Tests showed swine flu multiplies in greater numbers across the respiratory system, and causes more damage.

And instead of staying in the head like seasonal flu, it penetrates deeper into the respiratory tissues – making it more likely to cause pneumonia.

The University of Wisconsin study appears in the journal Nature.

It also suggests that swine flu may mimic the flu virus which caused the great pandemic of 1918, in which millions died.

The 1918 virus also had a greater ability than standard flu to cause damage to the respiratory system.

via BBC NEWS.

The Innovation Expo brings together NHS exhibitors from across England as well as leading healthcare companies, showcasing the very best of healthcare innovations from the UK and abroad.

Smart Pod’s revolutionary design takes the best features from the present day ambulance and combines them with revolutionary new functions including an expandable mobile treatment centre and Smart Infection Control along with a raft of clinical innovations that utilise state of the art communications technologies.

The ‘Smart Pod’ transforms into a mini treatment centre, providing fast treatment in an emergency or a major incident. It also fulfils the traditional function of an ambulance, treating patients whilst transporting them to hospital, where needed.

via Medical News Today.

Sam Price-Jones told South Holland District Council how the new trust status would mean staff and the public would be the members and they in turn would have a say on trust decisions and help improve the way local healthcare needs are met.

Eight “constituencies” for staff and five for the public would be formed, from which a council of governors would be elected or appointed who would work with the board of directors.

via Spalding Today.

Betty Henshall, of Hillgate, Stockport, died at Stepping Hill Hospital in December 2008.

Coroner John Pollard ruled at a inquest in Stockport that the 76-year-old died from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage.

But Mr Pollard questioned the ambulance coding system – which he called ‘daft’- after they coded Ms Henshall’s condition as ‘green’, meaning she faced a 60-minute wait for an ambulance.

via Manchester Evening News.

The 46 year-old, from Portskewett suffered compound fractures to her tibia and fibula bones in her lower left leg after slipping from decking in the family garden.

Her husband Dave, who branded the service “pathetic and ridiculous”, called for an ambulance at around 1.15am on Sunday, July 5. But his wife was destined to spend the small hours in agony, broken bone pushing against her skin, because despite three more calls, no-one arrived until around 7.30am.

Even then, Mrs Evans was denied much-needed morphine because the ambulance crew did not have the correct key to unlock the container it was kept in.

via Free Press Series.

The ambulance was rushing to an emergency with its lights and siren on when it was involved in a collision with a blue Mercedes SL500 on the B530 near Ampthill on Thursday (July 9).

via Bedford Today.

The Westmorland and Lonsdale MP complained to North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) after paramedics and hospital staff told him of their “exasperation” with current procedures.

Under existing rules, paramedics must follow computer-generated instructions which has meant patients being taken to Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI) when they could be treated at Westmorland General Hospital (WGH).

via From The Westmorland Gazette.

The crash happened at around 1.30pm at the junction of Finchley Road and Frognal Lane. It is understood the police car was travelling southbound on the Finchley Road and the ambulance was travelling eastbound towards Frognal when the crash happened.

Both cars were severely damaged in the collision and the roof had to be cut off the police car to free the driver.

via Hampstead and Highgate Express.

Ofcom has launched a consultation on the 111 number ahead of pilots which are expected to take place next year.

The Department of Health said the number would provide an alternative to 999 in cases where people do not need to go to A&E.

This could include when they need information about out-of-hours GP services and walk-in centres.

The number is not intended to replace NHS Direct, but take the pressure off 999.

Estimates suggest up to half of 999 calls do not need an emergency response.

via BBC NEWS .

The advantage lies in the ‘patient experience’. This we know to be a singular happening and despite a loud but solitary voice little is created beyond a minor ripple in the waters of progression and alas our public sector directors continue to rape what was fought for over many years. They have seen the future and the future is privatisation. It should be our mission to disrupt their otherwise effortless attempts to ensure a personal profit and foothold in such ventures. Despite Aneurin Bevan’s demise in the hearts and minds of such avaricious miscreants his work and that of all those who dreamt of social, healthcare and welfare provision managed to provide a platform for the truly hopeless to rise through and above such altruism and redefine it as something so monstrously self-serving. Too often our senior managers and moderate union representatives declare that times have changed and we need to be geared up and ready for the inevitable corporate approach requisite in the 21st century. Lies, more lies and filthier lies to come from partly-educated scum.

Posturing gravitas may appeal to a minority who hand-pick their apparatchiks not on the basis of capability but on their cronyism and fawning lickspittle qualities. They possess neither the ability to manage, implement or govern a single change within the public sector just the primal self and public-deceiving motivation necessary to reach the top, provide a private education for their own, a score card of boxes ticked and a CV likely to impress those of a similar ilk who represent their own – a minority callously devoted to harvesting a still-beating heart with which to personally profit. All of this is further strengthened by a failing economy both perversely and conversely as they appear to utilise the fear of redundancy amidst a recession better and more capable people couldn’t prevent.

