Secular Café: In UK don't get sick at the weekend!

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In UK don't get sick at the weekend! Jul 10th 2012, 11:09 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...are-study.html Quote: A team from Imperial College London and the National Audit Office has found 350 people die within seven days of their stroke unnecessarily because they were admitted at the weekend and a further 650 suffer serious disability... ...It has been thought that deaths increase among patients admitted at the weekend because there are fewer senior staff on duty to diagnose patients quickly and order the right treatments. The study found patients suffering a stroke at the weekend were less likely to be seen by a neurologist or a geriatric medicine specialist and more likely to be treated by a specialist in general medicine, A&E and other specialities... ...Research by Dr Foster Intelligence, published last year, found that patients admitted for emergency treatment at weekends were almost 10 per cent more likely to die than those admitted during the rest of the week. However, it is thought this is the first time that deaths attributed to a single condition have been found to be higher at weekends in the NHS... ...The researchers said one possible solution is to reorganise stroke services into fewer larger hospitals which are more able to offer high quality care seven days a week. Services in London were altered in this way in February 2010 and early results show that it has been successful, although mortality data is not yet available. Suspected stroke patients in the capital are now taken by ambulance past their nearest hospital to a dedicated stroke unit which operates scanners seven days a week and has specialists on duty round the clock... ...Early evidence from the redesigned stroke services in London suggests that the mortality rate in London is now around 18 per cent lower than the national average.

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