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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    A group of doctors with Long Covid are preparing to launch a class action for compensation after contracting SARS-CoV-2 at work.
    The campaign and advocacy group Long Covid Doctors for Action (LCD4A) has engaged the law firm Bond Turner to bring claims for any physical injuries and financial losses sustained by frontline workers who were not properly protected at work.
    On 25 January Bond Turner, which specialises in negligence cases, complex litigation, and group actions, launched a call to action inviting doctors and other healthcare workers in England and Wales to make contact if they believe that they contracted covid-19 as a result of occupational exposure.1
    Sara Stanger, the firm’s director and head of clinical negligence and serious injury claims, said that the ultimate aim was to achieve “legal accountability and justice for those injured.”
    She told The BMJ, “I’ve spoken to hundreds of doctors with long covid, and many of them have had their lives derailed. Some have lost their jobs and their homes; they are in financial ruin. Their illnesses have had far reaching consequences in all areas of their lives.”
    Read full story
    Source: BMJ, 25 January 2024
    Nurses, midwives, and any other healthcare workers who are suffering with Long Covid and which they believe they contracted through their work and who wish to join the action should visit the Bond Turner website here: https://www.bondturner.com/services/covid-group-claim/. Although this action has been initiated by doctors in the first instance, it is not limited to doctors.
    Further reading on the hub:
    Questions around Government governance My experience of suspected 'Long COVID' How will NHS staff with Long Covid be supported?  
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    Doctors "failed to realise" that a first-time mother's pregnancy had become "much higher risk" because crucial warning signs were not properly highlighted in her medical records, an inquiry has heard.
    Nicola McCormick was obese and had experienced repeated episodes of bleeding and reduced foetal movement, but was wrongly downgraded from a high to low risk patient weeks before she went into labour.
    Her daughter, Ellie McCormick, had to be resuscitated after being born "floppy" with "no signs of life" at Wishaw General hospital on March 4 2019 following an emergency caesarean.
    She had suffered severe brain damage and multi-organ failure due to oxygen deprivation, and was just five hours old when her life support was switched off.
    A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) at Glasgow Sheriff Court was told that Ms McCormick, who was 20 and lived with her parents in Uddingston, should have been booked for an induction of labour "no later" than her due date of 26 February.
    Had this occurred, she would have been in hospital for the duration of the birth with Ellie's foetal heartbeat "continuously" monitored.
    In the event, Ms McCormick had been in labour for more than nine hours by the time she was admitted to hospital at 8.29pm on 4 March.
    A midwife raised the alarm after detecting a dangerously low foetal heartbeat, and Ms McCormick was rushed into theatre for an emergency C-section.
    Dr Rhona Hughes, a retired consultant obstetrician who gave evidence as an expert witness, told the FAI that Ellie might have survived had there been different guidelines in place in relation to the dangers of bleeding late in pregnancy, or had her medical history been more obvious in computer records.
    Read full story
    Source: The Herald, 24 January 2024
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    The Department of Education has recently provided an update to the national framework for Children’s Social Care. The key point to be aware of is the increased focus on sharing responsibility and strengthening multi-agency working to safeguard children.
    This change is likely to impact a wide variety of stakeholders involved in children’s care, including NHS Trusts, ICBs, education partners, local authorities, voluntary, charitable and community sectors and the police. 
    The focus continues to be on a child-centred approach with the intention of keeping children within the care of their families wherever possible; this collaborative working may include working with parents, carers or other family but the wishes and feelings of the child alongside what is in the child’s best interests remain paramount. Joined up working is to be viewed as the norm.
    For health professionals, you will be expected to have lead roles for children with health needs, such as children who are identified as having special educational needs or disabilities. 
    Read full story
    Source: Bevan Brittan, 23 January 2024
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    The rate at which people are dying early from heart and circulatory diseases has risen to its highest level in more than a decade, figures show.
    Data analysed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) shows a reverse of previous falling trends when it comes to people dying from heart problems before the age of 75 in England.
    Since 2020, the premature death rate for cardiovascular disease has risen year-on-year, with the latest figures for 2022 showing it reached 80 per 100,000 people in England in 2022 – the highest rate since 2011 when it was 83.
