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Britons turn into ‘DIY doctors’ as poll reveals one in three have given up on seeing a GP

An alarming number of Britons are turning into “DIY doctors” because of the struggle to get an NHS GP appointment in 2023, new polling has revealed.

Some 23% of those surveyed said they could not get an appointment, while three in 10 (33 per cent) said they had given up on booking one altogether, according to a Savanta poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats.

Many said they had resorted to “DIY” medical care or gone to A&E instead. One in seven (14 per cent) said they had been forced to treat themselves or ask someone else untrained to do so, with the same proportion seeking emergency care.

One in five people said they had bought medication online or at a pharmacy without advice from a GP, and one in three had delayed seeing a doctor despite being in pain, as pressure on the NHS mounts.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey described the figures as “utterly depressing” and said they should serve as an “urgent wake-up call for ministers asleep on the job”.

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Source: The Independent, 1 January 2024

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NHS bosses fear for patient safety during six-day junior doctor strike

NHS bosses fear patient safety could be compromised during this week’s junior doctors strikes if medics do not honour an agreement to abandon picket lines if hospitals become overwhelmed during the winter crisis.

Hospital bosses can ask the British Medical Association (BMA) to allow junior doctors to return to work to help if an emergency arises during their six-day strike starting on Wednesday.

But there is concern among health trust leaders that the doctors’ union could reject such “recall requests” – or take worryingly long to consider them – despite “highly vulnerable” hospitals having too few staff on duty to cope with a surge in patient numbers.

A spike in cases of flu, Covid and norovirus has left the NHS under intensifying strain in the first week of the new year, a period in which its winter crisis often bites.

On the eve of the 144-hour strike – the longest in NHS history – the NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, urged the BMA to ensure the “recall system” worked reliably if it was triggered.

“With the next round of junior doctors strikes coinciding with what is always an exceptionally busy week for the NHS, health leaders hope that escalation plans run smoothly and with a shared understanding that protecting patient safety is the most important priority,” Danny Mortimer, the confederation’s deputy chief executive, said.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 January 2024

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NHS nurses suffering shocking violence from patients, senior nurse warns

Nurses are being put in increasing danger from shocking levels of violence and aggression by patients, a senior nursing leader has warned.

Prof Nicola Ranger, the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) director of nursing, said the crisis in the NHS had fuelled bad behaviour by patients frustrated by worsening delays for treatment since the Covid pandemic.

Ranger said the situation was contributing to an exodus of nurses from the NHS, amid a vicious cycle of staff shortages and rising violence.

This meant that there were often not enough nurses on duty to keep colleagues safe, she added.

Calling on the government to make tackling the abuse of nurses a priority, Ranger said there was a sense of despair in the profession about their deteriorating working conditions.

“I think the public would be totally shocked if they knew how common it is for nursing staff to be on the receiving end of violence and aggression at work,” said Ranger. “Nurses are put in jeopardy, it’s become all too common for them to be threatened by patients on shift.

“We genuinely have got a nursing crisis in the UK that doesn’t seem to be being acknowledged by our government at all. Being spat at, being hit, being punched, can for some nurses just literally be the final straw."

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Source: The Guardian, 1 January 2024

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Jab for winter virus could cut baby hospitalisations by 80%, study says

Hospital admissions from a winter virus could be reduced by more than 80% if babies are given a single dose of a new antibody treatment, a study says.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but can lead to bronchiolitis and pneumonia.

More than 30,000 under fives are hospitalised with RSV in the UK annually, resulting in 20 to 30 deaths.

One British parent said her son getting RSV was "very scary" as a first-time mother.

Lorna and Russell Smith's eldest son, Caolan, got the virus when he was eight months old and was admitted to hospital twice - each time requiring oxygen.

Now aged two, he has made a full recovery.

"I hadn't heard of RSV and wasn't sure what to do. He had laboured breathing due to high temperature and was quite lethargic. It brought a lot of anxiety and stress," Lorna said.

The Harmonie study involved 8,000 children up to the age of 12 months, with half receiving a single dose of the monoclonal antibody treatment nirsevimab.

The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that RSV-related hospitalisation was reduced by 83% in those receiving the jab and admissions for all chest infections were cut by 58%.

Side effects were similar in both groups and mostly mild.

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Source: BBC News, 27 December 2023

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NHS given warning about infection control as Covid cases rise

The Royal College of Nursing has warned of an increase risk of Covid among hospital staff and patients due to the NHS’s failure to follow World Health Organization advice about infection control during a current spike in cases.

