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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    Healthcare staff who deliberately withhold information should face criminal prosecution in cases involving patient safety and deaths, according to Northern Ireland's human rights commissioner.
    In her first public interview on duty of candour, Alyson Kilpatrick told BBC News NI there was an obligation on doctors to be fully truthful in order to protect lives.
    A duty of candour is an onus on staff to be open and transparent with patients and families when mistakes are made in a patient's care.
    However, the British Medical Association (BMA) does not agree that criminal sanctions should be linked with a duty of candour, and has said it would go against creating a culture of openness and transparency.
    Alan Roberts, whose daughter's death was examined by the Northern Ireland hyponatraemia inquiry which found there had been a "cover-up" into how she died, said doctors must be legally bound to tell the truth.
    Claire Roberts was one of five children whose deaths at hospitals in Northern Ireland were examined by the 14-year-long inquiry. It was heavily critical of a health service it deemed to be "self-regulating and unmonitored".
    Mr Roberts said "the public will be shocked to find there is no legal binding duty on a doctor to tell a patient when there have been failures or when they've been at fault".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 25 June 2024
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    The number of children waiting more than a year for community services has risen by a third in two months – mostly driven by referrals for neurological disorders – causing trusts to plead for national intervention.
    NHS England figures show the number of children’s community waits of more than 52 weeks grew from 27,429 in February to 35,922 in April (31 per cent).
    Data collection changed in February, which resulted in an increase in that month, but, even discounting this, the total appears to have roughly doubled in the year to April.
    Along with a rise in the overall waiting list for community health services, it has been overwhelmingly driven by a large rise in referrals to children’s “community paediatrics” services, mostly for neurological disorders such as autism and ADHD.
    Several trusts have declared they are effectively unable to deal with demand locally and called for national intervention and regional coordination to help.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 25 June 2024
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    Leading doctors are to launch legal action against the medical regulator amid rising concerns about the use of physician associates.
    The British Medical Association said it needed to take action before the “uncontrolled experiment” of the use of medical associate professions (MAPs) “before it leads to more unintended patient harm”.
    The union said it is launching legal action against the General Medical Council (GMC) over the way it plans to regulate MAPs.
    "We have had enough of the Government and the NHS leadership eroding our profession. We are standing up for both doctors and patients to block this ill thought through project before it leads to more unintended patient harm," said Professor Philip Banfield, BMA council chairman.
    It said that there is a “dangerous blurring of lines” for patients between doctors and assistant roles.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 24 June 2024
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    A rising proportion of doctors will not blow the whistle over patient safety concerns for fear of retribution, leading medics said.
    The British Medical Association (BMA) surveyed doctors from around the UK in 2018 and again in 2024.
    A rising proportion said they would not feel confident raising concerns about patient care – 26% of 1,578 doctors in 2024 compared with 10% of around 7,900 doctors surveyed in 2018.
    Three in five (61%) of those polled in 2024 said they may not raise concerns because they were “afraid” they or colleagues could be “unfairly blamed or suffer adverse consequences”.
    Meanwhile 45% said they feel that their managers discourage them from raising concerns – up from 20% cent in 2018.
    The BMA said that doctors are now “more frightened than ever” to speak up when they see patient safety issues, or levels of care at risk.
    Professor Philip Banfield, chairman of council at the BMA, is set to highlight a culture of “protectionism rather than accountability”.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 23 June 2024
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Thousands of agency staff could leave the NHS and social care services in the next two years, new research has suggested.
    More than 20,000 agency staff work across health and social care in the UK – but now a poll of 10,000 workers has revealed that nearly one in five could leave their job by 2026.
    In the poll, carried out by consultancy Acacium Group, 24% of those surveyed reported feeling overstretched at work.
    Key reasons for agency workers wanting to leave the NHS and social care included concerns over poor working conditions leading to staff burnout, and a lack of support from managers.
    Olivia Swain, 29, who has worked as an agency paediatric nurse in the North East since 2019 after moving from a permanent NHS role, told researchers: “While I love my job, the transition into a flexible role has its challenges. You have to learn to adapt quickly. Sometimes I don’t have a login or password for computer systems or swipe access cards, which can be incredibly obstructive and puts undue pressure on colleagues.
