In connection with World Kidney Day the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer announces the Patient Benefit Grant and Patient Lottery
Ahead of World Kidney Day on Thursday 8 March, the UK’s leading specialist kidney cancer charity, The James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer (‘JWF’), is delighted to reveal its new scheme; The Patient Benefit Grant. In order to assist the grant and help those diagnosed with kidney cancer, the Charity is announcing the launch of a patient lottery, The Whalottery.
About the Patient Grant
The Patient Benefit Grant aims to help those suffering from or recovering from Kidney Cancer ease their financial strain and maintain access to things that can add to or maintain their quality of life. For example, if a patient requires continued access to television or broadband and their condition is making this challenging financially, they can apply to JWF for the Patient Grant. JWF will accept applications from those recovering from Kidney cancer for up to £1,000 per annum.
The Whalottery
To help assist in the funding of the Patient Benefit Grant the JWF has set up the Whalottery. Tickets are £1 each per week; participants pay for one ticket monthly, quarterly or yearly by cash, cheque or standing order. One winning number will be drawn on the last Friday of every month and the winner will receive a cash prize in proportion to the number of entries. 40% of the money collected weekly will be given back in the cash prize and the remaining 60% will go to the charity.
On World Kidney Day the Charity is launching the Whalottery with the first draw taking place on the last Friday in April. Those interested in participating in the first draw can register at www.kidneycancerlottery.org.
Broadcaster James Whale, founder and Chairman of the James Whale Fund and a kidney cancer survivor, said: “We hope many Kidney Cancer patients will directly benefit from this new initiative of the Fund and look forward to our lottery launch being well supported. The aim of the lottery is to have the chance to give something back to those that are generous enough to donate.“
FACTFILE:
The James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer is the UK’s leading specialist kidney cancer charity and was set up in 2006 by broadcaster James Whale who lost a kidney to cancer. Today James is fortunate to lead a full and busy life. Every year almost 7,000 people in the UK learn that they have kidney cancer; that’s over 16 people a day. And yet the condition – the eighth most common cancer among men – rarely attracts much public attention. The mission at the James Whale Fund is to try and change that.
For more information about James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer, please visit www.jameswhalefund.org
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Monday, 5 March 2012
NHS Business Services Authority increases customer service efficiency with Eptica
The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA), which provides critical central services to the NHS and general public, has transformed telephone customer service after implementing Eptica's centralised knowledge management system. NHSBSA is now benefiting from greater efficiency, improved service levels and increased consistency of answers by using Eptica.
The Eptica-powered project, called Sherlock, provides a centralised knowledgebase across the NHSBSA’s three contact centres. This ensures its 230 agents can access accurate, up to date information in order to deliver fast, consistent answers to the 3 million calls received every year.
The benefits already delivered by Sherlock in six months have exceeded project expectations. Training time for new agents has dropped by 30% (against a predicted 20%) and the number of staff deployed on the service desk has been reduced by a third. In a recent survey 72% of agents said that Sherlock had made their jobs easier and 62% believed it had added to the customer experience. Sherlock is receiving over 2,000 queries per day from agents and the project is predicted to save £121,000 in its first year of operation, rising to UKP£162,000 per annum in the future.
NHSBSA has grown dramatically in the last six years, expanding from 6 to 230 agents and realised it had to centralise knowledge to meet its efficiency objectives. Sherlock therefore replaces a number of different paper-based information solutions across the 11 different workstreams within the NHSBSA.
The NHSBSA is responsible for a wide range of healthcare-related administration services. These include managing the NHS Pension Scheme in England and Wales, which has over 2 million members, administering the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) scheme in the UK, processing and making payments to dentists and pharmacists and managing the NHS Student Bursary scheme.
“We pride ourselves on the high levels of customer service we offer to everyone that calls us, both from inside and outside the NHS” said David Roberts, Shared Services Manager, NHS Business Services Authority. “However our fast growth and the expanding range of services we provide meant that we needed more efficient ways of providing information to agents. With Eptica we now have a consistent, centralised system that agents trust, enabling us to be more efficient while driving greater customer satisfaction. Sherlock has become our internal information network.”
Eptica is already used in other public sector organisations by NHSBSA partner Capita and was selected due to its ease of use, strong track record and understanding of the organisation’s business objectives.
“The UK public sector is aiming to increase efficiency while at the same time improving the customer experience,” said Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK. “The success of Sherlock at the NHS Business Services Authority demonstrates how centralised knowledge can drive major improvements and support growth through a user-friendly system that connects agents with consistent information quickly and simply.”
