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Found 1,311 results
  1. News Article
    People who go to hospital for non-covid treatment are at higher risk of the virus compared with the general public, which is why high levels of hospital-acquired Covid-19 in England are worrying some doctors. They fear that the coronavirus is becoming a potential hazard of a hospital stay for older or vulnerable people, in a similar way to “superbugs” such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). People who go to hospital for non-covid-19 treatment are at higher risk from the virus compared with the general public, says Tom Lawton, an intensive care doctor in Bradford, UK. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The New Scientist, 21 July 2022
  2. News Article
    A call to NHS 111 was abandoned every 10 seconds between 2020 and 2021, figures show. Millions of callers to the helpline hung up at a time when demand for the NHS was at its highest. In 2020, 2,490,663 calls were abandoned, while in 2021 this figure increased to 3,531,186. And 1,174,159 gave up on the line from January to May this year. Callers in Devon take an average of 11 minutes to get through to the NHS 111 service, according to Liberal Democrat research. Daisy Cooper, Lib Dem spokeswoman for health and social care, said: "Ambulance services are being stretched to breaking point, hospitals are reaching full capacity and now people cannot get through to NHS 111. We have called on this government time and time again to get a grip on this issue by recruiting more NHS 111 call handlers now." "The longer they delay, the longer they are leaving people in pain and distress." Helen Hughes, of the Patient Safety Learning charity, said: "These figures represent a serious safety concern. Each call is a potential missed opportunity for patients to receive timely medical advice that may prevent future harm." "With the ongoing severe pressures faced by ambulance services and hospitals this summer, patients are increasingly being signposted to NHS 111 for advice on non-life threatening conditions." "However, it can only relieve the pressure on other areas of the health service if NHS 111 has the capacity and resources to meet rising demand. The NHS leadership needs to urgently assess the reasons for this high number of abandoned calls." Read full story Source: Express, 31 July 2022
  3. News Article
    Patients experiencing a mental health crisis were kept in a ‘short stay area’ of an emergency department for up to three weeks, a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report has revealed. The patients were in what the CQC described as a “short stay area” of the ED at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. It is an area with no natural light, no TV or radio and only a toilet and washbasin, with a shower available on a neighbouring ward, the CQC said. The patients were reviewed daily by a mental health liaison team from another trust while they waited for a mental health bed to be found. The CQC report said staff reported the longest stay was up to three weeks, while trust data showed the average length of stay was 52 hours. It said the urgent and emergency services at the hospital – part of University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust which is rated “outstanding” overall by the regulator – “did not fully meet the needs of the local population”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 29 July 2022
  4. News Article
    Hospital passports need to be more consistently used across the NHS to better support patients with communication difficulties, a learning disability nurse says. Support for patients with communication needs and learning disabilities, as well as the nurses caring for them, is often ‘inconsistent’, according to RCN professional lead for learning disabilities Jonathan Beebee. Coupled with the current system-wide pressure of patient backlogs and high staff vacancy rates it means patients often do not have their communication needs met. A hospital passport, which contains vital information about a patient’s health condition, learning disability and communication needs, would help address this, Mr Beebee told Nursing Standard. "There has got to be better consistency in how we are identifying people with communication needs, how they are getting flagged and how nurses are being pointed to that from the second that someone is admitted to the ward," he said. Mr Beebee says ensuring a standardised approach would improve patient experience and ultimately nurses’ relationship with patients. Read full story Source: Nursing Standard, 27 July 2022
  5. News Article
    A whistleblower has warned a London hospital is "literally in meltdown" after its IT system was knocked out during last week's heatwave. Operations at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth were cancelled after its IT servers broke down in 40C (104F) temperatures on 19 July. A doctor told the BBC "poor planning" and "chronic underfunding" meant issues remained a week later. A spokesperson for the hospital said IT issues were "having an ongoing impact". Without a functioning IT system, staff have returned to paper notes, the doctor said. The anonymous whistleblower, who works as a doctor at Guy's and St Thomas', said this meant "we see very worrying results, but we don't know where the patients are so we spend ages tracking them down". "We cannot read any historical notes from patients. Names are being misspelt, so scans are not showing up. "Each morning, someone hand-delivers a stack of test results to the ward. In there, we received several patient results that don't belong to our ward," the doctor said. "If we don't recover our shared drives, we risk losing months of research data, if not years." Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 July 2022
