Health News

Most of us know that including oily fish in our diet is important, regularly eating fish and an intake of omega 3 fatty acids has been linked to a reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease, for those who are not fish lovers, taking a fish oil supplement has been seen as a good alternative.

Research has uncovered that supplements do not offer the same protection. The results of 38 studies were analysed to try and identify the association between oily fish and cerebrovascular disease, this was a broad stury of just short of one million people over 15 countries. Those eating 2/4 portions of fish a week, saw their risk fall by 6%, however those who had 5 or more servings, saw their risk fall by 12%.

So maybe it is time for a rethink into how foods like makeral and sardines can be introduced into everyday dieting in the modern lifestyle. It does appear however, that the higher socioeconomic status the greater the chance of a fish enhanced diet. If you do not enjoy fish then the news is not so good.

NHS Disgrace

Well, having spent a reasonable amount of time being muted through the hospital system over the past few weeks, I'm scared for the future. My unilateral oophorectomy identified cancer, and with all the publicity surrounding raising awareness with fund raising events and help lines advertised, it would seem the Government supports helping people like me - wrong!

For all the good work, there is not enough research taking place, new news? No

For all the good work, patients, cancer sufferers or otherwise, get a better service now? No

For all the good work, we have a choice about our treatment? No

For all the good work, we have a voice as an inpatient? No

A hospital, the clean, safe place, where you feel like the panic from pain and suffering will be dealt with is a total fallacy, the ward I was on saw 3 different grades of staff, nurse, just one who is fully qualified, student nurse, one or two, and a health care assistant. Their role was purely to provide a concoction of medication to shut you up, and in my experience if you know something is really wrong, they pump you with more drugs until eventually you disolved into a pool of frustration at not being heard.

 The timetable, dish out medication, qualified nurse, these varied dramatically, Teresa, wow knew her stuff much more old skool. Stacey, what can I do today to get out of doing anything else at all. I saw seven different qualified nurses in my time there 3 of the 7 I wouldn't let take my dog for a walk.

Then doctors rounds, this is an interesting phenomonen, and the practice itself hasn't changed since I was a child, except for the fact that when things were delegated to nurses, the requests were not actually carried out and the doctor never checked the next day to see if it had been. A doctor took off my dressing and asked the nurse to replace it, she said it would be done straight away, it never happened, when I reminded the elusive Stacey she said she was too busy, when the doctor asked why my catheter was still in three days post op, a fumbled response wasn't even listened to, it did however take six hours after the nurse was told to deal with it, and only because I was constantly on the case.

The scariest thing for me was rolling around in pain and ringing for help, to have my buzzer turned off because I'd had my quota of painkillers, I was making a fuss about nothing and it was just post op wind, they had more important things to do, I asked to see a doctor and I was refused, is not the term a national health SERVICE so where was my service. I am now laid up in bed after a horrific week post discharge with a pelvic infection, the source of my pain, thanks for that!

The treatment by one particular nurse has left me feeling as if I never want to go back to hospital ever again, and have managed to avoid it this week despite an out of hours doctor trying to bundle me into an ambulance a few days ago. Praise my GP for knowing his onions.

After being told to get over the pain and deal with it, the student nurse from hell came to help me walk to the toilet, she sat the head of the bed up so quickly and so straight I was left bundled in a heap barely able to straighten, it may have helped if she had warned me first. I reached out to a chair to help me off of the bed, she moved the chair out of my reach, this had to be the ultimate revenge for calling a nurse to help me with the pain and she had the job of coming to see me.

There is so much more but some will be the basis for a formal complaint.

The story of the ward running will follow later, and the horrors I saw, they want to be thankful I wasn't undercover for Panorama, the PM needs to wake up and smell the coffee, whatever he thinks is in place doesn't actually work!

Have you had Yours?

Pomegranate that is -

If you suffer from high blood pressure, pomegranate is a great way to help your health, full of antioxidants, and a tasty way to keep your blood cells in order.

Drinking pomegranate juice and eating seeds can increase oxygen to the heart, so why don't we eat more? Well pomegranate seems to go through stages of fashion, in the seventies pomegranates were on everyones shopping list, come into the nineties and they were much harder to buy, now you can buy pomegranate salad, boxes of seeds to eat or sprinkle and multi packs of fresh pomegranates. So with so much aimed at improving our quality of life and improved health, why do we not all include them in our everyday diet.

However pomegranate can interfere with certail medications, so take care

Voting for the Police

On November 15th the public will be able to vote for Police and crime commissioners, as David Cameron said today, someone to be responsible for their local area regarding where the Police resources go and how to tackle crime locally. So with just 5 weeks to go, how many know about this? Clearly very few.