    “This can be a particular issue if I need quick access to patient records or to complete a referral.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 23 June 2024
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    Almost 19,000 NHS patients were left waiting in A&E for three days over a 12-month period, an investigation has revealed.
    Between April 2023 and March 2024, nearly 400,000 people were left waiting more than 24 hours across A&E departments, a 5% rise on the previous year. Channel 4’s Dispatches programme also found that 54,000 people had to wait more than two days, a freedom of information request to NHS England found.
    The investigation exposed “suffering and indignity faced by patients on a daily basis”, after an undercover reporter secretly filmed himself working as a trainee healthcare assistant inside the emergency department of the Royal Shrewsbury hospital for two months.
    The “harrowing” scenes from the hospital’s A&E department came as an analyst from a thinktank said people were dying in emergency care in England “who don’t need to be dying”.
    Footage shows one patient waiting for 30 hours in a “fit to sit” area while a suspected stroke sufferer was there for 24 hours, the broadcaster said.
    Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “I don’t think this is unique to this hospital by any stretch of the imagination. The things we’ve seen here today are clearly not just confined to winter. It was a year-round crisis in emergency care.
    “Spending two days in an emergency department is worse than spending two days in an airport lounge. These are people who are sitting in uncomfortable seats where the lights never go off. There’s constant noise, there’s constant stress. There’s no end in sight.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 24 June 2024
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    A trust’s drugs control department was found to have a “significant under-appreciation of safety” and “a culture of unwillingness”, after it lost track of at least two bags of fentanyl. 
    The Royal Free London Foundation Trust launched an internal incident investigation after two rejected bags of the controlled drug were reported missing from a quality control quarantine store.
    Fentanyl is a strong opioid used to treat severe and/or long-term pain. But its effect is similar to heroin, it is highly addictive, and there is therefore significant illicit  use of it.
    While it was not possible to ascertain if foul play contributed to the incident, the review said the incident “is most likely to represent a failure in documentation and of subsequent escalation”.
    Investigators said there appeared to be a “culture of unwillingness” to train and develop staff due to the fear of losing them to other organisations. They said a “culture of fear” was inhibiting the team’s ability to “progress, innovate, and grow”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 24 June 2024
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    More than four in five locum GPs in England are unable to find work with a third forced to leave the NHS because they cannot make ends meet, a survey has found.
    A survey of 1,852 locums, conducted by the British Medical Association (BMA), found that 84% cannot find work despite patients across the country waiting weeks for GP appointments.
    The study also found that more than half are considering a career change owing to a lack of work, while a third (33%) have made definite plans to work in a different career away from the NHS.
    Just under a third (31%) of respondents said that the lack of suitable shifts was leading them to leave the NHS entirely, while 71% said the government funding model was to blame for the levels of unemployment.
    More than half of GP appointments are now conducted by non-GP practice staff as they are cheaper, which is leading to locums being unable to find work.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 21 June 2024
     
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    The NHS is engulfed in a summer crisis, senior doctors have said, amid severe ambulance delays, corridors crowded with trolleys and patients facing 25-hour waits in A&E units.
    The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) sounded the alarm over the “national scandal” of long waits for emergency care that it said were leading to “entirely preventable” deaths at a time of the year when there should be some respite from the traditional pressure experienced over winter.
    Elderly people in particular were facing the brunt of the impact, with many forced to endure horrific long waits for a bed once a decision had been taken to admit them to hospital, the college said.
    A snapshot survey by the RCEM of emergency department chiefs from across the UK, conducted between Monday and Wednesday this week, exposed the extent of the summer crisis in hospitals.
    Nine in 10 (91%) of 63 A&E bosses admitted NHS patients were “coming into harm” on their wards due to the quality of care that could be delivered under current conditions.
    Eighty-seven per cent said they had patients being treated in corridors and 68% said they had patients waiting in ambulances outside their A&E.
