Health & Wellbeing

Colors: Purple Color
Colors: Purple Color

This week is Learning Disability Week (20th-26th June) and an education expert has shared five pieces of advice on how to support children if they have learning disabilities.

Interestingly, research conducted by Oxford Home Schooling revealed that while overseeing their children’s learning during lockdown, many parents spotted potential signs of a learning difficulty.

Responding to the latest Emergency Department performance figures published by NHS England for May 2022, Dr Katherine Henderson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “A marginal improvement in performance data is positive but should not be cause for celebration. The data remain grim reading and there is no real sign of this crisis easing. 

Younger children are able to get their Covid-19 vaccination at the Mander Centre clinic in Wolverhampton. The clinic, on the Upper Mall, is offering free vaccinations to youngsters aged five to 11 on weekdays between 3pm and 5.30pm, Saturdays from 9am to 5.30pm and Sundays from 10.30am to 4.30pm.

Children aged five to 11 are eligible for a first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Children can get a first dose of the vaccine from the day they turn five, and most children can get a second dose 12 weeks after the first.

If the child has a condition that means they are at high risk from Covid-19 or they live with someone who has a weakened immune system, they can get the second dose eight weeks after their first. Walk-in appointments are available, or they can be booked online at https://bit.ly/3dtsler or by calling 119.

Please note, five to 11-year-olds must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. People who have recently had a positive Covid-19 test must wait 12 weeks before having the vaccination.

Councillor Jasbir Jaspal, the City of Wolverhampton Council's Cabinet Member for Public Health and Wellbeing, said: "The number of cases of Covid-19 in Wolverhampton, and nationally, has been gradually rising over the last few days, and so it remains important that people think about getting vaccinated when they are able to.

"We have worked hard with our partners to make the vaccine as widely available as possible to anyone who wants it, and so we are pleased that the clinic at the Mander Centre will be offering vaccinations to five to 11-year-olds, seven days a week.

"While most children who contract Covid-19 thankfully either have no symptoms or mild illness, some can still fall seriously ill and so I would encourage parents and guardians who have children eligible for a vaccine to come forward as soon as possible."

Sally Roberts, Chief Nursing Officer for NHS Black Country and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group, added: “For decades, vaccinations have protected our children and young people from potentially serious diseases, including measles, flu, meningitis and mumps.

"By the time they leave school, a child will typically have been offered vaccinations against 18 different diseases or infections and the Covid-19 vaccine is one more vaccine that children can have to protect them from illness.”

A landmark BMA report into racism in medicine has revealed a profession in danger of a major exodus of doctors of ethnic minority backgrounds, due to persistent and intolerable levels of racism faced at a personal and institutional level.

The West Midlands had the highest number of doctors surveyed across the country (43%) who said they have considered leaving the NHS or have already left within the past two years due to racism and discrimination.

It’s not only Her Majesty the Queen marking a 70-year Jubilee in 2022 as BHBN Radio is also marking its 70th anniversary of broadcasting to Birmingham’s Hospitals. Rewind the clock seven decades, to a pub in Moseley in 1952, and what became BHBN was formed to keep patients at the Yardley Green Sanatorium, (now part of Heartlands Hospital), satisfied with live football and cricket commentaries, which is something the Network continues to this day!

Parents and guardians in Wolverhampton are being asked to ensure their children are up to date with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, as latest data shows uptake across England has dropped to the lowest level in a decade.

The percentage of five-year-olds who have had both doses of the MMR vaccine in England is currently 86.3%, well below the World Health Organization’s target of 95% which it says is needed to achieve and sustain the elimination of measles.

Tesco has become the UK’s first supermarket to begin registering its defibrillators to a new national database that could improve cardiac arrest survival rates in the UK.

With 133 registered defibrillators in Tesco stores across the West Midlands, the supermarket has now registered over 2,000 in total across the UK - making it the biggest single addition of defibrillators to the database so far.

Parents and guardians can quickly access NHS health advice and practical tips for their young children thanks to the free Healthy Child Wolves app. Commissioned by the City of Wolverhampton Council and launched by The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust's Health Visiting Team, the app is packed with tips, advice and signposting to support young families, from pregnancy to getting a child ready for school and everything in between.

Alzheimer’s Society is encouraging people in the West Midlands to help fund life-changing dementia support by wearing a Forget Me Not badge, as the leading dementia charity launches its inaugural Forget Me Not Appeal. 

TV journalist, writer and presenter Angela Rippon CBE is the first of several high-profile figures to share a treasured memory that they’d never want to forget as part of the appeal, which runs throughout June.

With thousands of street parties set to take place across the UK to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Alzheimer’s Society is urging organisers to consider the needs of the 900,000 people living with dementia. The Big Jubilee Lunch, which is helping communities to organise street parties between June 2 and 5, predicts at least 12 million people will attend an event to mark the Queen’s 70th anniversary on the throne.

A Staffordshire solicitor who will be taking part in her first-ever St Giles Hospice Solstice Walk next month is calling on people to join her for a magical midsummer evening of fundraising in Lichfield. Alexa Holgate, together with a team of 20 colleagues from Pickerings Solicitors in Tamworth, will join the hospice’s Enchanted Solstice Walk, which will be making a triumphant return to the city’s streets on Saturday, 18th June, after a two-year absence due to COVID-19.

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