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Patients could benefit from improved nursing care and outcomes thanks to new guidance that helps draw out meaningful findings from qualitative studies, according to new UK research.

Introducing dedicated expert nurses to proactively monitor patients at increased risk of “clinical deterioration” can help cut intensive care transfers by up to 40%, according to a new US study.

Clinicians need to do more to help people with type 2 diabetes stick to exercise regimes that can help them control blood glucose and improve heart health, according to a group of European experts. A position paper from the European Association of Preventive Cardiology highlights the benefits of physical activity for people with the condition. But the researchers make it clear that simply advising patients with type 2 diabetes to do more exercise is not enough. Instead, clinicians should help formulate tailored exercise plans and do more to motivate and encourage people to keep going, the researchers said.

Reduced staffing and lack of follow-up care could mean the festive season is a more vulnerable time for patients discharged from hospital. Patients sent home from hospital during the Christmas / New Year period are less likely to have a follow-up appointment, and have a higher risk of readmission or death within 30 days, finds a Canadian study published in The BMJ.

Recent breakthroughs in immunotherapy are making a huge difference in treating some forms of cancer, especially metastatic cancer. But breast cancer has proven a tricky foe for this new therapy, and an interdisciplinary team of Florida State University researchers is now a little bit closer to figuring out why.

QIMR Berghofer researchers have created functioning miniature human skeletal muscle – a move that will accelerate research into muscle disease and treatments. The bio-engineered one millimetre by 0.5 millimetre skeletal muscles flex and move like muscles in the body and grow and strengthen with exercise.

Hospitalised patients were more likely to die when registered nurse (RN) staffing levels fell below the ward average, according to a retrospective analysis of data from a large acute care hospital. Each day spent in an RN-understaffed ward over a 3-year period conferred a 3% rise in mortality risk, whereas each additional hour of care provided by an RN was associated with a 3% reduction in the chances of dying, the study found.

Every Christmas The BMJ publishes articles on topics in the left field of research, answering questions that readers had never even thought of. Over the years The BMJ has looked at such vital topics as the side effects of sword-swallowing, the most popular type of chocolate eaten in hospitals, and whether skipping your "beauty sleep" actually makes a difference.

Many people believe doctors go through life with a stethoscope in one hand and a golf club in the other. So this year, researchers from the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy decided to find out whether the stereotype of golf-playing doctors is actually true, and if so, which doctors make the best golfers.

CKN recently spoke with Dr Tony Rahman, Director of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at The Prince Charles Hospital, and heard about some of the innovative programs being run by his team.

Simple tips to curb excess eating and drinking and encourage physical activity over Christmas can help stop people piling on the kilos, finds a trial in the Christmas issue of The BMJ.