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
    The government is launching a review of the Care Quality Commission and has appointed a senior NHS figure to lead it, HSJ understands. The Department of Health and Social Care has commissioned the work, along with other departments, and selected Penny Dash, current North West London Integrated Care Board chair and formerly a senior McKinsey & Company consultant, to lead it. HSJ understands the review will examine how the CQC’s recently updated assessment framework is working, and how it links to NHS England’s national oversight framework. It will also consider whether the CQC’s ratings were properly rewarding and incentivising the improvement of care, and how the regulator is taking into account service user and patient voices, sources told HSJ. One source involved said they hoped the work would also respond to providers’ complaints that CQC inspections are making it more difficult for them to redesign services, for example by enforcing minimum staffing requirements, and are skewing their priorities. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 May 2024
  2. Content Article
    A large number of people live with long-term breathlessness that has a significant impact on their daily lives. For some, breathlessness is not directly linked to an underlying, diagnosable illness, and these people can struggle to access effective treatment and support. In this interview, respiratory doctor Anna Moore explains some of the causes of breathlessness including its links to a wide range of socioeconomic factors. She outlines the person-centred, multi-disciplinary approach her team at Barts Health is taking to help people overcome breathlessness and highlights the need for more research in this area.
  3. Content Article
    In this Guardian article. Palliative Care doctor Rachel Clarke examines the debate around legalising assisted dying, focusing on the need to ensure patients do not want to end their lives due to lack of adequate health and social care. She highlights the risk that if assisted dying were legalised, patients might be coerced into choosing death "not by some rightwing politician or avaricious family member, but by the woeful inadequacy of their care." She goes on to look at wider attitudes to the dying in the NHS, pointing out that hospice care is mostly funded by charities, not the NHS, and that last year in England, almost 14,000 people died in A&E while waiting more than 12 hours for a bed.
  4. Content Article
    This systematic review and meta-analysis in JAMA Network Open investigated whether perioperative telemedicine can reduce the incidence of adverse events in abdominal surgery. The findings suggest that perioperative telemedicine is associated with reduced risk of readmissions and emergency department visits after abdominal surgery. However, the mechanisms of action for specific types of abdominal surgery are still largely unknown and warrant further research.
  5. News Article
    A health system has stopped sending mental health patients to the country’s largest single provider of out-of-area placements. Southern Hill Hospital in Norfolk provided more than 18,000 bed days classed as OAPs for NHS patients last year, with Greater Manchester Integrated Care System (GM) being the main contributor to that total. However, HSJ has learned that GM’s integrated care board and mental health providers have decided not to send any more patients to the provider. The move comes after a recent visit to and review of the service at Southern Hill by GM commissioners. This, in turn, followed concerns about the “co-ordination” of patient care at Southern Hill received by GM. The exact nature of the concerns is unclear, and the ICB said in a statement “no significant safety or quality concerns were found and feedback from patients was positive,” when it carried out its review. The ICB said the decision to cease placements at Southern Hill shortly after the concerns were raised was a coincidence, and that the move was part of its strategy to reduce OAPs. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 May 2024
  6. News Article
    A 15-year-old child was prescribed dangerous levels of hormones by an unregulated online clinic without speaking to a doctor, a court ruling has revealed. Now 16, the teenager, known as J, was born female but identifies as a boy and has an autism diagnosis. J got a prescription for testosterone and puberty blockers from Singapore-registered GenderGP in late 2022. He had previously been unable to get the treatment through the NHS. Judge Sir Andrew McFarlane said: "There must be very significant concern about the prospect of a young person such as J accessing cross-hormone treatment from any off-shore, online, unregulated private clinic." The judgement highlights the lack of NHS gender services for children and young people in England and Wales, after the closure of the Tavistock Gender Identity and Development Service (Gids) in April. Gids, rated as "inadequate" by inspectors in 2021, was the only specialist gender clinic for children and young people in the two countries. The judgement says that, as a result: "There is no relevant NHS service available for J." Although the prescription was from a private doctor, J was given injections of testosterone by his local NHS GP every six weeks between January and August 2023. An expert witness in the case, Australia-based consultant paediatric endocrinologist Dr Jacqueline Hewitt, was critical of the lack of physical and psychological checks carried out by GenderGP on J. Dr Hewitt also raised concerns about the size of the doses of testosterone given to J, describing the level of the hormone in his blood during his treatment as "dangerously high". Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 May 2024
  7. Content Article
    On Wednesday 1 May 2024, the National NatSSIPs Network hosted a webinar to discuss the NHS England consultation on the Never Events framework. The consultation is concerned with whether the existing framework is an effective mechanism to drive patient safety improvement. This blog gives an overview of the discussion at this webinar, which had over 200 participants.
