCRE and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
£7.44m doesn’t seem much, but it is only for feasibility studies, as the article explains.
Entries for the first phase close at 12.00 on December 14, with funding available for feasibility studies of up to £25 000. This would be followed by an invite-only phase two, with successful first phase projects able to develop and demonstrate their innovations.
As Innovate UK keeps coming up with these competitions, they must be judged to be worthwhile.
Do they use the same technique in areas like Health and the NHS? If not, why not!
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.
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 Operated On Left Eye Is Working Well
I have just completed The Times Deadly Killer Sudoku in forty minutes on the phone using only my left eye. It certainly works better than it did.
I’m actually doing most typing on my phone using the left eye as it is much better than the right.
The wonders of modern surgery. And all paid for by the NHS in a private hospital.
The District Nurse Takes Control
As I said earlier my only problem was putting in the drops.
I told my GP yesterday, and saw him send a message to the District Nurses.
Today one of the organisers phoned me and an hour later she turned up and gave me an assessment.
She also put drops in my eyes and came back later to repeat the dose.
She had all the attributes one associates with District Nurses. She was professional, competence and well-turned out. The only difference from the stereotype was that she was probably younger than thirty.
She or one of her colleagues will come back tomorrow and she is trying to source a device that will enable me to do my eyes myself.
It is good to see, that with the pandemic still raging, I can get good care like that from the NHS.
People With Coeliac Disease Are At Higher Risk For Cataracts
The title of this post is the same as that of this page on Ocli Vision.
This is a paragraph from the article.
In a recent study published by the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers found that people who suffer from celiac disease are at a much higher risk of developing cataracts than those who are not diagnosed with the disease.
On Monday, Boots identified that my cataracts had got worse and signed me up to a private hospital that could do them free on the NHS.
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Job Done – I’ve Now Had My First Covid-19 Vaccination
I arrived a few minutes early at the Francis Crick Institute, for my appointment to be vaccinated.
I had booked to be vaccinated there, as I wanted to have a look inside one of London’s new modern buildings.
I was told to enter from the North side of the building. As the pictures show there were no signs, but someone had spotted me and given me directions.
I was directed to stand in a particular place and then told to enter the building, by walking down a set of stairs to the basement.
- I think my temperature could have been automatically checked before entry, as it certainly wasn’t anywhere else, that I noticed.
- There was a stair-lift at the entrance, for those not able to manage the stairs.
- Not that I saw anybody walking with more than the aid of a stick!
Once in the basement, I was asked to sit on one of about ten socially-distanced chairs.
Registration
There were a group of about six young ladies and perhaps a couple of young men, who then registered all those who had come for vaccination.
This was done mainly using your NHS number, so make sure you bring it.
Interview
Once registered, I was moved to another set of socially-distanced chairs, each of which was outside a cubicle.
I was then called in to the cubicle and given an interview by a young doctor.
She asked general questions and some about the drugs I take, so make sure you know what drugs you’re taking.
But otherwise the questions were ones everybody should know about themselves.
Vaccination
Once interviewed, I was moved to another set of socially-distanced chairs, each of which was outside a cubicle.
After about five minutes, I was called into the cubicle to be vaccinated, by a young lady.
I was only asked one question and that was whether I was right-handed or left-handed.
I am complicated, as because my left arm was badly broken by the school bully and I am right-handed, I prefer to have injections in my dominant right arm.
I also told her, that my unusual skin, means I don’t bleed from injections and she wouldn’t need a plaster.
She then said, that very few need a plaster with this vaccine.
The injection was quick and one of the few where the vaccinator didn’t say something like “Sharp scratch!”
I held a small cotton wool pad over the spot for perhaps thirty seconds, but despite being on Warfarin, my skin did its usual good job of stopping any bleeding.
I declined the sticker saying I’d been vaccinated and before I left, I was told I’d had the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Timings
From the time I arrived until the time I left was about half-an-hour.
Professionalism
It was all very professional and well-organised.
I’ve worked in factories and it was arranged very much how some factories are arranged, where the product being built is moved from one work-station to another until they reach Despatch.
It was also very relaxed and unhurried with lots of extra young people directing the patients around the various seats and cubicles.
Throughput
I have done my share of time-and-motion studies in the past and I suspect that, as time progresses, that the number of patients handled by this facility could be increased.
On the other hand, it may be kept a bit below capacity to make sure the relaxed atmosphere is preserved.
A Thought On The Staff
I must admit, I didn’t see all of the staff, but of the ones I saw, only one wasn’t white and she was Chinese and called Ying. Incidentally, she registered me, when I arrived.
A Thought On The Patients
All of the patients were white and with the exception of one other and myself, they were all female. As the patients were mainly over sixty and had probably made a choice to be vaccinated at the Francis Crick Institute on their computer, I find the ethnic distribution of the patients curious.
A Thought On The AstraZeneca Vaccine
I have a regular B12 injection and a flu vaccination every year, so I’m used to injections. The practice nurse is very quick, but the lady, who vaccinated me today was exceptionally quick.
- She also had a couple of syringes ready-filled waiting for me and following patients.
- She was able to vaccinate me, without my taking off my short-sleeved shirt and thermal vest.
- I also hardly felt a thing.
- I didn’t need a plaster.
As a friend, who also had the AstraZeneca vaccine, also said he didn’t feel a thing, I wonder, if AstraZeneca have designed this vaccine and its delivery system, so that patients can be quickly vaccinated.
Imagine market day, in a very populous country like Brazil, India or Nigeria! Has this vaccine has been designed to handle mass vaccinations in an environment like that?
It should be remembered that this is AstraZeneca’s first vaccine.
I have a feeling, that this vaccine could have been designed to a new set of rules, so that teams can vaccinate large numbers of people quickly.
The Anonymous Widower 