Few foods on track to meet salt reduction targets, survey reveals

Bread rolls are the only manufactured foodstuff likely to meet stringent 2017 salt-reduction targets, research has revealed.

The food industry will miss almost every salt target set to lower the amount of the “hidden killer” in processed food.

A survey carried out by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) found that the only food group likely to scrape into the 2017 target range is “bread and rolls”. This means that by the end of this year they should contain no more than 1.13g of salt per 100g.

After examining all 28 categories of processed food, researchers could not find any other foodstuff coming close to meeting that target.

The government set up the public health responsibility deal in 2011 with the aim of encouraging manufacturers to self-regulate.

Targets for 2017 were set out in 2014 and Cash agreed to monitor the scheme independently by recording the salt content of common foodstuffs in UK shops and supermarkets.

The recommendations were designed to get British consumers eating no more than 6g of salt a day.

Health campaigners are now calling on Public Health England (PHE) to urgently set new targets for 2020 and push food companies to meet this year’s recommendations.

In their latest survey, doctors and scientists assessed salt levels on the typical supermarket shelf. In one of their more surprising findings they discovered that Galaxy Ultimate Marshmallow Hot Chocolate is saltier than seawater. A single serving contains more salt than a packet of crisps.

Looking at a shopping basket of everyday food items, the group found that for every unhealthy high-salt option, healthier lower sodium alternatives were also available.

In comparing the two sets of groceries overall, they found that there was a difference of 57g of salt between them.

Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London and chair of Cash, said the findings were a national scandal.

“The UK was leading the world in salt reduction, but PHE are doing nothing to ensure that the 2017 salt targets are met,” he said.

Katharine Jenner, a nutritionist and Cash’s campaign director , described salt as the forgotten killer.

“The findings from our FoodSwitch shopping basket survey are alarming and we are shocked to see that many food manufacturers and retailers are still failing to meet the salt reduction targets, despite having had years to work towards them,” she said.

“We congratulate the other, more responsible manufacturers that have successfully achieved them, or are on track to meet them by the end of the year – which shows it is possible. With only nine months to go, action must be taken now.”

PHE’s chief nutritionist, Dr Alison Tedstone, defended the decision to allow the industry to self-regulate.

“The food industry has reduced the amount of salt found in our foods by 11% in recent years, which is encouraging progress,” she said.

“We know there is more to do. This is why we’re talking to retailers, manufacturers, and the eating out of home sector on how they go further and faster to reaching the 2017 salt reduction targets.”

A diet high in salt has been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. NHS guidelines say that adults should aim to eat less than 6g of salt a day.

Last year, Cash recorded dangerously high levels of salt in dips and spreads commonly seen as healthy options.

It revealed that one supermarket brand of the hummus contained 1.6g per 100g.

Few foods on track to meet salt reduction targets, survey reveals

Getting Your Family’s Health On Track With Good Old Diet and Exercise

Getting Your Family’s Health On Track With Good Old Diet and Exercise

Property Office accessing NHS data to support track down illegal immigrants

Health care records. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

The Home Office has been given access to the NHS information of far more than six,900 men and women because 2010 as element of its efforts to track down illegal immigrants, prompting worries from patients’ and migrants’ rights groups.

Healthcare information are protected by information protection laws but new statistics show the Home Office has produced use of a small-noticed exemption in the principles to entry patients’ non-clinical data, with out any need to have for a court purchase.

The exemption makes it possible for officials to see the place folks have manufactured use of the well being services and when, but not the details of the clinical situations or medical interest they acquired.

Police forces and the National Crime Agency have also accessed these data, the figures present, in pursuit of perpetrators of severe crimes this kind of as murder or rape.

Individuals groups explained the use of NHS records by immigration and law enforcement officials could deter people from seeking remedy for themselves or their families, and so pose a public well being threat.

“We are concerned to discover that the House Office is searching for to track down likely immigration offenders by requesting their healthcare data,” mentioned Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Individuals Association. “While we are aware of the government’s need to have to clamp down on unlawful immigrants, we do not think that it need to be carried out by way of their medical and social care data.

“There is the really true danger that some sufferers might put off seeking medical assist for fear of their information becoming leaked. Furthermore, kids may endure if mother and father are reluctant to consider them for remedy when they are ill. The health and welfare of patients should usually be the priority and we must not introduce policies which could undermine the core ideas of our well being services.”

