Jump to content
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    4,120

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Patient-Safety-Learning

PSL Moderators

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Patient-Safety-Learning

  1. News Article
    Hospital staff at the Royal London Hospital have complained about bullying, harassment, racism and sexism during an inspection by the care watchdog. After conducting a review of the imagining department at the Royal London Hospital and Whipps Cross Hospital, there are now concerns over the culture of the service and conflict between staff. With both hospitals being overseen by Barts Health NHS Trust, chief executive Dame Alwen Williams has said “We will be ensuring staff have the resources to sustain improvements we need to make and there is appropriate oversight and processes in place for escalating wellbeing issues. We have a responsibility to listen to what our hard working team are saying, and respond appropriately and sensitively." Read full story. Source: The Independent, 30 July 2021
  2. News Article
    A new tool by NHS Digital has recently been launched that will allow patients to see which organisations can access their data. The Data Uses Register has revealed which organisations can access the data, such as public sector bodies and charities. Each organisation wanting to use the data must have a legitimate and legal reason such as health and care planning and research purposes. Simon Bolton, NHS Digital’s interim CEO, said: “The new Data Uses Register is an important improvement to make our data sharing agreements more transparent and user-friendly. We take our responsibility as the guardians of NHS data very seriously and we are committed to being transparent so that people can see exactly who their data has been shared with and why. It is important that the public can see openly and clearly how NHS data is shared to build confidence and trust and this new tool will help to ensure that.” Simon Bolton, NHS Digital’s interim CEO, has said. Read full story. Source: Digital Health, 27 July 2021
  3. News Article
    Covid-19 may cause early onset Alzheimer’s disease in patients who suffer neurological symptoms such as brain fog or loss of smell and taste. A separate study has also found patients with coronavirus may be more susceptible to long-term memory and thinking problems. In Alzheimer’s patients, researchers have found higher levels of markers in the blood of people who had suffered neurological complications after being infected with the virus. “These new data point to disturbing trends, showing Covid-19 infections leading to lasting cognitive impairment and even Alzheimer’s symptoms. With more than 190 million cases and nearly 4 million deaths worldwide, Covid-19 has devastated the entire world. It is imperative that we continue to study what this virus is doing to our bodies and brains.” said Heather M Snyder, Alzheimer’s Association vice-president for medical and scientific relations. Read full story. Source: The Independent, 29 July 2021
  4. Content Article
    In this blog, James Perry a GP for Primary Care Wirral GP Federation, describes his experience of being a member of the UK's first multidisciplinary quarantine unit in 40 years. Starting from when 83 British nationals arrived in the UK from Wuhan, China and were transferred to Arrowe Park on the morning of 31st January, he details several operational and medical approaches, including how the multidisciplinary team had to create a strategic operational plan and how the mental health team aimed to promote a normalising, practical and human approach without medicalising people’s natural responses to a challenging and unusual circumstance.
  5. News Article
    Maria Whale, 67, has died after waiting more than two hours for an ambulance after her husband dialled 999 when she began experiencing "severe abdominal" pain. Mr Whale has said the family have questioned whether she would have lived if the ambulance had arrived sooner, saying they had waited "four to five hours" for it to come. However, the Welsh ambulance service has said its records showed the call was placed at 02:10 BST before a paramedic arrived at 04:22 BST, with the ambulance following shortly thereafter at 04:35 BST - two hours and 25 minutes after the first call. "We are deeply sorry to hear about the passing of Mrs Whale and would like to extend our thoughts and deepest sympathies to her loved ones. An investigation to determine what happened started earlier this month and given this is underway we are unable to comment further at this time." Says Welsh Ambulance operations director, Lee Brooks. Read full story. Source: BBC News, 28 July 2021
  6. News Article
    A new report has revealed patients have died as a result of cancelled appointments to remove objects from their bodies that had been left inside them. Research looking at 23 coroners reports in England and Wales has found the deaths were largely preventable. Read full story (paywalled). Source: The Telegraph, 27 July 2021
  7. News Article
    New data has revealed hundreds of paramedics experience physical assault and verbal abuse whilst serving the public. According to NHS, there has been a 32 per cent rise in assault against paramedics over the past 5 years, with more than 1,600 saying they had been threatened while on duty or feared for their own lives. Now, ambulance trusts are aiming to fit paramedics with body cameras while the West Midlands have CCTV inside their ambulances. "After years of lobbying, the legislation is now in place to ensure that the worst offenders are severely and appropriately dealt with. The problem is that the law is not being used to full effect and sentences are still far too lenient. We are calling today on the courts to step up and impose the harshest penalties available to them." Said Tracy Nicholls, chief executive of the College of Paramedics. Read full story. Source: The Independent, 28 July 2021
  8. News Article
    Nurses are being drafted in to an NHS hospital to help support the maternity unit due to dozens of midwife vacancies. According to the Royal College of Midwives, they were worried the staff shortages were becoming more widespread as the NHS are becoming more desperate to fill the vacancies, however, the College has warned against using registered nurses instead of midwives as it could have an impact on the care of women and babies. Amid staff shortages at Basildon Hospital, there is now an active consideration to move planned caesarean sections to Southend Hospital, part of the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust. One worker has said “Basildon doesn't feel like a centre of excellence at the moment. I worry that flooding a department with newly qualified midwives and agency workies is a recipe for patient harm.” Read full story. Source: The Independent, 28 July 2021
