The facilities offered by Royal Oldham Hospital`s accident and emergency department are set to improve, after proposals from professionals working in A&E Doctors jobs and those in A&E Nursing jobs were given the green light.

As part of the plans, separate A&E facilities will be designed especially for young people, while it is hoped that waiting times will reduce once more space is created within the department.

Roughly 94,000 patients pass through the hospital`s A&E ward each year, while 70 under-16s are seen on average each day.

The latest investment project, worth £3.75 million, is part of the Healthy Futures and Making it Better scheme.

This has aimed to transfer, develop and centralise a range of specialist services at the hospital.

Commenting on the plans, Dr Nick Gili, A&E consultant and clinical director at the Royal Oldham Hospital, said: "The developments will also enable us to plan and deliver better urgent care in partnership with our local GPs, GP commissioners and other providers who we have strong local partnerships with."

Copyright Press Association 2012

An NHS respiratory physiotherapist has urged healthcare professionals working in nursing jobs to learn a breathing technique for asthma treatment.

Gillian Austin, specialist respiratory physiotherapist for Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, said the Buteyko breathing technique (BBT) could help ease the symptoms of asthma patients.

Austin is also president of the Buteyko Breathing Association, and uses the technique during her everyday work with the health service.

Nurses interested in learning the technique can book a place on a course run by the association. The courses are part of the organisation`s efforts to see wider NHS use of BBT.

However, Austin made sure to clarify the impact patients can expect from the treatment in a speech to the Association of Respiratory Nurse Specialists (ARNS) annual conference.

She said: "The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia wrongly mentions that proponents of the BBT believe it to be a cure for asthma. This is certainly not what practitioners trained by the UK-based BBA would say, who prefer to take a more pragmatic approach to how the technique has its effect on asthma symptoms."

The technique sees patients instructed to breathe slowly and deeply, encouraging them to breathe through their noses to aid airflow.

Copyright Press Association 2012

Researchers have found that the long-term risk of death can be predicted in older men, following a first stroke, by employing a simple drawing test.

Those men who had test scores in the lowest 30% were about three times as likely to die following a stroke as those in the top 30%, according to academics at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Data from the Uppsala Longitudinal Study of Adult Men was analysed. The study has looked at various risk factors for stroke and heart disease in 2,322 men since they turned 50.

Researchers looked at just fewer than 1,000 men who had not had a stroke diagnosis and whose intellectual capacity was out under assessment when they were aged between 65 and 75.

The trail making test (TMT) and the mini mental state exam (MMSE) were used to do this. MMSE is often used as to test for dementia.

Those taking the TMT test draw lines between numbers and letters with a pencil as fast as they can in ascending order.

Participants are set general cognitive tasks including numeracy, memory and orientation in the MMSE test.

During a monitoring period of 14 years, from 1991 to 2006, some 155 males had a first major or minor stroke, also known as a TIA (transient ischaemic attack).

Just more than 50% of them (84) died within two and a half years on average, and 22 died within one month of having the stroke.

Copyright Press Association 2012

The Department of Health (DoH) is calling on people employed in nursing job s to help improve the profession in the future.

The Nursing and Care Quality Forum has asked nurses to shed light on what they view as good practice as it prepares to report to Prime Minister David Cameron next month.

The forum has published a list of questions on the DoH`s website which nurses can complete in order to help formulate a plan of action for the profession in the future.

Issues covered include whether ward and team sisters and other leaders should be considered "supernumery" or exclusively "supervisory", rather than having to also "manage a case load".

Speaking to Nursing Times, forum chair Sally Brearley revealed she was also seeking ideas for good practice and themes to investigate in the forum`s second phase of work.

She said: "Our small group of members sitting in a room aren`t going to do this [alone], we need nurses who are working out there.

"We also want people`s ideas on which areas it would be useful to tackle in future, and which areas should be left well alone."

Copyright Press Association 2012