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‘I just want to feel like me again’: the women still waiting for breast reconstruction years after lockdown

At the height of Covid, hundreds of cancer patients had mastectomies without the reconstruction that would normally accompany them. They would eventually get the surgery, they were told – but for many that promise feels more meaningless by the day

Every time she lifts her arms to get dressed or hang out her washing, Julie Ford gets a painful reminder of one of the most terrifying experiences of her life. At 7am one day in April 2021, she had gone into hospital, alone and wearing a mask, to have her right breast and lymph nodes removed in a bid to stop breast cancer from spreading. Later that day, still groggy from the anaesthetic, in pain and with surgical drains hanging from both sides of her chest, she had staggered to the door with the help of two nurses. She was eased into a friend’s car and driven home to fend for herself.

While Julie’s breast had been removed, it was not reconstructed. Usually, both procedures are carried out in the same operation. But as reconstruction using tissue from the patient’s abdomen is a complex, eight-hour procedure requiring a large surgical team, it was considered “non-essential” and paused by most NHS trusts during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Like hundreds of women with breast cancer who underwent urgent mastectomies without reconstruction in 2020 and 2021, Julie was assured she could have the procedure once Covid restrictions lifted.

But five years later, Julie, now 62, is still waiting.

A national shortage of specialist surgeons and theatre space, as well as the need to prioritise new cancer cases, means many women like her, who had breasts removed during lockdown, feel they have been abandoned. They live in daily physical discomfort and mental distress as they continue to await the reconstructions they were promised years ago.

A 2024 study found at least 2,200 patients who have survived breast cancer, or who were at high risk of developing it, were waiting for surgery across 40 NHS centres in England, with an average wait of 2.5 years.

And Wood fears there is little to encourage struggling hospitals to clear the backlog. Instead of investing resources into “expensive and lengthy” surgeries such as breast reconstructions, NHS trusts that want to reduce the size of their overall waiting list have an incentive to prioritise quick, simple operations where several patients can be ticked off the list in a short time, he says. “There are capacity issues, with growing demand and a shortage of theatre time and surgeons’ time, but to tackle it you need to have [NHS trust] management that is bothered to find a solution, not just sit on their hands.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 April 2026

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ChatGPT 'uncovered woman's rare condition' after years of misdiagnosis

ChatGPT has helped to uncover a woman's rare condition after years of being misdiagnosed by doctors.

Phoebe Tesoriere, 23, claims she was told she was anxious, depressed, had epilepsy and warned she'd be treated as a mental health patient if she kept returning to A&E.

Following three days in a coma after a seizure, Phoebe, from Cardiff, put her symptoms into the AI chatbot.

She said it suggested a number of conditions, including hereditary spastic paraplegia, external, which Phoebe presented to her GP. Genetic testing confirmed the diagnosis.

Dr Rebeccah Tomlinson is a GP serving Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan, and said: "It's difficult for GPs to know everything.

"With the pressure on the NHS, we have to know even more.

"Patients coming with information helps me understand what they are thinking and guide the discussion more clearly.

"It's good as a starting talking point [AI tools] which should be followed by going to a medical professional to discuss concerns further.

"It's helpful for patients to come armed with information but the GP has to be open and receptive to the patient.

"General practice has to be a two-way conversation."

A recent University of Oxford study found that people using AI for healthcare advice were given a mix of good and bad responses, making it hard to identify what advice they should trust.

Phoebe understands the challenges the hospital faced diagnosing her, but said she turned to AI after finding the experience "really lonely".

"I had to fight to be listened to," she added.

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Source: BBC News, 9 April 2026

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Midwives to receive anti-racism training to curb NHS maternity deaths

Training for NHS midwives will be overhauled to tackle a “national emergency” of racism, which means black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates the profession, is introducing mandatory anti-racism training in degrees to combat “systemic” discrimination.

Maternity scandals and reviews have highlighted how racism is contributing to the avoidable deaths of mothers and babies in Britain.

Black mothers have been denied pain relief or emergency care by NHS staff after being stereotyped as “tough” or “demanding” and better able to endure pain.

The Times revealed that the NHS has been issued with 22 separate safety warnings by official bodies to address racial disparities in maternity care over the past decade, yet the situation has not improved.

Under the initiative, all universities offering midwifery degrees will have to update their curriculum to include awareness of racial biases and discrimination. From the next academic year, students will be taught about how racial stereotypes can affect care and how skin colour can affect the presentation of symptoms.

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Source: The Times, 8 April 2026

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Children as young as four could be offered tablets as part of NHS cost-cutting drive

The NHS could save tens of thousands of pounds per patient each year by prescribing tablets instead of liquid medicine to children with a particular medical condition, experts have revealed.

Researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) found that patients as young as seven were not only able to successfully transition to pills but often expressed a clear preference for them over the taste of their liquid medicine.

The study focused on children suffering from congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI), a condition characterised by elevated insulin levels that necessitate regular, often multiple daily, doses of diazoxide to maintain stable blood sugar.

