- Near-patient testing – also known as point-of-care testing – is transforming healthcare by delivering fast, accurate results right where patients are treated, from hospitals to ambulances and community clinics.
- Yet, current EU rules still require paper instructions for these professional-use tests.
- The new booklet highlights why it’s time to modernise these rules and enable electronic instructions for use (eIFU) to make healthcare more sustainable, faster, and safer.
How the AI Airlock is charting a path for regulating AI in healthcare through sandboxes
- Dr Natasha Motsi’s RegMeds Blog covers the learning from phase 1 of the AI Airlock and what we can expect from phase 2.
Early flu wave could lead to ‘long and drawn out’ Winter for NHS
- The flu season has hit the NHS more than a month earlier than usual, with cases three times higher than this time last year.
- The UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA’s) latest surveillance data published today shows cases have increased this week from 6.1% up to 8.2% – largely driven by a spike among school-aged children – and is up from 2.9% this time last year.
- It follows the warning signs from the Asia-pacific, where Japan has already declared a flu epidemic, with many schools needing to close.
Blood tests ‘could revolutionise dementia diagnosis’
- A trial looking into the potential of new and existing blood tests to diagnose people with dementia could “revolutionise” care.
- Despite new drugs for the memory loss condition being developed, about a third of people with dementia in the UK do not have a diagnosis, which means they cannot be treated.
- This is something the trial at the North Bristol NHS Trust, working with Bristol University, aims to address.
Breath test could ‘revolutionise’ pancreatic cancer diagnosis
- A new pancreatic cancer breath test could “revolutionise” care for patients, experts have said.
- A trial is to assess the effectiveness of a world-first breath test for the disease, which is notoriously hard to spot in its early stages.
- The test is used to detect a combination of “volatile organic compounds” present in the breath. Thousands of these compounds travel around the bloodstream and are filtered out when the blood reaches the lungs and then expelled out with breath.
