Tag: neonatal

Public Health

Current awareness updates

Drug users urged to be extra careful following a high number of likely heroin overdoses.
Public Health England (PHE); 2021.
[Public Health England (PHE) has issued a warning of a sharp rise in the number of overdoses linked to people using drugs in several areas across England. To date, there have been at least 46 poisonings resulting in 16 deaths but investigations are still ongoing. The areas affected include South London, the South East, South West and East of England.]

Mental Health Crisis Care Profile.
PHE Fingertips; 2021.
[The Crisis Care Profile collates and analyses a wide range of publicly available data on associated prevalence of mental health crisis. Risk factors include access to care, treatment, and outcomes. Includes risk factors around age, deprivation, illness and disabilities, crime and social isolation. Other topics – urgent and emergency care, quality of treatment, access to support. Data available by local authorities.]

Dental health: migrant health guide.
Public Health England (PHE); 2021.
[Advice and guidance on the health needs of migrant patients for healthcare practitioners. 17 August 2021: New model of care to support refugees and asylum seekers to access NHS dental services.]

Cervical screening: support for people who find it hard to attend.
Public Health England (PHE); 2021.
[Guidance on support for people who find it hard to attend cervical screening due to having a mental health condition, or having experienced trauma or abuse. 16 August 2021: Clarification that this guidance is based on research conducted with users of mental health services and addition of signposting to guidance to support other underserved groups.]

Oral healthcare: model for asylum seekers and refugees.
Public Health England (PHE); 2021.
[This model of care provides professionals with guidance to support access to NHS dentists. Asylum seekers and refugees can face barriers when accessing NHS dentists. This model of care details the processes, rights and entitlements to care and includes supporting information and links to forms and guidance. It is designed for local authorities, support services and health professionals who work with asylum seekers and refugees.]

Antenatal care.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2021.
[This quality standard covers care for healthy women and their babies during pregnancy (up to 42 weeks). It covers routine antenatal care in primary, community and hospital settings. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement. In August 2021, changes were made to align this quality standard with the updated NICE guideline on antenatal care.]


Service specification: Cystinosis diagnosis and co-ordination of management (all ages).
NHS England; 2021.
[This service specification covers the provision of services for patients with Cystinosis, all ages.]

Continuous positive airway pressure for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2021.
[Evidence-based recommendations on continuous positive airway pressure for treating obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome in adults. August 2021: The recommendation on continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) for mild obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome (OSAHS) has been updated and replaced by recommendation 1.5.2 on CPAP for mild OSAHS in the NICE guideline on obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome and obesity hypoventilation syndrome in over 16s.]

Obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome and obesity hypoventilation syndrome in over 16s.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2021.
[This guideline covers the diagnosis and management of obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome (OSAHS), obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with OSAHS (COPD–OSAHS overlap syndrome) in people over 16. It aims to improve recognition, investigation and treatment of these related conditions.]

Ethnic differences in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hesitancy in United Kingdom healthcare workers: Results from the UK-REACH prospective nationwide cohort study.
Woolf K. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe 2021;8(-):100180.
[Using a nationwide prospective cohort study and qualitative study in a multi-ethnic cohort of clinical and non-clinical UK healthcare workers (HCWs) researchers analysed ethnic differences in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hesitancy. Of the 11,584 HCWs included in the cohort analysis, 23% (2704) reported vaccine hesitancy. Ethnicity was a significant predictor of hesitancy.]

Association of the COVID-19 lockdown with smoking, drinking and attempts to quit in England: an analysis of 2019–20 data.
Addiction; 2021.
[Following the March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, smokers and high-risk drinkers in England were more likely than before lockdown to report trying to quit smoking or reduce alcohol consumption and rates of smoking cessation and use of remote cessation support were higher. However, high-risk drinking prevalence increased post-lockdown and use of evidence-based support for alcohol reduction by high-risk drinkers decreased with no compensatory increase in use of remote support.

Everybody active, every day: 5 years on.
Public Health England (PHE); 2021.
[Summary of the 5 year review to the national physical activity framework, ‘Everybody active, every day’ and the PHE response.]

