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Issue:- 21 June  2012

Carnival Time in Stanley Street

CARNIVAL time is coming to a Liverpool city centre street.  6 giant carnival puppets, accompanied by music, will be in Stanley Street on Saturday, 7 July 2012, as the highlight of an afternoon focusing on what the street has to offer. Brouhaha International are bringing the puppets as a preview of the Liverpool International Carnival.  The carnival event (midday to 3pm) will be opened by the Lord Mayor, Councillor Sharon Sullivan.

Councillor Nick Small, cabinet member for employment, enterprise and skills, said:- “We want to see the Stanley Street buzzing, especially in the run up to Liverpool Pride on 4 August. We have staged a number of special events there in recent months and have more special days to come.  Many more people now use Stanley Street as they travel into the city centre via Moorefield and we want to make sure they use the cafés and bars there; they will find it is a lively, vibrant area with a lot on offer.”

On 7 July 2012, artisan traders will provide the best of fine food and drink, arts and crafts and vintage clothes.  And a number of bars; including the newly reopened Bar Wickid - will open with pavement cafes providing a chance for people to sit out and enjoy the spectacle. The bars are also promising to do something different to their established night time offer with the long established Lisbon pub, for example, serving Thai food and drag artistes from local venues will vie with each other to show the giant puppets how to work the street to the beat of carnival.

And to make sure everybody hears about what is happening the Town Crier, Terry Stubbings, will be greeting passengers coming out of Moorfields as they come into Stanley Street.

Bouhaha’s Liverpool International Carnival “De Paradise – A Life Beyond”  takes place on 14 July 2012. 

Carers overwhelmed by respite guilt.

CARERS in the North West experience huge feelings of guilt at the prospect of sending their disabled, frail or elderly loved ones into residential care even for just a few days, research has revealed.

In the wake of Care Services Minister Paul Burstow’s promise to provide more support for unpaid family carers to gain access to respite breaks, disability charity Vitalise; which runs the Sandpipers respite break centre in Southpor; has revealed that worries over the quality of residential care is preventing family carers from taking up respite opportunities.

The study, issued by Vitalise during Carers Week 2012, found that 57% of carers felt guilty about needing to use respite care and that worries about the quality of the respite experience were a significant barrier.

The study also found that carers want more choice and control over their respite care and short breaks. 70% of carers surveyed felt that a break from caring, even for a few days, was ‘important’ or ‘very important’.

The research, commissioned by Vitalise, collated the findings of research conducted by various organisations over the past five years. It has been issued during Carers Week 2012 as evidence that more needs to be done to improve the quality of respite care for disabled and older people.

There are estimated to be over 150,000 known carers in the North West region, with potentially many tens of thousands more who do not appear in statistics. In the UK, around 1 person in 8 is in some kind of caring role. Unpaid carers save the UK economy around £119 billion each year.

Vitalise Chief Executive Chris Simmonds said:- "We welcome Paul Burstow’s pledge to give carers better access to respite, but what our study clearly shows is that family carers have no confidence in the quality or suitability of the respite care on offer. This is the real issue here.  The sad fact is that carers’ fears are quite justified. In many cases respite care amounts to little more than warehousing for disabled or older people, so it’s not surprising that carers would rather struggle on at home, risking their own health in the process.  Unless the fundamental issue of quality in respite care is addressed, this problem will only get worse. Access to regular, good quality respite breaks for people with disabilities and those who care for them should not be considered a luxury but an absolute essential in enabling families affected by disability to carry on coping."

Vitalise provides essential short breaks in a holiday environment for people with disabilities; including Alzheimer’s and dementia; and carers at three accessible UK Centres, with 24 hour nursing care on-call, personal support and a range of accessible excursions, activities and entertainment.

People with disabilities and carers wanting more advice and information about Vitalise breaks are requested to call them on:- 0303 303 0145, or visit their website at:- vitalise.org.uk.

Southport author to appear at festival

SOUTHPORT author Liz Kessler is to appear at the Manchester Children’s Book Festival. Liz will be introducing her first book for younger readers inspired by her Dalmatian puppy, Poppy the Pirate Dog, and talking about her other novels for young people aged from 8 to 13, A Year Without Autumn, the Emily Windsnap series and the Philippa Fisher series.

The event will take place on Saturday, 30 June 2012, from 1pm to 2pm, at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Geoffrey Manton Building. Tickets cost:- £6.60 for adults and:- £4.40 for concessions. To book, ring:- 0843 2080500 or visit:- mcbf.org.uk. The Manchester Children’s Book Festival is organised by the Manchester School of Writing, with Poet Laureate and MMU Professor Carol Ann Duffy as Creative Director.

