Hibees proclaim to walk 500 miles
Hibernian staff and players have joined forces with health website Living it Up to walk 500 miles … and they are challenging fans to walk 500 more! Continue reading Can Hibs fans walk 500 more?
Tag: NHS Lothian
Review of children’s inpatient services – public meetings
NHS Lothian is to hold a series of public meetings this month as part of a review of inpatient hospital care for children. Continue reading Review of children’s inpatient services – public meetings
A new heart for Pennywell
Green light for £1.5 million Shopping Centre transformation
Muirhouse Shopping Centre is to be transformed through a £1.52 million Regeneration Grant, it’s been announced. The cash will see sections of the run-down centre demolished and replaced to give the area a new ‘civic heart’ (writes Dave Pickering). Continue reading A new heart for Pennywell
World follows Edinburgh’s lead!
City leaders sign up to ambitious green charter
The signing of the climate agreement by 190 countries over the weekend has been hailed as a breakthrough for the planet. True, there’s some scepticism over the optional elements of the deal and some believe the Paris agreement just doesn’t go far enough, but there’s universal acceptance that something has to change. Continue reading World follows Edinburgh’s lead!
Green light for Partnership Centre
Partnership Centre construction starts next Spring
Around £330 million of investment in health and education facilities has been given the go-ahead by Deputy First Minister John Swinney. Among the projects to be given the green light is the long-awaited North West Partnership Centre in Muirhouse (above). Continue reading Green light for Partnership Centre
Be healthwise this winter
Dr Owl takes flight across Scotland!
People in Edinburgh and the Lothians are being encouraged to get Healthwise with the official return of wise Dr Owl! Continue reading Be healthwise this winter
Milestone reached as Penumbra wins health award
Penumbra Milestone wins innovation award
An Edinburgh service for people with Alcohol Related Brain Damage (ARBD) has been recognised for its innovative approach at this year’s Scottish Health Awards, held in the capital this week. Continue reading Milestone reached as Penumbra wins health award
Pioneering advice project helps boost low-income household budgets
“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.” – Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian
Two Lothian projects that began with a midwife helping mums improve their nutrition have evolved into a support network ensuring low income families access thousands of pounds of unclaimed entitlements.
The projects in Leith and West Lothian have each had a welfare rights adviser working since March with a team of NHS Lothian, council and voluntary sector workers.
The welfare rights advisers are funded by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) as part of its Tackling Money Worries programme.
In Leith, Granton Information Centre (GIC) has provided money and welfare rights advice to 89 families referred by midwives, health visitors, Dr Bell’s Family Centre, Citadel Youth Centre, nurseries and early years centres, and working with Edinburgh Community Food.
For these families the total financial gain during 2015-16 is projected to be £404,000, or an average of £4,500 per client. The maximum financial gain for one client so far has been £15,000.
This is in addition to the support GIC (pictured below) has already provided to the most vulnerable families in the North Edinburgh area, who are not included in these figures.
Citizens Advice Bureau West Lothian has been supporting families in West Lothian in a similar project, also funded by SLAB. In that project around 200 clients have gained £300,000, an average of almost £5,000 per client.
Over half of those accessing support for the first time have been in work, and were not aware of their unclaimed entitlements (e.g. tax credits, benefits) and other help available (e.g. advice about debt, access to hardship funds).
The figures have been released during Challenge Poverty Week 2015 which aims to raise awareness of poverty and to highlight the great work that community organisations are doing to help those in crisis.
Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian, said the success of the advice projects illustrated the importance of the NHS and other services working with welfare rights advisers, and could be repeated in many other parts of the UK.
“This work, which started with a single midwife focusing on ensuring families were claiming food vouchers they were entitled to, has expanded into a sophisticated package of support that we are aiming to offer to hundreds of families over the coming year.
“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.
“With hundreds of thousands of pounds secured for families, and more to come, we are taking practical steps to help families tackle the consequences of poverty.”
The Lothian projects were formed following work started with Healthy Start food and vitamin vouchers, a UK-wide scheme designed to improve nutrition for low income families. Across the UK around a quarter of eligible families miss out on these valuable vouchers, with the number of pregnant women and children under four years old in receipt of vouchers falling over recent years. In Lothian, however, after concentrated work with NHS Lothian staff and families, the number of pregnant women in receipt of vouchers increased from 294 in March 2014 to 368 in July 2015.