The most recent figures showed one in 24 people in England and Scotland had Covid on 13 December, up from one in 55 two weeks before.

Last week WHO expressed concern about a new subvariant of Omicron, labelled JN.1, after its rapid spread in the Americas, western Pacific and European regions. To tackle the increase, the WHO advised that all health facilities “implement universal masking” and give health workers “respirators and other PPE”.

Now the RCN has written to the four chief nursing officers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland asking why this guidance has not been introduced across the NHS.

The letter, seen by the Guardian, points out that existing guidance in the national infection prevention and control manual (NIPCM) does not mandate hospital staff to use masks. It also leaves decisions about respirators to local risk assessors.

The RCN says this guidance to UK hospitals is “inconsistent” with WHO advice.

The letter by Patricia Marquis, the RCN’s director for England, calls for urgent revision to the NIPCM guidance to ensure the “universal implementation” of masks and respirators for health workers.

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Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2023

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Baby died of neglect after staff turned off emergency alarm, coroner rules

Hospital neglect contributed to the death of a two month old baby after staff turned off emergency alarms, a coroner has ruled.

Louella Sheridan died at Royal Bolton Hospital in on 24 April 2022 after she was admitted with bronchiolitis to the hospital’s intensive care unit before later dying from Covid and a related heart condition.

Four alarms on a monitoring machine were silenced and then switched off before the baby collapsed in a high dependency unit, it has been found.

On Wednesday coroner John Pollard ruled neglect by staff had contributed to Louella’s death after staff switched off the alarms on the monitors attached to her during the night.

Summing up his conclusion Coroner Pollard reportedly said there was a “gross failure “ to provide basic medical care to Louell and that had care been given, had the alarms been switched on to alert staff her life may have been extended at least for a short period of time.

He said turning off the alarms was a gross type of conduct.

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Source: The Independent, 22 December 2023

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Cancer and maternity patients at risk if junior doctors strike in January, NHS bosses warn

Patients have been harmed as a result of doctors striking this year, and others needing time-critical treatment will be at risk during next month’s walkout in England, hospital bosses have said.

Cancer patients and women having induced or caesarean section births will be in danger of damage to their health unless junior doctors in those areas of care abandon their plans to strike for six days in January, they said.

People awaiting urgent eye surgery risk permanent sight loss unless the British Medical Association (BMA) lets junior doctors keep working in that area, according to NHS Employers, which represents health service trusts in England.

Its intervention comes amid mounting concern in the NHS that it may prove impossible to maintain patient safety in high-risk, time-sensitive areas of treatment when tens of thousands of junior doctors stage what will be the longest strike in NHS history from 3 January, when hospitals are facing what is often the service’s busiest week of the year.

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Source: The Guardian, 21 December 2023

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Nearly 1.7 million Texans lose Medicaid as state nears end of “unwinding”

Nearly 1.7 million Texans have lost their health insurance — the largest number of people any state has removed — in the months since Texas began peeling people from Medicaid as part of the post-pandemic “unwinding.” Around 65% of these removals occurred because of procedural reasons, according to the state.

Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission has neared the end of a chaotic and overburdened process to remove people from state Medicaid insurance who became ineligible during the coronavirus pandemic. The state had not unenrolled people before this year because of federal pandemic rules, which forbid states from cutting coverage.

As a result, more than 5 million Texans had continuous access to healthcare throughout the pandemic through Medicaid, the joint federal-and-state-funded insurance program for low-income individuals. In Texas, the program’s eligibility criteria is so restrictive, it mainly covers poor children, their mothers while pregnant and post partum, and disabled and senior adults.

But the effects of speedrunning this process have reverberated: Still-eligible Texans were kicked off both in error and for procedural reasons, adding to backlogs of hundreds of thousands of Medicaid applications and pushing wait times back several months.

“The state handled this with an incredible amount of incompetence and indifference to poor people,” U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, told The Texas Tribune. “It's really appalling.”

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Source: The Texas Tribune, 14 December 2023

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Doctors fear NHS could buckle in flu season as staff avoid vaccine

The NHS could struggle to cope with a catastrophic flu season after leading medics warned of plunging flu vaccine uptake among its frontline staff.

NHS figures show just 39% of frontline staff had a flu vaccine in November, down from 52% in November 2020.