    One emergency department leader revealed that one of their patients this week waited more than 19 hours for a hospital bed to become available once a decision was made to admit them after they had already waited six hours to be seen. Overall, the patient ended up waiting 25 hours in A&E.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 20 June 2024
    Related reading on the hub:
    A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift Reflections on a clinical shift: "After 20 years of nursing, this is one of the worst shifts I have ever completed"
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    A global alert about fake versions of Ozempic - which has become popular as a way of losing weight - has been issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).
    The drug is sometimes known as a "skinny jab" despite its main purpose being a treatment for type 2 diabetes.
    The WHO said the fake medicines could pose a danger to health.
    The organisation advised people to source the drug only through reputable sources, such as a doctor, rather than obscure sites online or through social media.
    The active ingredient in Ozempic - semaglutide - helps people with type 2 diabetes control the amount of sugar in their blood.
    However, the weekly injection also signals to the brain that we're full. So the drug helps people lose weight by reducing the urge to eat.
    People without diabetes have been getting hold of the drug as a weight-loss medication, which has led to shortages for people with type 2 diabetes and created a market for counterfeit drugs.
    “[We advise] healthcare professionals, regulatory authorities and the public be aware of these falsified batches of medicines,” said Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO assistant director general for essential medicines and health products.
    "These falsified products could have harmful effects to people’s health," WHO said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 20 June 2024
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    Data from a ransomware attack has allegedly been published online weeks after the attack halted operations and tests in major London hospitals, NHS England has said.
    A Russian group is believed to have carried out the cyber-attack on Synnovis, a private pathology firm that analyses blood tests for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust (GSTT) and King’s College trust, on 3 June, forcing hospitals in the capital to cancel almost 1,600 operations and outpatient appointments.
    NHS England said on Friday it had “been made aware that the cyber-criminal group published data last night which they are claiming belongs to Synnovis and was stolen as part of this attack. We know how worrying this development may be for many people. We are taking it very seriously.”
    In the attack, it is understood hackers from the Russian-based ransomware criminal group Qilin infiltrated Synnovis’s IT system and locked the computer system by encrypting its files to extort a payment for restoring access. The trusts have contracts with Synnovis totalling just under £1.1bn for services that are vital to the smooth running of the NHS.
    NHS England said an analysis of the data was under way involving the National Cyber Security Centre and other partners to confirm whether the data was taken from Synnovis’s systems and what information it contained.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 21 June 2024
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    An inquiry looking into mental health deaths in Essex will begin hearing evidence on 9 September.
    The Lampard Inquiry will investigate the deaths of more than 2,000 patients in the care of NHS trusts in Essex between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2023.
    Evidence will be heard in public in Essex and live-streamed online over a three-week period.
    The first hearings are expected to include opening statements as well as evidence from those impacted by mental health deaths.
    The inquiry was announced in November 2020 after warnings from health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and a damning Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report in 2019, external into the deaths of two men in Essex.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 20 June 2024
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    Two pathology networks are coming to the aid of a neighbour, still largely paralysed following an unprecedented cyber attack on its IT system earlier this month.
    HSJ has learned that Australian-owned firm Health Services Laboratories, which operates mainly from two NHS trusts in north London, will take on some of the primary care tests in south-east London while the Synnovis systems, which were taken out by the attack, are down.
    HSL will take on work from Lambeth and Southwark boroughs, while South West London Pathology, an NHS-run consortium based at St George’s Hospital, will take on similar work for GP practices in Bexley and Bromley.
    SWLP was able to connect electronically to send results back to 70 surgeries in south east London within three days.
    HSL confirmed it had been drafted in, but it gave no information on what tests it was performing or where, or how it was assuring itself that services in north London would not suffer as a result.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 20 June 2024
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    Young women are ending up in A&E after buying Ozempic online, with the NHS’s top doctor warning that weight-loss injections should not be abused in an attempt to get “beach body ready”.
    Doctors in emergency care report that “almost every shift” they see “young, beautiful girls” with potentially deadly complications who took the drug despite being a healthy weight.
