Daily Digest March 18 2015

England's biggest NHS trust in special measures over bullying and poor care

The largest hospital trust in the NHS is being placed in special measures because inspectors uncovered poor emergency care, a lack of staff, low morale and a culture of bullying and harassment at one of its hospitals.

Barts Health in London has become the latest trust to face such regulatory action after Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors found Whipps Cross Hospital in east London to be inadequate in many key areas, the Guardian reports.

Trust chief executive Peter Morris said: ‘We are very sorry for the failings identified by the CQC in some of our services at Whipps Cross and we know the trust has a big challenge ahead.’

Read more on the Guardian website: click here

Ebola workers face stigma when they return to the UK

Three in four British people would not shake hands with a healthcare worker recently returned from treating patients who have Ebola in west Africa, a Red Cross survey found.

Despite it being impossible to catch the virus by ordinary day-to-day contact such as sitting beside someone or shaking hands, many people who have been working to end the outbreak have faced stigma on their return, the Independent reports.

Some have had colleagues raise concerns about their return to work, and a small number even avoided seeing their families at Christmas because relatives were worried about the risk of infection.

Read more on the Independent website: click here

Breast-fed babies will earn more as adults and have higher IQs

Babies who were breast-fed for at least 12 months have higher IQs and could go on to earn an extra £200,000 over their lifetime compared with bottle-fed infants, scientists suggest.

Researchers followed 3,500 infants for 30 years, recording how long they spent in education, their employment and earnings and their level of intelligence, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The study, published by The Lancet Global Health found those who were breast-fed for a year or more scored on average four IQ points more on tests than those breast-fed for under one month.

Read more on the Daily Telegraph website: click here