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Content ArticleCARDMEDIC was inspired by a news article on a patient surviving COVID-19 after an admission to a UK Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where he described feeling terrified of not being able to understand what his healthcare providers were saying, due to the limitations of communicating through Personal Protective Equipment (face masks, visors, hoods etc). CARDMEDIC is a collection of communication flashcards designed to break through the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) barrier, improving transfer of vital information from frontline healthcare professionals to unwell and critically ill patients. They are also used as an upskilling training tool, for example by healthcare professionals and volunteers working outside their usual realms of practice. They are simple and succinct, using basic language to share information and describe the plan of action. Set out in alphabetical order, it should be easy to find what you’re looking for. You may wish to use the “HELLO MY NAME IS…” card at the start of every patient interaction to introduce yourself and set the scene for using the flashcards. The flashcards can be used in electronic format on either the patient’s or hospital’s phone / tablet / smart device, or printed, laminated, annotated and re-used – write on, wipe off. CARDMEDIC are continually expanding their database, so please get in touch with suggestions or comments, as well as ideas for further flashcards.
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Content ArticleA blog from Peter Walsh, Chief Executive at Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) on the current pandemic.
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Content ArticleThis podcast, published by Coda, covers a wide array of topics, from PPE to simulation. Martin Bromiley (Human Factors expert), talks about the ways human factors affect teams and safety and share communications tactics to help alleviate potential issues.
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Content ArticleLiving with dementia at any time brings everyday challenges for the person and those around them. Coronavirus is making daily life much harder. You may feel anxious, scared or lonely. But you are not alone – the Alzheimer's Society have collated guidance, tips and advice.
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Content Article
Dementia and COVID-19: Four big problems, three solutions
Anonymous posted an article in Blogs
Day 1, Dad goes into a care home so Mum can have respite care. Day 5, the care home provider announces a lockdown is in place. Day 12, Dad develops a raging temperature. Day 13, he develops a persistent cough, and they try to evict him back home to Mum. Here’s our story... -
Content ArticleBlog published in the Guardian from an NHS respiratory consultant.
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Content ArticleThe health and care system in the United Kingdom is facing a huge challenge, placing enormous pressure on health and care staff with unprecedented demands on leaders, wherever they work. These pages, from the King's Fund, aim to provide support to health and care leaders, whether you are working in the NHS, social care, public health or the voluntary and independent sector.
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News Article
Soaring congenital syphilis rates in US risk lives of thousands of babies
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Health advocates in the USA are calling on the Biden administration to declare a public health emergency over a steep rise in congenital syphilis cases. The easily treated infection has quintupled in 10 years and can have harrowing impacts on children. Congenital syphilis happens when a baby contracts syphilis from its mother. Up to 40% of babies born to untreated mothers will be stillborn or die. Others can be left with severe birth defects such as bone damage, anaemia, blindness or deafness, and “neurological devastation”. “There is not a single baby that should be born in the US with syphilis,” David Harvey, the executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, told the Guardian. “We will be judged very severely as a country and a society for allowing this to happen to babies, when it is so easy to diagnose, treat and prevent this disease.” Rates of the disease have reached a nearly 30-year high just as supplies of the preferred medication, called Bicillin L-A, are in short supply. Syphilis can be cured with between one and three shots of the medication. Pfizer is the only manufacturer of the medication, a form of the first antibiotic ever synthesized, penicillin. The company said it does not expect shortages to be resolved before 2024, and blamed low supply partly on the increase in syphilis cases. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 October 2023 -
News Article
NHS England to investigate why dead people invited for Covid and flu jabs
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS has launched an investigation after it sent “priority” letters to people who died years ago, in some cases decades, urging them to book flu and Covid-19 jabs to reduce their risk of serious illness. The health service is asking eligible patients to arrange appointments for both vaccines to avoid a potential “twindemic” of flu and coronavirus this winter, which would pile further pressure on hospitals and GP surgeries. “You are a priority for seasonal flu and Covid-19 vaccinations,” the two-page letter tells recipients. “This is because you are aged 65 or over (by 31 March 2024). However, some of the letters, which contain personal information such as NHS numbers, have been sent to people who died years ago. Others have been sent to people who are not eligible for the vaccines, with no connection to the addressee. In a statement, NHS England told the Guardian it was investigating. It declined to answer questions about when the error was first discovered, what had caused it and how many people had been affected. “We have been made aware of some letters sent in error and appreciate this may have been upsetting for those who received it – we are working as quickly as possible to investigate this,” a spokesperson for NHS England said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 October 2023 -
