The Health News United Kingdom August 26 2017

Overview

• Middle-aged people are being urged to walk faster to help stay healthy. It is recommended that people do 150 minutes of activity a week, but nearly half of those aged 40 to 60 fail to achieve that and 1 in 5 does less than 30 minutes.
• A temporary halt on offering fertility treatment to couples in Northern Ireland is among a raft of cost-cutting proposals aimed at delivering a £70 million saving by March. Access to the Regional Fertility Centre for an estimated three hundred twenty new patients would be deferred until next April under the plan detailed by the Belfast Health Trust.
• It has been announced that all primary school children will be offered the flu vaccine from 2018-19 to further protect against the spread of the virus. During the last flu season children in Reception and Years One, Two and Three in Wales were all vaccinated against influenza by the school nursing service

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 26th of August 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health New

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41030630

Middle-aged people are being urged to walk faster to help stay healthy, amid concern high levels of inactivity may be harming their health. Officials at Public Health England said the amount of activity people did started to tail off from the age of forty. They are urging those between the ages of  forty and sixty to start doing regular brisk walks. They say just ten minutes a day could have a major impact, reducing the risk of early death by fifteen percent. But PHE estimates four out of every ten forty to sixty-year-olds do not even manage a brisk ten-minute walk each month.To help, the government agency is promoting a free app – Active ten- which can monitor the amount of brisk walking an individual does and provide tips on how to incorporate more into the daily routine. PHE deputy medical director Doctor Jenny Harries said: “I know first hand that juggling priorities of everyday life often means exercise takes a back seat.But walking to the shops instead of driving, or going for a brisk ten-minute walk on your lunch break each day, can add many healthy years to your life.”

PHE is focusing on those in middle age, because of the drop in activity levels.
It is recommended that people do one hundred fifty minutes of activity a week, but nearly half of those aged forty to sixty fail to achieve that and one in five does less than thirty minutes.
While a daily ten-minute brisk walk will not get them to the recommended level, it will be enough to start making a difference to high blood pressure, diabetes, weight issues, depression and anxiety and musculoskeletal problems such as lower back pain. PHE also hopes by getting this age group active it will have a knock-on effect among those who have children.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/halt-to-fertility-treatments-among-proposals-to-deliver-savings-36063936.html

A temporary halt on offering fertility treatment to couples in Northern Ireland is among a raft of cost-cutting proposals aimed at delivering a seventy million pound saving by March. Access to the Regional Fertility Centre for an estimated three hundred twenty new patients would be deferred until next April under the plan detailed by the Belfast Health Trust. Belfast is one of five trusts in the region. They have been instructed by Stormont’s Department of Health to collectively save seventy million pounds to ensure the books balance at the end of the financial year.

The trusts are set to reduce reliance on agency staff and locum doctors, while the number of hospital beds available are also due to be cut in some trust areas.The five sets of proposals were unveiled at a series of public meetings on Thursday afternoon. A public consultation exercise will now run for the next six weeks.

Many of the proposals focus on measures that will not impact front line services, such as administrative efficiencies. But all five trusts also put forward a number of proposals that will impact patients. Civil servants at the Department of Health have to work within the budget available. The region’s health service has an annual budget of more than five billion pounds, however the sector remains under enormous strain. The Belfast Trust’s plan aims to contribute twenty three point six million pounds of the required seventy million pounds savings. The Northern Trust, which is searching for thirteen million pounds in savings, is planning to reduce the number of acute hospital beds by sixteen to twenty and the number of rehabilitation beds by forty four.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/primary-school-children-offered-flu-13517006

It has been announced that all primary school children will be offered the flu vaccine from two thousand eighteen to two thousand nineteen to further protect against the spread of the virus.
During the last flu season children in Reception and Years One, Two and Three in Wales were all vaccinated against influenza by the school nursing service. But Minister for Social Services and Public Health Rebecca Evans has announced that Year Four pupils will also get the vaccine in two thousand seventeen to two thousand eighteen followed by pupils in Years Five and Six in two thousand eighteen to two thousand nineteen.

It found that the flu season arrived earlier – and peaked earlier – than the previous two years and circulated at “moderate” levels in the community. While there were forty nine reported outbreaks in care homes and hospital settings the report revealed that General Practitioner consultation rates and confirmed hospital cases were slightly lower than two thousand fifteen to two thousand sixteen.