World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned against vaccine nationalism, as countries across the world secure early access to promising COVID-19 vaccines. The WHO director-general called on all countries to work collectively to end the pandemic, by sharing finites supplies “strategically and globally”. “No one country has access to research and development, manufacturing and
NHS chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, has announced plans for a £160m initiative to roll-out ‘COVID-friendly’ cancer treatments for patients across the UK. The money will be used to pay for treatments, which do not have as big an impact on patients’ immune systems but require less hospital visits compared to other drugs. Thereby meaning
New data released by Health Education England (HEE) has shown that there were 3,441 GP specialty training places were accepted in 2020, compared to 2,891 a year ago. With one more recruitment round to go, HEE is now on track to beat its target for recruiting 3,500 doctors in training to general practice this year,
Vertex has achieved an agreement with NHS England to reimburse its triple combination therapy Kaftrio (ivacaftor/tezacaftor/elexacaftor) in combination with Kalydeco (ivacaftor), should the medicine win European approval. The new expanded agreement includes reimbursed access to Vertex’ currently licensed medicines – Kalydeco (ivacaftor), Orkambi (lumacaftor/ivacaftor) and Symkevi (tezacaftor/ivacaftor), as well as the triple combination therapy if
Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has launched a public consultation on a “new-look, more user friendly” Code of Practice. The Code is designed to help govern the pharma industry’s conduct in the UK through self-regulation and reflects the sector’s commitment to operate in a professional, ethical and transparent manner. The ABPI is proposing to
NHSX, NHS Digital and Microsoft have signed a ‘landmark’ deal which will save the NHS ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ and enable all eligible organisations in England to access Microsoft 365 digital tools. According to NHS Digital, the agreement ‘guarantees significant cost savings for both individual NHS organisations and the NHS as a whole’, and
According to Cancer Research UK, approximately 2.4 million people in the UK are currently waiting for cancer screening, tests or cancer treatment. The charity says COVID-19 has caused ‘enormous disruption’ to cancer services throughout the UK, with delays to cancer treatment, screening and diagnosis, and ‘huge decreases’ in urgent referrals to hospital of patients with
The government has announced that certain NHS patients with coronavirus will soon be able to access Gilead’s remdesivir in a bid to speed up their recovery. The drug is currently being tested in clinical trials around the world, with early data showing it can shorten the time to recovery by about four days. The Early
According to new NHS research, people with type 1 diabetes are more likely to die of Covid-19 than those with type 2, thereby confirming that diabetes significantly increases coronavirus sufferers’ risk of dying. The study also mentions that almost a third of all deaths from coronavirus among people in hospital in England during the pandemic
NHS England has confirmed four new integrated care systems (ICS) in England, joining the 14 already in existence plus two devolved health systems in Greater Manchester and Surrey. The action leads to around half of England’s population now being served by such a system, including the whole of Yorkshire (with the confirmation of an ICS
