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News on the CQC’s annual report, London doctors pioneer rapid CT scan use and the criminals with ADHD

The health story dominating the headlines today is the Care Quality Commission’s annual report.

According to the Independent, the report  found that 27% of health and social care providers inspected in the past 12 months were failing to meet minimum standards designed to protect patients from unsafe and poor quality care.

It said that CQC has warned that an ageing population and the rising tide of patients who suffer from complex or multiple illnesses mean that some care providers are struggling to provide respectful, dignified, ‘person centred’ care.

Meanwhile the BBC reports that doctors at a hospital in London are pioneering the use of rapid CT scans in an attempt to save the lives of seriously injured patients. 

It says that some patients are being taken straight from the ambulance to a CT scanner at King’s College Hospital, instead of A&E.

Doctors hope detailed images of the inside of a patient will help them pick the correct treatment more quickly.

The scanner also combines features of A&E so doctors can resuscitate patients without moving them.

Elsewhere, the Daily Mail reports on a Swedish study that has found that treating ADHD in convicted criminals could have a major impact on reoffending.

Criminal behaviour in people diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) falls by about a third when they are on medication, the research shows.

Professor Paul Lichtenstein, one of the researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said: ‘It’s said that roughly 30 per cent to 40 per cent of long-serving criminals have ADHD.

‘If their chances of recidivism can be reduced by 30 per cent, it would clearly affect total crime numbers in many societies.’




          

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