News ArticleThe Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is reviving a programme to mail free rapid coronavirus tests to Americans. Starting 25 September, people can request four free tests per household through covidtests.gov. Officials say the tests are able to detect the latest variants and are intended to be used through the end of the year. The return of the free testing program comes after Americans navigated the latest uptick in covid cases with free testing no longer widely available. The largest insurance companies stopped reimbursing the costs of retail at-home testing once the requirement to do so ended with the public health emergency in May. The Biden administration stopped mailing free tests in June. The Department of Health and Human Services also announced Wednesday that it was awarding $600 million to a dozen coronavirus test manufacturers. Agency officials said the funding would improve domestic manufacturing capacity and provide the federal government with 200 million over-the-counter tests to use in the future. “These critical investments will strengthen our nation’s production levels of domestic at-home COVID-19 rapid tests and help mitigate the spread of the virus,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. Experts say free coronavirus testing proved to be an effective public health tool, allowing people to check their status before attending large gatherings or spending time with older or medically vulnerable people at risk of severe disease even after being vaccinated. It also enables people to start antiviral treatments in the early days of infection to prevent severe disease. Read full story (paywalled) Source: Washington Post, 20 September 2023
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News Article
The ‘wrecked’ lives of forgotten Long Covid sufferers
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Nearly four years since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, you could be forgiven for believing the pandemic is behind us. But for many, it feels far from over. Close to two million people face a daily battle with debilitating symptoms of Long Covid – the lasting symptoms of the virus that remain after the infection is gone – with some now housebound, unable to walk and even partially blind. Alan Chambers, 49, is among those who have been grappling with the illness for years, having caught coronavirus in March 2020. Mr Chambers went from being “a fit, healthy, working member of the community who would do anything to help anyone” to being “ill and isolated in our bedroom”, blind in one eye and no longer able to walk unaided, his wife Vicki said. As of March, an estimated 1.9 million people in the UK have experienced coronavirus symptoms for more than four weeks, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. Of those, 1.5 million reported the condition had adversely affected their day-to-day activities. It comes as coronavirus case rates have shown an overall increase since July, with fears the approaching winter will bring a further surge in infections. Yet in May, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that coronavirus no longer represents a global health emergency, which was seen as a symbolic step towards the end of the pandemic. Dr Jo House, founding member and health advocacy lead at Long Covid Support, said the advocacy group now has 62,000 members, with about 250 more people joining every month. “In their words, they feel ‘forgotten, unheard, disbelieved, isolated, unemployed, disabled, immobile’. NHS England admitted to The Independent that access to necessary support, treatment and care for Long Covid patients is still lacking. It said there was “still more to do to ensure support is there for everyone who needs it”, so that patients requiring specialist assessment and treatment for Long Covid can access care in a timely way. Read full story Source: The Independent, 29 November 2023 -
Content ArticleThe purpose of this guide from NHS Education for Scotland is to help people working in the health and social care ecosystem capture valuable practice and improvements made during their response to COVID-19. The aim is to contribute to organisational change at a policy, strategic and operational level. If left too late, there is a real danger that positive change is not documented and will be lost as the health system emerges from the pandemic.
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Content ArticleTwo years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that gender differences exist, and that women, men, and gender minorities are differentially impacted by the pandemic.
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Content ArticleGovernment plan to prevent, mitigate and respond to the mental health impacts of the pandemic during 2021 to 2022.
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Content ArticleThis video introduces England's 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives (hosted by Academic Health Science Networks) and how they support the NHS Patient Safety Strategy in areas such as COVID-19, managing deteriorating patients, maternal and neonatal safety, medicines safety, mental health and more. Download the slides here
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Content ArticleThe East Midlands Academic Health Science Network have captured a number of different perspectives and experiences of COVID-19. These highlight pivotal moments, barriers, and learnings. The experiences and learnings will be particularly useful as the health and care system plans for reset, restoration, and recovery.
