Thousands of children are having their tonsils removed unnecessarily, costing the NHS millions of pounds each year, according to experts. They found seven in every eight children given tonsillectomies were unlikely to benefit from the operation
Chemists have been told by the NHS to check whether young children are in urgent need of adrenaline pens before dispensing the devices. Pharmacists must ask parents and carers how many auto-adrenaline injectors they have before deciding how many to give
Flu is an unpredictable virus that can cause mild illness in most people. It can cause severe illness and even death among vulnerable groups including older people, pregnant women and people with an underlying health condition
The makers of the adrenaline injection pen, which is used to treat severe and life threatening allergic reactions, say the supply problems are due to manufacturing issues. The Department of Health said they were working with the manufacturers to "resolve the supply situation as quickly as possible". They said limited supplies were being closely managed. "Any patient who is unable to obtain supplies should speak to their doctor about using an alternative adrenaline auto-injector device," said a government official.
A drug that cuts the chances of contracting HIV during sex should be made available on the NHS in England to anyone at risk, three MPs have told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme. A much cheaper version of PrEP could soon be available to the NHS. NHS England said it would "look at evidence from the trial". PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is available on the NHS in Scotland and Wales.
Elderly people in good health should not take an aspirin a day, according to a major study in the US and Australia. There are proven benefits of the drug for people after a heart attack or stroke. But the trial found no benefit for healthy people over the age of 70, and the pills increased the risk of potentially fatal internal bleeding.
A government health adviser has criticised an NHS calculator saying the science behind it is “ridiculous”. Dr Ben Goldacre, who has just been appointed by the health secretary as chairman of the new Health Tech Advisory Board, suggested the test would needlessly frighten millions of healthy people. He said the online quiz, offered by Public Health England (PHE) and the NHS website, was a “poorly executed gimmick” which would heap pressure on private GPs by instructing everyone over the age of 30 to demand cholesterol checks.
Doctors are being told to adopt a new policy of writing letters that are easier for patients to understand. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges says too often correspondence contains complex medical jargon rather than plain and simple English. Using the phrase "twice daily" to explain the dosing of a medicine is better than the Latin abbreviation "bd", for example. Patients should ask their local hospital to comply, the academy says.
HIV positive patients taking a cocktail of pills each day to manage the disease may soon be able to switch to a monthly injection following successful trials. Currently most people infected with HIV take a combination of three or more tablets per day to prevent the virus replicating and triggering Aids. But in clinical trials an injection of two anti-retroviral drugs - cabotegravir and rilpirivine - was found to be just as effective as the standard treatment.
