An estimated 680 men on remand in England and Wales should have been
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An estimated 680 men on remand in England and Wales should have been treated in a psychiatric hospital, including 380 with serious mental illness, according to the survey.Sir David Ramsbotham, speaking at the launch of the report yesterday, said: "In report after report after report I have been concerned that the standard of health care in prisons has not matched [that in the NHS]. Prisoners are going to come out again and if we have not dealt with their health needs they are not only going to be a burden on the NHS but will also present a continuing risk to the public."He said health facilities in some prisons were "disgraceful", and that there was a shortage of medical staff and a lack of services for specific health problems such as HIV. "To my mind, £25m is inadequate to meet those needs," he said.. The number of tuberculosis cases in Britain's biggest single outbreak for two decades has increased sharply to 50 following an extension of the screening programme.
The number of tuberculosis cases in Britain's biggest single outbreak for two decades has increased sharply to 50 following an extension of the screening programme.Another 18 pupils were found to have the disease after tests on the final 550 older students at the Crown Hills Community College in Leicester.Another 40 students showed signs of developing the disease and have been put on antibiotics They were undergoing continued screening. Public health officials said yesterday they believed that one infectious pupil could have been the source for the outbreak.The new total of confirmed cases includes 44 students, four family members and two teachers. A six-year-old girl at a Leicester school died of TB last year.Dr Philip Monk, consultant in communicable diseases, said: "We don't believe there is an ongoing risk. We are detecting these cases at the very early stage of the disease, which is not infectious."This is a source that has been very infectious in the school but we are sure we now have this outbreak under control There is no need for children to be kept away from school. All of these people will have been exposed two or more months ago."It is understood that only two students had developed the infectious form of TB.The first TB cases were detected through a screening of 700 pupils in the lower years of Crown Hills at the start of April. After the high number of positive results, tests were brought forward for the remaining 550 in upper years and 70 staff to last week.The new cases came from these tests. All should have been vaccinated against TB as part of the school's programme and have up to 80 per cent protection from the disease.Three children at other schools have been diagnosed with the disease but there was no connection with the outbreak at Crown Hills..
One of the commonest operations of childhood the insertion of grommets to treat glue ear may be worthless, researchers reveal today. One of the commonest operations of childhood the insertion of grommets to treat glue ear may be worthless, researchers reveal today. A study has found that the operation to insert the tiny valves in the eardrums of children with middle ear infections "does not measurably improve developmental outcomes" up to the age of three.The finding raises doubts about the wisdom of exposing young children to the risks of the surgery when there is no benefit. However, benefits from the surgery could still emerge as the children grow older.The history of grommets is one of the best demonstrations of how medicine is driven by fashion as well as science. The operation was introduced 30 years ago, as a means of draining the fluid that can build up behind the eardrum following ear infections that may affect hearing.Past research suggested that children with persistent ear infections were slower to talk and learn new skills, as their development was hindered by deafness.
The fashion for surgery to remove adenoids and tonsils had sharply declined, and grommets made new work for the idle hands of ear, nose and throat surgeons.The fashion for grommets rose rapidly, peaking in the mid-1980s. And although it has declined since, it remains a popular procedure. In the United States, latest figures show that 313,000 operations for grommets were carried out on children aged under three at a cost of $750m (£500m). In England, figures collected by the Institute for Hearing Research in Nottingham show 12,000 operations were carried out on children aged up to five in 1998-99, and 19,000 in children aged between five to ten years.The new study, by one of the world's leading experts on hearing problems in children, Jack Paradise, of the University of Pittsburgh, is reported in The New England Journal of Medicine. Dr Paradise and colleagues selected 429 children with persistent glue ear and allocated half for immediate operation. The remainder were monitored for nine months, and only given the operation if the problem persisted.The results showed that although grommets reduced the incidence of glue ear in the treated group, they did not improve their scores on tests of behaviour, cognition, language, parent-child stress nor speech.Editors of The Journal say: "The results of this study indicate that the procedure has little long-term benefit with respect to hearing, behaviour, or cognitive development."A second study by the same research team showed children, who had their adenoids removed at the same time as grommets were inserted, were half as likely to suffer a recurrence requiring further hospital treatment.Dr James Perrin, of the MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston, commented on this finding also published in The Journal that if doctors are recommending grommets, they may wish to consider more substantial surgery to include the removal of adenoids..
Aromatherapy is all in the mind, according to German scientists who found that water had the same effect as expensive oils if patients believed it was the real thing. Aromatherapy is all in the mind, according to German scientists who found that water had the same effect as expensive oils if patients believed it was the real thing. A team led by Josef Ilmberger, a psychologist at the University of Munich, found "no significant difference" in the reaction times of people who were exposed to essential oils claimed by aromatherapists to make you more alert, and those simply given a dose of water.The results imply that aromatherapy incorporates a "placebo effect" widely recognised in medicine whereby people who believe that they are receiving a wonder drug will actually become healthier than those told they are receiving an inactive sugared pill. Clinical trials of new drugs have to be "blind" so that neither the doctor nor the patient knows whether they are receiving a drug sample or a placebo.But Helena Trump, a spokeswoman for the International Federation of Aromatherapists and a practising clinical aromatherapist, insisted that the tests failed to take into account "other factors which can't ever be scientifically proven."I'm not saying that the placebo effect doesn't come into it," she said. "But there have been other studies which have shown that there is definitely something happening. There is a definite healing effect, which I have experienced with patients. It might be cheaper to use water than oils, but there are other effects, really there are."Dr Ilmberger's studies, reported today in New Scientist magazine, tested volunteers who wore surgical masks.