Today we feature a blog from our good friend, The Dental Elf, whose remit includes Head and Neck cancers. The psychological impacts of such cancers can be devastating, so we were interested to see a systematic review looking at the impact of psychosocial interventions on anxiety, depression and quality of life. Unfortunately, the bottom line [read the full story…]
Scientific studies comparing treatments for depression and depressive disorders keep the mental elves very busy. Most months we are asked to blog on about 3 newly published reviews on this hot topic. The interest in research on the treatment of depression comes as no surprise, when one considers that depressive disorders affect a staggering one-fifth [read the full story…]
In the Woodland we have previously looked at musical interventions for agitation in dementia and depression. In June 2013 the Cochrane Collaboration published a systematic review of musical interventions for preoperative anxiety. As may be expected, people awaiting surgical procedures often experience high levels of anxiety. This anxiety is important as it can result in [read the full story…]
It’s a well-known fact that elves are allergic to unhappiness, so the fact that there are at least 350 million sufferers of depression worldwide1 is quite a problem. That’s before we’ve even mentioned the crippling mortality, morbidity and economic impact that depression causes. The trouble is, our treatments for depression aren’t perfect. Less than a [read the full story…]
This report has been written in partnership with the Foundation Trust Network and the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. Its purpose is to show health care providers and commissioners how building partnerships with the voluntary sector can improve patient care, by working together to meet the five key areas of the NHS Mandate: [read the full story…]
A couple of years ago, I was involved in some work commissioned by the General Medical Council to create a website for doctors to help them to understand their duties under GMC guidance. Amongst the many striking things about this work was some video on the site taken of some doctors in training, attending a session [read the full story…]
Rational commissioning This report describes a project, led by Right Care, to involve surgeons in the commissioning decision-making process, because observations made by the Department of Health and Surgical Specialty Associations showed that there were inconsistencies in the rates of elective surgical procedures between Primary Care Trusts, and that sometimes existing surgical procedures were “classified [read the full story…]
Introduction When a child becomes ill, the first clinician they meet is most likely to be their GP. This report is the result of a collaboration between the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Department of Health to identify how to [read the full story…]
Research has consistently shown that access to healthcare services is poor for adults with learning disabilities and for those people who live in rural areas. The researchers in this study set out to find out whether adults with learning disabilities who lived in rural areas were at a double disadvantage. They looked at data from [read the full story…]