  6. News Article
    Roy Cairns, 58, was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2019. Twelve months later a tumour was found on his lung. Mr Cairns said taking part in the cancer prehab programme piloted by the Northern Ireland's South Eastern Health Trust after his second diagnosis was a "win-win", not only for himself but also his surgeons. "I think when you get that diagnosis you are left floundering and with prehab the support you get gives you focus and a little bit of control back in your life," he said. Prehabilitation (prehab) means getting ready for cancer treatment in whatever time you have before it starts. Mr Cairns is one of 175 patients referred to the programme which involves the Belfast City Council and Macmillan Cancer Support. Dr Cherith Semple said the point of the programme is to " improve people's physical well-being as much as possible before treatment and to offer emotional support at a time that can be traumatic". Dr Semple, who is a leader in clinical cancer nursing, said this new approach to getting patients fit prior to their surgery was proving a success, both in the short and long-term. She said: "We know that it can reduce a patient's hospital stay post-surgery and it can reduce your return to hospital with complications directly afterwards." Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 July 2022
  7. News Article
    A senior hospital nurse said she could not discharge 180 patients due to a lack of "care and support" at home. Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital said among the people that did not need to be in hospital was a patient who had been there for 145 days. Claire Fare, senior discharge matron, said delays "impact on the whole of the flow" of patients. Norfolk County Council's social care department blamed the "national care crisis" for the problems. In June, the hospital, which has about 1,200 beds, pleaded for family and friends to help look after fit patients to ease demand. Melanie Syson, the hospital's discharge coordinator, said there was a person in the hospital ready for discharge that had been there for more than four months. "She is medically fit to be discharged but we are waiting for support to be ready at home," she said. Ms Syson added: "The length of stay of the patients seems to be getting longer." To help cope with the delays, the hospital opened a "home-first unit" in January for patients who did not need acute care but it was unable to discharge. The unit focuses on rehabilitation to try to prevent the patients coming back into hospital or requiring more care at home. Stephanie Ward, the ward sister, said it aimed to "give patients the time they need to do things themselves as much as they can". Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 July 2022
  8. News Article
    Patients are increasingly avoiding seeing their GP because they find it too difficult to book an appointment, the latest data show. Results from the 2022 GP Patient Survey also show that satisfaction with family doctors in England has dwindled since the previous year. The findings come as the Government and the NHS struggle to retain GPs and boost recruitment to meet rising patient demand and an ageing population. The survey found that overall satisfaction ratings have declined over the past 2 years, although most patients who responded to a questionnaire reported a good overall experience with their GP practice, had confidence and trust in the healthcare professional who saw them, and considered they received good care and treatment. The results also revealed an increase in the barriers patients faced in getting an appointment in the first place, with 55.4% who needed one in the last 12 months saying they had avoided making one – an increase of 13.1% since the last survey. The most common reason given was that they found it too difficult, cited by 26.5% of respondents, and a huge increase on last year's figure of 11.1%. Commenting on the results, Beccy Baird, senior fellow at The King's Fund said: "For many of us, general practice is the front door to the NHS – these results show that patients are finding that door increasingly hard to push open. "GPs are working harder than ever before, yet these findings show a dramatic fall in patients' experience of getting an appointment." She said recruitment of GPs, nurses, and other professionals to meet rising levels of need was proving tough "because in many cases those staff simply don’t exist". Read full story Source: Medscape, 14 July 2022
  9. News Article