Coronary rehabilitation programmes in Europe are underused, 'with poor referral and low participation'

LARGE proportions of European coronary patients are not benefitting from cardiac rehabilitation services, according to results of the third EUROASPIRE survey published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Yet despite the evidence that cardiac rehabilitation is very effective for patients with coronary heart disease, this latest study shows that services in Europe are much underused, with poor referral and a low participation rate.

"There is still considerable potential for cardiac rehabilitation programmes to further reduce the risk of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events," say the investigators.

The survey, the biggest in Europe on the secondary prevention of heart disease, showed that 44.8% of all patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) were advised to follow a rehabilitation programme, but only 36.5% took part in some form of cardiac rehabilitation. Yet, of those who were advised to attend a programme, 80% agreed and did so.

The EUROASPIRE survey, conducted on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), analysed medical records and interviewed almost 9000 patients with CHD in 22 countries of Europe. Much variation between countries was found, with highest rehabilitation attendance reported in Lithuania and Ireland, the lowest in Turkey, Cyprus and Russia, and virtually no attendance in Greece and Spain. "These differences are most likely to reflect the heterogeneity of healthcare systems and the availability of cardiac rehabilitation services in some regions of Europe," said the authors.

In France 32.4% of CHD patients were advised to attend rehabilitation, and of those advised 90% attended.

In Germany 56.6% were advised, and 91.1% attended.

  In Italy 51.5% were advised, and 88.7% attended.

In the UK 43.0% were advised, and 80.6 attended.

In Spain 3% were advised and < 1% attended.

The study also found that patients who had coronary artery bypass surgery were more likely to be offered and attend rehabilitation programmes than those in other diagnostic categories. Smokers, older patients and those with lower educational attainment were also less likely to attend.

As background to the report the authors note that cardiac rehabilitation is recommended by the European Society of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology in the treatment of patients with CHD. It is a cost-effective intervention following an acute coronary event and improves prognosis by reducing recurrent hospitalisation and health care costs, while prolonging life. Indeed, cardiac rehabilitation compares favourably in terms of cost per life year saved with other well-established interventions such as percutaneous coronary interventions or coronary artery bypass surgery.

Investigator Dr Kornelia Kotseva from the National Heart & Lung Institute in London described the results as a major cause for concern. "There is an urgent need to raise the standard of secondary prevention," she said.

EUROASPIRE III is the3rd survey of the series and was carried out in patients from 76 coronary care centres in Europe. Consecutive patients with a diagnosis of CHD were identified, and interviewed and examined at least 6 months after their coronary event. Earlier reports have shown that many coronary patients do not achieve lifestyle, risk factor and therapeutic targets for cardiovascular disease prevention as set out in the guidelines. There were wide variations in risk-factor prevalence and use of cardioprotective drug therapies between countries.

A comparison between the 13 countries which participated in both the EUROASPIRE II and III surveys showed that the proportion of patients advised to follow a cardiac rehabilitation programme increased from 44.5 to 55.7%, and that the participation rate also increased from 38.0 to 46.1%. It was also shown in EUROASPIRE III that those patients attending a cardiac rehabilitation programme smoked less (with higher smoking cessation rates), and had significantly better total cholesterol control and higher use of cardoprotective medications than found in EUROASPIRE II.

"Although these results are encouraging. There is still considerable potential for cardiac rehabilitation programmes to further reduce the risk of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events. Many patients referred to and participating to a cardiac rehabilitation programme do not achieve the lifestyle and risk factor target.  To achieve the clinical benefits of a prevention programme, we need to integrate professional lifestyle interventions with effective risk factor management and evidence-based drug therapies appropriately adapted to the medical, cultural and economic setting of a country. The challenge is to engage and motivate cardiologists, physicians and health professionals to routinely practice high quality preventive cardiology in a health care system which invests in prevention." said Dr Kotseva

Today, cardiac rehabilitation has evolved from supervised exercise sessions and return-to-work training in patients recovering from heart attack or cardiac surgery into more comprehensive programmes which include health education on smoking, diet and physical activity, risk-factor management (control of blood pressure, cholesterol levels and diabetes), and the use of prophylactic drug therapies. The World Health Organisation describes cardiac rehabilitation as "the sum of activities required to influence favourably the underlying cause of the disease, as well as the best possible physical, mental and social conditions, so that they may, by their own efforts preserve or resume when lost, as normal a place as possible in the community."

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