Quality in Qual: a proposed framework to commission, judge and generate good qualitative evaluation in wellbeing impacts.
whatworkswellbeing; 2021.
[Based on interviews with ten leading organisations and individuals who have in-depth evaluation and methodological expertise this report sets out why work on qualitative evaluation is valuable and important, what resources already exist. The report identifies six prompts for potential uses of qualitative research in evaluations.]

Genomics nation: A benchmark of the size and strengths of the UK genomics sector.
UK Bioindustry Association; 2021.
[The NHS Long Term Plan promised greater focus on prevention to help people stay healthy and ease the burden on the health service. The early detection of disease, rather than merely the diagnosis and treatment of illness, will be critical to achieve this objective. The NHS Genomic Medicine Service (GMS), launched in 2018, provides a single, national coordinated approach to genomic testing and genomic research in the NHS.]

A joint thematic inspection of community-based drug treatment and recovery work with people on probation.
HM Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP); 2021.
[Probation services across England and Wales supervise nearly 156,000 people in the community. HM Inspectorate of Probation estimates that almost 75,000 of these individuals have a drugs problem, yet fewer than 3,000 people were referred by probation services to specialist drug misuse treatment in 2019/2020. HMIP partnered with the Care Quality Commission to examine how probation services supervise this cohort and found probation services are responding poorly to drugs misuse and addiction cases.]

Public Health

Current awareness updates

Statistics on alcohol: England.
House of Commons Library; 2021.
[Research briefing. This note provides a summary of statistics on alcohol consumption among adults and children in England. Data on alcohol-related hospital admissions in England and alcohol-related deaths in
England, the UK and worldwide is also shown.]

Towards a dementia-inclusive society: WHO toolkit for dementia-friendly initiatives.
World Health Organization (WHO); 2021.
[This toolkit supports individuals, communities and countries in raising awareness of, and empowering people living with, dementia to remain in, and be a significant part of, their community. The toolkit provides practical guidance and tools that can support efforts, including planning and implementation activities, to create dementia-inclusive societies.]

Social isolation and loneliness among older people: advocacy brief.
World Health Organization (WHO); 2021.
[This brief highlights the growing public health and policy concern on these issues, made more salient by the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief summarises the scale, impact, and harms of social isolation and loneliness among older people and outlines what can be done to reduce them. It also describes several policy windows that offer opportunities for addressing social isolation and loneliness among older people and proposes a three-point global strategy for tackling these issues.]

WHO guideline on school health services.
World Health Organization (WHO); 2021.
[School health services are services provided by a health worker to students aged 5–19 in primary or secondary education, either within school premises or in a health service situated outside the school. Schools offer a unique opportunity to implement effective health services at scale for children and adolescents. Web Annexes found at the end of this summary link to intervention and implementation tools.]

WHO Guideline on the prevention of drowning through provision of day-care and basic swimming and water safety skills.
World Health Organization (WHO); 2021.
[This guideline addresses: provision of day-care for children under the age of 6 years and provision of basic swimming skills and water safety training to children aged 6 years and older. Developed following GRADE methodology, approved by the WHO Guideline Review Committee and intended for use by policy-makers and practitioners, the guideline issues strong recommendations in favour of both interventions for drowning prevention.]

Alcohol and drug misuse prevention and treatment guidance.
Public Health England (PHE); 2021.
[Information and other resources to support commissioners, service providers and others providing alcohol and drug interventions. 11 August 2021: Added new group: Opioid substitution treatment good practice resources.]

Supporting mental healthcare in a maternity and neonatal setting: good practice guide and case studies.
NHS England; 2021.
[This guide is for commissioners and staff involved in maternity and neonatal care. It describes the underpinning principles of and good practice for supporting good mental health and psychological wellbeing in maternity and neonatal settings. It also considers the role of specialist maternal mental health services (MMHS) in supporting this function.]

Improving non-emergency patient transport services.
NHS England; 2021.
[This report sets out a new national framework for non-emergency patient transport services to support them in becoming consistently more responsive, fair and sustainable.]