  8. Content Article
    Local authorities fund many of the services—such as housing, education and social care—which either support or tackle the drivers of health inequalities. The Institute of Health Equity (IHE) has looked at every local authority in England and plotted levels of health, inequalities in health and cuts in their spending power. This report provides information from 17 local authorities with statistically significant increases in inequalities in life expectancy. The report shows, since 2010, central government spending cuts to local authorities were highest in areas with lower life expectancy and more health inequalities, further harming health in these places. It also confirms widening inequalities in life expectancy between regions in England and within local authorities since 2010.
  9. Content Article
    In this article, Radar Healthcare provides a summary of the main sessions, messages and themes emerging from the Care Show London and the Digital Healthcare Show 2024, which both took place in April 2024. It discusses these topics: Embracing technology in care provision Mastering CQC-ready feedback processes The importance of integration between social care and the NHS Leveraging social media AI: The challenges and opportunities Avoiding digital fatigue:  Fostering patient safety In this final section, the article highlights a presentation given by Patient Safety Learning's Chief Executive Helen Hughes and Chief Digital Officer Clive Flashman about the organisation's patient safety standards. They spoke about the standards and accompanying online patient safety assessment toolkit, an easy-to-use resource designed to help organisations establish clearly defined patient safety aims and goals, support their delivery and demonstrate achievement. The article also highlights the contribution of the hub to improving patient safety, saying, "Patient Safety Learning's platform is recognised for its excellence in sharing knowledge on patient safety. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools, resources, case studies, and best practices to support those striving to improve patient care."
  10. Content Article
    This study in JAMA Network Open aimed to determine whether magnetic seizure therapy (MST) has comparable efficacy to modified electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for bipolar mania. The results suggest that MST is associated with a high response rate and fewer cognitive impairments in bipolar mania and that it might be an alternative therapy for the treatment of bipolar mania.
  11. News Article
    Hundreds of breast cancer patients have travelled more than 100 miles for diagnosis and treatment after waiting times soared at another health board because of staffing shortages. NHS Grampian, which previously received NHS Tayside patients because of staffing problems in Dundee, is now sending its own cases to Larbert, near Falkirk, because its breast cancer department can no longer cope. About 520 people from the Aberdeen area urgently referred to hospital with breast cancer symptoms have travelled to the Forth Valley Royal Hospital for diagnosis with some going on to receive their treatment miles away from home. It is anticipated that at least another 330 Grampian patients will be sent to Forth Valley while the waiting lists are brought under control in Aberdeen. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 2 May 2024
  12. News Article
    A study cited at the infected blood inquiry as evidence that the devastating consequences of blood products contaminated with hepatitis could not have been foreseen, misrepresented the results of a trial in making its case, according to the Guardian. Up to 6,520 people are believed to have been infected with hepatitis C through imported factor VIII blood products in the 1970s and 80s, while a further 26,800 are estimated to have been infected with the virus though blood transfusions. About 2,000 people are estimated to have died as a result. The inquiry, which publishes its final report on 20 May, heard that the medical profession considered non-A and non-B hepatitis (later known as hepatitis C) as “relatively benign” at the time, with Pier Mannuccio Mannucci’s 2003 paper, 'Aids, hepatitis and haemophilia in the 1980s: memoirs from an insider', quoted in support of this proposition. Mannucci’s 2003 paper argued that the view held by “the great majority of haemophilia treaters was that the problem of hepatitis was a tolerable one, because the benefits of concentrates seemed to outweigh risks”. In making his argument, Mannucci cited his own work, writing: “A prospective biopsy study was undertaken by me … in 10 haemophiliacs with non-A, non-B chronic hepatitis followed up for more than six years. The study, published in 1982, demonstrated no case of progression towards cirrhosis or haepatocellular carcinoma.” However, the original 1982 report says that there were actually 11–not 10–people included in the study and “one patient with active cirrhosis died of liver failure during the follow-up period”. Who knew what about the risks and when is a key plank of the inquiry. Read full story Source: Guardian, 2 May 2024
  13. News Article
    In the first half of 2023, Covid-19 killed 42,670 people in the United States, while the flu killed about half that amount. Yet half as many people received the updated covid booster as those who got the flu shot — even though covid is twice as deadly as influenza. In all, around 22% of people have received the new covid booster, while 47% of people have had a flu vaccine. Experts said much of that covid-shot resistance is due to the continued polarizing nature of the pandemic and of the covid vaccine, which has been shown to reduce the risk for Long Covid as well as serious acute viral infections and deaths. "Public health messaging is also to blame for the lower-than-normal covid vaccine rates," said Dr Al-Aly, a global expert on Long Covid and chief of research and development at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System. "Patients need to better understand that the role of the vaccine isn't to completely prevent covid but to reduce the likelihood of hospitalisation and death, similar to that of a flu shot. By reducing the risk for severe disease, the vaccine also reduces the risk for Long Covid, a debilitating condition that's still poorly understood, has no cure, and has already caused thousands of American deaths," he said. Botched public health messaging also allowed for misinformation to run rampant. Rare adverse events associated with the COVID vaccine have been severely overplayed and spread like wildfire on social media. "Patients need to know that like any vaccine, vaccine injury does occur, but these vaccines have a better safety profile than almost any others," Al-Aly said. "The rewards of getting the vaccine far outweigh the risks, and patients need to understand that." Read full story Source: Medscape, 2 May 2024
