Relieve baby’s pain without drugs. Little things that help during a painful procedure

Key message: if your baby has to have a painful procedure, evidence shows that there are things you can do to minimise their pain, including holding their bare chest to yours, giving a sugar solution or breast milk and allowing them to suck or to breastfeed.

Nurses under pressure: do risk assessment tools help prevent pressure ulcers?

Tools to help assess a patient’s risk of developing a pressure ulcer have been in use for half a century, but do they actually result in fewer pressure ulcers, or do they take up nurses’ time which could be better spent with the patient? An updated Cochrane review gives us the current state of the evidence.

“What matters most to you?” How decision aids help patients make better choices

You might never have heard of a decision aid, but there’s good evidence from a newly updated Cochrane review that they can help people facing decisions about treatment or screening feel better informed about the options and clearer about what matters most to them. This blog looks at what the review found and how decision aids could help to avoid situations like that described by Joanna, who talked to me about her experiences of making a decision about colostomy surgery.