IN BRIEF Norovirus outbreaks have dropped dramatically at a hospital in Portsmouth, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal. Between 2009/10 and 2010/14, annual outbreaks dropped 91% at the Queen Alexandra Hospital compared with a national reduction of 28%. A hospital initiative to reduce outbreaks included use of hydrogen peroxide decontamination technology and real-time electronic identifi cation of patients with norovirus symptoms. Read the study at tinyurl.com/q5clwm3. Patients with life-threatening sepsis face critical delays in identifying and treating their condition, a National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death report has said. Analysts found that just under one third of hospitals (184 of 544) in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands had no formal sepsis protocol. Of the 314 hospitals with one in place, 86 had no formal training on wards for nursing staff. The report is at www.ncepod.org.uk/2015sepsis.html Macmillan Cancer Support wants care plans to be tailored to make sure people living with rarer forms of the disease are not overlooked. About 440,000 people in the UK have less prevalent forms of cancer, including in the nasal cavity, the middle ear and the salivary glands. Read more about rarer cancers at tinyurl.com/p33yz43. People with dementia who live in affluent areas are 27% more likely to be prescribed anti-dementia medication than those in more deprived areas, researchers from University College London have concluded. They analysed anonymised medical records of more than 77,000 people in England from 2002 to 2013. Alzheimer’s Society policy head George McNamara said: ‘It shows that the poorest people are still missing out.’ The study is in Age and Ageing, tinyurl.com/ovbc2re. Pregnant women are being urged by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to have the free influenza vaccine this winter after concerns that only four in ten did so last year. Figures show that 36 pregnant women died from fl u strains in the UK and Ireland from 2009-2012. RCM director for midwifery Louise Silverton said: ‘If caught, fl u can be very serious for the mother and baby.’ Helping older people over the winter could relieve pressure on NHS services, according to NHS England’s director for acute care. Keith Willett warned that older people are the largest group admitted to hospital in winter and said that the public should check on older friends and neighbours and ensure they seek help before they become seriously ill. A nurse whose poem defending the profession made her a YouTube sensation has written a book of verse. Molly Case recited Nursing the Nation to the RCN congress in 2013 and a video of it gained more than 350,000 views in a few months. The book – Underneath the Roses Where I Remembered Everything – contains her perspectives on nursing and can be ordered at www.mollycasespeaks.com 10 november 25 :: vol 30 no 13 :: 2015

GRADUATES COULD FACE £50,000 DEBTS Nursing students may accumulate debts of up to £50,000 before they graduate if the government introduces tuition fees in its comprehensive spending review, the RCN has warned. The Council of Deans of Health (CoDH), which represents university nursing faculties, and Universities UK no longer want the four UK governments to pay nursing course fees and instead want students to have loans. They want these proposals to form part of the government’s comprehensive spending review, published this week (Wednesday). But RCN head of policy Howard Catton warned: ‘Students on other courses sometimes fi nish with £50,000 debts, and so there is a serious risk that people would be discouraged from going into nursing.’ For living, nursing students receive up to £5,460 a year in a bursary and a student loan could go up to £7,750. The CoDH says that under a loan system fewer students would drop out of courses for fi nancial reasons.

Scotland considers using Dutch-style home care The Scottish Government and RCN Scotland is assessing if it could apply an innovative Dutch model of district nursing at home. Representatives from the Scottish Government and the college went to see the Buurtzorg nurse-led system in action in the Netherlands early in November. The model uses small, self-managing teams of nurses and allied health professionals to provide co-ordinated home care for catchment areas with between 40 and 60 people in each. An original team of four nurses has grown to more than 9,000 with teams in Sweden, Japan and the US as well as the Netherlands. RCN Scotland associate director Ellen Hudson said the model resulted in fewer agencies visiting patients and improved co-ordination of care, and it would be interesting to see if parts of it could be used in Scotland. Scotland’s chief nursing officer Fiona McQueen said: ‘We look forward to reviewing what the team found from their trip and will look at whether it would be beneficial for this model to be applied locally in Scotland.’

NURSING STANDARD