    New weight-loss injections including semaglutide, better known by the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy, are being used on the NHS for people with obesity and type 2 diabetes. Some patients, however, including those with eating disorders, have lied about their weight to get them privately from online pharmacies or beauty clinics — leading to complications including inflammation of the pancreas.
    The drugs are sold by companies including Boots, Superdrug and Lloyds at between £150 and £200 a month. Doctors are calling for “urgent regulation and control” of their sale to ensure they are prescribed only to obese patients.
    Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England’s medical director, said the drugs should not be seen as a “quick fix for people trying to get ‘beach body ready’ ”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 13 June 2024
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    Dr Shivani Tanna has been working in the NHS for 18 years. "Everything [she] always had concerns about played out" in the care of her husband, who died after NHS hospital failures. A passionate doctor from a circle of acclaimed medics, Dr Tanna was thrust into life ‘on the other side’ as a ‘patient and a relative’ when her husband, Professor Amit Patel, was struck by a life-threatening illness.
    That experience, the devastated mum-of-two claims, "corroborates what [her] own patients have told [her] about the fact that, currently, the NHS is not fit for purpose".
    In the wake of her husband's death, Dr Tanna says his case reveals fundamental issues in the health service. “We have been indoctrinated as doctors, service users, and as a society in general to believe that this is a wonderful entity and we are so lucky to have a national health service," she says.
    “However, nobody wants to address the elephant in the room - that it is operating on less than full staff constantly... there is so much poor practice that it’s become normalised."
    Three years on and a long-running inquest to find answers later, Prof Patel’s wife is fighting to make changes to the NHS.
    “It has not been fit for purpose for decades,” Dr Tanna told the Manchester Evening News.
    "It is operating on less than full staff constantly, relying on bank staff and locums, and we’ve got doctors leaving in droves because they’ve not been nurtured or given the opportunity to work, I think, in a safe and appropriate environment.”
    The Area Coroner for the Manchester City concluded that the death of a 43-year old Consultant Haematologist and father of two, Prof Amit Patel, would have been avoided were it not for ‘inexplicable’ failures by clinicians to provide a national-level Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) with relevant and readily available information about the patient.
    Prof Patel was suffering from Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (‘HLH’), a rare disorder in which he himself was an expert. The Coroner found that the local clinicians at Wythenshawe Hospital had failed to provide a National HLH MDT with relevant and readily available information that would have influenced the decision making about Prof Patel’s care. As a result the National MDT, operating on incomplete information, recommended that Prof Patel undergo an Endobronchial Ultrasound guided biopsy  (EBUS) procedure, a complication of which ultimately led to his death.
    The Coroner also found that there were failures in the process by which Prof Patel’s consent was obtained to undergo the procedure and as a result he was not given the opportunity to provide his informed consent to the EBUS that ultimately led to his death.
    Read full story
    Source: Manchester Evening News, 17 June 2024
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    A heart patient has been left fearing for his health after his life-saving operation was cancelled due to a major cyber attack on London NHS hospitals.
    Russell Ashley-Smith, 81, is waiting for complex open heart surgery at King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill, south London, without which he may only have up to two years to live.
    More than 200 emergency procedures were cancelled due to the ransomware hack earlier this month.
    Mr Ashley-Smith said: “I understand if I don’t [have the operation] it’s terminal. Doctors said you’ll live for one to two years with declining health and become less and less capable of doing things like walking.
    “I would become more dependent on my wife, and more dependent on being taken somewhere by car if I wanted to go outside. I would be unable to make music – I play the cello and the piano – all the things I like doing and I don’t want to be a couch potato."
    As well as operations, thousands of patient hospital appointments had to be cancelled across Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust and King’s College University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust due to the cyber attack.
    The NHS admitted on Friday it would take months for services to recover even once the attack has been resolved, as staff will have to rebook patients for appointments and operations.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 19 June 2024
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    A simple blood test using artificial intelligence to predict Parkinson's disease years before symptoms begin has been developed by researchers.
    They hope it can lead to a cheap, finger-prick test providing early diagnoses - and help find treatments to slow down the disease.
