Every young UK cancer patient spending this Christmas in hospital can look forward to receiving some very special gifts.
Playing Santa for the eighth year, The Laura Crane Cancer Trust will ensure that no 13-24-year old sufferer on a ward is forgotten.
And the 2014 effort will be the biggest yet with 500 presents set to be delivered, including gift boxes to the youth cancer unit at Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in Exeter.
Volunteers for the small national charity based in Huddersfield will choose, buy and wrap gifts, then send them to 39 hospitals across the...
A scheme offering ‘books on prescription' to people with mental health problems has been hailed as a major success.
Last year Devon County Council teamed up with leading independent charity The Reading Agency and the Society of Chief Librarians to help launch the national ‘Reading Well Books on Prescription’ scheme, which aims to use reading as a tool to help those who suffer from conditions such as depression, anxiety, stress, phobias and some eating disorders.
Since then loans of self-help books in the ground breaking scheme have more than doubled, reaching around 275,000...
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a novel genetic cause of severe obesity which, although relatively rare, demonstrates for the first time that genes can reduce basal metabolic rate - how the body burns calories.
Previous studies (performed by David Powell and colleagues at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals in Texas) demonstrated that when the gene KSR2 (Kinase Suppressor of Ras 2) was deleted in mice, the animals became severely obese. As a result of this research, Professor Sadaf Farooqi from the University of Cambridge's Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic...
Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) member GP practices have been rated among the highest in the country – by the patients they serve.
A national survey showed that patient experience of local doctors’ surgeries in Devon was consistently better than the England average.
Almost nine in ten Devon patients said they would recommend their GP surgery to someone who has just moved to the area and 95 per cent said they had confidence and trust in their GP.
A total of 84 per cent of patients in Devon reported they found it easy to get...
Nuffield Health Exeter Hospital is set to launch a unique service to local patients who require common surgical procedures.
For the first time, patients choosing to have their care outside of the NHS will have no time limits placed on their aftercare following procedures like hip replacements or hernia repair.
The Exeter hospital, part of the Nuffield Health Charity, is launching the service in light of recent high profile concerns about patient care, both in the Independent sector and the NHS. Nuffield Health says it is simply making official its ethos of always putting...
The Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital has reminded visitors that it is experiencing an increase in patients admitted with diarrhoea and/or vomiting caused by the norovirus.
Norovirus is widespread in the local community at the moment. Norovirus spreads from person to person extremely easily and causes outbreaks in hospital which result in wards being closed to further admissions. There are now several wards affected.
In order to protect both patients and visitors, the hospital is restricting the number of people who visit patients.
The RD&E is experiencing an increase in patients admitted with diarrhoea and/or vomiting caused by the norovirus. Norovirus is widespread in the local community at the moment. Norovirus spreads from person to person extremely easily and causes outbreaks in hospital which result in wards being closed to further admissions. There are now several wards affected.
In order to protect both our patients and visitors we need to restrict the number of people who visit patients. On all of our wards (with the exceptions of ITU, Bramble Unit, Maternity and Neonatal Unit where the usual...
A health centre has undergone a major telecommunications revamp to help further improve customer service for its 10,000 patients.
Roborough Surgery, in Eastcote Close, Plymouth, has had a new call handling system installed by IP Office Ltd based in Exeter, which hopes to boost service efficiency. The new installation was completed last week and now call-handling is via a full commercial contact centre.
Karen Avery, reception manager at Roborough Surgery, said: “The new system will be up and running fully from July 7, but certainly what we are getting at the moment we are...
