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Found 2,343 results
  1. Content Article
    The pandemic has shown us health service transformation needs to go hand in hand with more beds and resources. The big challenge for all of us now is to to stand back and say: what has this taught us about the strengths and weaknesses of our healthcare system? What did we get right and wrong? The NHS has done an amazing job, proving itself very agile, very productive and very flexible. It’s been a process of constant learning. But there’s a very big backlog of people needing care, because we had this huge emptying out of hospitals and many NHS services were paused, notably elective surgery. Sir Jim Mackey, Chief Executive of Northumbria Healthcare NHS foundation trust and former Chief Executive of NHS Improvement, thinks private hospitals can help the NHS get on top of the backlog, to agreed standards and with the NHS paying. He tells the Guardian that it’s wrong that patients have to wait too long to get treatment and the public won’t care who provides that care.
  2. Content Article
    University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) is setting out its priorities for the remainder of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and into the future. The pandemic has meant that certain plans have had to be put temporarily on hold but the Trust says there are important areas that can and will be developed over the next few months and into 2021. Quality and safety of care remain the main priorities so the Trust is now focusing on four key areas to ensure that services recover and improve as the country emerges from the pandemic. 
  3. News Article
    In a major U-turn, the UK is ditching the way its current coronavirus-tracing app works and shifting to a model based on technology provided by Apple and Google. The Apple-Google design has been promoted as being more privacy-focused. However, it means epidemiologists will have access to less data. The government now intends to launch an app in the autumn, but it says the product may not involve contact tracing at that point. Instead the software may be limited to enabling users to report their symptoms and order a test. Baroness Dido Harding - who heads up the wider Test and Trace programme - will only give the green light to actually deploying the Apple-Google technology if she judges it to be fit for purpose, which she does not believe is the case at present. It is possible this may never happen. Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 June 2020
  4. Content Article
    The NIHR-funded and supported study RECOVERY (Randomised Evaluation of COVid-19 thERapY) has announced that the steroid dexamethasone has been identified as the first drug to improve survival rates in certain coronavirus patients.
  5. Content Article
    This patient information pack has been produced by staff at Homerton University Hospital. It is designed to help people recover and manage their symptoms following COVID-19.
  6. News Article
    At least another 130,000 people worldwide have died during the coronavirus pandemic on top of 440,000 officially recorded deaths from the virus, according to BBC research. A review of preliminary mortality data from 27 countries shows that in many places the number of overall deaths during the pandemic has been higher than normal, even when accounting for the virus. These so-called "excess deaths", the number of deaths above the average, suggest the human impact of the pandemic far exceeds the official figures reported by governments around the world. Some will be unrecorded COVID-19 victims, but others may be the result of the strain on healthcare systems and a variety of other factors. Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 June 2020
  7. News Article
    The NHS contact-tracing app will not be ready before winter, a health minister has said, despite initially being promised in mid-May. Lord Bethell said the Department of Health was "seeking to get something going for the winter". But, he told a committee of MPs, the app wasn't "the priority at the moment". Lord Bethell confirmed the government still planned to introduce a contact-tracing app, describing it as "a really important option for the future". The app has been the subject of a trial on the Isle of Wight, where the Department of Health says it has been downloaded by 54,000 people. Lord Bethell said the trial had been a success, but admitted that one of its principal lessons had been that greater emphasis needed to be placed on manual contact tracing. Asked why the app had taken so long to release, Lord Bethell told the Science and Technology Committee the Isle of Wight trial had shown that people "weren't frightened of it, as we were worried that they might be" - and had also provided "concrete examples" of successes in breaking transmission chains. But he admitted there had been "technical challenges", as well as an "ongoing battle" to persuade people the system was safe and privacy-protecting. Read full story Source: Sky News, 18 June 2020
  8. News Article
    The chief inspector of hospitals has warned that patient safety is at risk if the NHS winter crisis is worsened by coronavirus – and ministers must act now in emergency departments to prevent a catastrophe. Professor Ted Baker, speaking to The Independent in his first interview since the COVID-19 outbreak hit Britain, warned that the NHS could not carry on as before as hospitals across the country struggle to return to normal care while the crisis continues. “If we are going to do something about it, we need to act now, not at the beginning of winter,” he warned, adding the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was also worried about patients being “forgotten” as NHS waiting lists surge to an expected 10 million later this year. "We will be going into winter and all the difficulties of the winter viruses that we normally face, together with Covid. I think next winter is going to be very difficult, unless emergency departments and the whole system supporting emergency departments do things very differently.” He warned providing care in the NHS under the shadow of coronavirus was “a formidable challenge … probably bigger than the challenge we faced at the height of the pandemic”. Prof Baker also told The Independent that the CQC was investigating a number of reports that some hospital patients were discharged unsafely to care homes following a staggering 55% rise in whistleblowing complaints, particularly in care homes, with 2,612 calls between March and May. Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 June 2020