    Charity Parkinson's UK said it was "a major step forward" in the search for a non-invasive patient-friendly test, but larger trials are needed to prove its accuracy.
    “At present we are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted," senior author Prof Kevin Mills, from UCL's Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, said.
    "We need to start experimental treatments before patients develop symptoms."
    Co-author Dr Jenny Hällqvist, from UCL, said: "People are diagnosed when neurons are already lost.
    "We need to protect those neurons, not wait till they are gone."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 18 June 2024
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    Patient safety issues have increased since One Medical shifted care to a call centre staffed by contractors, employees say
    Since Amazon acquired the primary care service One Medical, elderly patients have been routed to a call centre — staffed partly by contractors with limited training — that failed on more than a dozen occasions to seek immediate attention for callers with urgent symptoms, according to internal documents seen by The Washington Post.
    When one patient reported a “blood clot, pain and swelling,” call centre staff scheduled an appointment rather than escalating the matter for medical evaluation, according to a note in an internal incident tracking spreadsheet dated 19 February.
    Over the following two days, clinical staffers flagged four more call-centre errors involving elderly patients with urgent complaints, including stomach pain and blood in stool, a spike in blood pressure, an insect bite and sudden rib pain, according to the internal spreadsheet.
    The call-centre incidents were among dozens flagged by doctors, nurses and assistants at One Medical Seniors between 19 February and 18 March in the documents, a year after Amazon acquired the primary-care service.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Washington Post, 15 June 2024
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    Millions of people over the age of 50 in the UK have concerns about struggling to access healthcare, according to new analysis by Age UK.
    It comes as one elderly and disabled patient admitted he cannot afford to wait on hold to his GP practice for an appointment for long due to rising phone bill costs.
    A new report by Age UK – It’s a Struggle to be Seen – analysed the results of a representative poll, conducted for the charity by Kantar, of 2,621 UK adults over 50, as well as its own online survey which attracted more than 17,000 responses.
    The report claims less than half (48%) of people over 50 are confident their medical issue would be solved by NHS services.
    Some 49% – which Age UK equates to 12.6 million people – were concerned about their ability to access their GP, while 42% were worried about access to hospital appointments.
    The same proportion expressed concerns about access to emergency departments, the charity said.
    Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “Sadly, for some older people, healthcare delayed means healthcare denied, because they do not have time on their side.
    “Our new analysis highlights just how many are being subjected to distress and, in some cases, enduring pain, because of their difficulties in accessing the GP services that they need.”
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape. 17 June 2024
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    Government has been warned by its own advisory group that maternity services are being “overwhelmed with reporting requirements” which are hindering safety improvement work, according to documents seen by HSJ.
    The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) set up the “independent working group” on neonatal and maternal care to oversee its response to Donna Ockenden’s spring 2022 inquiry report into Shropshire maternity services; and was then asked to do the same for key recommendations from Bill Kirkup’s report later that year on failings in East Kent.
    The group is led by the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and made up of representatives of maternity staff.
    It was asked particularly to look into advising on two Kirkup recommendations: first, on improving standards of professional behaviour and “embedding compassionate care”, including asking royal colleges and others how this can be done. Second, charging the royal colleges and others “with reporting on how teamworking in maternity and neonatal care can be improved, with particular reference to establishing common purpose, objectives, and training from the outset”.
    However, a recent report from the working group, to the DHSC, released under the Freedom of Information Act, suggests the staff groups are arguing there is little scope to introduce more change.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 18 June 2024
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    A woman is battling a terminal cervical cancer diagnosis after an NHS trust misdiagnosed her test results as constipation several times.
    Sarah Roch, a 43-year-old mother of two from Plymouth, faced nine years of missed opportunities from 2010 by Derriford Hospital and only discovered she had cervical cancer after a voluntary hysterectomy in 2019.
    By the time she was diagnosed - which occurred by accident following her hysterectomy - Ms Roch was told she had late-stage cervical cancer.
    Ms Roch, who worked at the same hospital which misdiagnosed her, has had to give up her job to have chemotherapy three times a week.