The worrying statistics mean the already under-strain service could lose crucial staff to illnesses and risk spreading the virus during its busiest winter period.

Speaking to The Independent, Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “We are concerned about staff vaccination against flu. Post-pandemic, there is a certain lack of appetite and there is probably a degree of apathy about staff getting vaccinated against flu, and we think that’s a problem.

“We need to be doing more to get stuff vaccinated against flu.”

He added: “I think societally and as healthcare practitioners, I think we have a moral duty to get ourselves vaccinated so we don't create gaps by going off sick and we don't infect our patients.”

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Source: The Independent, 21 December 2023

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‘No doctor in the country will touch you’: how the NHS is failing FGM survivors

At least 137,000 women in the UK live with the painful and traumatic consequences of cutting, but there is no provision for reconstructive surgery.

In May 2023, Shamsa Araweelo was in the A&E department of a London hospital in excruciating pain. It wasn’t the first time she had sought urgent treatment for the gynaecological damage caused by the female genital mutilation (FGM), or cutting, forced on her as a six-year-old. In fact, this was one of many such visits to emergency departments that Araweelo had made in her desperate attempt to find a surgeon who could help undo the damage done to her as a child and which has caused her so much pain and trauma as an adult.

Araweelo says that in A&E she was told that she had severe nerve damage and that it could be reversed through reconstructive surgery. But not in the UK.

“No doctor in the country will touch you, because you are an FGM survivor,” Araweelo says she was told. “I felt no compassion, no respect. Only in London did they tell me they wished they had the appropriate training to help me, and it breaks my heart. We are not valued in the UK.”

Current NHS rules state that if a health practitioner suspects a patient has been cut, they must report the case to the police and complete a safeguarding risk assessment to determine whether a social care referral is required. Guidance for GPs also recommends referrals for mental health issues related to FGM or referrals to uro-gynaecological specialist clinics.

Araweelo says that in all the years she has sought help she has never been offered any kind of support from medical professionals.

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Source: The Guardian, 21 December 2023

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Junior doctors’ strikes will leave elderly patients stuck in hospital, warns Age UK

Thousands more elderly people will be stuck in hospital over Christmas because of junior doctors’ strikes, Age UK has warned.

The charity is among several who have said the timing of the strikes, which begin at 7am on Wednesday means it will be “extremely difficult to ensure safe and effective care” during them.

Age UK is one of five organisations raising fears over patient safety and making a plea to the British Medical Association (BMA) and Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, for a resolution to the dispute.

Junior doctors’ walkouts are due to last until Saturday, with their longest strike to come early in the new year, while flu, norovirus and Covid hospitalisations are rising.

In a joint letter with the NHS Confederation, Patients Association, National Voices and Healthwatch , Age UK said strike action in the days ahead could leave thousands of patients stranded in hospital for want of staff to get them discharged.

The latest figures show 13,000 such cases in hospitals despite being medically fit for discharge. The charities said the withdrawal of almost half the medical workforce in England would mean the most vulnerable are left “bearing the brunt” of the pay dispute.

“Our concern is that, despite the best efforts of hard-working NHS staff, it will be extremely difficult to ensure safe and effective care during this period for all patients that need it.”

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Source: The Telegraph, 20 December 2023

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AstraZeneca vaccine linked with ‘spike’ in cases of rare disease that can paralyse victims

Scientists have drawn a link between the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and a “spike” in cases of a rare disease that can leave its victims paralysed.

Three separate studies reported an increase in Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) shortly after the roll out of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

GBS is a potentially deadly condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their nerves and gradually paralyses victims from the feet upwards. While most patients recover, it can be life-threatening or permanently debilitating.

Two of the studies looked at rates of GBS in England and said there was an increase in cases “attributable to” the AstraZeneca vaccine, or that there was a probable “causal link”.

The Telegraph has spoken to several people who developed GBS after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, and have become severely disabled as a result.

On Friday, one of the victims spoke of his “anger” that he had the AstraZeneca jab without knowing that it posed such a risk.

Anthony Shingler said: “It feels like the side effects were either missed or ignored.”

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Source: The Telegraph, 8 December 2023

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Half trust’s staff told CQC they had ‘no confidence’ in its leaders

More than half of a trust’s staff told the Care Quality Commission (CQC) they did not have confidence in its executive leadership, with just 16% saying they did, the regulator has reported.

The CQC surveyed staff as part of its inspection of East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust.