  9. News Article
    There should be independent reviews of the NHS’ readiness for a potential second major outbreak of coronavirus in the UK, senior doctors are arguing. The Royal College of Anaesthetists said a series of reviews should be carried out, overseen by an independent group formed from clinical royal college representatives, independent scientists and academics. It would encompass investigation of what happened to care quality during the peak of infection and demand through March, April and May — there are major concerns that harm and death was caused by knock of effects, with some health services closed and people being afraid to use others. Hospitals were unable to provide many other services as staff, including most anaesthetists, were redeployed to help with critical care. Ravi Mahajan, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, told HSJ areas such as capacity, workforce and protective equipment were key issues to be reviewed. He said: “We can’t wait for [the pandemic] to finish and then review. [The reviews] have to be dynamic, ongoing, and the sooner they start the better. Read full story Source: HSJ, 17 June 2020
  10. News Article
    A leading surgeon has said NHS staff must be routinely tested for coronavirus up to twice a week. Prof Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said it was vital, to reassure patients staff were not unwittingly carrying the virus. But hospital trust bosses say they are still waiting for clarity on plans for regular testing. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was focusing on routine testing in care homes. Prof Alderson was speaking at a Health Select Committee meeting about the necessary steps to get all NHS services back up and running. He said: "It's absolutely essential to regain public confidence that we are able to test our staff regularly." It would be "pragmatic" for testing to take place "about twice weekly", he added, because it was known that the available tests were not perfect. Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 June 2020
  11. News Article
    A patient almost died after being misdiagnosed and sent home from hospital on the first day of the lockdown as the NHS curtailed many normal services to focus on COVID-19. The NHS trust involved has admitted that its failings led to the man suffering excruciating pain, developing life-threatening blood poisoning, and contracting the flesh-eating bug necrotising fasciitis. He needed eight operations to remedy the damage caused by his misdiagnosis. The man, his wife and his GP spent three weeks after his discharge trying to get him urgent medical care. However, St Mary’s hospital on the Isle of Wight rejected repeated pleas by them for doctors to help him, even though his health was deteriorating sharply. The man, who does not want to be named, said his experience of seeking NHS care for something other than COVID-19 during the pandemic had been “debilitating and exhausting” and that feeling the NHS “was not there” for him had been “very distressing” for him and his wife. Mary Smith, of the solicitors Novum Law, who are representing the man in his complaint against the trust, said his plight highlighted the growing number of cases that were emerging of people whose health had suffered because they could not access normal NHS care in recent months. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2020
  12. Content Article
    The response to COVID-19 has created an outstanding amount of change to the NHS and we must learn from this, says Samantha Machen, Improvement Facilitator at Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust and PhD Improvement Fellow at the Health Foundation.
  13. Content Article
    In her latest blog for the hub, topic lead Eve Mitchell discusses what we need to do as we plan for recovery post-covid. Despite an apparent increase in interest in joining the nursing profession since the start of the pandemic, the reported 40,000 gap in nursing numbers is not going to be closed overnight and we therefore need to plan for different, re-think roles and responsibilities, and capture and capitalise on the innovations that have flourished in some areas. As we begin to reorient, revise our goals and focus on moving beyond rather than on just ‘getting by’, it is important that we look at all settings of care so we can learn from excellence, build on the best and support a faster response in the future if required.
  14. Content Article
    This poster by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, gives an overview on the different types of test for COVID-19 for patients and the general public. It explains the differences between the antigen PCR test and the antibody test.
  15. Content Article
    The Government has given the green light for dental practices to reopen in England from 8 June 2020. For a dental practice to treat you, they will need fully compliant Personal Protective Equipment, to exercise social distancing measures and apply appropriate cross-infection control. This means there may be a delay before your dental practice can fully reopen and the range of treatments on offer might be limited.
