Media Monitoring: 10th – 16th July

The Fleming Fund, a major British programme that helps tackle antimicrobial resistance in the developing world, has been forced to close because of the government’s aid cuts, The Telegraph can reveal.
The £265 million programme – named after Alexander Fleming the British scientist who discovered penicillin – was established in 2015 in response to a landmark UK study which found resistant infections would kill 10 million people every globally year by 2050.
The fund was designed to tackle drug resistance at its source and support experts in hundreds of laboratories in developing countries that face the greatest threat from AMR.

A national charity dedicated to supporting patients impacted by resistant infections has relaunched with a new name and new approach to tackling the growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis.
AMR Action UK, formerly known as Antibiotic Research UK, has rebranded – placing a stronger emphasis on strengthening the ability of patients to influence actions that could protect people from AMR.
As part of this, the charity has announced the introduction of four ‘national patient insight panels’, representing the four countries of the UK.

A new Directorate for Patient Experience within NHS England, transferring to the new proposed structure within DHSC as NHS England is abolished, is to be created.
The proposal comes as Government publishes the Report of the Review of patient safety across the health and care landscape led by Dr Penny Dash, current Chair of NHS England.
This shake-up of patient safety and quality monitoring was trailed by Wes Streeting in advance of the NHS 10 Year Plan in the context of him announcing the abolition of Healthwatch England, and 154 local Healthwatches, and moving the Patient Safety Commissioner into the MHRA.

Sir Keir Starmer and his health secretary, Wes Streeting, often trumpet the number of extra NHS appointments since they took office as an example of their success, but the figures tell a different story.
The prime minister today highlighted that four million additional appointments have been made in their first nine months in office – overachieving on their target of two million in a year.
But Sky News and fact-checkers at Full Fact have previously shown that the number of extra appointments is slowing under Labour, and our analysis of the latest figures shows that this trend has continued.

Life expectancy has increased dramatically over the past century, turning the 100-year life – once a distant milestone – into a reality for many Europeans.
Long lives are a significant public health achievement. They bring opportunities, not only for people and their families to pursue the lives they want, but also for societies to unlock economic opportunities.
These include not only longer working lives, but the chance for citizens to carry on caring, volunteering and actively participating in the community for longer. Yet the extent to which these opportunities can be realised depends heavily on one factor: health.

A woman who survived cervical cancer said she was concerned about changes to cervical screening that have come into effect.
Cervical screening tests are currently offered to 25-to-49-year-olds every three years. That is now being extended to five-year intervals. The time between tests for those aged 50 to 64 is already five years.
The NHS said research had shown screening every five years was as safe as every three years, and it wanted to spare people appointments they did not need.

HORIBA has expanded its worldwide network of Analytical Solution Plazas with the opening in the UK of its latest advanced technology centre.
The Plaza will be a resource for all of HORIBA’s business fields in the UK, giving customers and the wider UK scientific community ready access to the company’s breadth of advanced technological capabilities and scientific expertise.
It will house a broad range of HORIBA’s cutting-edge technologies which can support an extensive array of analytical applications from biopharmaceuticals, cell and gene therapy, and clinical diagnostics, through to Net Zero and clean energy, the environment and climate change, plus advanced manufacturing and materials.