  14. News Article
    Leading pharmacists have blasted the government over “shameful” increases in the cost of NHS prescriptions. From 1 May they will increase from £9.65 per item to £9.90. Pharmacists across the country have hit out at the increase, warning it will disadvantage working patients on lower incomes. And the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) said the move will create an “arbitrary barrier” to people’s ability to receive healthcare. According to an NPA survey, patients have already reported not getting regular medication due to the costs. Antibiotics, pain killers, asthma inhalers, blood pressure medication and antidepressants are examples of the most commonly reported medicines which patients have not taken due to cost. Hundreds of pharmacies reported seeing patients decline medicines due to the cost of prescriptions, one to five times a week. Nick Kaye, chair of the NPA, said: “To allow the prescription charge to rise to this level is a shameful neglect of working people on low fixed incomes, who are not exempt. Many people already choose not to collect some or all their prescription medicines because of cost, with potentially dire health consequences. As pharmacists, we understand the healing power of medicines. So naturally we oppose arbitrary barriers to people getting the medicines they need. This is a tax on the working poor that deepens the cost of living crisis for them." Read full story Source: Independent, 1 May 2024
  15. Content Article
    Little Voices is a project run by Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust to amplify the voices of children who were patients at the Trust. Little Voices helped inform and support the Trust's ambition to deliver care in a setting that is child-friendly and equitable for all children. Getting input directly from children of a young age enhanced the Trust's understanding of what accessing care is really like for a child, seen through their eyes and not those of a parent or carer. Specific improvements are being implemented in the areas of hand hygiene, mealtimes that matter, play that is engaging and reducing fear and anxiety.
  16. News Article
    The safety of a teaching hospital’s out-of-hours supervision has been questioned, including reports trainees were told not to ask for help “unless your patient is dying”. The General Medical Council put University Hospital Southampton Foundation Trust’s general surgery training under enhanced monitoring at the end of 2023 following a referral and quality management visit by NHS England South East, Workforce Training and Education – Wessex. The NHSE team’s visit and subsequent report said doctors in training had claimed senior staff were “not contactable” out of hours and there was “difficulty” in securing senior clinical advice, particularly on Sundays. The report added foundation year doctors were “discouraged” from contacting senior staff out of hours by “inappropriate” and “belittling” comments and behaviours, such as being told not to ask for help “unless your patient is dying”. Foundation doctors also reported starting rotation on call and conducting ward rounds without appropriate supervision. While the GMC open case is centred on patient safety concerns relating to supervising trainee doctors, the workforce and training directorate report also raised concerns about bullying, inappropriate sexual comments made by consultants, and a feeling that foundation doctors were unable to speak up. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 May 2024
  17. News Article
    Increased reliance on imaging for diagnosis and efficient patient care mixed with higher volumes of patients has left US hospitals scrambling to meet demand with the few radiologists they have. There are over 1,400 vacant radiologist positions posted on the American College of Radiology's job board, according to a bulletin posted on its website. The total number of active radiology and diagnostic radiology physicians has dropped by 1% between 2007 and 2021, but the number of people in the U.S. per active physician in radiology grew nearly 10%, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. An increase in the Medicare population and a declining number of people with health insurance adds to the problem. "Demand for imaging services is increasing across the country, creating longer worklists for radiology staff at the same time the healthcare system is experiencing a workforce shortage in radiology," Michigan Hospital Association CEO Brian Peters told The Detroit News in an April 28 report. "The combination of vacancies and increased demand can force imaging delays measured from days to upwards of two weeks." CMS also cut fees for both diagnostic (3%) and interventional radiology (4%) this year, according to an article published on healthcare technology company XiFin's website. This leaves many hospitals having to use external groups to stay on top of demand. Mr. Peters told Detroit News, "Hospitals and health systems are also competing with practices offering remote-only positions, which allows Michigan radiologists to work for out-of-state providers at higher rates." Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 29 April 2024
  18. News Article