Eighty-four per cent either said they disagreed with the statement “I have confidence in the executive team”, or neither agreed nor disagreed. That leaves just 16% who said they did have confidence.

Some said they felt “traumatised”, “devalued” or “damaged” by a recent restructuring programme at the trust, which has been grappling major care quality and performance problems for several years.

The CQC also revealed in a report today that it issued a warning notice to the trust after inspections at its two main sites in July. They ordered immediate improvements in its emergency departments, medical care and children and young people’s services.

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Source: HSJ, 20 December 2023

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Eljamel patient Jules Rose says NHS Tayside tried to 'silence' her

A mother who endured a botched surgery at the hands of a disgraced neurosurgeon claims NHS Tayside tried to silence her against making complaints.

Professor Sam Eljamel removed Jules Rose's tear duct during a failed attempt to operate on a brain tumour - setting the 55-year-old on a path to becoming a prolific campaigner for patients' rights.

Ms Rose, however, has received sight of documents that show NHS Tayside writing to the then-health minister Humza Yousaf to say she had been "aggressive" and "vulgar" and they would no longer communicate with her.

In a letter in response, Mr Yousaf says he sees no evidence of any such conduct by the mother-of-two and tells the health board to enter into mediation with her.

Ms Rose said: "In the letter I have been given, Humza Yousaf writes back and say, 'She's quite right to feel aggrieved at the treatment she's received.

"'Therefore, I suggest that you continue liaising with Miss Rose and enter into mediation.'

"This was last November but I've only just had copies of the letters sent to me and when I saw them I thought, 'They've tried to shut me down, they're tried to silence me'."

The ongoing dispute with NHS Tayside is as a result of Ms Rose's long-running campaign for justice for patients - thought to be as many as 270 - harmed by Eljamel while he was in the health board's employ.

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Source: The Herald, 16 December 2023

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GPs to offer more mental health support for mothers in England after giving birth

Mothers in England will be asked in detail if pregnancy or giving birth has affected their mental health as a result of new NHS guidance to GPs.

The move is part of a drive by NHS England to improve support for women suffering postnatal depression or other mental health problems linked to their pregnancy or childbirth.

Under the new guidance GPs will ask women more questions than before about how they are feeling when they attend their postnatal health check six to eight weeks after giving birth.

Family doctors will look for any sign that the woman may have a condition such as postnatal PTSD as a result of experiencing a traumatic birth or psychosis induced by bearing a child.

Anyone who the GP feels needs help with their mental wellbeing will be referred to specialist maternal mental health services, which have been expanded in recent years.

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Source: The Guardian, 18 December 2023

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NHS dentistry as we know it 'gone for good'

The traditional model of NHS dentistry is gone for good, experts are warning.

The Nuffield Trust think tank said the service had been cut back so much it was now at the most perilous position in its 75-year history in England.

It said restoring services would probably need an unrealistic amount of money and called for radical reform, suggesting NHS support may need to be completely scaled back for some adults.

The Nuffield Trust said funding for NHS dentistry had suffered huge cuts in recent years. Some £3.1bn was spent in 2021-22 - a drop of £525m since 2014-15 once inflation is taken into account.

It said the number of treatments being done each year was now six million lower than it was before the pandemic.

The Nuffield Trust said tough policy choices needed to be made, suggesting one option could be to start charging adults for the full cost of treatment beyond emergency work and check-ups.

Shawn Charlwood, chairman of the British Dental Association's general dental practice committee, said the report "reads like the last rites for NHS dentistry" and that "patients and this profession deserve some honesty here".

He added: "The government say NHS dentistry should be accessible for all who need it.

"The plain facts are we're not seeing any evidence of the reforms or the resources to realise that ambition."

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Source: BBC News, 19 December 2023

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Coroner advises NHS England to warn prescribers about interaction of tramadol and warfarin

NHS England has been told it must take action to raise awareness about the potentially fatal interaction between tramadol and warfarin, following the death of a patient.

Graham Danbury, assistant coroner for Hertfordshire, issued a prevention of future deaths report on 1 December 2023, after Susan Gladstone, from Hertfordshire, died on 8 January 2021 from a bleed in the brain.

An inquest, which ended on 20 November 2023, concluded that Gladstone “died as a result of a generally unknown interaction between warfarin and tramadol, which caused exceptional thinning of her blood”. 

Gladstone was prescribed tramadol twice for lower back pain: on 20 December 2020 and 4 January 2021. According to the report, she had been taking the anticoagulation medication warfarin for “a number of years”.

