Hospitals warned over clot deaths

Giska Dye was among 25,000 annual victims of hospital-acquired DVT Hospitals 'should screen for DVT' English hospitals face being "named and shamed" for not screening patients for deep vein thrombosis (DVT) risk, NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh has said.

NHS trusts are required to screen 90% of hospital patients.

But fewer than half manage this says the NHS, which warns 25,000 people die each year from hospital-acquired DVT.

One assessed just one in four patients and another barely one in 10. Sir Bruce said this was "absolutely disgraceful".

"In the sort of NHS that I want to work in and be treated in, I don't think that level of practice is acceptable."

DVT involves blood clotting in the legs and can be fatal if a clot breaks off and travels in the blood up to the lungs and causes a blockage, known as a pulmonary embolism.

Since April 2010, trusts in England have faced losing up to 0.3% of their income for failing to meet the guidelines. Some have already lost money. And there will continue to be financial consequences for trusts who do not meet the target, Sir Bruce Keogh told BBC Radio 4's Face the Facts.

He also says he will name the worst performers if they continue to do badly.

NHS warned over competition drive

NHS reforms will open the health service up to more competition. The government must not become a "slave to competition" over the NHS, the ex-head of the health regulator says.

Anna Walker said competition had an important role to play in making the health service more efficient.

But Ms Walker, now head of the Office of Rail Regulation, said ministers had to learn from other sectors - and limit the scope of private involvement.

It came as private health firms hit out at what they said was scaremongering about the changes in England.

Under plans put forward by the coalition government, the NHS is to be opened up further to competition from private sector firms.

This has prompted unions to suggest the health service is at risk of being privatised.

'Complex beast'

Ms Walker, who was chief executive of the Healthcare Commission for five years until stepping down in 2009, said competition had an essential part to play in modernising the NHS.

But she added it had to be carefully managed.

She said having competition, in markets like the NHS where there was a lot of public money at stake, was complex and not as simple as having full-blown competition.

Instead, she said simply comparing performance between different NHS trusts or setting up strictly regulated mini-markets, like the rail franchises, needed to be explored.

"In my experience, competition is a complex beast.

UN Warned of Major New Food Crisis at Emergency Meeting in Rome

By John Vidal
Common Dreams

The world may be on the brink of a major new food crisis caused by environmental disasters and rampant market speculators, the UN was warned today at an emergency meeting on food price inflation.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) meeting in Rome today was called last month after a heatwave and wildfires in Russia led to a draconian wheat export ban and food riots broke out in Mozambique, killing 13 people. But UN experts heard that pension and hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and large banks who speculate on commodity markets may also be responsible for inflation in food prices being seen across all continents.

In a new paper released this week, Olivier De Schutter, the UN's special rapporteur on food, says that the increases in price and the volatility of food commodities can only be explained by the emergence of a "speculative bubble" which he traces back to the early noughties.

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