    This is the first time there has been a clear reversal in the trend for almost 60 years.
    Between 2012 and 2019 progress slowed and, from 2020, premature death rates began to clearly rise, the data reveals.
    Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the BHF and a consultant cardiologist, said: “We’re in the grip of the worst heart care crisis in living memory.
    “Every part of the system providing heart care is damaged, from prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery; to crucial research that could give us faster and better treatments.
    “This is happening at a time when more people are getting sicker and need the NHS more than ever.
    “I find it tragic that we’ve lost hard-won progress to reduce early death from cardiovascular disease.”
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 22 January 2024
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Hundreds of rheumatology patients have stopped receiving drugs they did not need or had their diagnosis changed after a damning review of the service found the standard of care was “well below” what would be considered acceptable.
    Jersey’s Health and Community services department has said it will be contacting some of the affected patients “over the coming weeks” and would also be seeking legal advice on “an appropriate approach to compensation”.
    The independent review by the Royal College of Physicians also noted there was “no evidence” of standard operating procedures for most aspects of routine rheumatological care and, in some cases, “no evidence of clinical examinations”.
    It also found that there had been incorrect diagnosis and wrongly prescribed drugs, describing the standard of care as “well below what the review team would consider acceptable” for a contemporary rheumatological service.
    The review was commissioned by HCS medical director Patrick Armstrong, following concerns raised by a junior doctor in January 2022.
    Read full story
    Source: Jersey Evening Post, 22 January 2024
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    A blood test for detecting Alzheimer’s disease could be just as accurate as painful and invasive lumbar punctures and could revolutionise diagnosis of the condition, research suggests.
    Measuring levels of a protein called p-tau217 in the blood could be just as good as lumbar punctures at detecting the signs of Alzheimer’s, and better than a range of other tests under development, experts say.
    The protein is a marker for biological changes that happen in the brain with Alzheimer’s disease.
    Dr Richard Oakley, an associate director of research and innovation at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “This study is a hugely welcome step in the right direction as it shows that blood tests can be just as accurate as more invasive and expensive tests at predicting if someone has features of Alzheimer’s disease in their brain.
    “Furthermore, it suggests results from these tests could be clear enough to not require further follow-up investigations for some people living with Alzheimer’s disease, which could speed up the diagnosis pathway significantly in future. However, we still need to see more research across different communities to understand how effective these blood tests are across everyone who lives with Alzheimer’s disease.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 23 January 2024
     
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital is requesting permission from the state to add more than 90 inpatient beds amid what it says is an "unprecedented capacity crisis." 
    The hospital's emergency department has experienced critical levels of overcrowding nearly every day for the past six months, Massachusetts General said in a news release. The hospital boards between 50 to 80 ED patients every night who are waiting for a hospital bed to open. On 11 January, Massachusetts General had 103 patients boarding in the ED, representing one of the most crowded days in the hospital's more than 200-year history.
    "While hospital overcrowding has significantly affected patient care for many years, COVID-19 and the post-pandemic demand for care has escalated this challenge into a full-blown crisis – for patients seeking necessary emergency care, as well as for staff who are required to work under these increasingly stressful conditions," David F.M. Brown, president of Massachusetts General, said in a news release.
    Massachusetts General's request comes as hospitals across the state grapple with capacity issues, workforce shortages and a jump in respiratory illnesses this winter. On 9 January. the Massachusetts Department of Public Health issued a memo urging hospitals to expedite discharge planning amid the capacity crunch. Some health plans have also waived the need to obtain prior authorisation for short stays in post-acute care facilities. 
    Read full story 
    Source: Becker Hospital Review, 19 January 2024
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    The availability of ambulances to transfer patients to specialist units is a "matter of concern", a coroner has warned.
    Darren Stewart, area coroner for Suffolk, made the comments in a Prevention of Future Deaths report.
    It followed the death of 84-year-old Dennis King, who waited three hours to be transferred from West Suffolk Hospital to Royal Papworth in 2022.