Designed around their needs, agents simply type questions into Sherlock and receive fast, up to date answers. They can flag where extra content is needed and provide feedback with a single click, ensuring answers are always optimised. Sherlock has integral audit trail functions, allowing stakeholders (such as managers within other parts of the NHS) to monitor performance and quality of information.
Information in Sherlock was collected through agent focus groups and was rolled out with a month of intensive training and feedback before it went fully live. It is now managed by a dedicated team of three staff, who are responsible for updating information and acting on agent feedback requests.
The NHSBSA has ambitious future plans for Sherlock, looking to incorporate knowledgebase content into specific, public-facing websites and Facebook pages (such as for student bursaries) as well as using it to share knowledge amongst partner organisations within the NHS.
The Eptica-powered project, called Sherlock, provides a centralised knowledgebase across the NHSBSA’s three contact centres. This ensures its 230 agents can access accurate, up to date information in order to deliver fast, consistent answers to the 3 million calls received every year.
The benefits already delivered by Sherlock in six months have exceeded project expectations. Training time for new agents has dropped by 30% (against a predicted 20%) and the number of staff deployed on the service desk has been reduced by a third. In a recent survey 72% of agents said that Sherlock had made their jobs easier and 62% believed it had added to the customer experience. Sherlock is receiving over 2,000 queries per day from agents and the project is predicted to save £121,000 in its first year of operation, rising to UKP£162,000 per annum in the future.
NHSBSA has grown dramatically in the last six years, expanding from 6 to 230 agents and realised it had to centralise knowledge to meet its efficiency objectives. Sherlock therefore replaces a number of different paper-based information solutions across the 11 different workstreams within the NHSBSA.
The NHSBSA is responsible for a wide range of healthcare-related administration services. These include managing the NHS Pension Scheme in England and Wales, which has over 2 million members, administering the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) scheme in the UK, processing and making payments to dentists and pharmacists and managing the NHS Student Bursary scheme.
“We pride ourselves on the high levels of customer service we offer to everyone that calls us, both from inside and outside the NHS” said David Roberts, Shared Services Manager, NHS Business Services Authority. “However our fast growth and the expanding range of services we provide meant that we needed more efficient ways of providing information to agents. With Eptica we now have a consistent, centralised system that agents trust, enabling us to be more efficient while driving greater customer satisfaction. Sherlock has become our internal information network.”
Eptica is already used in other public sector organisations by NHSBSA partner Capita and was selected due to its ease of use, strong track record and understanding of the organisation’s business objectives.
“The UK public sector is aiming to increase efficiency while at the same time improving the customer experience,” said Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK. “The success of Sherlock at the NHS Business Services Authority demonstrates how centralised knowledge can drive major improvements and support growth through a user-friendly system that connects agents with consistent information quickly and simply.”
Designed around their needs, agents simply type questions into Sherlock and receive fast, up to date answers. They can flag where extra content is needed and provide feedback with a single click, ensuring answers are always optimised. Sherlock has integral audit trail functions, allowing stakeholders (such as managers within other parts of the NHS) to monitor performance and quality of information.
Information in Sherlock was collected through agent focus groups and was rolled out with a month of intensive training and feedback before it went fully live. It is now managed by a dedicated team of three staff, who are responsible for updating information and acting on agent feedback requests.
The NHSBSA has ambitious future plans for Sherlock, looking to incorporate knowledgebase content into specific, public-facing websites and Facebook pages (such as for student bursaries) as well as using it to share knowledge amongst partner organisations within the NHS.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
New One-Stop Website To Find Carers
Oxfordshire mother-of-three launches new one-stop website to help families find the care they need.
Kathleen How, 31, from Witney, set up TotalCareOnline after she and her Mum found it difficult to get the right care for her newly widowed, wheel-chair bound grandfather.
"It was really tough finding the right person or place to look after him so I decided to create one place that people can go to for all their care needs, whether that is someone like us who needs help to look after an elderly relative, a family wanting childcare or someone needing disability or respite care", explains Kath.
Kath already has considerable experience of the care industry, having run her Oxfordshire based Little Angels, nanny and nursery agency ( www.littleangelsnna.co.uk ) for 7 years, and worked as a nanny and carer ever since leaving school.
TotalCareOnline is a national online resource listing childcare, elderly care, disability and respite care jobs as well as carers, agencies and support services across the UK.
The site also includes interview tips and advice for those looking for carers.
Users can select from three main areas, Childcare, Elderly/Respite Care and Disability/Respite Care and then choose a county.