  9. News Article
    A public inquiry into the infected blood scandal has heard that the government was right to say there was "no conclusive proof" that Aids could be transmitted by blood products in 1983. According to Lord Clarke, the phrase was entirely accurate at the time it was said. However, evidence in documents reveal senior health officials believed HIV could be carried through blood. "Somebody, somewhere, decided that that was the best most accurate line to take. It was repeatedly used by every minister. We kept repeating that because that was the scientific advice we had until it was perfectly clear to the medics that there was in fact sufficient proof... we weren't playing down that possibility. It seems to me... it's a perfectly accurate description of where medical opinion was at that time." Lord Clarke told the inquiry. Read full story. Source: BBC, 28 July 2021
  10. News Article
    Breast surgeon Ian Paterson, was convicted and jailed for 20 years for performing unnecessary and dangerous surgery on women over the span of 14 years, being found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding. Thousands of his patients are only now just learning that they experienced unnecessary tests and surgery when there was no clinical need, having never been properly reviewed after his conduct had been revealed. Now, Spire Healthcare may be facing up to £50 million in compensation costs with the NHS and insurers having also paid £10 million. Linda Millband, head of clinical negligence at Thompsons Solicitors has said "“It is clear people have been missed and we will be urging anyone who believes they may have been a victim of Ian Paterson, at any time, to come forward and seek compensation for their injuries. Our job is to ensure any victim of Paterson, whenever they may have been contacted, get the maximum compensation.” Read full story. Source: The Independent, 27 July 2021
  11. News Article
    Eight hospitals have reported that at least 1 in 10 beds are now occupied by a patient with coronavirus, HSJ can reveal. Operational information seen by HSJ showed the 8 Trusts were, Queen Elizabeth Hospital; Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland Foundation Trust, North Tees and Hartlepool Foundation Trust, Barnsley Hospital, The Rotherham Foundation Trust, Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust, across several hospitals in north Manchester, Oldham and Bury, Whittington Health Trust, and Sandwell and West Birmingham. Having 10 per cent or more beds occupied by Covid patients has a big impact on how the hospital is able to run due to the need to ensure the patients are in appropriate wards and isolated from patients who are negative for the virus. Compared to previous waves, current patients are much younger and healthier and have been found to have a shorter length of stay in hospital. Read full story (paywalled). Source: HSJ, 26 July 2021
  12. News Article
    Experts have warned misinformation around the Covid vaccine may be helping fuel the spread of the virus. Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group has warned "confused messaging" around the effectiveness to protect the population could threaten confidence in the jab. Sir Andrew, together with Professor of vaccinology Shabir Madhi at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, have suggested lessons can be learned from South Africa. Writing for The Independent, they said “South Africa was one of the first African countries to procure the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum Institute of India. Unfortunately, these doses were never deployed because of misguided fears over efficacy, allowing the present third wave to occur in a largely unvaccinated population.” Read full story. Source: The Independent, 26 July 2021
  13. News Article
    According to reports, Covid-19 cases may be falling, raising hopes that the peak of the third wave has passed. However, experts are not so sure that Covid is truly in decline as figures have shown cases have gone up dramatically and declined just as quickly. Prof Christl Donnelly, from University of Oxford and Imperial College London has said "It's certainly is good to see case numbers going down, but we need a reality check. We've had a dramatic increase - and then on the face of it, a dramatic decrease. We have to be careful not to over-interpret that." Read full story. Source: BBC News, 27 July 2021
  14. News Article
    US President Biden has said people suffering from long-term effects if Covid-19 could be considered a disability under federal civil rights laws. The administration does make clear however that having long covid doesn't automatically mean disability and that an individual assessment may be needed to determine whether a person’s long-term symptoms “substantially limits a major life activity.” President Biden has said the classification of long covid as a possible disability would “help Americans grappling with long-term effects of covid-19 that doctors call long covid.” Read full story. Source: The Washington Post, 26 July 2021
  15. Event
    The eyewatering cost of clinical negligence claims to the NHS have dominated the headlines over the years, with spending increasing on average by 13% each year since 2010/11. Should costs continue to rise at the same rate, we could see the NHS paying out £4.4 billion a year by 2023/24, constituting a major threat to the sustainability and viability of the NHS. We need to tackle the problem at the source – by making improvements in quality and patient safety so that both patient harm and subsequent litigation are reduced. According to NHS England, by 2024, continuous improvements in patient safety could save an extra 1,000 lives and up to £100m in care costs each year. So how can this threat be reversed and where does technology come into play? The role of technology in enabling staff to shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to deliver patient care, subsequently preventing avoidable harm Investing in the right infrastructure to support staff identify risks, ultimately reducing litigation costs Really committing to learning and having a system in place which instils that learning Enabling and supporting system-wide safety improvements To register, please click here.