The House Workplace requests 1st emerged in a 91-web page independent report on data release policy at the Well being and Social Care Info Centre this month. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report located that among July 2010 and December 2013 the House Workplace made far more than 12,587 requests for data from the NHS’s Nationwide Back Office, which keeps simple data on all registered NHS patients.

The vast bulk of these requests for info – twelve,204 – had been accepted by the NBO, and information have been identified in 6,304 instances. Police and Soca (now the Nationwide Crime Agency) produced 14,951 requests more than the very same period. Information on requests prior to July 2010 had been destroyed, the report found.

The data are launched under an exemption to the Information Protection Act, which normally protects the confidentiality of NHS data, for the pursuit of serious crime. The NBO passes on basic data on the patient, such as the nearby NHS region the patient last had get in touch with with. The Residence Workplace or police force concerned is then free of charge to pursue more thorough data from nearby NHS agencies.

A supplemental release of info covering the first three months of 2014 showed the House Office had because overtaken police forces as the primary requester of wellness data, creating 725 requests for information versus 635 from police and the NCA.

Requests for NHS information

Ruth Grove-White, the policy director of the Migrants’ Rights Network, called the findings “disturbing” and questioned regardless of whether the information requests had been a sensible use of strained NHS sources.

“NHS workers are previously underneath stress and the last point we require is for them to be forced to act as immigration officers as nicely,” she mentioned. “This further proof that the House Office is making use of the NHS as a vehicle for immigration enforcement is disturbing.

“Some migrants who are entitled to entry the NHS are already too intimidated to look for the care they or their children want. In result, this approach discourages men and women from going to their GP or hospital when they need to have to, with wider public wellness implications.”

The House Workplace declined to react to queries about how many of the six,965 men and women whose NHS details it had acquired have been further pursued by means of their local NHS bodies or GP surgeries, but it defended its use of NHS data.

“We function closely with a wide variety of partners across government and the personal sector to make sure people who are in the United kingdom illegally are removed,” mentioned a spokesman. “Any requests for info are proportionate and in line with data sharing legislation.”

The National Crime Company stressed that its use of NHS records was strictly limited to severe crimes.

“The NCA utilizes National Back Workplace information as one of a amount of tactics and intelligence sources to trace identified fugitives,” explained a spokesman. “The use of these enquiries is proportionate and can only be produced for significant offences, for example murder and critical assault, and we make them only after all other checks which includes open source have also been pursued.”

The HSCIC stressed that the data requests covered only non-clinical information, and mentioned acquiring health-related records would call for a court purchase. It additional that it had by no means obtained an purchase seeking medical records.

Property Office accessing NHS data to support track down illegal immigrants

The new relaxation craze: Can staying amongst the lines maintain us on track?

We were clearly ahead of our time, chez nous; now it would appear that strung-out mothers across the Channel are likewise reaching for “art therapy” books, sold under an “anti-stress” banner.

“Because colouring-in requires focus, it is quite meditative and mindful,” concludes Sally Austen, a consultant clinical psychologist. “You are completely in the moment, not ruminating about the past or worrying about the future.

“There is also – and this is probably quite significant – no element of competition or possible failure, which is quite rare these days.”

In an age of social media, simply sitting still is also seldom an option, as the temptations to text or Tweet or send emails is too great. Here, again, staying between the lines can represent a refuge.

“Colouring in is as near to doing nothing as you can get,” says Austen. “It’s creative and peaceful; a lovely moment of inane happiness.”

Indeed, French Facebook and other social media are awash with tips and triumphs proudly posted online by colourers-in for the world to see, the way a silver-surfing grandma might Instagram a child’s first spidery drawing of a cat.

Except these are not children, but wives and mothers so wired from parenthood, profession and the pressure to be perfect that they need some sort of calming release.

At present, no fewer than seven of the current 15 best-selling titles in the nation’s “practical” category are colouring books, which now shift faster than cookbooks in France, according to trade publication Livres Hebdo.

But given that numerous studies have put the country among the world’s top consumers of antidepressants, perhaps there’s clinical merit in their colouring book craze.

Research carried out at San Francisco State University examined whether a diverse range of hobbies and pastimes could help employees recover from the demands of their jobs. The results, however, went beyond that.

The study, published last month in the Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, found that people who pursue creative activities outside the office not only deal with stress better but their performance at work improves, too.

“It can be rare to find that what we do in our personal time is related to our behaviour in the workplace, and not just how we feel,” says Kevin Eschleman, the organisational psychologist who led the study.