Making the TotalCareOnline site easy to use was a priority for Kath who understands that some people can still find online searches rather daunting.
"I have spent a lot of time making sure people can access what they need simply and quickly", she says.
TotalCareOnline is free for families and job seekers to use although they can upgrade to paid-for packages. The site is currently offering a free 90 day trial for subscribers.
Kathleen How, 31, from Witney, set up TotalCareOnline after she and her Mum found it difficult to get the right care for her newly widowed, wheel-chair bound grandfather.
"It was really tough finding the right person or place to look after him so I decided to create one place that people can go to for all their care needs, whether that is someone like us who needs help to look after an elderly relative, a family wanting childcare or someone needing disability or respite care", explains Kath.
Kath already has considerable experience of the care industry, having run her Oxfordshire based Little Angels, nanny and nursery agency ( www.littleangelsnna.co.uk ) for 7 years, and worked as a nanny and carer ever since leaving school.
TotalCareOnline is a national online resource listing childcare, elderly care, disability and respite care jobs as well as carers, agencies and support services across the UK.
The site also includes interview tips and advice for those looking for carers.
Users can select from three main areas, Childcare, Elderly/Respite Care and Disability/Respite Care and then choose a county.
Making the TotalCareOnline site easy to use was a priority for Kath who understands that some people can still find online searches rather daunting.
"I have spent a lot of time making sure people can access what they need simply and quickly", she says.
TotalCareOnline is free for families and job seekers to use although they can upgrade to paid-for packages. The site is currently offering a free 90 day trial for subscribers.
Age Affects Risk Of Being Diagnosed With Cancer At Advanced Stage
Older women with breast cancer face a higher risk of being diagnosed with the disease at a late stage, while the risk of an advanced stage diagnosis of lung cancer decreases with age, a new study shows.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Eastern Cancer Registration and Information Centre (ECRIC) said the study showed that efforts to diagnose cancer early need to be better tailored to different age groups.
The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, used ECRIC data on stage - a measure of how advanced the cancer is when diagnosed.
The research aimed to find whether there was a link between age or socio-economic background and being diagnosed with advanced stage cancer.
Researchers looked at around 17,800 women with breast cancer and over 13,200 patients with lung cancer in the east of England who were diagnosed between 2006 and 2009.
They found that compared to women aged 65-69, women aged 70-74 had a 21 per cent increased chance of a late stage breast cancer diagnosis.
The chance of an advanced breast cancer diagnosis became higher as women got older - even accounting for the effect of screening. For example, it was 46 per cent higher in women aged 75-79.
In contrast, it was less likely that older patients would be diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer than younger patients.
Compared with people aged 65-69, people aged 70-74 were 18 per cent less likely of be diagnosed with late stage lung cancer and this chance decreased further with age - for people aged 75-79 it was 26 per cent lower.
For breast cancer, the study also found that late stage diagnosis was more common in women from deprived backgrounds. For lung cancer, late stage diagnosis was more common in men.
Dr Georgios Lyratzopoulos, study author based at the University of Cambridge, said: "Patient awareness of the signs of breast cancer is known to be lower among older women and this may explain why breast cancer is diagnosed later among this age group.
"But it is puzzling why older patients have a lower risk of advanced stage lung cancer. More research is needed to better understand this pattern."
The researchers added that the strong likelihood of older women being diagnosed with late stage breast cancer was worrying given that the risk of the disease increases with age.
Dr David Greenberg, study author based at ECRIC, said: "Collecting staging data has proved difficult in the past but this data is vital to understanding how to improve the diagnosis of cancer. ECRIC has the most complete information on stage. A modernisation programme for cancer registries aims to improve the collection of such information nationwide by end of 2012."
Sara Hiom, director of information at Cancer Research UK, said: "If cancer is caught early, patients usually have a better chance of beating the disease as more effective treatment options are available.
"We have made great progress in improving cancer survival rates in the last 40 years, but there is still more work to be done to help more people survive cancer.
"Collecting information on stage at diagnosis is vital to do this and we must think how to target messages appropriately to the right audiences.
"Cancer Research UK works to raise symptom awareness, and encourage and enable people to go visit their doctor as soon as their notice anything unusual for their bodies."
Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Eastern Cancer Registration and Information Centre (ECRIC) said the study showed that efforts to diagnose cancer early need to be better tailored to different age groups.
The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, used ECRIC data on stage - a measure of how advanced the cancer is when diagnosed.
The research aimed to find whether there was a link between age or socio-economic background and being diagnosed with advanced stage cancer.
