Inside Health

Claudia Hammond on the longest known stay for a Briton with COVID-19 in intensive care. A month ago Respiratory Physiotherapist Gemma Bartlett at University Hospital Southampton highlighted the case to Inside Health. At that stage the patient was at day 28: now Erika Wright catches up with Gemma again for a good news update on the patient who is at a staggering 58 days on a ventilator and has been...

There are a number of complications following infection with Covid-19 that doctors are continuing to find in hospitals. One of the most significant is an acute kidney injury or AKI which can come alongside the disease and NICE has just published rapid guidance to help healthcare staff on the Covid frontline who are not kidney specialists. Inside Health’s Erika Wright has been following staff at So...

Evidence from China, Italy, the USA and now the UK shows categorically that people with diabetes can get seriously ill if they're infected with the new coronavirus. Researchers are trying to untangle the risks for Type 1 and Type 2 but so far, diabetes isn't included in the government's high risk patient group. NHS England's National Specialty Advisor, Professor Partha Kar, tells Claudia Hammond t...

It's well established that the best thing smokers can do for their health is to quit. Smoking contributes to many of the underlying conditions that undermine recovery from coronavirus and it is pretty clear that a coronavirus patient who smokes will likely have a worse outcome than one who doesn't. The FDA in the US recently went so far as to suggest smoking might increase the risk of contracting...

Every week we’re heading to Southampton General Hospital, where we’ve heard a lot about the doctors and nurses doing amazing work. But this week Erika Wright has been talking to Gemma Blanchett who does a job you might not even associate with the virus or with intensive care – and that’s physiotherapy. Gemma is a respiratory physiotherapist who has the joy of watching some recover with her extraor...

A range of potential treatments have been suggested for Covid-19 but nobody knows if any of them will turn out to be more effective in helping people recover than the usual standard hospital care which all patients will receive. Inside Health regular Dr Margaret McCartney talks to Claudia about how the first randomised trials are now setting out to test some of these suggested treatments with unpr...

Claudia Hammond reports on Covid-19 and "moral injury" - when the virus peaks, some healthcare staff will find themselves in a situation never faced before, forced to make decisions they would never normally have to make. This puts them at risk of a so-called “moral injury” which might harm their mental health. It’s more often associated with life in the armed services and Neil Greenberg, Professo...

When hospitals are full of patients, they're said to be "hot". The coronavirus crisis will push up the temperature of hospitals across the UK and in the first in a special series of weekly dispatches from the medical front line, producer Erika Wright will be taking the temperature of University Hospital Southampton - or The General - in Hampshire (which services almost two million people in the so...

Margaret McCartney on COVID-19 and how the military has been deployed to get protective equipment supplies to critical care staff. Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, Dr Alison Pittard tells of the difficult ethical decisions staff are facing. And Professor Carl Heneghan - suffering from COVID-19 symptoms himself - explains the importance of fast action when treating secondary pneumoni...

The UK has one of the lowest numbers of critical care beds in Europe but as the coronavirus threatens to engulf us, drastic measures are being taken to increase capacity. Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, Dr Alison Pittard, tells Saleyha that the NHS has been asked to plan for doubling, trebling and then quadrupling the number of critical care beds. So far, health authorities in Engl...

Inside Health gets exclusive access into Ysbyty Gwynedd, the Bangor emergency department, to see how they are preparing staff to deal with coronavirus patients arriving at the front door. Although advice is for patients to stay at home and call 111, some will be sick enough to need hospital admission. For that outcome, staff need to be properly fitted for face masks and trained in putting on perso...

Chris van Tulleken examines cigarette filters - the tobacco industry's hidden marketing tool. He talks to historian Robert Proctor, author of The Golden Holocaust and May van Schalkwyk explains why she wrote her paper 'No More Butts'. Plus Margaret McCartney discusses whether the media portrays a balanced view of Sepsis.

Evidence is building about the impact of air pollution on health, but the relationship between the cocktail of chemicals, gases and particles in the air we breathe and the direct effect on an individual's health is a tricky one to prove. Dr Farrah Jarral cycles to Kings College London to hear about a new study by researcher in respiratory toxicology, Dr Ian Mudway, which revealed, to the surprise...