  16. Event
    Group B Strep is the leading cause of meningitis in newborn babies in the UK. Two babies a day develop GBS infection, one baby dies every week and one baby survives with disability. The UK’s rate of group B Strep infection in infants is double that of other developed countries, despite guidelines being in place since 2003. This FREE webinar will give you key information on group B Strep and the current guidelines, the very latest news about the ground-breaking GBS3 trial (an RCT of routine GBS screening), and suggestions of how to tackle the challenges GBS poses for midwives today. There will also be a 30-minute Q&A session for you to ask your own questions of our panel of experts. Please register here to attend the event.
  17. News Article
    A Sage scientist has accused ministers of allowing infections to spread through the younger population in the hopes it would increase herd immunity before the NHS experiences winter pressures. The government scientist made ministers aware of their concerns after restrictions were eased on Monday 19th July, allowing nightclubs to open, with all previous restrictions being eased. “Abandoning all precautions and allowing infections to climb not only risks further restrictions in the future, it condemns thousands to long-term illness and places huge pressure on the NHS. Rising Covid admissions are helping exacerbate a summer NHS crisis, with operations cancelled and increasing waiting times. It means we are heading into another difficult winter and high levels of virus circulating could see a vaccine-evading variant emerge. This is an utterly reckless strategy from Boris Johnson.” Shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, has said. Read full story. Source: 23 July 2021
  18. News Article
    Midwives working at the Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) Trust have told The Independent that "women are still at a risk of harm". This comes after Nottingham hospitals were investigated after it was found there was a high number of baby deaths and injuries on the maternity ward. However, midwives have revealed to The Independent that there are still not enough resources and support to help women deliver their babies safely. One midwife working in the community told The Independent: “They keep saying ‘We’ve learned our lessons, it’s not like that now’ – but it’s even worse now. It’s worse because we know about it and it’s still bad. Women are still at risk of harm. Even more so in the community.” Read full story. Source: The Independent, 25 July 2021
  19. News Article
    NHS bosses have warned as Covid-19 infections rise, the demand for A&E ha surged, colliding with holiday season. According to reports, hospitals are being told to brace themselves as admissions to hospital for patients with Covid have risen by more than 30 per cent over the past week. Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals, chief executive Dame Jackie Daniel has said, “We are going through the ‘perfect storm’ of high numbers of Covid patients in hospital, high Covid infections in the community, which is affecting staff and our families, unprecedented levels of urgent and emergency demand and peak holiday season, all of which comes after 18 months of exhausting work.” Read full story. Source: The Independent, 25 July 2021
  20. News Article
    Researchers are looking at ways the Covid-19 vaccine could become a pill or inhaler instead of an injection. In the hope of fighting against the coronavirus pandemic, a team in Sweden are hoping to create a new, powdered version of the vaccine which can be taken at home instead. ISR's founder, Ola Winquist, a professor of immunology at the Karolinska Institute has said, "The game-changer is that you could distribute the [powder] vaccine extremely easily without the cold chain, and it can be administered without the need for healthcare providers". Read full story. Source: BBC News, 26 July 2021
  21. News Article
    Coronavirus infections continue to fall, according to new reports, with the UK recording 29,173 new cases on Sunday - down from 48,161 recorded from the 18th July. Prof Paul Hunter from the University of East Anglia has said, "Today's figures do not of course include any impact of last Monday's end of restrictions. It will not be until about next Friday before the data includes the impact of this change." Read full story. Source: BBC News, 26 July 2021
  22. Content Article
    This document presents the National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures which sets out a standardised framework – key steps - necessary to deliver safe care for patients undergoing invasive procedures. This post links to the latest framework which was updated in 2023.
  23. Content Article
    This article in the Nursing Times explains how the law has evolved and how it applies to nursing practice, describing the legal duty of nurses to obtain informed consent from their patients before carrying out any treatment or intervention, and why informed consent is fundamental to the provision of person-centred care.
  24. News Article
    The Department of Health and Social Care has been criticised after it accepted only 4 out of the 9 recommendations set out in the Cumerledge review. Marie Lyon, co-chairwoman of the patient reference group for the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review has said “Unfortunately, the culture of protect and deny continues to be the default response to patients, while stating lessons have been learned. These lessons will never equate to action and improved safety of drugs and devices, while government ministers mark their own performance as satisfactory when it is not. Many more women and children will be damaged unless this systemic culture of protect and deny undergoes a profound change.” Read full story. (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 July 2021
  25. News Article
    Owing to social distancing and a lack of exposure, childhood respiratory illness, RSV is on the rise, according to reports and parents are being warned to look out for signs and symptoms. "This winter, we expect levels of common seasonal illnesses such as cold and flu to increase, as people mix more and given that fewer people will have built up natural immunity during the pandemic. Children under two are at a particular risk of severe infections from common seasonal illnesses," Public Health England, medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle has said. Read full story. Source: BBC News, 23 July 2021
×
×
  • Create New...