Researchers looked at around 17,800 women with breast cancer and over 13,200 patients with lung cancer in the east of England who were diagnosed between 2006 and 2009.
They found that compared to women aged 65-69, women aged 70-74 had a 21 per cent increased chance of a late stage breast cancer diagnosis.
The chance of an advanced breast cancer diagnosis became higher as women got older - even accounting for the effect of screening. For example, it was 46 per cent higher in women aged 75-79.
In contrast, it was less likely that older patients would be diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer than younger patients.
Compared with people aged 65-69, people aged 70-74 were 18 per cent less likely of be diagnosed with late stage lung cancer and this chance decreased further with age - for people aged 75-79 it was 26 per cent lower.
For breast cancer, the study also found that late stage diagnosis was more common in women from deprived backgrounds. For lung cancer, late stage diagnosis was more common in men.
Dr Georgios Lyratzopoulos, study author based at the University of Cambridge, said: "Patient awareness of the signs of breast cancer is known to be lower among older women and this may explain why breast cancer is diagnosed later among this age group.
"But it is puzzling why older patients have a lower risk of advanced stage lung cancer. More research is needed to better understand this pattern."
The researchers added that the strong likelihood of older women being diagnosed with late stage breast cancer was worrying given that the risk of the disease increases with age.
Dr David Greenberg, study author based at ECRIC, said: "Collecting staging data has proved difficult in the past but this data is vital to understanding how to improve the diagnosis of cancer. ECRIC has the most complete information on stage. A modernisation programme for cancer registries aims to improve the collection of such information nationwide by end of 2012."
Sara Hiom, director of information at Cancer Research UK, said: "If cancer is caught early, patients usually have a better chance of beating the disease as more effective treatment options are available.
"We have made great progress in improving cancer survival rates in the last 40 years, but there is still more work to be done to help more people survive cancer.
"Collecting information on stage at diagnosis is vital to do this and we must think how to target messages appropriately to the right audiences.
"Cancer Research UK works to raise symptom awareness, and encourage and enable people to go visit their doctor as soon as their notice anything unusual for their bodies."
Send Tummy Troubles Packing With ActiMint!
Planning the annual getaway is usually where the excitement begins. But for many holidaymakers, the anticipation of a week or two's break from the norm - not to mention the change of diet and climate on arrival - can trigger or exacerbate stomach complaints such as IBS, bloating, cramping, constipation and diarrhoea.
A simple way to help overcome tummy troubles is to pack ActiMint (rrp £5.95 for 60 tablets -a month's supply - from The Nutri Centre, Holland & Barrett, John Bell & Croyden and online at actimint.com).
Chewing two fresh-tasting ActiMint probiotic tablets after each meal releases an abundance of the same friendly bacteria found in live yoghurt that reduces gastro-intestinal discomfort and improves overall gut health and wellbeing. A new improved coating and increased prebiotic content create a scientifically proven synergistic effect that ensures higher levels of beneficial microflora reach the gut.
Shona Wilkinson RDip CNHC MBANT, Head Nutritionist at The Nutri Centre says: "Probiotics can be helpful for a wide range of stomach conditions as well as recurrent yeast infections. I often recommend ActiMint which contains millions of live probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilusunits. These help maintain a balance of friendly bacteria in the digestive tract supporting good digestive function.
"Numerous studies on the Lactobacillus Acidophilus strain used in ActiMint demonstrate the benefits of using probiotics to treat a variety of intestinal disorders.
A simple way to help overcome tummy troubles is to pack ActiMint (rrp £5.95 for 60 tablets -a month's supply - from The Nutri Centre, Holland & Barrett, John Bell & Croyden and online at actimint.com).
Chewing two fresh-tasting ActiMint probiotic tablets after each meal releases an abundance of the same friendly bacteria found in live yoghurt that reduces gastro-intestinal discomfort and improves overall gut health and wellbeing. A new improved coating and increased prebiotic content create a scientifically proven synergistic effect that ensures higher levels of beneficial microflora reach the gut.
Shona Wilkinson RDip CNHC MBANT, Head Nutritionist at The Nutri Centre says: "Probiotics can be helpful for a wide range of stomach conditions as well as recurrent yeast infections. I often recommend ActiMint which contains millions of live probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilusunits. These help maintain a balance of friendly bacteria in the digestive tract supporting good digestive function.
"Numerous studies on the Lactobacillus Acidophilus strain used in ActiMint demonstrate the benefits of using probiotics to treat a variety of intestinal disorders.
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Tuesday, 28 February 2012
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