The report continues: “There was nothing to warn the prescribing doctor of any possible interaction. I found on the balance of probabilities that an interaction between tramadol and warfarin had caused this dangerous, and in the event, fatal INR to develop.

“In my opinion, actions should be taken to prevent future deaths and I believe you, NHS England, have the power to take such action.”

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Source: Pharmaceutical Journal, 13 December 2023

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Sepsis breakthrough as blood test trial for killer condition underway

Scientists are hoping a new 45-minute blood test can quickly identify sepsis before it kills.

Sepsis is a life-threatening reaction to an infection. It occurs when the body overreacts and starts attacking its own tissues and organs.

The hard-to-diagnose condition kills nearly 50,000 Brits a year more than breast, prostate and bowel cancer combined - with severe cases taking just hours to prove fatal.

Dr Andrew Retter, an intensive care consultant at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, who is trialling the test told The Times: “If someone comes into A&E and they’re sick, we can spot that early and start treatment early.

“For every hour antibiotics are delayed, people’s mortality goes up by about 7 or 8 per cent if they’ve got sepsis.”

Melissa Mead’s one-year-old son William died after weeks of a lingering cough and concerns were dismissed by doctors and 111 operators.

The campaigner told The Times: “A test like this at the point of care in A&E, for example, could remove the uncertainty about sepsis, which presents differently in different people.

“This could give people a chance at life that my son never had.”

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Source: The Independent, 17 December 2023

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Community services need new national funding bid, says outgoing NHS England director

The national clinical director for older people has announced he is leaving NHS England and said a major government funding settlement will be needed to maintain progress and take community services to the ‘next stage’.

Adrian Hayter joined NHSE in 2019 as NCD for older people and integrated person centred care.

Dr Hayter, who is also a longstanding GP partner in Berkshire, said community services were now much more prominent at NHSE — and in its asks of the service – than they were four years ago. 

He said: “When I first came in, there wasn’t very much in planning guidance about what was happening in the community at all. Now that is different and we are expecting a range of initiatives in 2024.

“But the future is that all of these things are not individual programmes - they’re all part of a particular approach to how we manage and support people for as long as possible in their own homes.

“Urgent community response [where services are required to respond within two-hours to urgent needs, referred from a range of services] and virtual wards are a continuum of care.

“And the growth of virtual wards have helped extend what happens in the community all the way through to the acute level care.”

National long-term funding for several of the new services – badged in the 2019 long-term plan as “Aging Well” – is also now due to end, with integrated care boards instead asked to commission them locally.

Dr Hayter warned that, as well as moving those services closer together, there needed to be a future government spending review settlement aimed at growing community services, to meet the needs of the rapidly ageing population.

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Source: HSJ, 18 December 2023

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Patients’ experiences of disease should be taken more seriously, says study

Health experts say more attention should be given to patients’ experiences after research found multiple examples of their insights being undervalued.

A study led by the University of Cambridge and King’s College London found clinicians ranked patient self-assessments as the least important when making diagnostic decisions.

Ethnicity and gender were felt to influence diagnosis, particularly a perception that women were more likely to be told their symptoms were psychosomatic. Male clinicians were more likely to say that patients overplay symptoms.

The findings prompted calls for clinicians to move away from the “doctor knows best attitude” when caring for patients.

One patient shared the feeling of being disbelieved as “degrading and dehumanising”, and added: “I’ll tell them my symptoms and they’ll tell me that symptom is wrong, or I can’t feel pain there, or in that way.”

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Source: The Guardian, 18 December 2023

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Autism diagnosis wait times hit 300 days

The average wait for an autism diagnosis in England has hit 300 days, according to new NHS data.

That is up 53% from 12 months prior and exceeds the NICE target of 91 days.

The National Autistic Society described such wait times as appalling, warning "autistic people shouldn't miss out on vital support because they haven't got a timely assessment."

A government spokesperson said it had made £4.2m available this year to improve services for autistic children.

Rose Matthews, 63, from County Durham, said receiving an autism diagnosis had been "lifesaving - and I don't say that flippantly".

Before receiving their diagnosis at the age of 59, Rose, who uses "they" and "them" as personal pronouns, said: "My life was unravelling.

"My career was unravelling."

They said their GP had "deeply misguided ideas about what being autistic meant" and brushed them aside.