  16. News Article
    Care homes have been ordered to destroy a batch of faulty COVID-19 test kits after it was discovered that the swabs could break off while being used to gather samples from residents’ tonsils and noses. Care home managers were told on Sunday not to use the tests because they had “brittle stems at risk of snapping”. The kits were manufactured by Citotest, a company based in China, and were distributed by the government’s COVID-19 care home testing programme. It is tasked with providing tests for all staff and residents in care settings, not just people displaying symptoms. The affected batch should be destroyed or kept in a safe area clearly marked with warnings not to use them, officials said, adding that the problem emerged on Saturday and they were working as quickly as possible to resolve it. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the batch could have contained tens of thousands of tests and that a complaint had been raised with the manufacturer, with whom discussions were ongoing. “We are aware of an issue with one batch of swab sticks which are being replaced where needed but this does not affect any tests, or the results of tests, previously taken,” a DHSC spokesperson said. “Testing is unaffected and people should still arrive for their booked tests.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 June 2020
  17. News Article
    A woman whose father died in a care home has launched a judicial review case in the High Court over the government’s “litany of failures” in protecting the vulnerable elderly residents who were most at risk from COVID-19. Cathy Gardner accuses England’s health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, NHS England, and Public Health England of acting unlawfully in breaching statutory duties to safeguard health and obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to life. Her father, Michael Gibson, who had Alzheimer’s disease, died aged 88 of probable COVID-19 related causes on 3 April at Cherwood House Care Centre, near Bicester, Oxfordshire. She claims that before his death the care home had been pressured into taking a hospital patient who had tested positive for the virus but had not had a raised temperature for about 72 hours. “I am appalled that Matt Hancock can give the impression that the government has sought to cast a protective ring over elderly residents of care homes, and right from the start,” Gardner said. “The truth is that there has been at best a casual approach to protecting the residents of care homes. At worst the government has adopted a policy that has caused the death of the most vulnerable in our society.” Read full story Source: BMJ, 15 June 2020
  18. News Article
    Demand for oxygen from COVID-19 patients recovering at home is set to place the NHS under strain, the health service has warned. NHS England has issued guidance to out-of-hospital health providers on the extra demands likely to be placed on them given the number of people recovering after a hospital stay with the coronavirus. It warns that the provision from its home oxygen services and community respiratory teams across the NHS is expected to be an issue as the scale of demand increases. Andrew Whittamore, a practising GP and clinical lead for the Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation partnership, said concerns about the potential for hospitals to be overwhelmed in the early part of the pandemic had led to community oxygen teams being primed to take on more patients – but he described that ramping up as “a short-term fix”. “We don’t know how long people are going to need oxygen or other services for,” he said. “There are definitely going to be extra patients added on to our community teams’ workloads.” The Taskforce for Lung Health – of which the British Lung Foundation is a member – has raised particular concerns about access to pulmonary rehabilitation. An education- and exercise-based treatment, which is proven to be more effective for lung patients than many drug-based treatments, and face-to-face classes have been suspended during the pandemic. It may be that such treatment would also be helpful for some patients recovering from COVID-19. Jackie Eagleton, policy officer at the British Lung Foundation, said there had been issues with access to pulmonary rehabilitation for a long time, but the need to offer this form of support to people with lung conditions “has never been more pressing than it is now”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 June 2020
  19. News Article
    When Dan Scoble came down with the coronavirus in March, all the classic symptoms landed in one fell swoop. “I had everything under the sun: a fever, temperature, fatigue and chest pain,” he said. “My head felt like a balloon.” The 22-year-old, a personal trainer from Oxford who normally breezed through 10-mile runs, suddenly found himself bed-bound. He presumed it would soon blow over, but 12 weeks after falling ill as the country went into lockdown, he is still not back to normal. Dan has left his house just five times in three months — twice to see his GP and three times to hospital. He still suffers from crippling fatigue, recurrent migraines and a persistent sore throat, as well as abdominal and musculoskeletal pain. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 14 June 2020
  20. Content Article
    The purpose of this guide is to help leaders and managers in businesses and organisations make their office workspaces safe for staff returning to work and reduce the transmission of the COVID-19 virus. This process begins with putting together a competent team and undertaking a risk assessment and staff survey to inform decision-making. Businesses are encouraged to consider the workplace as a whole system so that in mitigating a risk in one part of the work system, unintended consequences are not created in another. For example, new ways of work lead to increased workload/stress and reduced collaborative working.