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Content ArticleHealthcare workers (HCWs), particularly those from ethnic minority groups, have been shown to be at disproportionately higher risk of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) compared to the general population. However, there is insufficient evidence on how demographic and occupational factors influence infection risk among ethnic minority HCWs. Researchers analysed data from 10,772 HCWs who worked during the pandemic to identify demographic and household factors that contributed to infection risk. Results from the UK-REACH study, co-funded by the NIHR and UK Research and Innovation, showed that healthcare workers' risk of catching coronavirus increased in correlation with the level of exposure to COVID-19 patients. Other risk factors included a lack of PPE access and sharing living or working environments with other key workers. Geographical differences were also seen, with healthcare workers in Scotland and South West England at lower risk of infection compared with those in the West Midlands. Intensive care unit staff were also at lower risk than those in other hospital settings.
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Content ArticleThe Patient Safety Movement Foundation is joined by Aryeh Shander, from Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in this video. There has been a long-standing perception in medicine that blood products can be used without judicious consideration. It is important to recognise that blood is a biological product and, as such, is subject to virus, which can be transmitted from donor to recipient without detection. While there have been improvements in transfusion safety, it is important to recognise the patient's risk and benefit ratio based on their individual circumstance and thoroughly evaluate all alternatives to a transfusion.
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Content Article
UK Covid-19 Inquiry website
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Covid-19 Inquiry
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry has been set up to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and learn lessons for the future. The Inquiry’s work is guided by its Terms of Reference. -
Content ArticleThe government needs to set out a contingent exit plan, involving carefully specified levels of lockdown, and the thresholds at which they would be triggered. This will allow businesses and people to plan, and begin to look to the future. This report from the Institute of Global Changes puts forward suggestions for a lockdown exit plan.
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Content ArticleBAPEN would like to draw the attention of those dealing with enteral tube feeding during the COVID-19 crisis to a number of important issues.
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Content ArticleAdverse events are among the most heavily scrutinised parts of the covid-19 vaccine process. But India’s system was woefully unprepared for this, leaving families confused, sowing vaccine hesitancy in communities, while robbing the system of valuable data, reports Priyanka Pulla in this BMJ feature.
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Content ArticleAll health workers require knowledge and skills to protect themselves and others from the occupational risks they encounter, so that they can work safely and effectively. This course consists of five sections in response to these needs: Introduction Module 1: Infectious risks to health and safety Module 2: Physical risks to health and safety Module 3: Psychosocial risks to health and safety Module 4: Basic occupational health and safety in health services. The target audience for this course is health workers, incident managers, supervisors and administrators who make policies and protocols for their health facilities.
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Content ArticleIn this article for Nature, Aris Katzourakis, Professor of Evolution and Genomics at the University of Oxford, highlights misconceptions around the word 'endemic' that have arisen during the Covid-19 pandemic. He defines an endemic infection as "one in which overall rates are static — not rising, not falling," and highlights that we have come to associate this with less harmful illnesses such as the common cold, when in fact it can also be applied to deadly diseases including malaria, polio and tuberculosis. He argues that the word has been misused by policymakers to indicate that the virus poses less threat and therefore no action needs to be taken. In order to tackle the ongoing threat of Covid-19, the author suggests the following four actions: Set aside lazy optimism Be realistic about the likely levels of death, disability and sickness. Targets set for reduction should consider that circulating virus risks giving rise to new variants Use the weapons we have available, globally: effective vaccines, antiviral medications, diagnostic tests and a better understanding of how to stop an airborne virus through mask wearing, distancing, and air ventilation and filtration Iinvest in vaccines that protect against a broader range of variants
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Content Article
HSIB: Oxygen issues during COVID-19 pandemic
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in HSSIB investigations
The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) has been investigating piped oxygen gas supplies in hospitals and have produced an early interim bulletin to help trusts deal with oxygen flow issues in their organisations.