    Paul Pettinger’s trip to Cyprus came because he felt the NHS had no treatments to offer him. Paul got Covid in the first wave in 2020. After the initial illness, he was left with extreme tiredness and 10% of the energy he once had. “I have a very small amount of energy and when I use up my energy, I end up with headaches, brain fog and with cognitive issues. It's very hard to think. And also I can't walk very far,” he says. His life then fell apart and he lost his job. “I have been almost housebound for over two years.” he says adding: “I’ve become a burden on family and friends.” A joint investigation between ITV News and the BMJ has found that Paul is 1 of around 120 people with Long Covid symptoms who have travelled to Cyprus for treatment. But thousands more have had the treatment in countries spending life changing sums of money. The Long Covid Center is one of several private clinics offering this treatment - others are in Germany and Switzerland. This is Paul’s seventh session. And, he says, he notices a difference and has confidence in the process. “After each treatment, I experienced a small improvement,” he says. “It is the only treatment out there at the time being and so far it's working.” However, experts have raised concerns over whether such invasive and expensive therapies should be offered without sufficient evidence. “I am worried these patients have been offered therapies which have not been assessed by modern scientific methods – well-designed clinical trials,” said Beverley Hunt, medical director of the charity Thrombosis UK. “In this situation, the treatment may or may not benefit them but, worryingly, also has the risk of harm.” Read full story Source: ITV News, 12 July 2022
  10. News Article
    Patients are being put at risk because GPs wrongly assume they will actively seek their test results, a study says. Researchers from the University of Bristol said the mismatched expectations could harm patients, with delayed diagnosis a likely result. The study found: “Doctors expected patients to know how to access their test results. In contrast, patients were often uncertain and used guesswork to decide when and how to access their tests. Patients and doctors generally assumed that the other party would make contact, with potential implications for patient safety.” Dr Jessica Watson, a GP and doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the university, who led the study, said: “GPs have a medico-legal and ethical responsibility to ensure they have clear, robust systems for communicating test results.” Watson added: “Relying on patients to get in contact and making assumptions about their knowledge of how to do so were particular risks highlighted.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 12 July 2022
  11. News Article
    NHS England has set trusts and systems a ‘100-day challenge’ to discharge more patients from hospital and free up beds before winter. David Sloman, chief operating officer of NHSE, has asked leaders of integrated care boards, acute and community trusts in a letter sent last week to adopt 10 “best practice initiatives” which he said “can make a significant difference in facilitating discharge and improving care for patients”. Trusts and systems have been given until 30 September to have a “full understanding” of the initiatives (listed below) and “infrastructure in place” to implement them. The initiatives include setting expected dates of discharge for patients within 48 hours of admission, “apply seven-day working” to discharge more patients at weekends, treat delayed discharge as “a potential harm event” and to manage workforces in community and social care services “to better match predicted patterns in demand”. Sir David has told regional and local leaders that a dedicated national NHSE team will set up “launch meetings” in each system, which will ensure there is “a focus on improving processes and performance around discharge”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 July 2022
  12. News Article
    The NHS App will soon be updated with features to help offer people in England more personalised care. It is part of the government's plan for a digital revolution to speed up care and improve access while saving the health service time and money. By March 2023, more users will receive messages from their GP and be able to see their medical records and manage hospital elective-care appointments. By March 2024, the app should offer face-to-face video consultations. The government's ambition is for at least 75% of adults to be using it by March 2024. Currently, less than half - about 28 million - have it on their phone or tablet. The government also wants 90% of NHS trusts to have electronic patient records in place or be processing them by December 2023 and for all social-care providers to adopt a digital social-care record. And patients across the country should be able to complete their hospital pre-assessment checks from home by September 2024. Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 June 2022
  13. News Article
    Rapidly falling continuity of care levels pose an “existential threat” to patient safety, Britain’s top family doctor will warn today as research reveals only half of Britons regularly see the same GP. Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), will say trusted relationships between family doctors and patients are the most “powerful intervention” for delivering effective, high-quality care as they boost patient satisfaction and health outcomes, and reduce use of hospital services. But in a keynote speech to the college’s annual conference, Marshall will warn that continuity of care is becoming almost impossible to deliver on the NHS amid soaring demand and shrinking numbers of GPs, in what he will describe as the “most worrying crisis in decades”. There are mounting concerns over the ability of the NHS to tackle record waiting lists, with 6.5m patients awaiting care in England alone. Earlier this month Sajid Javid, the health secretary, admitted the current model of GP care “is not working” but insisted there would be no more money for the health service. At the RCGP conference in London, Marshall will tell delegates that because of rising workloads and fewer staff, GPs no longer have the time to properly assess patients, with 65% warning safety is being compromised due to appointments being too short, according to a recent survey commissioned by the college. Only 39% of respondents said they were able to deliver the continuity of care their patients need – down from 60% two years ago. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2022