    Mr King had made his own way to the West Suffolk Hospital's accident and emergency department in December 2022, after being told an ambulance could take six hours to arrive at his home due to high demand in the area, the report said.
    His call had been graded as category two, which should have led to a response within 40 minutes - or a target of 18 minutes.
    After tests at West Suffolk Hospital showed Mr King had suffered a STEMI heart attack, emergency clinicians liaised with experts from the regional heart unit and decided he needed an urgent transfer to Royal Papworth in Cambridgeshire.
    The report said a matron at West Suffolk told ambulance call handlers they needed an urgent transfer - but because Mr King was classed as being in a "place of safety", control room staff said the delay would be "several hours".
    Mr Stewart said: "the availability of ambulances to carry out transfers in a timely manner, in urgent cases" was "a matter of concern".
    In the report, Mr Stewart said the circumstances of the case "raised concerns about the NHS approach to centralising care in regional centres" if the means to deliver it were "inadequate".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 23 January 2024
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    Women with endometriosis who have endured years of excruciating pain are being “fobbed off” by doctors and told their symptoms are “all in their head”, leading them to give up seeking NHS treatment, new research has found.
    A study carried out by academics at Manchester Metropolitan University found women with the disease felt “gaslit” by doctors due to their lack of understanding of the condition.
    The paper, due to be published in the Journal of Health Communication later this month, also found that treatment was subject to a postcode lottery. Patients in rural areas reported travelling for hours to access a specialist with full training in the complex gynaecological condition.
    Endometriosis is a painful condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows around other organs inside the abdomen. It affects 1.5 million women in the UK. The study looked at the experiences of treatment and diagnosis of 33 patients and revealed how doctors’ lack of understanding of the symptoms meant women often spent years in pain before their condition was diagnosed. During this period participants were told they were exaggerating their symptoms, or their pain was dismissed as psychological.
    As one 27-year-old participant reported: “I feel a lot of mistrust towards the healthcare system in general, simply because I have been told that the pain was in my head, that I must have a low pain threshold or that I was in pain because I was fat.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 21 January 2024
    Share your experience of endometriosis: The Guardian newspaper would like to hear how you have been affected by endometriosis and your experience of being diagnosed and treated.
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    A national shortage of epilepsy medication is putting patients' safety at risk, consultants have said.
    Medical professionals are becoming genuinely concerned as ever more frequent supply issues continue to bite tens of thousands of sufferers.
    According to the Epilepsy Society charity, over 600,000 people in the UK have the condition, or about one in every 100 people.
    Among them is Charlotte Kelly, a mother of two living in London who has had epilepsy for over 20 years. She must take two tablets a day to manage her condition but issues with supply have forced her to start rationing her medication.
    Speaking to Sky News, Ms Kelly told us of the fear surrounding the restricted access to the medicate she needs to survive.
    "I'm scared. If I'm truly honest, I'm scared knowing that I might not get any medication for a few weeks, or a couple of months, I just don't know when.
    "It's scary to know that I have to worry about getting hold of medication. I do believe that something needs to happen very quickly because even if it's pre-ordered there's no guarantee you're going to get it.
    Speaking to Sky News, Professor Ley Sander, director of medical services at the Epilepsy Society, says the supply concern is not just on the minds of patients but those in the industry too.
    "It might be that we need a strategic reserve for storage of drugs, we might have to bring drugs over from other parts of the world to avoid this from recurring.
    "We're not at that point yet, but this is an urgent issue."
    Read full story
    Source: Sky News, 21 January 2024
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    To help patients with high-risk pregnancies receive care at hospitals that are staffed and equipped to deliver care appropriate to their needs, the Department of Public Health will require licensed birthing hospitals to use a system called Levels of Maternal Care. The system classifies hospitals based on their capacity to meet the needs of patients with a range of potential complications during childbirth.
    The impetus is the rising levels of severe maternal morbidity, large racial disparities in outcomes, and concerns that higher-risk patients who deliver in hospitals that over-estimate the level of care they are able to provide are more likely to experience complications.