    Medical devices should be judged more on the value they bring to a wider health economy than just the price of the items, according to draft Department of Health and Social Care procurement guidance seen by HSJ. The draft methodology, produced by Department of Health and Social Care’s MedTech directorate, outlines how “value” should be given a minimum weighting of 60 per cent while price should have a maximum weighting of 40 per cent when procurement teams are evaluating which products to buy. The “value” weighting will include a minimum of 10 per cent which must be applied to social value, which is already a requirement for all public procurements. This would reverse established practice across many procurements that sets the price of products or services as the most important factor, at times to the detriment of products that provide greater value to a health economy. It is intended to be used for all procurements of medical devices. It came from the 2023 MedTech strategy, which “identified that the value of medtech products should not be considered in isolation but across the whole patient pathway and that lowest price does not always translate to best value,” it said. The plan is for it to become one of a set of commercial ”playbooks” produced by NHS England as part of the implementation of its national commercial strategic framework, which it published in November 2023. The draft methodology should bring consistency to how the NHS judges value in a procurement and to the evidence suppliers produce to support their offering. This should mean effective products are adopted more widely and their system-wide benefits to patient pathways are realised at scale. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 30 April 2024
  19. News Article
    A new trial to gather evidence on screening methods to detect prostate cancer is set to be led by researchers at Imperial College London, working alongside UCL, Queen Mary University of London and the Institute of Cancer Research. The £42million TRANSFORM screening trial, backed by charity Prostate Cancer UK, aims to find the best way to screen for prostate cancer and double the number of lives it could save. Previous trials using PSA blood tests and biopsies have shown that it is possible to prevent between 8% and 20% of prostate cancer deaths depending on how regularly patients are screened. But healthy people can potentially be harmed by this approach. Currently, there are more than 12,000 prostate cancer deaths in the UK alone, and this could mean thousands of lives saved each year in the UK. TRANSFORM will bring together leading prostate cancer researchers to test new approaches that have the potential to more than double the impact of screening, and ultimately reduce prostate cancer deaths by up to 40%. Read full story Source: Imperial College, 1 May 2024
  20. News Article
    Transgender women should not be put on single-sex female NHS wards, the government is proposing. The measure is part of a raft of changes to the NHS Constitution for England, the charter of rights for patients. The proposals stress the importance of biological sex for the first time when it comes to same-sex accommodation and intimate care. In both cases, the rights are available only where possible. For example, same-sex accommodation rights, which have existed for years, can and are breached where there is a clinically urgent need to admit and treat a patient and do not extend to areas such as critical care or accident and emergency. The guidance also means that trans men should not be housed on single-sex male wards. Under the proposals: transgender people, whose gender identity differs from their biological sex, may be provided single rooms, where appropriate patients will have the right to request a person of the same biological sex delivers any intimate care Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said it was about making it clear that "sex matters." She said, "We want to make it abundantly clear that if a patient wants same-sex care, they should have access to it wherever reasonably possible. By putting this in the NHS Constitution, we're highlighting the importance of balancing the rights and needs of all patients, to make a healthcare system that is faster, simpler and fairer to all." Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: "Rights on paper are worthless unless they are delivered in practice. "The NHS constitution already pledges that no patient will have to share an overnight ward with patients of the opposite sex, but that is not the case for too many patients." Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 April 2024
  21. News Article
    Healthcare providers are failing to protect the privacy of people living with HIV, the UK’s data watchdog has warned. The Information Commissioner’s Office said it has been forced to hand fines worth thousands to organisations which have released the details of those living with HIV. Speaking with The Independent, Information Commissioner John Edwards, said: “It is a huge problem [within healthcare] and it’s a disproportionate amount of our business. “That’s partly because of the seriousness and the sensitivity of health information, the huge scale of the health sector and very many moving parts, with many opportunities for information to slip out as it moves from one place to another, and frankly, they’re just not doing well enough.” In a warning on Tuesday the watchdog highlighted specific concerns over HIV patients’ data being breached through the use of bulk emails in which staff have not used the blind copy function. The Information Commissioner said: “People living with HIV are being failed across the board when it comes to their privacy and urgent improvements are needed across the UK. We have seen repeated basic failures to keep their personal information safe - mistakes that are clear and easy to avoid." Read full story Source: Independent, 30 April 2024
  22. Content Article
    This narrative review aimed to investigate adverse events in trauma resuscitation, evaluate contributing factors and assess methods, such as trauma video review (TVR), to mitigate adverse events. The authors found that, when integrated with standardised tools, TVR shows promise for identifying adverse events. They suggest that future research should prioritise linking trauma team performance to patient outcomes and developing sustainable TVR programs to enhance patient safety.
