£25,000 for Health Projects in the Developing World

NHS teams planning humanitarian work overseas can apply for grants of up to £3,000 from the BMA/RCN Humanitarian Fund from this week.

The total amount available for projects in 2010 will be £25,000 – comprising, £20,000from the BMA, and £5,000 from the Royal College of Nursing.

Last year, 29 grants were awarded from the Humanitarian Fund, which is administered by the BMA’s International Department.

Projects ranged from reducing infant deaths by training community health workers to deliver improved maternity care in Afghanistan to setting up a sustainable kidney transplant programme in Ghana.

Such projects can have lasting benefits. In Ghana, for example, a British team supported by the Humanitarian Fund have trained local surgeons and nephrologists with the aim of establishing a national kidney transplant service that will save many lives.

I am proud that the BMA funds such valuable work. I’m looking forward to reading about the next range of projects that will take place this year using the humanitarian fund.

NHS staff seeking funding for projects should apply to the BMA’s International Department at international.info@bma.org.uk

For more information, go to: http://www.bma.org.uk/international/international_development/humfund2010.jsp

Getting tough on violence in the NHS

Myself and a GP member of BMA Cymru Wales gave evidence to the Assembly Audit Committee yesterday, on the back of the Auditor General’s latest report into violence and aggression against NHS staff. The committee’s holding an inquiry into the report findings, because the Auditor General has found that violence is still a big issue for NHS workers.

That’s despite the fact that the Auditor General first looked into this four years ago and uncovered serious concerns back then.

It would be unfair of me to say that the WAG hasn’t made any progress on this in that time, as some improvements have been made (for instance, the launch of the training passport scheme in 2005) but I’m afraid there is still along way to go. And what is worrying for doctors, is that the emphasis on tackling violence seems to be focussed on hospitals, when in actual fact, a big area of concern identified in the report is NHS employees working alone, such as GPs and their support staff. More investment needs to be made here with the introduction of safety measures such as panic buttons and CCTV being installed.

This inquiry is very timely, as it’s now, during the on-going NHS reorganisation that systems like the Primary Care Support Service could be given more scope for development, to help in areas like violence and aggression against doctors.

I generally got the impression yesterday that AMs sitting on the Audit Committee are extremely concerned about the issue and there is a strong will to change things. I just hope that happens sooner rather than later and that ways of tackling this growing problem feature heavily in the Health Minister’s NHS reorganisation plans.

Violence and aggression against Welsh NHS workers is still proving to be a big problem

The BMA welcomes this update on progress with regard to the work of the Ministerial task force on violence and aggression and while much has been achieved, there is still a great deal to be done.

It remains unacceptable that doctors and other healthcare workers are exposed to violence and aggression in the workplace on a daily basis.

The taskforce is beginning to put in place processes to protect and support staff but much more needs to be done to encourage reporting of violence and aggression in the workplace and this will only happen when people feel properly supported and incidents taken seriously.

Improvements in the Training Passport and Information Passport Scheme are to be welcomed but more action is needed and it is concerning that significantly more improvement hasn’t been made in tackling the safety of lone workers, which is especially important for primary and community care staff.