The work started with simple insights from a single midwife about how to make the application process more reliable, and secure vouchers for women earlier in pregnancy.
From 10 weeks of pregnancy to the child’s fourth birthday Healthy Start vouchers are worth up to £899 in total.
With 76 more women benefitting across Lothian as a result, this work has boosted family budgets by tens of thousands of pounds; this in addition to the hundreds of thousands secured through the Tackling Money Worries work. Vouchers can be spent on fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, milk and formula feed. Vitamin vouchers are provided separately.
This work, part of the Scottish Government Early Years Collaborative, provided insights that have now been applied to much greater effect through the Lothian Tackling Money Worries projects by providing families with money and welfare rights advice.
Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival opens today
Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival launches today – World Mental Health Day
A national Ats and Film Festival tackling the stigma of mental health opens in Edinburgh this weekend, celebrating its ninth year.
Over 60 events are scheduled to take place across Lothian as part of the 2015 Mental Health Arts and Film Festival, making it one of the largest social justice festivals in the world, (SMHAFF) with performing arts, literature, photography, comedy and dance all set to feature.
The Festival officially opens today – World Mental Health Day – and this year explores the theme of ‘passion’
Linda Irvine Strategic Programme Manager, Mental Health and Wellbeing, NHS Lothian, said: “One in four people in Scotland will experience mental health problems at some point in their life but it is still something which attracts significant stigma.
“Through the many powerful, inspiring and provocative events taking place this year, the Festival aims to open up conversations about mental health and go some way towards challenging discrimination.”
Gail Aldam, Festival Manager, Scottish Mental Health and Arts Festival, said “We are delighted with the scale and scope of the events taking place in Edinburgh and Lothian this year and are struck by the passion that the planning team have for using art to give a voice to marginalised groups, challenging social injustice and instigating change.
“There really is something for everyone in the programme, offering an inspiring range of arts activities from spoken word to visual arts to music, across the region.”
Highlights of this year’s Festival include:
- Out of Sight, Out of Mind A series of powerful and compelling exhibitions taking place at venues and galleries across Edinburgh featuring work from artists with experience of mental health issues. Returning to the Festival for a third year, these events aim to get us thinking and talking about mental health and challenge preconceptions.
- A Play, A Pie and A Pint: Decent, a play by Linda Duncan McLaughlin has a special five day run at the Traverse (Tues 20th-Sat 24th Oct)
- To celebrate Arthur Miller’s centenary, Rapture Theatre present a new production of The Last Yankee, one of the legendary writer’s final great plays which is touring throughout Lothian.
- Rally & Broad An eclectic mix of spoken word, authors and music, the line-up features LOKI, one of Scotland’s most powerful and political performers (Fri 23rd Oct, Bongo Club, Edinburgh)
- In the Shadow of the Castle an evening of spoken word reflecting on the Gretna train disaster in the spectacular setting of Edinburgh Castle’s Great Hall (Thurs 22nd Oct)
- The Wellbeing Mela A free, fun, family day to celebrate diversity and promote positive mental health and wellbeing amongst Edinburgh’s varied minority ethnic communities. Music, dance, complementary therapies, relaxation workshops and lots more (Sunday 11th Oct, Out of the Blue)
- Push Me Pull Me Join the Writing Mums, poet Jenny Lindsay and singer-songwriter Polly Phillips, for an evening of prose and poetry (Wed 28th Oct, Dunbar Library)
There is also a wide ranging film programme curated from the more than 400 entries submitted to the Festival by filmmakers from across the globe. The winners will be recognised at a special awards ceremony hosted at the Filmhouse on 29 October.
Highlights of the film programme include the Scottish premiere of documentary Dancing With Maria, telling the story of Argentinian dancer Maria Fux who welcomes dancers from all backgrounds, including men and women with physical and mental impairments, to her Buenos Aires studio and Ida’s Diary – a powerful film that has been used by many mental health organisations for training and awareness raising purposes.