    She is now calling for greater awareness of cervical cancer symptoms and has urged women to seek a second opinion if they feel something isn’t right.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 17 June 2024
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    The number of children receiving treatment in private hospitals across the UK rose by almost a quarter last year to more than 46,000, according to new data seen by the BBC.
    In each case, families either paid for treatment or used medical insurance - rather than being referred by the NHS.
    The record figures from private healthcare providers come as England's NHS trusts tell File on 4 that children have become the “forgotten generation” in the race to reduce health service backlogs.
    The Department of Health says NHS staff are “working tirelessly” to cut waiting lists.
    But the Royal College of Surgeons of England told us children were lagging behind adults and spending years waiting for NHS surgery - with potentially life-long consequences for their health and development.
    The BBC has spoken to a number of families whose children’s conditions have deteriorated during long waits.
    They include 16-year-old Georgina Smith from Hertfordshire, who is waiting for open-heart surgery to repair a valve on her right side which doesn’t close properly. It can cause her blood to flow the wrong way, making it harder for her heart to work.
    Georgina is one of 601 children waiting for heart surgery in England - 139 have been waiting more than six months.
    She suffers chest pains, extreme fatigue and fainting episodes and has been forced to miss a lot of school.
    Georgina says she feels like her operation will never happen. “It’s like a cloud over my head, it’s always just this waiting and waiting and waiting,” she says.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 18 June 2024
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    Nurses in the United States continue to voice concerns about artificial intelligence and its integration into electronic health records (EHR), saying the technology is ineffective and interferes with patient care.
    Nurses from health systems around the country spoke to National Nurses United, their largest labor union, about issues with such programmes as automated nurse handoffs, patient classification systems and sepsis alerts.
    Multiple nurses cited problems with EHR-based programs from Epic and Oracle Health that use algorithms to determine patient acuity and nurse staffing levels.
    "I don't ever trust Epic to be correct," Craig Cedotal, RN, a paediatric oncology nurse at Kaiser Permanente Oakland (Calif.) Medical Center, told the nurses' union. "It's never a reflection of what we need, but more a snapshot of what we've done."
    He said the technology does not account for the hours of preparing and double-checking the accuracy of chemotherapy treatments before a pediatric patient even arrives at the hospital.
    Read full story
    Source: Becker's Health IT, 14 June 2024
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    Families affected by hormone pregnancy tests have been “recognised as having suffered an injustice” a leading campaigner has said as she was given an award in the King’s Birthday Honours.
    Marie Lyon, chairwoman of the Association For Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, has been campaigning for decades for justice for people affected by hormone pregnancy tests, including Primodos.
    The 77-year-old has been awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) for “advocating for scientific research and improving patient safety for women”.
    She said she was accepting the award on behalf of members of the association and that the medal is “recognition of what has happened”.
    The tests were given to more than a million women from 1958 to 1978, but Ms Lyon said many were never told of the risks and were instructed to take the drug – which is 40 times the strength of an oral contraceptive pill – by their GPs as a way of finding out whether or not they were pregnant.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 15 June 2024
    Read our Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Marie Lyon
     
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    Almost half of adults in the UK have struggled to get medicine they have been prescribed – and more people blame Brexit than anything else for the situation, research shows.
    Forty-nine per cent of people said they had had trouble getting a prescription dispensed over the past two years, the period during which supply problems have increased sharply.
    Drug shortages are so serious that 1 in 12 Britons were unable to find the medication they needed, despite asking a number of pharmacies.
    The survey of 2,028 people representative of the population, undertaken by Opinium for the British Generic Manufacturers Association (BGMA), found that:
    One in 12 people (8%) have gone without a medication altogether because it was impossible to obtain. Thirty-one per cent found the drug they needed was out of stock at their pharmacy. Twenty-three per cent of pharmacies did not have enough of the medication available. “Shortages are deeply worrying for patients’ physical health, alongside the stress of not knowing if an essential medicine will be available,” said Mark Samuels, the chief executive of the BGMA.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2024
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