  23. News Article
    The number of young people receiving their MMR jab is up nearly a quarter from last year, official figures show. A national campaign to boost uptake was launched in January amid concern over measles rates in England, when the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) declared a national incident after a major outbreak in the West Midlands. The growth in infections shows no sign of abating, with a 40% increase in reported cases in England since March. The latest NHS England data shows more than 360,000 MMR jabs were administered in the 12 weeks to 24 March 2024, a 23% rise. The new campaign encourages parents and carers of children aged from six to 11 to make an appointment with their child’s GP practice so they can receive missed MMR vaccinations, and just over a million people aged 11 to 25 in London and the West Midlands have also been encouraged to catch up on missed jabs. In order to keep measles at bay, more than 95% of children should be vaccinated, but NHS figures from December suggest England is only at about 85%. With an estimated 3.4 million under-16s at risk of getting the virus, the campaign sent more than a million parents letters and emails inviting them to get their child vaccinated. Pop-up MMR clinics have been held in wellbeing buses, libraries and schools, pharmacies and outside supermarkets. But measles cases continue to rise. According to UKHSA figures released last week, there were 103 new cases in the past week. The number of laboratory confirmed cases since 1 October 2023 rose to 1,212 , an increase of 40% on March’s figures . In October 2023, there were just 17. The biggest increases in vaccination numbers were in the north-west, London and the West Midlands. Read full story Source: Guardian, 28 April 2024
  24. Content Article
    This article tells the story of 61 year-old Susannah Constantine who was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition after her MRI was not looked at by her GP surgery for over a year. Susannah decided to have a private MRI when doctors couldn't diagnose why she’d been suffering from tinnitus and pins and needles in the fingers of her left hand. The results were sent to her GP, and Susannah heard no more, so struggled on for another year—she gradually became weaker and her muscles atrophied. She called her GP surgery to check if the MRI held any clues and learnt no one there had ever looked at the results—they had just been sat there for a year. She was told she needed to see a neurosurgeon immediately and was diagnosed with arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a rare neurological condition that disrupts the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain. If not spotted and treated in good time there is a one in three chance of suffering a brain haemorrhage, paralysis or stroke.
  25. News Article
    People with type 1 diabetes are being forced to endure the “stress and anxiety” of insulin shortages, patients, pharmacists and health campaigners have warned. The “distressing” drug scarcity, the latest to affect the UK, is sowing uncertainty for the 400,000 people with the condition, with some products not available again until next year amid global manufacturing shortages. Britain is already contending with record numbers of medicines becoming hard or impossible to obtain, including those for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and epilepsy. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) said “a regular and reliable supply of insulin is essential for life” for people with type 1 diabetes. That is because their disease – an autoimmune condition unrelated to type 2 diabetes – means they cannot make insulin naturally and must inject it every day or receive it through a pump. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed there were “supply issues with a limited number of insulin products” that patients might find “distressing”. One patient, an NHS doctor who puts vials of the drug into her insulin pump, said: “I spent the last two days trying to get hold of insulin to treat my type 1 diabetes. I was terrified when my usual, very reliable pharmacist told me he couldn’t get hold of my insulin. I had no idea that insulin could go out of stock. Type 1 diabetics fall ill and will die within a few days without insulin. I’m worried for fellow diabetics, not only to access the supply, to stay alive, but the stress and anxiety this causes.” Read full story Source: Guardian, 28 April 2024
×
×
  • Create New...