Our senior directors would never cut it in the private sector yet require us to bear them to success in the ‘late’ NHS and provide assurance to none but their own grubby kind. They are shameless and pathological in their intent and all attempts by them to feather their own nests should be met by a silent, non-confrontational disruption in a style not too dissimilar to their own. Under the radar and into the bunker. Every bit as insidious as the very cancer that devours our public sector.

Ten years ago I recall a culture of ‘No blame, no shame’. This has undoubtedly been replaced by a more sinister and threatening directive and the paradox has been dressed-up as ‘best practice’ by a shabby, superficially polished gang of mendicants unfit for purpose who will strive to get their way painlessly using PR tricks and ridiculous posturing lightly peppered with laughable gravitas, sincere only to fools and Daily Mail readers.

There are so many people who care about the future of public sector domains who maintain an honest dialogue with management but are continually reappraising their own interpretation of the direction in which we travel. I believe that any dialogue has been severely compromised by the egregious response any civilised query evokes and it is their shame that will result in the failure to implement progression within our public sectors.

With a one-way dialogue evident it is time to disrupt the destructive and harmful yet cleverly marketed avaricious, self-delusional aspirations of senior public sector players. Not by sabotaging equipment, supplies or any other criminal activity but by towing the line and doing exactly what they say. They are idiots and they will fall as they benchmark themselves upon targets that mean nothing or are easily cheated. They are crooks and idiots worthy of little respect. The public will never know the true extent of or the degree to which they have been exploited, cajoled, humoured or insulted until the system falls over and the unaccountable (in real terms) are exposed and flagellated with a deserved cruelty only they are worthy of.

Public anger is rising yet our media continue in their failure to expose the true extent to which our services are being raped for singular benefaction but as our recession increases so will the dissatisfaction of the masses as they realise the truth behind public sector administration. It is undeniable that a top-heavy culture exists – a very well-paid top-heavy administration that needs scything back into proportion. Without such an army of auditors auditing all but the important matters (self-preservation once again) we may be able to provide ambulance services across the UK that deliver care and transport patients to hospitals that have not yet been down-graded to minor injury units thereby avoiding the expedient role ambitious managers lactate to.

We should have faith that only silly members of the public are fooled by buzzwords, helicopters and bright jumpsuits at the expense of short transit to what was once a hospital and now houses another bulging PCT.

A recent internal staff publication (you know the type – polished, whacked-out in Publisher and printed at great cost on thick, high quality paper) featured an article focused on appeasing staff frustration. It was imaginatively titled ‘Good things come to those who wait’. Such vacuous nonsense should be titled ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ solely in its dishonesty and delusionary promises. Who are these people? Self-appointed Santa’s? Tricksters and cheats expecting to be hauled along in their flower-bound carts as if possessing the sanctity of a Hindu god less used to such exploitation – grimacing reluctantly as a whoring equality and diversity department socially engineers their pox to another tick-box? We must remember that such enterprises are classless, racially un-unique and only fool the stupid and suck funds from vital, life-saving methodology and highlight the meaningless corporate necessities that sum up the painting by numbers, so-called diversity-led crap that cost ALL of us the services we require and deserve. These people are no-more racially aware than any of us. What unites all of us is that we pay taxes to the same ineffectual systems that rob us of what we deserve and while they play at social libertarianism with more than a hint of threatening fascism they deprive us of service, the very service they proudly declare devotion to.

Nazi’s with social degrees or simple incompetents dressed as the informed? Judging by the fact I would probably be disciplined for publicly discussing this issue via Paramedic UK as a working paramedic speaks for itself. I remain anonymous so as to mock the very organisation that has chosen to define itself as a ‘corporate’ body without public discussion or negotiation and it tells a tale so grim debate becomes a necessity.

I invite contributions from only those outside the diseased, self-felating non-descript rapist managers and public sector devolutionists replete with fingers-in-pie presently deconstructing our inheritance with impunity, assurity and unaccountability inviting instead the public and the professionals at levels consistent with open, unadulterated and unpolluted debate. Yes, this is a debate to which executive directors of health service trusts are excluded in the self-same unaccountable manner that we, the employees and public are excluded from. You are not invited and your reek will be self-evident in whatever disguise you choose to hide behind. After all, a wage exceeding 100k should be ample to sit and scoff. If not then publish another self-aggrandising journal and plan your next trip to the south of France. You stink and you are not welcome as you have failed in every way and rely, parasitically, upon the goodwill and vocational intent of your lower grade staff. You will of course die just like the rest of us alone but questioning exactly what you did during your time in the public sector. I can only hope that your pain is directly proportional to your crimes.

Scoot McEye, SRPara.

The views and opinions expressed on this website represent those of contributing authors. Each contributing author and other relevant person is acting solely in their individual private capacity. Any information presented, and any opinions aired, do not represent the views of ParamedicUK, any other Associate or any employing institution. Views and opinions should not be ascribed to ParamedicUK, to firms employing any individual Associate or contributing author, or to any other named firm or entity.