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Keep up to date with the latest news, research and activity in patient safety

Suspended surgeon harmed hundreds of women

A surgeon has been suspended on the same day a hospital review concluded harm had been caused in hundreds of cases.

A tribunal ruled that Tony Dixon, who used artificial mesh to treat prolapsed bowels at Southmead Hospital, in Bristol, and the Spire Hospital, still posed a risk.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service's hearing concluded on Thursday that a six-month suspension was "appropriate".

Spire Healthcare has now released its review of Mr Dixon, and found 259 cases where harm had been caused. Health bosses have "apologised sincerely".

The majority of harm was in three main areas: the failure to adequately investigate patients prior to offering the procedure; the failure to adequately offer alternative treatments; and poor consent with risks and benefits of the procedure not adequately discussed.

The tribunal found Mr Dixon’s fitness to practise is impaired and his suspension would allow him time to "to develop further insight and remediate his misconduct".

The General Medical Council brought the case against Mr Dixon, who denies all the allegations and maintains that the procedures were carried out in good faith.

His suspension will start immediately.

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Source: BBC News, 18 July 2024

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IT outages hit thousands of services

Thousands of GP practices — and some other localised services — are without their IT systems today, due to global outages also affecting banking, media and aviation.

All EMIS GP IT systems, which are used by more than half of the 8,000-odd GP practices in England, were down. It was leaving many practices unable to book appointments or consult with patients first thing on Friday morning.

This will quickly lead to a backlog of appointments and likely pressure on other urgent care.

Patient-facing digital services linked to EMIS also appeared to be down, such as records access via the NHS app.

The National Pharmacy Association said some community pharmacy services were down — such as “accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries” were disrupted. It’s unclear if that is also caused by EMIS, or other systems.

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Source: HSJ, 19 July 2024

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