Farrah Jarral on coronavirus transmission and the difference between a cough and a sneeze. Why is health research and media coverage about breakfast often contradictory? Farrah meets senior lecturer Javier Gonzalez and Professor James Betts from the Department for Health at the University of Bath. And Margaret McCartney discusses the complex issue of inequalities between men and women when diagnos...

It's not a household name but RSV or Respiratory Syncytial Virus is responsible for 30,000 children under five ending up in hospital every year in the UK. The virus can cause serious infections of the lungs and airways (like pneumonia and bronchiolitis). Hannah and Sean from Oxfordshire had baby girls, Millie and Freya, born prematurely in October last year. Just weeks later, the twins spent 12 da...

James Gallagher, BBC health and science correspondent, and Dr Margaret McCartney talk about the new coronavirus and how GPs have been advised to manage a patient at risk. He meets listeners Rich and Lucy who have asked about probiotics and gut health in early life after one of their twins had a vaginal delivery while the other a C-section. They want to know whether the different types of birth mig...

Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive of the health think tank the Nuffield Trust, joins Dr Margaret McCartney for this special programme about the challenges of remote and rural healthcare. Margaret travels by boat from Mallaig to the Hebridean islands of Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna off the north west coast of Scotland where, after 100 years the islanders lost their resident doctor. When it was clear ther...

When is the best time of day to take blood pressure pills? A new study from Spain has hit the headlines, with dramatic results that could change practice but are the findings too good to be true? And why is getting help for ADHD or other behavioural conditions such a struggle for parents, schools and doctors? Plus recurrent fevers - a rare genetic condition that feels like flu every day. And evide...

Antidepressants and revised guidance from NICE reflecting that, for some people, they can be difficult drugs to come off; Margaret McCartney explains why this initiative is long over due. Chemotherapy backpacks - a novel way of giving cancer therapy that allows people to stay at home, improves quality of life during treatment and takes pressure off the NHS. Plus dizziness - or vertigo - is a commo...

Zantac alert over concerns that the branded reflux treatment is contaminated with a carcinogenic impurity, so what are the risks? And a new device helping to identify Newborn brain injury earlier. An Inside Health Guide to Over the Counter choices and evidence for those that work best - this week Warts and Veruccas; Plus surgery for reflux as an alternative to pills.

There are plans to make high dose statins available over-the-counter without a prescription to improve uptake. Currently around two thirds of people likely to benefit most don't take them, but will these plans make a difference? Amyloidosis is a debilitating rare disease that is often missed: Pam tells her amazing story of recovery and Mark meets the specialists helping her. And news about new gen...

Mark Porter reports on shortages of Heparin, a drug to treat blood clots, due to swine fever in Chinese pigs! And staying with anticoagulants Margaret McCartney discusses concerns about taking these drugs along with common pain killers like ibuprofen. Why is this a risky combination? And Alice tells her story of opting for ovarian freezing, the latest technique to preserve fertility when undergoin...

Why aren't prescription charges free across the whole of the UK? Acute Kidney Injury has shot up the NHS agenda in the last decade. Mark Porter visits Derby Royal Hospital to find out why kidney problems are so common and discovers what's been done to prevent damage to an organ many of us take for granted. Plus the World Health Organisation has removed the UK's measles free status because too few...

Dr Mark Porter finds out about 'singing for lung health', an evidence based therapy for helping people with breathlessness arising from conditions like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. He hears from the choir based at Charing Cross Hospital in London and talks to respiratory physiologist, Adam Lound, to find out how the breathing and singing techniques being taught there, as well as the cama...

What is the risk of catching rabies from bats in the UK? We answer this question prompted by a case at Mark Porter's surgery last week when a bat flew straight into a person in broad daylight. Hip dysplasia in babies is a condition where the ball and socket of the joint don't form properly in early life. Every baby is examined as part of the National Screening Programme but new research suggests h...