It seems, again, that this Government, the ConDems, will be passing authority to local fall guys, someone to blame when it all goes wrong, in those situations who would want the job? Those that have been sold it with promise of support and funding, who will hit the news when it all goes wrong, the new PCC.

Good luck to those that have put themselves forward, good luck to the public because we ill undoubtably be the first to find out the potential flaws, but it does now make a sense of the introduction of 101, local services rule! Hmm, excuse my sceptiscism.

Business nightmare

How is your business performing?
The current climate shows that default of loans from small business is on the increase, an indication that our economy is not performing as well as we would like. So why do small businesses fold and what help is available, because there are 27m small companies in the UK and all told take a considerable share of the UK workforce, yet because publicity is limited if any at all, when a business needs help, particularly if there is only a handful of employees they disappear and are forgotten quickly, yet owners are losing their homes and other personal assets because financial institutions are just not providing the service they should.

Starting up with a good idea is one thing, but how do you become a viable service? Is it a niche in the market, is it something of personal interest, are you competing in a field you know well, how about your staff? Are they loyal or do they say one thing and think another, is their performance making the grade, or as a small business owner do you feel guilty being tough on staff as the working environment has become interlinked with the employer employee lines becoming blurred.

If you need business advice with a free consultation, then contact us, with 38 years of business experience in house we can help you turn it around and grow.

http://www.aicoachingsolutions.com

Bereavement coaching

Have you lost a loved one and feel as if you need help to move on with life, or are you in a period of mourning and need help? Learning to live with losing someone close alongside living a life is not easy, but it is possible. Can we help you?

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/AI-Coaching-Solutions/159076700894656

Budget Cuts

Hospital appointments in the UK do not see the waiting lists of previous years, but can that really be the true picture, can waiting lists suddenly not make the news and the NHS has been reformed completely to serve everyone within a realistic time frame, currently 18 weeks. With emergency cover to see a consultant within a two week time frame.

About 15 years ago the waiting lists were dealt with in a different way, you would have an initial appointment but offered no follow up, instead you would call in and an appointment would be booked, clearly that didn't work as a long term solution. So what has happened to all those patients.

Well with the trust system each surgery pays for every referral to see a specialist, if you do not receive your appointment or miss it then that is it, no second appointment. So it is then a trip back to the surgery, they pay again and you get offered just one appointment.

I have been caught up in this process and it is a very unfair system for sure. I had been referred for an eye appointment but the letter hadn't arrived, I'd called the hospital and fortunately they told me when my appointment was, I attended, on time on the correct day, but on arrival was told the first appointment was 4 hours long! Because I hadn't received a letter I did not know so explained I had a driving test later that day and was told no I couldn't drive after seeing the specialist as it makes your vision blurry. They said they would make a note of it, and to ring the appointments desk, which I did, they said that I was recorded as did not attend and to have a further appointment it was back to the GP. I didn't bother, I wonder how many have been there too.

The latest research shows that GP's a re considered to be making unnecessary referrals, that hospital outpatients being sent for secondary care has increased by 19% and that an increase of 39% has been seen for consultant referrals. Some trusts are trying to reduce their financial outlay by introducing clinical triage, but it appears this could be a false economy meaning that some patients who need specialist care are seeing their referral delayed.

It was felt that intervention management schemes could cost the NHS more money overall, with the budget cuts looking to save up to £20bn this could be seen as a cut waiting to happen.

However, from personal experience the two week turn around does work, I saw the consultant two weeks after referral on 7th August by 17th September I'd had my operation. I think that is pretty good. Of course I have nothing to compare this to.

Giving up smoking

So why do we smoke?

We covered some of the reasons, but if you think of smoking in two groups it can be easier to narrow it down, the justified smoker and the habitual smoker. Do you honestly smoke because you want to, I'd say you have thought about giving up many times, even had a few trials of not smoking, possibly for a week or even two.

Giving up for a week isn't actually a huge challenge as your nicotine stores will see you through those days, and fired up by enthusiasm or bolstered by gum or patches, it can be a good start, for some this has success and leads to giving up for sometime. However if you cannot identify why you smoke, honestly and using analysis then how will you be able to stay away from it for the long term.

Some smokers can identify their weakness and others need help.

To really get to the root of this, you must find out why you had your first cigarette and why you continue to smoke, unacceptable reasons are - I enjoy it, I'm addicted, I've always smoked.

These are the reasons that you smoke that I am looking for, not the reasons you want to stop.