Details of all events taking place as part of this year’s Festival can be found at: www.mhfestival.com
WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO)
World Mental Health Day 2015
Thousands of people with mental health conditions around the world are deprived of their human rights. They are not only discriminated against, stigmatised and marginalised but are also subject to emotional and physical abuse in both mental health facilities and the community. Poor quality care due to a lack of qualified health professionals and dilapidated facilities leads to further violations.
The theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day, observed on 10 October, is “Dignity in mental health”. This year, WHO will be raising awareness of what can be done to ensure that people with mental health conditions can continue to live with dignity, through human rights oriented policy and law, training of health professionals, respect for informed consent to treatment, inclusion in decision-making processes, and public information campaigns.
Minister for Sport, Health Improvement and Mental Health, Jamie Hepburn comments on World Mental Health Day:
“On World Mental Health day, I am proud to be the first Scottish minister with mental health in my job title. While this is a sign of how seriously we take this issue – I want us to be judged on the actions, not words.
“Demand for services is increasing significantly. The number of people seen by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services has risen by 30 per cent in the last year – more than 1,000 extra patients in the quarter ending June 2015. To respond to this we are investing heavily in the workforce. For example, we’ve seen a 70 per cent increase in the number of CAMHS psychologists working in Scotland’s health service since 2009/10.
“Yes, there are challenges, but we have also made great progress. Waiting times have decreased significantly, we have better data to drive improvement, and the number of deaths by suicide are their lowest level since 1977. This doesn’t mean we’re complacent. More progress is needed and we continue to work with health boards to attract more staff and bring waiting times down further. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve committed to invest an extra £100 million in mental health over the next five years. This funding will also be used to promote wellbeing, improve patient rights and develop better responses to mental illness in primary care.
“We’re moving towards the end of our current mental health strategy and are assessing what the strategy has achieved. Once we have a clear picture of our progress against the 36 commitments we set, we will then decide the best focus for the next strategy.
“The 2015 Mental Health Act will strengthen the framework for mental health legislation making the system more effective and efficient, and promoting patient involvement in their care, through strengthening the position of advocacy and advance statements.
“Mental health has deservedly moved up the agenda and that’s something we can all welcome. As treatment improves and the stigma of mental illness decreases, we will see more people coming forward to ask for help. I’m determined that we are able to meet that challenge.”
Legionnaire’s outbreak: we’ll never know the source
Final Report into 2012 Legionnaires’ Outbreak published but the source of the outbreak may never be known
NHS Lothian, on behalf of the multi-agency Incident Management Team (IMT), has today published the final report into the 2012 Legionnaires’ outbreak which affected the south west of Edinburgh. The 68 page report goes into great detail – but the public heath professionals who produced the report are unable to pinpoint the source of the outbreak.
The report states: ‘As it has not been possible to identify the precise source of the Legionella bacteria that resulted in the death of four people, Crown Counsel has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute any person or organisation for the deaths.’
The Incident Management Team has concluded that the outbreak was caused by an aerosol release of Legionella pneumophila Sg1 Knoxville ST191 over a defined area of south west Edinburgh during May 2012. Although the Incident Management Team could not establish the specific source of the organism, it has concluded that: ‘the most likely source of this aerosol release was an industrial complex containing wet cooling towers in the north east of the affected area.’
Between late May and late June 2012, 56 people who had links to south west Edinburgh, were confirmed as suffering from Legionnaires’ disease. Four of these people died and the Health and Safety Executive, under the direction of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service Health and Safety Division carried out a full investigation into the cause.
The final report into the outbreak highlights that the locally coordinated public health, environmental health, scientific and clinical response helped protect the health of people living and working in south west Edinburgh and had a positive impact in preventing more people becoming seriously ill.
It has been published following the conclusion of all investigations into the outbreak.
Professor Alison McCallum, Director of Public Health and Health Policy, NHS Lothian said: ““I would once again express my sincere condolences to the families of those who died during this outbreak and the patients affected.
“The review of outbreak management and the subsequent public health research has provided valuable in enhancing the existing knowledge on Legionella outbreaks and control. This report allows us to share our experience and findings with other public health teams across the globe.”
2015 Final Report – Master 2015 Final 060815