On the 28th March 2012 the NHS is holding a Day of Action on Sustainability.  The organisers (University College London Hospital (UCLH) and the NHS Sustainable Development Unit (SDU)) would like health professionals across the UK to carry out a snap shot audit on energy use in hospitals and clinics. It's easy to carry out, but it needs health professionals in every Trust in the UK to take part. 

To date over 25% of NHS trusts and organisations from all over the UK have confirmed and the hope is to secure participation from 50- 75% of the NHS in this first year of the event.  A Mori survey of patients shows that 90% of the public want a greener NHS.

Many thanks to BHMA member, John Kapp, for bringing this very useful website to our attention. Over the last 40 years, mindfulness has been the subject of much research with thousands of research papers written on the applications of mindfulness, and its impacts on people's lives. This website provides links to a sample of 500 papers, besides a whole lot of other useful information about mindfulness.

The Royal College of General Practitioners has now joined (3^rd February 2012) the growing body of dissent on the government’s NHS reforms and its beleaguered Health and Social Care Bill. The social network organisation 38 Degrees have been galvanising opposition over the months. 

Although the editors of the BMJ, Health Service Journal, and Nursing Times, have divergent views they are all agreed—that the resulting upheaval has been unnecessary, poorly conceived, badly communicated, and a dangerous distraction at a time when the NHS is required to make unprecedented savings. Worse, it has destabilised and damaged one of this country’s greatest achievements: a system that embodies social justice and has delivered widespread patient satisfaction, public support, and value for money.

William House has added an interesting paper.

Eating food fried in olive or sunflower oil is not linked to heart disease or premature death.  In a Mediterranean country where olive and sunflower oils are the most commonly used fats for frying, and where large amounts of fried foods are consumed both at and away from home, no association was observed between fried food consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease or death
BMJ 2012; 344 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d8274 (Published 24 January 2012)
 

Robert Burns was born on this day 253 years ago.  He is known as the ploughman poet that spoke of love, nature, and an acute observation of his fellow man.  Take one poem ‘To a mouse’ and you perceive his holistic credential ahead of the times. He views the mouse with compassion, ‘ Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,’ on climate change, ‘I'm truly sorry Man's dominion, Has broken Nature's social union,’ on mindfulness, ‘ But Och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear!  An' forward, tho' I canna see , I guess an' fear’ and on the present NHS reforms, ‘The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men Gang aft agley.’