  14. News Article
    Suffering is “the new norm” in the NHS and people can expect to spend their last few years in pain, the outgoing chairman of the British Medical Association said. Chaand Nagpaul, who steps down this week, said the NHS was in a “perilous state”. He also wants people to have sympathy for the “plight” of junior doctors, who have said they will prepare for a ballot on strikes over pay. There are 6.5 million people on NHS waiting lists, many of whom have been waiting a year or more. Nagpaul, who has been a GP for 33 years, said: “I have not come across this scale of suffering, of unmet need. And what we’re going to be seeing is people spending the last years of their lives, literally in pain, unable . . . to have a hip operation. That will be the final years of their lives.” He said there was a “whole, larger population of patients just literally not featuring in the statistics” waiting for outpatient treatment, mental health care and diabetes checks. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 27 June 2022
  15. News Article
    NHS patients in England who have been waiting more than two years for surgery are being offered hospital treatment in alternative parts of the country. More than 6,000 long-term waiting-list patients are being offered travel and accommodation costs where appropriate to help the NHS through the backlog. Health officials want to ensure nobody is waiting more than two years by the end of July. Three patients waiting for surgery in Derby have already received treatment in the Northumbria health region, with another two patients booked in, NHS England said. And in south-west London, 17 orthopaedic patients from the South West of England are being treated, with another 11 patients set to follow in the coming weeks. Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said the number of two-year waits had already reduced by two-thirds since January. "Innovations like this are helping to tackle waiting lists and speed up access to treatment, backed by record investment," he said. But British Medical Association leader Dr Chaand Nagpaul is warning that attempts to address what he called a "once in a generation backlog of unimaginable proportions" would be undermined by a lack of staff and beds. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 June 2022
  16. News Article
    Patients will not be able to directly contact Scotland’s new Patient Safety Commissioner under the role’s proposed remit, according to the Sunday Post. Officials drawing up the job description for the position are proposing patients with concerns and complaints should go through their local health boards instead of dealing directly with the commissioner. Last week, Henrietta Hughes was named as the government’s preferred candidate for the role of Patient Safety Commissioner in England. In that role, Hughes will be able to be directly contacted by the public. Despite being the first UK country to announce the intention to appoint a commissioner two years ago the role in Scotland is not yet filled. The decision not to allow patients to directly contact the commissioner in Scotland has been criticised by Baroness Julia Cumberlege, author of the report, First Do No Harm. She said: “Of course, patients must be able to communicate directly with the commissioner and their office. In our review we said the healthcare system is not good enough at spotting trends in practice and outcomes that give rise to safety concerns. Listening to patients is pivotal to that. “This is why one of our principal recommendations was the appointment of an independent Patient Safety Commissioner, a person of standing who sits outside the healthcare system, accountable to parliament through the Health and Social Care Select Committee." Read full story Source: The Sunday Post, 26 June 2022
  17. News Article
    The number of patients in English hospitals who have tested positive for Covid has increased 28% in a week, the steepest rise since mid-March The third Covid wave of 2022 has now seen Covid occupation levels rise from 3,835 on 4 June to 6,401 yesterday. The sharpest rise in the number of Covid positive patients came in the North West region, where the total rose by 43% in a week. There are now over 1,000 Covid positive hospital patients in the North West, North East and Yorkshire, Midlands and London regions for the first time since 11 May. Some 38% of Covid hospital patients are being treated primarily for the condition. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 June 2022
  18. News Article