The employees studied were free to define creative activities however they wished, so the pursuits ranged from creative writing to painting to online gaming. None the less, in most cases, these activities had a positive knock-on effect on creative problem-solving, increasing the person’s sense of control and generating a more helpful attitude towards their colleagues.

“Despite this diversity, the respondents usually describe [their hobby] as ‘lush’, as a deep experience that provides a lot of things for them,” says Eschleman. “But they also talk about this idea of self-expression and an opportunity to really discover something about themselves.”

But if the activities to which people resort vary, the reality is that when stressed, we do instinctively reach for everyday comforts. So, this can be anything from eating too many biscuits, drinking to blur the edges of the day, or reinventing ourselves, virtually, by playing simulation games like The Sims.

There are also subconscious responses to, and regressions from, the pressures of adult life, at work. How else to explain the old boy members’ clubs that serve nursery puddings or the repackaging of the Harry Potter series for high-functioning professionals who are bizarrely enthralled by the adolescent goings-on at Hogwarts?

Indeed, the psychological props borrowed from childhood are everywhere: commuters clutching the sort of warm, milky drinks that Mother used to make; the roaring trade in apps such as Candy Crush; and, of course, the onesie, essentially a great big snuggly babygro for grown‑ups.

“The onesie is a cry for help, if ever I saw one,” is the verdict of Gary Fitzgibbon, a business psychologist.

“When people are under stress, they want to put their head in a place that reminds them of a time they had no pressures and an environment in which everything was provided for them. For the majority of people, that place is their childhood.”

Perhaps, then, observations that as a society we are becoming more infantilised and refusing to put away childish things has less to do with self-indulgence than justifiable anxiety.

In his book Big Babies: Or: Why Can’t We Just Grow up?, social commentator Michael Bywater points to the rise of the health and safety obsession, creating a world where bags of nuts warn that they contain, yes, nuts and hot-water taps are labelled “caution, hot water”, amid which grown-ups wander about plugged into iPods and headphones like zoned-out teenagers.

According to Fitzgibbon, adults are increasingly looking for temporary escapes from reality. “Whether it’s doing a crossword or a sudoku puzzle, a few minutes’ opting out will have a uplifting effect. Comedy and laughing aloud will also have a beneficial impact.”

This would certainly explain why films of dogs eating ice cream or baby pandas sneezing go viral on the internet, but it’s rather an ad hoc form of coping.

Institutional methods of stress‑busting, meanwhile, are specifically aimed at boosting endorphins, ranging as they do from in-house choirs that practise at lunchtime (it might be fun, but it also might improve the afternoon’s productivity) to team-building sports.

But some souls need calming down, rather than pepping up – to which end Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, has gone so far as to create a puppy room during exam periods. The animals, hired from Therapeutic Paws of Canada, could be stroked and cuddled by jittery students having problems with their nerves.

Harvard Medical School, no less, has a resident therapy dog, Cooper, a shi-tzu which can be borrowed, like a book from the library.

Although corporate kittens haven’t quite caught on to that over here, mindfulness has become a buzzword everywhere from the NHS to FTSE-100 companies, schools to overseas charities where emergency field workers find themselves under huge strain.

By definition, mindfulness aims to shut out the buzz. A brain-training technique based on using the breath to achieve mental clarity, it has been discussed in Parliament as a therapy in relation to both unemployment and depression.

It is less about zoning out than zooming in; paying attention to the present and decluttering the brain. To that end there are a dizzying variety of courses and classes and workshops that can be taken in order to learn how to pause for a moment.

Or, of course, the women of Britain could take our lead from the French in this, as in so many things, and settle down with a volume of Art Thérapie. And if it’s anything like as good as Retail Therapy, I bet we’ll be hooked until the very last page.

The new relaxation craze: Can staying amongst the lines maintain us on track?

Does your office have a private working track?

Adidas was founded over 65 many years in the past, but the common age of staff is just thirty many years previous.

The functioning surroundings is described as ”like going back to school” with a welcoming atmosphere and typical social events.

All workplace employees have use of various sporting services, which includes a personal operating track.

Does your office have a private working track?

New software program helps NHS trusts track patient suggestions

Interactions with individuals appear as conversations in an inbox, whether or not a patient mentions an organisation on Twitter, leaves a comment on a trust’s Facebook web page or leaves feedback on Care Connect or Patient View. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex Attributes

Sufferers are more and more employing social media channels this kind of as Twitter, Facebook, NHS Options, Patient Viewpoint and Google+, to depart feedback about NHS services, engage right with healthcare suppliers and interact with the NHS in actual-time.