    Levels of care describe a hospital’s physical facilities, capabilities and staffing, indicating its ability to serve people giving birth across a range of medical needs. For example, Level 1 is appropriate for low-risk patients with uncomplicated pregnancies, including twins and labor after cesarean delivery. To that group, Level II adds patients with poorly controlled asthma or hypertension and other higher-risk conditions. Subsequent levels include patients at increasingly high risk of complications, up to Level IV, which is appropriate for patients with severe cardiac disease, those who need organ transplant and others.
    Established by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in 2015, the classification system is one tool used by states across the country to improve maternal health and birthing outcomes.
    Read full story
    Source: Betsy Lehman Center. 17 January 2024
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    Patients have suffered cardiac arrests while waiting in A&E departments or in ambulances queueing outside because Scottish hospitals are overwhelmed, doctors have warned.
    At least three cases in which patients’ hearts stopped beating while they were waiting for care have been reported to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland. Some of the incidents, the college said, may have been preventable.
    One frontline doctor told The Times that a patient with heart problems had died waiting in a queue of ambulances outside an emergency department. Staff could not take the patient inside because there was no capacity.
    JP Loughrey, vice-president of the college and an A&E consultant in the west of Scotland, said that people who should be in resuscitation rooms with a team of experts and equipment to monitor their vital signs were instead lying in ambulances outside hospital buildings. He also said that tensions were growing between frontline staff and NHS managers in large hospitals because doctors and nurses, who were already struggling to cope, were under increasing demands to work harder to process more patients.
    Read full story
    Source: The Times, 19 January 2024
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    People living in the most deprived parts of the country are more than twice as likely to be in poor health as those living in the most affluent, a new report has revealed.
    People in Liverpool are almost three times more likely to be in poor health than those in Oxfordshire, and twice as likely to be economically inactive, research by the cross-party IPPR Commission on Health and Prosperity found.
    The researchers found a “stark divide” in health and wealth throughout the UK was leaving many “bad health blackspots”, with people more likely to be out of work.
    Overall, people living in the most deprived parts of the country are more than twice as likely to be in poor health as those living in the most affluent – and are around 40% more likely to report economic inactivity.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 18 January 2024
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    A “national call to action” has been made by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) after a worrying surge in the spread of measles in London and the West Midlands.
    Professor Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the health board, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that people have “forgotten what measles is like”, and that children can be unwell for a week or two with symptoms including a nasty rash, high fever and ear infections.
    She added that the virus is highly infectious, with health officials warning that serious complications can arise that include hospitalisations and death.
    This comes as official figures show uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is at its lowest point in more than a decade.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 19 January 2024
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    The mother of an 11-year-old Aberdeenshire girl with Long Covid has launched a legal action against their health board, in what lawyers claim is the first case of its kind in Scotland.
    Helen Goss, from Westhill, is seeking damages from NHS Grampian on behalf of her daughter, Anna Hendy.
    The action claims the health board is responsible for "multiple failings" in Anna's treatment and care.
    The claim alleges failings were avoidable, that they caused Anna "injury and damage", and led to her condition worsening.
    Anna became unwell after contracting Covid in 2020.
    The action alleges a number of failings by the health board.
    These include claims that requests for Anna to be referred to the specialist paediatric services of immunology and neurology were refused.
    It also claims no further help was offered after Anna was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Paediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS).
    And it says these failings "could have been avoided had NHS Grampian followed contemporary guidance on diagnosis and treatment".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC, 19 January 2024
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    A hospital trust has been breaching national guidance by excluding some long waiters from its reported waiting list figures, in a move experts warned could put patient safety at serious risk.
    The practice appears to have helped Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals report zero patients waiting more than two years for treatment during most of last year.
    Its policy means cases that unexpectedly “pop up” as two-year waits in its datasets are temporarily removed. The trust will then review whether the cases are data errors or genuine two-year waits, and if genuine, aim to provide treatment within a month.
    If not treated within a month, the cases would be added back to the reported waiting list the following month.
    Rob Findlay, an expert on RTT waiting lists, said the implications of the SWBH policy are far more serious than simply reporting incomplete numbers for a month.
    He said allowing a month to deal with the pop-up without declaring it “relieves them of pressure to solve the problems that are causing patients to be lost in the first place”.