    The cost of living crisis is adding to pressures on GPs, the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland has warned. The BMA said that is because the number of people asking for prescriptions for medicines that can be bought over the counter is increasing. That includes medicines like painkillers and allergy medication, Dr Alan Stout of the BMA said. Prescriptions are free for everyone in Northern Ireland. The rise in prescription request increases "the cost to the health service as a whole and the pressure on GPs", Dr Stout told Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme. "We have talked before about the difficulties people have accessing GPs and this is just more demand and difficulties," he said. Dr Stout added: "I absolutely don't hold that against anyone, it is not our position as GPs to deny people medication or deny people prescriptions if they need this medication." Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 June 2022
  19. News Article
    Vulnerable patients cared for in secure mental health units across England could miss out on vital medications due to a shortage of learning disability nurses, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) has warned. The report into medication omissions in learning disability secure units across the country highlights problems with retaining learning disability nurses, with the number recruited each year matching those leaving. Figures quoted in the report suggest the number of learning disability nurses in the NHS nearly halved from 5,500 in 2016 to 3,000 in 2020. The HSIB launched a national investigation after being alerted to the case of Luke, who spent time in NHS secure learning disability units but was not administered prescribed medication for diabetes and high cholesterol on several occasions. At Luke’s facility, which included low and medium secure wards, HSIB investigators considered that the quality and style of care provided to patients had been directly impacted by a lack of nurses with required skill sets. Findings from HSIB’s wider national investigation link a shortfall of learning disability nurses to instances of patients missing their medication, with the report’s authors describing a “system in which medicines omissions were too common and prevention, identification and escalation processes were not robust”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 June 2022
  20. News Article
    Systems and processes in place around patient safety failed in terms of the work of a Belfast-based neurologist, an inquiry has found. Dr Michael Watt was at the centre of Northern Ireland’s largest ever recall of patients, which began in 2018, after concerns were raised about his clinical work. More than 4,000 of his former patients attended recall appointments. Almost a fifth of patients who attended recall appointments were found to have received an “insecure diagnosis”. The final report following the Independent Neurology Inquiry found that problems with Dr Watt’s practice were missed for years and opportunities to intervene were lost. It makes 76 recommendations to the Department of Health, healthcare organisations, General Medical Council and the independent sector. “While one process or system failure may not be critical, the synergistic effect of numerous failures ensured that a problem with an individual doctor’s practice was missed for many years and, as this inquiry finds, opportunities to intervene, particularly in 2006/2007, 2012/2013, and earlier in 2016 were lost,” the inquiry found. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 June 2022
  21. News Article
    A quadriplegic man was told his care funding would be revoked, after NHS officials deemed him not disabled enough to qualify for support. Simon Shaw, 54, has received 24-hour care since he was left paralysed from the neck down after a car accident in 1984. He relies on carers at night to help him with everything from turning in bed to having a drink of water. They also intervene with medical aid if he develops life-threatening complications related to his paralysis, which could happen at any time, without warning. But a recent NHS assessment controversially ruled Shaw’s health needs were not severe enough to warrant full-time medical care. Local health authority officials told him he did not meet eligibility criteria and his NHS funding would be stopped from 20 June. Shaw, from Clapham, south London, said that meant there was no money for his night-time care and he would be left unsupported from 8pm to 8am for the first time in nearly four decades. “It’s frightening, to be honest,” Shaw said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when they take my care away. “I don’t cease to exist after 8pm. I still need to get into bed, have a drink of water and use the toilet – and I can’t do any of it on my own. “There are a lot of things that can go wrong with my health and when they do, they usually need urgent attention. If there’s no one there, to be frank… it could mean death.” Mandy Jamieson, a caseworker for the Spinal Injuries Association, said: “We have noticed an increase in patients with severe disabilities being turned down for funding in recent years, particularly since the introduction of assessments via video call since the pandemic. “But I feel particularly in Simon’s case the decision that has been made is wrong. He has so many health needs that I find it incredible that they turned him down.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 June 2022
  22. News Article
