Obviously the UK isn’t known for the amount of ‘perfect smiles’ that are synonymous with suntanned Californians you see on television shows. But on the whole the UK has come a long way over the years, and with advances in dentistry and better awareness of  dental health, the outlook is getting brighter all the time.

Looking through the more recent surveys – one fact is glaring. Namely, that an unignorable figure – 1 in 4 – of UK adults say that the cost of dental treatment influences their decision when it comes to what treatment they undertake – or even if they decide to.

While this is a large figure, it’s not entirely surprising. If  you think about how a burst of toothache can lead to a checkup that then could lead to hundreds of pounds’ worth of treatment, it’s no wonder some are reluctant. Maybe what’s required is a concerted awareness campaign showing how not only is the appropriate dental treatment a health essential but also how the costs of routine, restorative and emergency treatments can be lessened by taking out inexpensive dental insurance . This would go a long way in making people aware of the level to which dental health is important, plus show ways of taking the pain out of unexted dental bill expenses.

Click here to view the embedded video.

These days more and more of us are using new strategies to save money – from trying out cheaper budget brands at the supermarket, to perusing the various money saving and price comparison websites. It makes sense to be sure you’re getting the best deal going for the requirements that you have. Especially if it means that a bit more time and effort leaves you with a few more pounds in the bank afterwards.

But what about every day check up and treatment costs? These can crop up and leave us with a hole in the pocket unexpectedly, adding expense to inconvenience. That’s where health cash plans come in. Essentially a cash plan is a form of insurance that helps people out with ‘normal’ healthcare costs e.g. dentistry, sight tests and so on. So, for people who wear glasses and visit the dentist, these plans can help save some money – some forms of cash plan also help out with money back on things like physiotherapy, chiropractics plus even acupuncture and homeopathy treatments. It’s an affordable way to help out with health costs – and you can get more info from individual providers or money-saving sites.

Quite often with health it’s a balance between lifestyle and finances – I’m sure many of us would, if we had unlimited cash – jet off to Dubai or Texas for top-dollar, cutting-edge treatment , Unfortunately, without those all-important 6 winning lotto numbers of a Saturday night, that’s going to remain unlikely.

So, in the event that we need treatment, what do we do? Things the way they happen to be at the moment means that for many types of treatment there are long waiting lists. Obviously if you require treatment you want everything tickety-boo and back to normal as soon as possible, not to be waiting what will at least feel like an interminable amount of time to be seen.

In order to avoid waiting too long – and be back at work sooner, there are types of health cover whereby if you’re on a waiting list, then you’re seen by the NHS if the waiting list is under a certain amount of time – but if it’s over, then you go private straight away.

With the news every night a litany of double dip, austerity and eurozone tribulation, we all need to be saving the pennies. So a bit of smart thinking on home finances is now more expedient than ever…

According to this post on the Time blog, various mental illness related issues make up four of the five top ‘non-combat’ causes for hospitalisation of US troops. When you consider the in terms of personnel, the US Army is a very big organisation, then it follows that this is a pretty big problem.

It’s amazing to think that it’s not all that far back into the past when we lived in a time where mental illness was seen either as a weakness, or a sign that the sufferer was somehow different from the rest of us. Certainly in military circles the  focus has always been – necesarily – on resilience and toughness, but one of the biggest things we’ve learnt over the past few decades is that resilience and toughness aren’t about bottling things up – it’s all about communication and getting the right treatment.

According to UK mental health charity MIND (mind.org.uk), 1 in 6 workers in the UK is experiencing depression, anxiety or stress at any one time. They refer to the issue as “the elephant in the room”. And if things in the office can sometimes be difficult to cope with, there is a good set of resources online at Mind’s site for people who want to find out more about the organisation and how it can help.

Do you think mental health is an ‘elephant in the room’ when it comes to the workplace?

Let us know your views in the comments.

It now seems that employers are attempting to stop staff benefits such as health insurance.  The unstoppable rise of policies across the globe is forcing companies to trim the levels of cover for staff, say for example they cut a policy in such a way they no longer are applicable for dental health insurance or wellbeing benefits in order to save the company long term gains.

Mercer, who carried out the survey, stated that the global recession has left many companies questioning the feasibility of health care schemes as part of company benefits schemes.  Even more worrying could be the introduction of having to pay an excess on treatments, much like you would a car insurance scheme, in order to keep money in the company coffers (almost £500 a year in some staff cases).

Of course these changes could prove detrimental to companies as staff may begin to feel they aren’t looked after, especially after being shipped abroad.  Employees may feel that they are no longer valued and may move on to a company who was willing to offer staff benefits better than someone who was looking to save money.

Inspired by AXA PPP healthcare and Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life partnership we wanted to put together a list of the best fancy dress costumes spotted at marathons across the globe.  They range from the weird to the wonderful and are supporting some wonderful causes, so without further ado!

10 – At no ten on our list are these two women who seem to be, er, watching the race rather than participating.  These fairies make our top 10 for the less than amused factor.

9 – Sneaking in at no 9 are those ‘got your number’ boys.  Has to be said that they aren’t looking so cheery in this picture, 26 miles will do that to you, and the young guy next to them can’t believe his eyes!

8 – Running into 8^th position is a man dressed as a banana.  No potential slip ups then!  Many athletes use bananas to provide their bodies with energy.  Not dress their bodies with them!