    He added: “Some patients – the hospital would never know – might never pop up and be lost from the waiting list forever.
    “[This is] a serious patient safety issue which could potentially have a significant impact on how long patients are waiting for treatment.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 19 January 2024
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    Senior doctors are urging MPs to reject government plans to regulate “physician associates”, whose growing use in the NHS has divided the medical profession.
    The British Medical Association has said that allowing the General Medical Council (GMC) to regulate physician associates (PAs) would “blur the lines” between doctors and non-doctors.
    Many medics are opposed to the increased use of PAs, who they fear patients will wrongly see as doctors, even though they do not have a medical degree. They have expressed concern that letting the GMC – which regulates doctors – regulate PAs from April, as ministers plan, is “potentially dangerous” because it could confuse the public, diminish the status of doctors, and leave patients at risk of being treated by someone without the appropriate skills.
    The BMA is running advertisements in the Guardian and on social media asking MPs on a Commons committee examining the plan to vote against it when they consider it on Thursday. “PAs are not the same as doctors, and blurring the lines can have tragic consequences for patients who think they have seen a doctor when they have not,” the adverts say.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 18 January 2024
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    The publication of a final report into the infected blood scandal has been delayed until May.
    The chairman of the public inquiry, Sir Brian Langstaff, said more time was needed to prepare "a report of this gravity".
    Victims and their families were initially told they would learn the findings in autumn last year.
    That date was pushed back until March, and the inquiry has now confirmed the further delay to 20 May 2024.
    "I am sorry to tell you that the report will be published later than March. That is not what I had intended," added Sir Brian.
    "When I reviewed the plans for publication, I nonetheless had to accept that a limited amount of further time is needed to publish a report of this gravity and do justice to what has happened."
    It is thought about 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
    More than 3,000 have died in what has been described by MPs as the worst treatment disaster in NHS history.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 17 January 2024
    Further reading on the hub:
    UK Infected Blood Inquiry
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    Large regional variations in the risk of death from cancer by the age of 80 have been revealed in research by Imperial College London based on NHS data for England.
    Analysis of the figures by The Independent shows the risk of dying is highest in northern England cities, while men and women living in the London boroughs had the lowest chance.
    Although the risk of dying from cancer has decreased across all areas of England in the last two decades, it is now the leading cause of death in England, having overtaken cardiovascular diseases.
    The Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce has that warned Britain has some of the worst cancer survival rates among the world’s wealthiest countries. It ranked the UK 28th out of 33 countries for five-year survival rate for stomach and lung cancer; for pancreatic cancer the UK was 26th, and it was 25th for brain cancer.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 13 January 2024
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    One of Britain’s three high-security hospitals – where notorious people including Ian Huntley and Charles Bronson have been detained – is so understaffed that neither workers nor patients are safe, a damning new report has found.
    Rampton Hospital in Nottingham faces severe staff shortages, leading workers to restrain patients and lock them away in their rooms and putting patients at risk of self harm, according to the Care Quality Commission.
    In a report looking into the hospital, inspectors – who rated the hospital as inadequate – said there were around half the staff needed on one ward.
    In one example of those at the hospital being at risk, a patient self-harmed with glass from their watch, while another was able to harm themselves with a CD while they were confined to their room.
    One deaf patient was secluded several times on another ward for “being loud”, according to the CQC.
    “We spoke with people in the learning disabilities services who told us they sometimes get locked in their room from dinner time until the next morning,” the report said. “They told us that they don’t like being locked in their rooms.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 17 January 2024
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    People trying to buy illicit synthetic opioids and sedatives online to treat pain, anxiety and insomnia increasingly risk taking a different drug that has caused dozens of deaths among heroin users, a leading expert has warned.
    Nitazenes – synthetic and extremely powerful drugs implicated in fatalities of chronic powdered heroin users in Birmingham, Bristol and London in recent months – have been detected in illicit supplies of tablets being sold as diazepam and codeine that appeal to a wider market.
    New figures released to the Guardian by the National Crime Agency reveal 65 people have died from taking nitazenes in the past six months – more than two a week, while detections in drug supplies have increased more than fivefold in the last two years.