We needed to develop anything that will assist NHS experts and the public make sense of all the diverse channels by placing every thing in one area with one set of controls.

HealthBerry is a response to the Francis report and the government’s dedication to make the NHS and social care accountable to service consumers.

Putting Individuals Very first, the NHS England company program for 2014-15, describes a new concentrate on gathering direct feedback from patients, their families and NHS personnel. And Robert Francis QC stressed the require to put individuals at the centre of their care by generating confident that patients’ voices are heard and employed to provide far better solutions.

We want to assist the NHS, social care, the third sector and personal health companies measure real-time patient suggestions greater. We consider the conversation about care and the NHS on social media channels can enhance the top quality of wellness and care companies and the patient expertise.

We also want to make the monitoring of social media significantly less demanding for health and social care organisations. Monitoring and reacting to social media should be simple, and which is what HealthBerry is about.

Over the subsequent couple of months, we will be operating with our pilot web sites to make sure that all of HealthBerry’s functions – the performance, documentation, coaching, assistance and delivery – execute as anticipated, and meet personal organisations’ demands.

We signed up 18 trusts in the first four days of launching, and we have noticed comparable development in our 2nd week, with yet another eight trusts and 3 clinical commissioning groups expressing an curiosity.

I feel component of this early achievement is that NHS professionals get it. They see it will conserve time. They can see it will liberate sources and supply them with a better feeling of awareness and handle.

We also have a straightforward indicator-up approach. NHS organisations register on-line by choosing their organisation from a pre-populated record of suppliers (trusts, commissioning groups, hospitals, GPs and so on), which then automatically back links historical and true-time patient suggestions from NHS Choices, Care Connect, Patient Viewpoint and social media channels – the complete process requires under two minutes.

Organisations can get started monitoring patient suggestions from multiple channels and engage with patients right away in actual-time. Interactions with sufferers appear as conversations in an inbox, no matter whether a patient mentions an organisation on Twitter, leaves a comment on a trust’s Facebook page or leaves suggestions on Care Connect or Patient Viewpoint. Organisations obtain email notifications each time a patient commences a new conversation, and can reply right from inside HealthBerry. The application functions on desktop, mobile and tablet units.

We’re quite thrilled about the long term and grateful to be doing work with companies such as Surrey and Borders partnership NHS foundation trust, one particular of many pilot sites that have been invaluable in assisting us to improve our solution.

I believe the up coming big emphasis for us will be analytics. We’re seeing a massive possibility to generate tailored dashboards for care organisations, mental health trusts, commissioning groups, GP practices and other suppliers. Above the next couple of months, we’ll be functioning with these organisations to realize what metrics we need to be tracking to greater boost how we measure and report patient engagement and suggestions.

Dawson King is chief exectuive of HealthBerry

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New software program helps NHS trusts track patient suggestions

FDA Grants Quickly Track Standing To Amgen Heart Failure Drug

Amgen announced yesterday that its new chronic heart failure drug ivabradine had been granted quickly track standing by the FDA. The organization mentioned the rapidly track designation, which is for drugs that treat serious conditions and fill an umet medical need to have, will assist the improvement and pace the assessment of the drug.

The firm mentioned it planned to file for FDA approval in the 2nd half of this 12 months. The drug has been marketed for a number of many years in Europe by Servier under the brand identify of Procoralan. Amgen has licensed the drug for business use in the US.

Ivabradine slows the fee of the heart by inhibiting the so-called “funny” recent within the heart’s all-natural pacemaker, the sinoatrial node. The main basis for Amgen’s application will be the SHIFT trial,  published in the Lancet in 2010. In that trial, 6558 patients with heart failure and a heart rate &gt 70 bpm had been randomized to ivabradine or placebo. After a median 22 months of followup, the rate of cardiovascular death or hospital admission for worsening heart failure was 24% in the ivabradine group and 29% in the placebo group (HR .82, 95% CI .75–0.90, p&lt0.0001). The SHIFT investigators concluded that the useful impact of ivabradine was due to its heart-price reducing result.

Even so, in an accompanying comment, John Teerlink was crucial of the trial, noting that a lot of sufferers had not obtained optimum healthcare therapy, specifically substantial dose beta blockers. “Whether ivabradine can enhance outcomes in addition to optimally managed heart failure therapies or its positive aspects relative to other therapies, particularly beta blockers, stays unknown,” he wrote.

FDA Grants Quickly Track Standing To Amgen Heart Failure Drug