7 – Wheres Wally? Here he is! Sticking out from the crowd in this costume making it at no 7 is Wally taken time out from blending in to raise money for a good cause like Race for Life!

6 – Making it at no 6 is surely this participant dressed as a sports bottle.  I bet this was incredibly hard work pounding the pavement with this outfit on!  At least if he gets thirsty……

5 – At 5 is Woody’s friend Buzz, taking time out from saving the planet to run for a charitable cause.

4 Next on the list is a character called Mr Testicles.  Running for a men’s health charity and raising awareness about testicular cancer.  Hats off to the fella, he must be baking in there!

3 – So below here  sees the top 3.  Surely having the advantage of 4 legs and a water reservoir on your back gives an advantage.  Well, no, not when you are two men struggling to see and attempting to run in tandem.

2 – Narrowly missing out on top spot is the no 11 bus.  Without pandering to the stereotype of late buses and such, well, I hope this made it on time.

1 – Here it is the no 1 spot for the best fancy dress costume whilst running a marathon.  He will be ‘think skinned’ for me to say these guys aren’t notoriously quick but our winner is the rhino who ran the event in Brighton.  What an effort!

The other thing I remember being struck by was the set of handwashing instructions on an easy to understand poster affixed to the wall. The few simple steps of handwashing probably did a lot in terms of changing people’s habits. For myself – always a handwasher but never really methodical about it – it meant remembering to cleanse every surface of the hands efficiently, quickly and easily. And possibly for many others too – and where better to have germ-free hands than in a hospital.

This week it was reported that this – on the face of it, quite simple and humble – campaign may have been responsible for saving as many as 10, 000 lives across the country, and a significant reduction inclostridium difficile (C difficile) rates of infection.

There’s more info on the campaign here.

The official regulator of GP’s has claimed there are too many errors when they are prescribing drugs to patients.  The review which was undertaken by the General Medical Council (GMC) who were looking at one in six people who have been regularly prescribed drugs.  The worst affected in the study of 1200 were the elderly and the young.

The GMC were quick to report that although there had been errors they would most likely have been corrected once the prescription had been filled out and the pharmacist had checked it over.  They feel that doctors may feel too rushed to provide sufficient enough healthcare and have suggested that consultations be increased from 10 to 15 minutes.  This may also improve the administering of drugs to patients.

The most common errors that had occurred were not enough information and also the information was not correct in terms of what dosages should be taken and the correct occurrences of such.  Approximately a fifth of patients experienced an error with their prescription in the last year and in the over 75’s that figure rose to almost 40 per cent.

Overall they believe that the numbers of errors that were ‘severe’ were round about four per cent.  These cases were due to allergies to the drugs and a lack of monitoring potentially dangerous ones like warfarin, which thin the blood.  Andrew Lansley, has asked the public not too worry as even if mistakes were made there were certain protocols to make sure these did not affect the public.

With backing from two universities and several high profile dance organisations, the new clinic will provide treatment and services specialised towards dealing with dance injuries.

As part of a new National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science, the clinic will also be used to identify trends and conduct research and analysis towards more effective treatment and prevention of common dance related injuries.

While Dance UK estimate that roughly 80% of its members are injured each year, many freelancers who are reliant upon the NHS for treatment, the announcement could have come at a better time.

The combination of a struggling economy, hospital budgets being heavily cut back and long NHS waiting times have led to many being angered by the announcement of this new specialist clinic.

Many argue that the money spent on such a specialist clinic, aimed at providing services only for a small section of the UK population. Particularly when austerity cuts are biting into the budgets for many frontline services of benefit to a much wider population set.

While the dance industry is known to be a physically demanding one, where careers are inextricably related to physical health and fitness, it is not the only such, nor is it so poorly paid a career as to make private healthcare unaffordable with an average salary for a dancer in the UK being around £19,250.

However, as the institute will also be responsible for conducting research into common dance injuries and identifying means for better prevention of such injuries, the insights gained from this would undoubtedly filter through to benefit all levels of healthcare.

As many dance injuries tend to occur in the knees and hips, treatments for which are amongst the most common procedures on the NHS, knowledge gained in this area on being able to provide effective treatment would obviously be of significant benefit to the wider population of the UK. Particularly since any treatment that would be suitable for dancers would have to allow the patient to maintain sufficient movement to sustain their career.

Yet, in spite of this, many will still argue the case that such an institute certainly seems like a luxury that can be ill afforded by the NHS for potentially limited gain and benefit to the entire population which the healthcare service serves.

The study found that work addictions were getting notably worse and held the blurred boundaries of personal and professional lives as the main issue.  Many of the people who took part in the research found it difficult to switch off once they leave the office.  The research questions came in the shape of statements ranging from “never” to “always”.  An example of one statement was “You spend more time working than initially intended”.  Those who scored a four or five on more than 70 per cent of the questions were deemed as “workaholics”.

So many companies in the UK are now switched onto these working behaviours and are trying to prevent claims against company health insurance schemes.  Stress and depression figures are huge in this country especially due to the competitive nature of business after the financial crash.  Further findings can be found in the Journal of Psychology which was led by DR Cecile Schou Andreassen and the test can be taken here.

Related articles

• Brits are becoming a nation of workaholics (newslite.tv)
• Understanding the Dynamics of Workaholism – Obsession (my.psychologytoday.com)