PCN winter planning tool.
Primary Care Commissioning (PCC); 2021.
[PCC has published a winter planning tool to support PCNs in preparing for the winter pressures that are anticipated. The tool is free to download and contains an introductory sheet with instructions for completion. We have also recorded a short video guide to using the tool.]

Responding to pandemics and other disease outbreaks in homeless populations: a review of the literature and content analysis.
Babando J. Health & Social Care in the Community 2021;-(6 April):13380.
[This review illustrates that the current breadth of academic literature on homeless populations has focused on tuberculosis rather than diseases that are more recent and closely related to COVID-19. Thematic content analysis revealed six themes that offer recommendations which include (1) education and outreach, (2) adapting structure of services, (3) screening and contract tracing, (4) transmission and prevention strategies, (5) shelter protocols and (6) treatment, adherence and vaccination.]

Government response to the independent review of drugs by Dame Carol Black.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); 2021.
[Part 2 of Dame Carol Black’s review set out 32 recommendations for a whole system approach to tackling drug misuse. As a result, the government is developing a long-term strategy which will present a whole-of-government response to drive down drug supply and demand to be published by the end of the year. Immediate actions include a new cross government joint combating drugs unit and development of a national outcomes framework to set out measurable goals for the combating drugs programme.]

Restrictive eating disorders in higher weight persons: A systematic review of atypical anorexia nervosa prevalence and consecutive admission literature.[Abstract]
Harrop EN. International Journal of Eating Disorders 2021;54(8):1328-1357.
[Although atypical anorexia (AAN) appears to occur more frequently than AN in communities, fewer patients with AAN are being referred and admitted to eating disorder specific care, particularly in the United States. Given the significant medical and psychosocial consequences of AAN, and the importance of early intervention, this represents a crucial treatment gap.]

Attentional bias in eating disorders: A meta-review.[Abstract]
Stott N. International Journal of Eating Disorders 2021;54(8):1377-1399.
[There is evidence for attentional avoidance and vigilance in eating disorders depending on stimulus properties (low vs. high-calorie food; high-body mass vs. low-body mass index photos of others) and attentional avoidance of food stimuli in those with anorexia nervosa. Sad mood induction may generate attentional bias for food in those with binge-eating disorder. There may also be attentional bias to general threat in eating disorder samples.]

Public Health

Current Awareness Updates

One dose of COVID-19 vaccine can cut household transmission by up to half Public Health England (PHE)

(A new study by Public Health England (PHE) has shown that one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine reduces household transmission by up to half.)

Track and trace: identifying corruption risks in UK public procurement for the Covid-19 pandemic

(This study of procurement during the pandemic involved a painstaking review of nearly 1,000 contracts worth a total of £18 billion. It concludes that the way the UK government handled bids for supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) and other Covid-19 response contracts appears partisan and systemically biased in favour of those with political access.)

Can SMS text messages help prevent relapse in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder?
The Mental Elf; 2021.

(A group of UCL Mental Health MSc students summarise a recent pilot study, which explores the acceptability and feasibility of the Texting for Relapse Prevention (T4RP) programme for people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.)

Can we teach schools how to improve care for young people who self-harm?
The Mental Elf; 2021.

(Douglas Badenoch appraises and summarises a recent systematic review of experimental studies, which looks at whether school staff training can improve responses to pupils who self-harm.)

JCVI issues new advice on COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant women Public Health England (PHE)

(The JCVI has advised that pregnant women should be offered the COVID-19 vaccine at the same time as the rest of the population, based on their age and clinical risk group.)

Neonatal infection: antibiotics for prevention and treatment.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2021.

[This guideline covers preventing bacterial infection in healthy babies of up to and including 28 days corrected gestational age, treating pregnant women whose unborn baby is at risk of infection, and caring for babies of up to and including 28 days corrected gestational age with a suspected or confirmed bacterial infection. It aims to reduce delays in recognising and treating infection and prevent unnecessary use of antibiotics. The guideline does not cover viral infections.]