March was packed with important developments. April is equally busy.
Winter illnesses have peaked. In week 13:
- influenza (flu) activity decreased across most indicators and was at low activity levels
- COVID-19 activity showed a mixed picture across indicators and was circulating at baseline levels
- respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity showed a mixed picture across indicators and was circulating at baseline levels
Norovirus activity has remained high but has stabilised in the most recent week. The total number of norovirus laboratory reports during weeks 10 and 11 of 2025 was more than double (144.1%) the 5-season average for the same 2-week period. Most healthy people recover from Norovirus in a few days, but vulnerable people and young children may get serious problems. It spreads easily; just a few viral particles can infect someone, including by close contact with someone with the virus, or eating food prepared by someone with it. It also sticks on surfaces. You can catch Norovirus twice.
If you have Norovirus
- Stay home; don’t return to work or school until two days after the vomiting and diarrhoea have stopped
- Drink plenty
- Wash hands regularly with soap and water; disinfectants don’t work well against the virus; nor do alcohol hand gels
- If you’re concerned – eg if a child can’t keep fluids down or the illness doesn’t stop after a few days – seek medical advice.
NHS England is being abolished. It will be brought into the Department of Health. This is to free up more money for frontline services. It’s expected to take around two years. 50% of the 14,400 NHS England staff and the 3,500 Department of Health staff go. This move gives government more control and accountability for the promised service improvements.
Amongst other reflections, in her last message as chief executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard recalled:
- taking receipt of the George Cross from Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on behalf of the entire NHS workforce.
- that hundreds of NHS and care workers died from the virus – and we should never forget them.
- that the NHS rises to any challenges put to it and has a lot to be proud of.
- thousands now get hospital style care at home through virtual wards.
- half of schools in England now have mental health support teams in place.
- the NHS App has been revolutionised so people can get advice and appointments at the touch of a button.
- the 10 Year Health Plan is a huge opportunity for the NHS.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Amanda Pritchard and all the NHS workers since 2019. They deserve that George Cross; we should never forget them.
Later this year, Amanda Pritchard becomes the Chief Executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
The Working Group has submitted its Recommendations for Community Hospital Services to NHS Mid and South Essex. The review focused particularly on service provision at St Peter’s Hospital in Maldon and other community hospitals including the Cumberlege Intermediate Care Centre in South East Essex and Brentwood Community Hospital.
The working group’s important recommendations are:
St Peter’s Hospital, Maldon: Investment to keep the facility operational for approximately five years while capital funding is assembled for a purpose-built new facility, ideally on a portion of the current site. This new facility would house outpatient services and create vital new primary care space for local GP services.
Inpatient Care: Acknowledgment that the NHS cannot efficiently operate an inpatient unit in Maldon due to low utilisation (maximum of two stroke beds needed for Maldon residents at any given time).
Stroke Services: Implementation of ‘Option B’ featuring a “split bed” approach, ensuring Southend residents who require specialist stroke inpatient rehabilitation can remain local, reducing travel burden on visiting families.
Birthing Services: preserving the approximately 14,000 pre and post-natal appointments that currently take place at St Peter’s Hospital, Maldon each year while maintaining midwife led births at the William Julien Courtauld birthing centre at Braintree Community Hospital.
Next steps
The recommendations will be presented at the ICB Board meeting in May and incorporated into a Decision Making Business Case for consideration by the NHS Mid and South Essex ICB Board during the summer months, with the aim of making a well-informed decision.
The Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) in England have been instructed to reduce their budgets by 50% and will be rearranged to cover larger areas and populations. Mid & South Essex Integrated Care Board will have to lose many staff to achieve this and must do so by October. It is likely ‘our’ ICS will cover at least the whole of the geographical county of Essex. Inevitably this part of the radical development of the NHS over the 10 year plan period will, as always with organisational reviews, interfere in the short term with the work ICSs do. However, it has to be hoped that a streamlined NHS will be more efficient. It is good that local community operations undertaken by Primary Care Networks and Integrated Neighbourhood Teams seem to be unaffected. They have been invaluable in improving performance in our local areas of SWF, the Dengie and Maldon Central.
The English GPs ‘strike’ has been settled. During the next yearpatients will get to book more appointments online and request to see their usual doctor. Red tape and targets will reduce, freeing doctors to see more patients.
English Community pharmacies are considering starting to work to rule unless a new NHS contract is agreed. Action could involve reducing opening hours and cutting services. Pharmacies have a vital role as the NHS shifts away from hospitals and back to the community; we need them more than ever.
The NHS has issued a follow up survey about their 10 year plan consultation at (1) Project: Your priorities for change | Change NHS focusing on patient choice, how to support staff to care for patients, and using technology to improve people’s experiences of the NHS. Please have a look at this and share your views, so that the eventual plan is shaped by the voices of those who actually use services.
The independent academic survey about accessibility to NHS services from local to national ones which we are undertaking in partnership again with Warwick Medical School has now received ethical approval and we will be distributing it soon. This will look at distances and times it takes to reach appointments as well as the making of appointments.
GPs are inviting eligible people to book spring Covid-19 vaccinations. The NHS national booking system https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/vaccination-and-booking-services/book-covid-19-vaccination/ is open to 7.5 million eligible people, including everyone aged 75 years and over, residents in care homes for older adults, and people with a weakened immune system. UKHSA’s latest report on UK infectious diseases shows rises in endemic and vaccine-preventable infections. Such diseases caused 20%+ hospital bed usage, costing £6bn in 2023-24. This winter has shown us how reduced immunity has brought record infections. We must get our vaccinations.
Since September 2023 the Mid & South Essex dental access initiative has delivered over 23,500 Urgent Appointments.
Cancer pill gave me ‘four years of extra time’. According to the BBC, Linda Kelly, 67, has advanced breast cancer which has spread to her bones and chest wall, but says a new pill has given her extra years of life and time to travel with her husband. “It does let you have a normal kind of life and you forget you have cancer,” she says of the new drug capivasertib, which has been recommended for NHS use in England and Wales, and is funded now in England.
Linda is one of more than 1,000 women with incurable breast cancer who could benefit from the drug, which can slow progression of the disease. The side-effects for her were minimal and it’s allowed her to go on holiday to New Zealand with her husband Neil last year and plan a trip to the US this year.
“You feel the drug is working and you can be a lot calmer – it’s given me nearly four years of extra time,” she says. In trials with 708 patients, when combined with hormone therapy, the drug doubled the time the cancer took to grow, from 3.6 months to 7.3 months, and shrank tumours in 23% of patients.
One day, a saliva test may help “turn the tide” on prostate cancer, UK scientists claim.
It analyses men’s DNA to work out who was born with the greatest risk of developing the disease. Targeting them for prostate biopsies and MRI scans discovered some aggressive cancers that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. However, the test has not yet been proven to save lives and experts say it will be “years” before such tests could be used routinely.
Around 12,000 men in the UK die from prostate cancer every year. Calls for the routine testing of healthy men – known as screening – have grown louder since Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy announced he had terminal prostate cancer. Screening has been rejected in the past because using the current test – which looks for levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in the blood – risks causing more harm than good. Public health news is on our website and in weekly e-newsletters. SWF Library provides online services and help with internet access. For health & welfare information and subscription to our newsletter, email swfhealthsocial@outlook.com , or leave voicemails on 01245 322079.
SWF Health & Social Care Group 