    Diabetes patients have been warned that non-attendance at eye-test appointments puts them at greater risk of developing unnecessary sight loss. The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) has described the attendance rates at clinics in Northern Ireland as "alarmingly low" . It said 20% to 40% of patients were not showing up for their appointments on any given day. Prof Tunde Peto, clinical lead for the NI Diabetic Eye Screening Programme, said the most common of many complications caused by diabetes was diabetic eye disease. Diabetes can cause cataracts early on but it can also affect the retina at the back of the eye, "which will eventually lead to sight loss if not treated on time," Prof Peto explained. "Diabetic retinopathy causes no symptoms until it can be just about too late to treat," she said. Ian Catlin from Ballymoney has experienced sight loss due to diabetic retinopathy. He has had Type 1 diabetes since childhood and became aware of problems with his eyesight in his mid-30s. Mr Catlin said he put off asking for medical help because of the fear of what he would be told."I did eventually go, but you're scared and you put your head in the sand," he said.Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 June 2022
  23. News Article
    A fifth patient has been given the wrong blood at a major teaching hospital’s haematology department where patient safety concerns were raised by clinicians last year. The incident, at University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust, is the fifth never event involving patients being transfused with the wrong blood at the trust since April 2020. Only 15 such never events have been recorded in England in the last two financial years, which means UHB accounted for a third of the total in 2020-21 and 2021-22. HSJ revealed last year that several clinicians had raised safety concerns at the trust’s haematology specialty after most of its services at Heartlands Hospital were moved to Queen Elizabeth Hospital as part of the trust’s pandemic response. The latest never event, which occurred in March, saw a patient being given an “unintentional transfusion of ABO-incompatible blood components” – according to papers provided to the trust’s council of governors. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 June 2022
  24. News Article
    Record numbers of chronically ill patients living with disabilities are being denied funding for their care, The Mail on Sunday has reveal. An analysis of official figures shows only a fifth of those with disabling conditions such as Parkinson's disease, dementia and spinal injury asking for Government-funded help are being granted it this year. This is the lowest figure on record, with the exception of the pandemic years when assessments stopped altogether. Every year about 160,000 people apply for NHS funding called 'continuing healthcare', money available to those with significant medical needs. Unlike social care funding, arranged for some who need looking after, continuing healthcare is only offered to those in ill health who need regular attention from medical professionals. A decade ago, 34% of these applications were successful. Today that figure is 22%. Meanwhile, separate data seen by this newspaper reveals a sharp rise in the number of assessments that are deemed to have wrongly decided against funding at a subsequent appeal. Lisa Morgan, partner at Hugh James solicitors, which specialises in helping families fight for NHS care funding, says: 'In many cases, if [the clinical commissioning group] had made the right decision in the first place, it could have saved itself thousands of pounds.' The revelations come weeks after The Mail on Sunday told of the heartbreaking stories of desperately unwell people left utterly reliant on relatives, having been refused NHS-funded care. Some have then embarked on the lengthy and costly process of appealing the decision with legal help, to be told months or years later that they should have been granted funding all along. Read full story Source: Mail Online, 11 June 2022
  25. News Article
    Adult mental health patients in England have spent more than 200,000 days being treated in “inappropriate” out-of-area placements – at a cost to the NHS of £102m – in the year since the government pledged to end the practice. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, which carried out the analysis, says such placements, in which mental health patients can be sent hundreds of miles from home, are a shameful and dangerous practice that must stop. The government said it would end such placements by April last year but, in the 12 months since, 205,990 days were spent inappropriately out of area, at a cost equivalent to the annual salaries of more than 900 consultant psychiatrists, the college found. Dr Adrian James, the college’s president, said: “The failure to eliminate inappropriate out-of-area placements is a scandal. It is inhumane and is costing the NHS millions of pounds each year that could be spent helping patients get better. “No one with a mental illness should have to travel hundreds of miles away from home to get the treatment they desperately need.” He said investment was needed in local, properly staffed beds, alternatives to admission, and follow-up care in the community as well as government backing “to address the workforce crisis that continues to plague mental health services”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 June 2022
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