The Health News United Kingdom April 16 2018

  • A bus highlighting the symptoms of ovarian cancer has hit the road following campaigning by an employee who lost his wife to the disease. Lothian Buses has launched an “ovarian cancer bus” highlighting the signs and symptoms of the disease through a partnership with the charity, Target Ovarian Cancer. It follows campaigning by Lothian Buses engineering worker Colin Barclay, 59, from Edinburgh, who lost his wife Jill to ovarian cancer in January 2017.
  • Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has opened applications for its second Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London programme, which seeks to invest in start-up companies working in the health tech space. Budding organisations that have developed a product or service ready for use by the public or healthcare professionals and can show evidence of benefits to patients or clinicians, can compete for a share of a £50,000 grant as well as on year of business support.
  • Nurses leaders have warned that hundreds of student nurses whose loans and grants have been cut off or reduced because of administrative errors are facing financial hardship and in some cases may not be able to continue their studies. According to the Royal College of Nursing, more than 800 people at 20 universities have been told they had been paid too much by the Student Loans Company (SLC) and informed subsequent payments would be reduced or halted to recover the overpayments.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 16th of April 2018. Read by Tabetha Moreto.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/how-a-bus-worker-is-raising-awareness-of-ovarian-cancer-symptoms-after-losing-wife-to-disease_uk_5acf1c06e4b08337adc9a65a?utm_hp_ref=uk-health-news

A bus highlighting the symptoms of ovarian cancer has hit the road following campaigning by an employee who lost his wife to the disease. Lothian Buses has launched an “ovarian cancer bus” highlighting the signs and symptoms of the disease through a partnership with the charity, Target Ovarian Cancer.

It follows campaigning by Lothian Buses engineering worker Colin Barclay, fifty nine, from Edinburgh, who lost his wife Jill to ovarian cancer in January two thousand seventeen. Barclay, who has worked for Lothian for more than forty years, was recently voted Lothian’s Unsung Hero at the company’s People Awards by his colleagues, and part of his award was to receive his very own bus to help his campaign to raise awareness of ovarian cancer symptoms. The father-of-two said: “Target Ovarian Cancer is helping women across the UK get an early diagnosis, which can be life changing for many.”
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The signs and symptoms of the disease have been applied to the back and sides of one of Lothian’s vehicles, along with Target Ovarian Cancer’s contact details, and will be raising awareness across Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian. The four main symptoms of ovarian cancer are a bloated tummy, always feeling full, tummy pain, and needing to urinate more urgently or more often than usual.
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Target Ovarian Cancer said that every year six hundred women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer in Scotland, and three hundred sixty women die from the disease. It hopes the bus could help raise awareness about the disease, and said that just one in five women are able to name bloating as a major symptom of ovarian cancer and awareness of the other three main symptoms is similarly low.

https://www.digitalhealth.net/2018/04/pharma-giant-pfizer-seeks-to-invest-in-uk-health-tech/

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has opened applications for its second Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London programme, which seeks to invest in start-up companies working in the health tech space. Budding organisations that have developed a product or service ready for use by the public or healthcare professionals and can show evidence of benefits to patients or clinicians, can compete for a share of a fifty thousand pound grant as well as on year of business support.

The winners will be able to tap Pfizer’s network of partners, which includes NHS organisations, and will be given the opportunity to meet the people who help develop their products and bring them to commercialisation. Pfizer is particularly interested in seeking out start-up companies that are “innovating at the cross-section between health and technology”.

Doctor Hamish Graham, manager of Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London, said: “Digital maturity is coming to the NHS and other UK health services in two thousand eighteen. Technology is being used to explore innovation at every level of the NHS, to help address some of the serious health challenges patient providers face”.
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The Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London was established in two thousand seventeen and is a part of a global network of Pfizer innovation hubs located in Berlin, Stockholm, Sydney, North America and Tel Aviv. Previous winners include Echo, a free app that allows users to order NHS prescriptions and have medication delivered to their home.
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Last week, Digital Health News covered the launch of a new UK health tech accelerator called HS, which counts computer vision and regenerative medicine start-ups amongst its first cohort.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/16/nurses-facing-financial-hardship-over-student-loan-company-error-rcn

Nurses leaders have warned that hundreds of student nurses whose loans and grants have been cut off or reduced because of administrative errors are facing financial hardship and in some cases may not be able to continue their studies. According to the Royal College of Nursing, more than eight hundred people at twenty universities have been told they had been paid too much by the Student Loans Company SLC and informed subsequent payments would be reduced or halted to recover the overpayments.

Professional bodies and trade unions, including Unison, the RCN and the National Union of Students (NUS) are calling on Damian Hinds, the education secretary, to urgently intervene to ensure those affected will receive the financial support they have budgeted for next term. In a joint letter to Hinds, the organisations said: “We are writing to ask you to take urgent action to ensure healthcare students in England and Wales affected by errors made by the SLC will receive their anticipated payment of support in spring, as they had budgeted for.”

The letter added: “Our student members are telling us that the risk of receiving a reduced payment, or no payment at all, will compromise their ability to continue studying. In some cases, we are hearing concerning reports from individual students who are considering discontinuing due to these financial pressures.” Overpayments between six hundred pounds and six thousand pounds have been made in error by the SLC, according to the RCN, which added that many students had queried the sums but had been assured the payments were correct.

In response to the letter, a Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We have been clear that none of the affected student nurses should suffer hardship as a result of this error.”

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