Patient records, cholesterol, statins, whiplash
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2012
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the Prime Minister announces his efforts to reduce compensation claims for whiplash, Dr Mark Porter asks are doctors having the wool pulled over their eyes? Or are drivers and passengers making mountains out of molehills?
Our resident sceptic Kamran Abbasi looks behind recent headlines that suggested weaning your baby on finger foods may be a healthier option than spoon feeding.
And in response to our listeners, cholesterol tests - what do they mean, and what should we do about them? Statins are the main mode of prevention for those at greatest risk of heart attack and stroke. But how do you balance the risk of side effects with the protection they provide? We explore the latest research.
And how many times have you been to a hospital appointment only to find that the doctor seeing you doesn't have your notes or test results? By 2015, the Department of Health hopes to give us all access to our notes via a centralised electronic record. We examine an alternative approach being tried at various hospitals including Great Ormond Street Hospital. Called Patients Know Best, it works a bit like Facebook and puts the patient in charge.
Producer: Beth Eastwood.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I am Ed Gamble, host of another BBC |
| 0:04.6 | podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like |
| 0:09.9 | Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylen, |
| 0:15.0 | and comedy specials from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Romesh Ranganathan. |
| 0:19.9 | However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncoaked. |
| 0:24.3 | So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.1 | This is a download from the BBC. To find out more, visit BBC.com.ukuk slash radio four. |
| 0:55.3 | Hello and welcome to Inside Health in today's program, weaning. Our resident skeptic, Dr Cameron Abassi, looks behind recent headlines suggesting that weaning your baby on finger foods may be a healthier option than spoon feeding. And in response to our listeners, cholesterol tests. What do they mean? And what should we do about them? |
| 1:00.5 | And medical records, the Department of Health hopes to give us all access to our notes by 2015. |
| 1:06.6 | In the meantime, we look at a novel approach that puts patients in charge and works a bit like Facebook. |
| 1:11.7 | You can't poke your doctor, but it's the same idea of kind of just building that network of the people who look after your health. |
| 1:16.4 | But first, whiplash. The Prime Minister has just hosted a high-level meeting at Downing Street to try and reduce compensation claims for trivial road traffic accidents. The UK is now the Whiplash capital of Europe, |
| 1:23.5 | with claims costing insurance companies around £2 billion a year. |
| 1:30.6 | So, are doctors having the wool pulled over their eyes, |
| 1:34.1 | or are drivers and passengers making mountains out of molehills? |
| 1:37.2 | Muscular skeletal specialist, Dr Steve Longworth, |
| 1:39.9 | is currently in the middle of his weekly hospital spine clinic. |
| 1:42.6 | Steve, how hard is it to diagnose whiplash? |
| 1:44.2 | It's extremely easy, really. |
| 1:47.2 | You get this classic story of somebody in a reassunt accident who comes to you with pain that starts typically the day after the accident. |
| 1:51.4 | They've got pain and stiffness and some restriction and tenderness when you examine them. |
| 1:55.1 | Is it difficult, though, to predict at an early stage what sort of problems they're like to develop, |
... |
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