Staff at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust have undertaken the mammoth task of re-writing more than 8,000 patient letters to make them more user-friendly.
Previously, many patients would read the first line of the letter with the specifics of the appointment but didn’t read beyond this. It took the three-person Central Support Team at the RD&E ten months to re-work the letter for all departments, making it read more simply and highlighting the key messages such as what to bring to the appointment. They did the work on top of their normal day jobs because they...
An NHS communications and community relations manager from Exeter has been recognised by the NHS Leadership Academy for the way he reaches out to involve local communities in decisions about healthcare.
Nick Pearson has been shortlisted for a prestigious ‘emerging leader of the year award’.
The award recognises NHS staff who have gone above and beyond in their role to make a difference to the way patients are cared for.
Nick’s role is to involve people in decisions about healthcare.
He said: “I always strive to put patients and those that use NHS services at...
Sonia Davidson-Grant has been appointed as a designate non-executive director to serve on the board of Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust.
Sonia is an independent consultant and programme manager with significant public sector experience in the United Kingdom and overseas. She is skilled in leading major change programmes, strategic planning and providing specialist advice on governance and sustainability issues.
“I am delighted to accept the role,” said Sonia. “As a resident of Ilfracombe, I know how important local health services are to our communities.
Smokers in Exeter who are thinking about quitting but were too late to join the 28-day Stoptober challenge are being urged to visit their local stop smoking clinic for free specialist advice.
The Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust supports people to quit through its weekly stop smoking clinics across the county.
Specialist advisers Denise Veen and Sarah Leggatt, from the Trust’s Health Promotion Devon team, run clinics at two venues in Exeter:
St Sidwell’s Centre, Sidwell Street – Monday (9am to midday), Wednesday (9am to 4pm)
The Gro Company, makers of the award-winning Grobag, are taking their support for Safer Sleep education to an even wider audience by providing all new UK parents with a comprehensive guide to help them establish their safer sleep routine.
Compiled by the experts at safer baby sleep charity, The Lullaby Trust, the guide will be distributed by Bounty in the pack which mums receive just after the birth of their child. For several years The Gro Company have distributed the guide nationally through the NHS and other authorities but has now provided a dramatically increased number of...
Neil Parish, MP for Tiverton and Honiton, has joined leading UK charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s call to make the issue of access to drugs a top priority, and help put breast cancer back on the agenda. Neil Parish joined more than 70 MPs at a reception hosted by Breakthrough Breast Cancer on Tuesday 8 October at the House of Commons. There, the charity called on the Government to bring about a new focus on breast cancer, with a priority of introducing an equitable system through which effective new treatments are routinely made available to patients. Earlier this year Breakthrough...
Continuity of care so that all patients see the same GP with whom they build up a relationship over time could help reduce delays in the diagnosis of cancer in primary care. In an essay published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, a team of primary care experts write that this, together with longer consultations and better distribution of information to GPs about referral pathways or new services could have a wide reaching impact on the early diagnosis of cancer and survival. Yet, write the authors, recent changes in the structure of the NHS and the continuing pressure on...
A BBC documentary to be screened this autumn will give an eye-opening insight into what sexual health staff in Exeter deal with on a daily basis.
Staff from the Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust are appearing in the second series of Unsafe Sex in the City, which starts tonight (Wednesday 2 October) at 9pm.
The fly-on-the-wall documentary follows doctors, nurses and other staff from the GU medicine and sexual health clinic in Sidwell Street and focuses on how they are tackling sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among young people.
Devon’s Crealy Great Adventure Park is holding its annual Emergency Services Weekend, inviting employees of the Emergency Services and NHS along to visit the multi award winning family attraction completely free on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th September! If you work within the Fire Service, Police or NHS, you can enjoy free admission and your immediate family, including parents, partners and children, can visit the South West’s number one family attraction at a discounted rate of £9.95.
Devon’s Crealy Great Adventure Park has organised this special day as a sincere thank you for the...
Devon’s Crealy Great Adventure Park is holding its annual Emergency Services Weekend, inviting employees of the Emergency Services and NHS along to visit the multi award winning family attraction completely free on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th September! If you work within the Fire Service, Police or NHS, you can enjoy free admission and your immediate family, including parents, partners and children, can visit the South West’s number one family attraction at a discounted rate of £9.95.
Devon’s Crealy Great Adventure Park has organised this special day as a sincere thank you for the...
