The NHS Nightingale Hospital Exeter will provide a range of services from autumn 2021 to help tackle waiting lists across Devon and the wider South West region.
After being decommissioned as a COVID-19 hospital earlier this year, the Nightingale was purchased by NHS organisations across the South West. It has since been used to provide diagnostic scans to local people, host a COVID-19 vaccine trial and train overseas nurses.
Local health bosses confirm that plans are well underway to extend these services later in the year, to include planned orthopaedic surgery,...
The Prime Minister has signalled a very clear move away from coronavirus restrictions being the law, and instead indicated that people must be personally responsible for their behaviours and actions in order to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
Nationally, Ministers and Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, have been describing what they think that means.
Steve Brown, Director of Public Health Devon explains: “We’re moving to a new chapter in the management of the pandemic, where we are no longer instructed by regulation to follow rules, and instead we are...
People in Devon are being urged to only go to their local emergency department in immediately life-threatening cases.
The NHS in Devon is under severe pressure at present due to several factors, meaning GP surgeries, hospitals, community health services, mental health services and social care are all extremely busy.
High numbers of emergency attendances, combined with the need for some health and care staff, or their children, to self-isolate and the impact of Covid-19 admissions are affecting services.
NHS Devon Clinical Commissioning Group’s Lead Clinical...
Michelin-starred chef Michael Caines MBE is backing a campaign by Visit Devon and the NHS encouraging people working in the hospitality industry to have the Covid-19 vaccination.
Michael Caines is one of the UK’s most acclaimed chefs and has two Devon hospitality businesses; Lympstone Manor contemporary country house hotel overlooking the Exe Estuary, and Mickey’s Beach Bar and Restaurant in Exmouth. Both have a number of young adult workers who have only recently become eligible for the Covid-19 vaccination.
Michael said: “As one of the sectors that have been most...
Vaccine centres in Devon are offering “grab a jab” walk in clinics this weekend, adults of all ages can get their vaccinations without needing an appointment or an NHS number.
As the nation gears up for the removal of Covid restrictions in July, it is more important than ever that people get both doses of their vaccine, to protect themselves and those around them.
The clinics will offer people having their first jab either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The walk-in clinics allow people to attend at a time that is convenient for them and means groups of friends can...
As the largest ever NHS vaccination programme enters its last lap Devon’s Primary Care Medical Director Alex Degan has encouraged local residents to come forward for their first jab and remember to get their second vital and lifesaving dose.
The plea comes as people aged 40 and over are now able to book in their second jab on the national booking system from eight weeks after their first dose.
With everyone over the age of 21 now able to book in for the lifesaving vaccine, eligible people are being urged to get their first or second jab as soon as possible.
Three quarters of adults in Devon have now had their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
More than 750,000 first doses had been given up to 23 May and almost half a million second doses.
The milestone has been reached less than six months since the first vaccine was administered in Devon on 8 December 2020 to 81-year-old Kathleen Viney.
Since then vaccines have been delivered in a huge variety of places, including a mosque, bus, sports centres and grounds, a garden centre, pub, pharmacies, a town hall, hospitals and events venues.
The NHS in Devon has received a funding boost from a national programme to support its work in tackling long waiting lists for eye and joint surgery caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Health and care partners in the county are receiving £11.3million from the new national Accelerator Systems Programme (ASP) to spend on three initiatives aimed at further reducing waiting times for certain types of operation in Devon, Somerset, Cornwall and Dorset.
Learning from what works well in Devon and other sites nationwide will then help form a blueprint for the recovery of elective...
Ride On Cycling for All has been awarded £4,000 from the South West Water Community Fund Project to provide free bike check sessions to NHS staff.
A total of 198 staff at community hospitals in Crediton, Tiverton, Honiton, Exmouth, Dawlish, Teignmouth, and Newton Abbot will benefit from 18 free ‘Dr Bike’ events between June and October.
Dr Bike sessions consist of 30-minute slots in which mechanics carry out a 20-point safety check, making minor adjustments to improve the smooth running of bicycles. Ride On does not do commercial servicing, so if further work is required...
Being able to regisister with a NHS dentist in Exeter is now a thing of the past with the Barnfield Hill Dentist Surgery being the latest practise to dispense with its NHS patients.
The nearest dentist offering to treat new NHS patients is now in Taunton some 28 miles away.
How on earth are the elderly, infirm and less fortunate members of our community supposed to access this vital care.
Please take the time to contact and complain to the Health Secretary, your MP and your local councillors.