Joey Nettleton-Burrows, policy and public affairs manager for the National Autistic Society (NAS), said: "We do see lot of misunderstanding from people, and it can include health and social care staff, but I wouldn't say it is common with GPs."

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Source: BBC News, 15 December 2023

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IT failures causing patient deaths, says NHS safety body

Urgent action is needed to address NHS computer failings which are causing harm to patients, the patient safety watchdog has told BBC News.

The watchdog has evidence of patient deaths due to IT system errors.

The government called the reports "concerning" and said it would work with NHS England to take necessary action to protect patients.

A recent investigation found thousands of hospital letters were unsent due to computer issues.

The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) says IT failures are among the most serious issues facing hospitals in England.

"We have seen evidence of patient deaths as a result of IT systems not working," said interim head, Dr Rosie Benneyworth.

Dr Benneyworth cited the example of a patient who was found unresponsive and then wrongly identified by healthcare staff as not wishing to be resuscitated.

Staff were unable to access information on the patient quickly through their IT system, which would have shown a mistake had been made, said the watchdog.

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Source: BBC News, 16 December 2023

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Lax oversight of semaglutide advertising could harm patients, warn critics

UK organisations responsible for protecting the public from advertisements of prescription-only drugs are putting patients at risk from the harms of weight loss drugs by not enforcing the law, critics have told The BMJ.

The UK’s Human Medicines Regulations 2012 prohibit the advertising of prescription drugs to the general public, and companies that break the rules can be sanctioned with fines, orders to issue a corrective statement, or prosecution.

Legal responsibility for regulating advertisements for medicines in the UK rests with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on behalf of health ministers. But there is also a system of self-regulation with a number of organisations operating their own codes of practice, including the Advertising Standards Authority.

But The BMJ has found that the MHRA has not issued a single sanction for prescription drugs in the past five years. And among 16 cases where the MHRA took action by requesting changes to advertisements for weight loss drugs from June 2022 to July 2023, all were triggered by external complaints, not internal mechanisms, and none resulted in sanctions.

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Source: The BMJ, 13 December 2023

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Hospitals ‘falling to bits’ as NHS in England faces record £12bn repair bill

The NHS in England has a record repair bill of almost £12bn, new figures show, with ministers needing to find more than £2bn for urgent maintenance to prevent catastrophic failure.

The annual report on the condition of the health service’s estate said on Thursday that the cost of improving rundown buildings and decrepit equipment was two and a half times larger than in 2011-2012, when it stood at £4.7bn.

The cost of the “high-risk” backlog – situations where the need to repair or replace facilities and equipment must be urgently addressed to prevent serious failure, significant injury or major disruption to clinical services – rose by almost a third to a record £2.4bn. This was £0.3bn in 2011-2012.

However, investment to reduce the backlog fell in the last year from £1.41bn to £1.38bn, a fraction of what is needed to restore the NHS estate back to acceptable levels of risk. The stark figures cover a time prior to the health service becoming embroiled in the crumbling concrete crisis which initially hit school buildings.

Sir Julian Hartley, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said that “too many NHS buildings are quite simply falling to bits”, and that we need “a step change in the government’s approach to planning and funding essential capital investment in the NHS”.

He said: “The eye-watering cost of trying to patch up creaking infrastructure and out-of-date facilities is mounting at an alarming rate.

“Mental health, hospital, community and ambulance services are crying out for much-needed funding for critical projects to overhaul ageing estates and to give patients and staff the safe, reliable conditions they need."

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Source: The Guardian, 14 December 2023

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Ambulance handover delays soar as winter bites

Ambulance handover delays rose last week with close to 13,000 crews waiting more than an hour to offload patients — marginally more than the comparable week last year.

Week of 27 November 2023 figures were missing data for several days from some trusts, NHSE said.

The number of hour-plus waits for ambulancs to pass patients to emergency departments was 12,797, according to new NHS England data. 

That appeared to be steeply up from about 8,000 in the past two weeks, although NHSE said last week’s was not directly comparable due to missing data.

It was just ahead of the 12,534 recorded for the week ending 11 December last year.

Last year the numbers rose to over 16,000 in the third week in December then peaked at 18,720 in the week running up to New Year, in what many said was the worst winter crisis for decades, amid a sharp, early wave of flu.

This year the numbers of long waits have risen earlier than last, and several ambulance trusts have reported coming under severe pressure in the last few days. NHS England has warned junior doctors strikes next week and in the new year may compound hospital flow problems.

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Source: HSJ, 15 December 2023

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