Tag Archives: Regulation

Smoking ban results in 11,000 fewer child hospital admissions a year

If you ever needed evidence of the benefits of smoke-free legislation, this is it. One of the most comprehensive investigations into the impact of the smoking ban on child health in England has shown it has resulted in over 11,000 fewer admissions to hospital a year from respiratory infections in children.

Child in hospital

Researchers analysed 1.6 million hospital admissions in children aged 0-14 across England from 2001-2012. The results found that the introduction of legislation was followed by an immediate reduction of 13.8% in admission to hospital for lower respiratory tract infections. Admissions for upper respiratory tract infections also decreased, but at a more gradual rate.

While passive smoking is bad for everyone, children are especially vulnerable to the effects of second-hand smoke as their lungs are smaller and are still developing.

If you have children and want to quit, then speak to your pharmacist who can provide advice and support, as well as a range of nicotine replacement options to help you kick the habit.

Smoke‐free legislation and childhood hospitalisations for respiratory tract infections Authors: Jasper V. Been; Christopher Millett; John Tayu Lee; Constant P. van Schayck; Aziz Sheikh DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00014615
European Respiratory Society (ERS)

What is the Care Quality Commission?

You hear the Care Quality Commission (CQC) mentioned quite often in the news these days, so what is it? Basically it is the body that regulates healthcare in England.

So what is it?

It is responsible, for example, for regulating GP practices, out-of-hours services, NHS 111, and dental practices (it does not inspect pharmacies, which have their own regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council).

It is relatively new in this job, only starting in 2013. There are around 8,000 GP practices in England and it plans to have inspected each of these at least once by April 2016.

When inspecting a practice the CQC asks asking five key questions: is it safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well led? It will also look at how services are provided to people in specific population groups such as older people and those with long-term conditions or poor mental health.

Practices will be rated as ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires Improvement’, or ‘Inadequate’ for each of the five key questions and for each population group.

Find out more at www.cqc.org.uk