Walking now prevents dementia later, study finds

A new study published in Age and Ageing, the scientific journal of the British Geriatrics Society, suggests maintaining a higher level of physical activity during middle age may be a key strategy for the prevention of dementia in older age.

Past studies have suggested that physical activity such as walking can be a protective factor against dementia but this study suggests that maintaining a higher level of physical activity before older age is more important for the prevention of dementia than physical activity only in older age.

Designing safer systems of care delivery for older patients

A new study published in Age & Ageing, the scientific journal of the British Geriatrics Society, identified incidents when poor communication between secondary and primary care and failures within primary care led to patient harm and highlights how improved communications systems could help protect older patients from harm. Timely electronic transfer of information with standardised formats could reduce medication and clinical decision-making incidents. Electronic alerts and expanded use of bar-coding are examples of systems which could tackle drug administration incidents.

Older adults are frequent users of primary healthcare services and account for half of all 340 million general practice consultations in the United Kingdom each year.  The study was conducted by researchers at Cardiff University School of Medicine and examined 1,591 patient safety reports relating to patients aged over 65 in England and Wales over an eight year period.

Planning for our new BGS website… Have your say!

Calling all BGS Members and friends! We are inviting you to complete this survey to help us find out more about what our members, and other visitors, are looking for from the new BGS website which will replace the current main BGS site.

This survey should take no longer than 5 – 10 minutes to complete, depending in the length of your answers. This survey also provides the opportunity to join the Website Consultation Group and/or volunteer to review and update existing materials from the current site.

Announcing Eileen Burns as President Elect of the BGS

The British Geriatrics Society is pleased to announce that Dr Eileen Burns has been elected its twenty-first President Elect. Dr Burns will succeed Professor David Oliver when he assumes the President’s mantle at the BGS Annual General Meeting in October.

Eileen has been a geriatrician in Leeds for twenty-two years, was clinical director for a large teaching hospital department in the first decade of the noughties and is currently clinical lead for integration in Leeds. She is well known amongst those BGS members who have been active on the Society’s various committees, having served on several of these over the years. She currently sits on the Policy and Communications Committee and she has contributed to numerous consultations on behalf of the Society. She has also served as Chairman of the Community Geriatrics Special Interest Group for many years, presiding over one very successful stand alone community geriatrics event and several parallel sessions on the subject at our scientific meetings.

June issue of the BGS Newsletter out now

The June issue of the BGS newsletter is available here.

Highlights include:

• Osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures – new NICE guidance by Opinder Sahota and Nasir A Quraishi
• Patients First and Foremost. The goverment’s response to Francis and what it could mean for us and our older patients by Professor David Oliver
• Letter to the Editor: Francis cannot define compassionate care but we can still practise it by Iain Wilkinson
• BGS Belfast Spring Meeting Conference Report by Liz Gill
• The Pearl programme – a specialised dementia service
• Unlocking gridlock in hospitals – a digest of two reports published by The Health Foundation, as part of the Foundation’s “Flow Cost Quality Programme”

The future: Trainees and the Shape of Training

Prof Paul Knight is President of the BGS and is Director of Medical Education and Consultant Physician at the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow.

Difficulties in the running of the Specialty Certificate Examination centres by Pearson Vue on behalf of the Federation of Royal Colleges and ourselves have been previously documented in the BGS Newsletter. Although we have had useful discussion with the MRCP (UK) central office which runs the exam, we are still uncertain about the quality metrics and performance measures that govern the contractual relationship between MRCP (UK) and Pearson Vue. The Trustee Board believe that this is unsatisfactory and have communicated that view to the Colleges. I hope that we will be able to get a negotiated settlement that will allow us to reassure members that everything reasonable is being done to ensure that previous difficulties are never repeated.

A Quest for Quality in Care Homes

An inquiry into the quality of healthcare support for older people in care homes: a call for leadership, partnership and improvement.

This BGS report marks the start of a process of partnership to develop impetus, resources and clinical guidance that will support the NHS to play part in improving the experience and the quality of life of residents in care homes.

Its recommendations were developed collaboratively with stakeholders drawn from care homes, social care, NHS (including primary care) and academia.

The report describes current NHS support for care homes. It tells a story of unmet need, unacceptable variation and often poor quality of care provided by the NHS to the estimated 400,000 older people resident in UK care homes. It describes what should and could be done and calls for national action by government and local action by NHS commissioners, planners and clinical services to improve the quality of NHS support to care homes.

It highlights the need to build joint professional leadership from the health, social, and care home sectors, statutory regulators and patient advocacy groups to find the solutions that none of these can achieve alone.

Download report in MSWord format
Download report in pdf format
Click here for a list of organisations who have endorsed the document