    “[Nitazenes] are being mixed into heroin but it is also in fake diazepam, fake codeine and the person buying the tablets online is a very different kind of user to a heroin user,” Dr Caroline Copeland, the director of the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths said. “It means the risk is much wider.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 17 January 2024
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    Health experts have warned “we must act now” as measles cases have soared across the country amid an increase in unvaccinated children.
    There were 1,603 suspected cases of measles in England and Wales in 2023, new statistics from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) show.
    MMR cases have increased significantly in the last two years - in 2022, there were 735 cases, and just 360 the year before.
    On Friday, Birmingham Children’s Hospital said it had become inundated with the highest number of children with measles in decades. The hospital treated more than 50 children for the disease in the last month.
    Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, Chair of the UK Health Department's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, warned that unless more children are vaccinated there will be an increase in hospital admissions and even deaths.
    He told The Independent: “The main reason for this new outbreak is the increase in unvaccinated children in the last few years.
    “Vaccinations have decreased below 90 per cent and this is dangerous. The vaccine is powerful if we use it, and it will protect our children.
    “We must act now and the increased cases are a warning that there will be consequences if we don’t. There will be children with severe infections, brain damage and even death.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 15 January 2024
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    At least half of all integrated care systems lack a plan to defend the services they oversee from a cyber attack, HSJ has discovered.
    Integrated care systems are responsible for bolstering the cyber resilience of the organisations in their area. This includes having a “system-wide plan for maintaining robust cyber security”.
    However, research by HSJ has found that only ten ICSs would confirm they had such a plan. Twenty-six ICSs admitted they did not have a plan in place, while six systems did not respond to HSJ’s inquiries. See the end of the story for the full list.
    Of those without a plan, only 10 said they were developing one. NHS England had initially asked each ICS to submit draft cyber security strategies by the end of May, before sending final versions by the end of September but is now thought to be drawing up new timelines.
    Some regions appear particularly exposed.  All four ICSs in the North East and Yorkshire region admitted they did not have a cyber security plan, while no ICS in either the London or South East region could confirm they did.
    An NHSE spokesman told HSJ it was “vital” that ICSs have “robust plans in place to manage the specific cyber risks in their local areas to protect patient data and systems”. 
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 15 January 2024
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    Ministers are facing calls to tackle the NHS’s chronic lack of staff as figures reveal that the bill for hiring temporary frontline workers has soared to more than £10bn a year.
    Hospitals and GP surgeries across the UK are paying a record £4.6bn for agency personnel and another £5.8bn for doctors and nurses on staff to do extra “bank” shifts to plug gaps in rotas.
    Widespread short staffing has increasingly forced the service in all four home nations to hand colossal sums to employment agencies to hire stand-in workers. In England alone, the bill for agency staff, particularly nurses and GPs, has risen from £3bn to £3.5bn over the past year – a 16% rise.
    Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said years of neglect of the growing NHS staffing crisis by Conservative governments had obliged “desperate” hospitals to spend “huge” sums on agency staff, including doctors who can cost more than £5,000 to hire for a single shift.
    The Royal College of Nursing said the levels of agency spending were “staggering”. It would be cheaper to employ more nurses as staff instead of having tens of thousands of vacancies, the general secretary Pat Cullen said. The NHS in England currently has 42,306 vacant nursing posts.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 16 January 2024
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    More than 7,000 Covid-related hospital admissions could have been prevented in the UK in the summer of 2022 if the population had received the full number of jabs recommended, according to research in The Lancet.
    Some 44% of the UK population was under-vaccinated, with younger people among the most likely to skip doses.
    In a first, health records for everyone over five in the UK were analysed. The same approach could now be used to understand other diseases.
    The entire population of the UK is 67 million, and all those over the age of five had their anonymised electronic health data analysed for The Lancet study.
    With about 40,000 severe hospital admissions related to Covid during that summer, the research estimates that more than 7,000 - 17% - would have been avoided if everyone had taken up the offer of the vaccine and booster doses for which they were eligible.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 16 January 2024
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