Health News

The rollout of health hubs in Central Bedfordshire should be celebrated and not pitch one town or rural area against another, a meeting heard.

Timelines for the delivery of the five integrated health and social care hubs have been set back by about six months because of the pandemic

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has confirmed from 12 April 2021, visiting restrictions in maternity services will be relaxed further. One support partner will be allowed to accompany women at ALL antenatal and scan appointments as well as being allowed to visit for one hour per day on the postnatal wards.

Nearly 74,000 people – the equivalent of the combined populations of Bletchley, Newport Pagnell and Stony Stratford – are waiting for treatment at NHS hospitals in the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) area, a meeting heard.

At the end of January, for the latest published report, there were 73,988 people waiting for treatment across BLMK of which 26,289 patients have waited more than 18 weeks and 3,016 have waited more than one year.

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Dementia UK have developed a new Admiral Nurse service, which will see dementia specialist nurse Claire Day working in Bedford Hospital.

Dementia UK is the only charity in the UK dedicated to supporting families affected by dementia through dementia specialist Admiral Nurses.

From today, Thursday 1 April 2021, a single clinical commissioning group responsible for the planning and provision of NHS funded healthcare for almost 1 million people has come into operation, following the merger of the three CCGs in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes.

A vaccination chief told a meeting that Bedford’s GPs had “more vaccine than patients” this week as some over 50s have proven “hard to reach”.

Bedford GPs have so far vaccinated 47,000 of the 60,000 borough residents to have received coronavirus jabs. That includes about 70 per cent of the borough’s over 50s cohort, councillors heard.

Everyone who is entitled to a COVID jab is urged to come forward as new figures showed the NHS vaccination programme racked up record numbers of jabs last week.

NHS national medical director Professor Stephen Powis called on anyone who qualifies for a jab, but has not yet received one, to book an appointment in the next few days before slots dry up.

The 16 failings highlighted in a critical inspection of maternity services at Bedford Hospital suggest “an underlying malaise”, a meeting heard.
Its Cygnet ward maternity services were downgraded to ‘inadequate’ after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found a “potential risk for baby abduction”.

Central Bedfordshire Council has brought contact tracing in-house in a new pilot scheme for local residents.

Contact tracing is a key element of reducing transmission of COVID-19 and allows the local team to offer support and ensure residents can self-isolate safely during this pandemic.

All local positive cases are directed straight to the Council’s team instead of the national track and trace teams.

Measures including a new leadership team are being put in place to rectify failings in Bedford Hospital’s maternity services, following a critical report.

Much of the improvements centre around staff concerns and issues, rather than patient outcomes, a meeting of Central Bedfordshire Council’s social care, health and housing overview and scrutiny committee heard.

Maternity services at the hospital were downgraded to ‘inadequate’ after inspectors found a “potential risk for baby abduction”.