  21. News Article
    Unlawful 'do not resuscitate' orders are being placed on patients with a learning disability during the coronavirus pandemic without families being consulted. National charities have successfully challenged more than a dozen unlawful do not resuscitate orders (DNRs) that were put in place because of the patient’s disability rather than due to any serious underlying health risk. Turning Point said it had learned of 19 inappropriate DNRs from families while Learning Disability England said almost one-fifth of its members had reported DNRs placed in people’s medical records without consultation during March and April. In one example, a man in his fifties with sight loss was admitted to hospital after a choking episode and was incorrectly diagnosed with coronavirus. He was discharged the next day with a DNR form giving the reason as his “blindness and severe learning disabilities”. Marie-Anne Peters, whose brother Alistair has epilepsy but no other health conditions, overturned a DNR on her brother which included instructions for him not to be taken to hospital. Both charities fear other people with learning disabilities who are vulnerable could be wrongly denied life-saving treatment. They have now launched a new checklist for families and care workers to challenge illegal DNRs. Read full story Source: The Independent, 13 June 2020
  22. News Article
    Dozens of hospitals are running short of scrubs in the latest problem to hit the NHS over the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the coronavirus pandemic. The shortages are revealed in a survey of UK doctors undertaken by the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), which found that 61% said that the hospital where they worked was facing a shortage of scrubs. In recent months, many more NHS staff have begun wearing scrubs, which are usually used mainly by surgical staff, to protect themselves against COVID-19. The prevalence of coronavirus in hospitals has prompted many to switch from wearing their own clothes at work to using scrubs, and handing them in to be washed at the end of their shift. However, the big increase in demand for scrubs from doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists has left many hospitals unable to keep up and also put unprecedented pressure on hospital cleaning services. Some staff have even worn pyjamas intended for patients when scrubs have run out. “Protective clothing must be considered to be at a par with other PPE by Public Health England and must be provided to staff by the NHS," said said Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, the president of the DAUK. She added: “A failure to adequately supply scrubs to staff may risk further community spread of Covid-19.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 June 2020
  23. News Article
    A leading doctor has warned that trusts will struggle to get back to anything like pre-covid levels of endoscopy services and will need to prioritise which patients are diagnosed. Endoscopy procedures are part of the diagnostic and treatment pathway for many conditions, including bowel cancer and stomach ulcers. Most hospitals have not done any non-emergency procedures since the middle of March because they are aerosol generating — meaning a greater covid infection risk and need for major protective equipment. Although some areas are now starting to do more urgent and routine work, capacity is severely limited. Kevin Monahan, a consultant gastroenterologist at St Marks’s Hospital, part of London North West Healthcare Trust, and a member of the medical advisory board for Bowel Cancer UK, said the time taken for droplets to settle in rooms after a procedure can be up to an hour and three quarters, depending on how areas are ventilated. Only then can the room be cleaned and another patient seen. Dr Monahan said his trust had restarted some endoscopy work and was currently doing around 17 per cent of its pre-covid activity. “We can provide a maximum of about 20 per cent of normal activity — and that is using private facilities for NHS patients,” he said. “I am not at all confident we will be able to double what we are doing now, even in three to four months’ time." Read full story Source: HSJ, 12 June 2020
  24. News Article
    Factors such as racism and social inequality may have contributed to increased risks of black, Asian and minority communities catching and dying from COVID-19, a leaked report says. Historic racism may mean that people are less likely to seek care or to demand better personal protective equipment, says the Public Health England (PHE) draft, seen by the BBC. Other possible factors include risks linked to occupation and inequalities in conditions such as diabetes may increase disease severity. The report, the second by PHE on the subject, pointed to racism and discrimination as a root cause affecting health and the risk of both exposure to the virus and becoming seriously ill. It said stakeholders expressed "deep dismay, anger, loss and fear in their communities" as data emerged suggesting COVID-19 was "exacerbating existing inequalities". And it found "historic racism and poorer experiences of healthcare or at work" meant individuals in BAME groups were less likely to seek care when needed or to speak up when they had concerns about personal protective equipment or risk. The report concluded: "The unequal impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities may be explained by a number of factors ranging from social and economic inequalities, racism, discrimination and stigma, occupational risk, inequalities in the prevalence of conditions that increase the severity of disease including obesity, diabetes, hypertension and asthma." Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 June 2020
  25. Content Article
    Lewis Thomas and Kieran McHugh, trainees on the NHS graduate management scheme working at Imperial College Healthcare Trust and North Central London CCG respectively, share with HSJ their reflections on leadership having worked during the COVID-19 pandemic
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