Until now, this vital treatment has predominantly been administered in liquid form, with liquid diazoxide costing a significant £15.50 per 50mg.

Experts have estimated that switching from liquid to tablets could save the NHS £40,000 per patient per year.

Jess Manktelow, who has CHI and has been a Gosh patient since she was 15 months old, was one of the children who took part in the project.

The 11-year-old, from Kent, was switched to diazoxide tablets in April 2025.

“It has made a big difference taking medicine that doesn’t taste horrible,” she added.

“There were times where I didn’t want to take it because of the taste.

“It makes things very easy for me now, I’m able to do it myself and it doesn’t take up as much time at school or when I’m doing things I like, like climbing, it doesn’t have as much impact and that makes me happy.”

Kate Morgan, Gosh clinical nurse specialist who co-led the project, said: “We knew the potential this trial had for savings, but the scale of the quality-of-life improvements for children and their families we are seeing is something we didn’t anticipate.

“Children are so much more than their diagnoses – they have full lives and families and their illnesses affects everyone, so it is very important we do all we can to make simple, positive changes that impact everyone for the better.”

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Source: The Independent, 10 April 2026

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Ex-director ‘removed and silenced over race concerns’

A former finance director has claimed he was ousted and subjected to a campaign to “silence” him by his trust after he asked “inconvenient” questions about race inequalities.

Don Richards, who was chief finance officer at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals Trust until 2024, told an employment tribunal preliminary hearing in Watford on Wednesday that he had been “pushed” into signing a settlement agreement.

He left the trust shortly after two other executive directors wrote to chief executive Matthew Coats saying they had “no confidence” in him. Days earlier, the integrated care board CEO had sent a separate letter to Mr Coats saying she had concerns over the trust’s financial leadership. 

Mr Richards said in the hearing that there had been a “continuing campaign first to remove me, then to silence me”.

He said this stemmed from a board meeting – which took place in the same month the letters were sent – where he had raised queries about mortality rates among Black women in maternity services, as well as staff with a minority ethnic background being passed over for promotion.

He told the hearing: “I asked inconvenient questions, and the chief executive at the trust didn’t like that. His expedient solution was to remove me.”

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Source: HSJ, 10 April 2026

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Child spent two months in A&E

A child spent more than two months in A&E following a breakdown of a care placement, in what the trust described as “one of the longest waits we’ve seen”.

Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust said the young person was at its Queen’s Hospital A&E for more than 70 days, while another was there for more than 30.

They were both under the care of councils “outside our area”, and their care placements had broken down, the trust said. It has declined to say which councils.

Both children had “complex behavioural needs” which meant they could not be moved on to children’s wards, the east London trust said. Speaking last week, it said the children had recently moved on to other placements.

The trust has previously highlighted long waits for children under care at Queen’s A&E – including a wait of 44 days in 2024 – and said care placement breakdowns were the most common reason.

Trust CEO Matthew Trainer said: “We’re seen as a place of safety for children and young people with mental health issues and/or challenging behavioural needs. This means several young people have experienced long waits for the right support in A&E.

“It’s unacceptable and distressing for both patients and our staff, and something we’ve been discussing at our board meetings for several years, as well as working with mental health trusts and councils to see how we can reduce delays.”

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Source: HSJ, 9 April 2026

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Patient locked in single room for more than four days after mental health crisis, investigation finds

Mental health patients in crisis are facing "inhumane" conditions due to legal ambiguities, an investigation has found.

The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) revealed that A&E staff lack powers to prevent patients awaiting assessment or admission from leaving.

This forces doctors into a difficult choice, described by the HSSIB as selecting the "least harmful way to break the law".

One consultant psychiatrist highlighted the "dilemma is stark" of unlawfully holding someone, breaching human rights, or allowing them to go.

Inspectors from the health safety watchdog saw a patient who had been locked in a single room, with only a toilet, for more than four days.

“It was not safe for staff to be in the room with them and it was not safe for the door to be unlocked as the patient kept attempting to leave and was desperate to end their life,” a new interim HSSIB report said.

“Staff described that the patient was not receiving any therapeutic intervention and it felt ‘cruel’ and ‘inhumane’ for them to be waiting so long for a bed when they were so mentally unwell.”

Nichola Crust, senior safety investigator at HSSIB, said: “Unclear legal powers don’t just create operational complications for care.

“They can have a devastating impact on patients, leaving them exposed to uncertainty, emotional distress and an increased risk of harm at a time when being as safe as possible is paramount.

“Without clear legal frameworks, staff repeatedly told us that they are placed in an impossible position when trying to keep people safe.”

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Source: The Independent, 9 April 2026

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NHSE chair leading mental health services review

NHS England’s chair is leading a national review of mental health services and productivity, HSJ  has learned.

The work, being referred to as a “supply-side review”, is running alongside the more high-profile independent analysis of demand for MH and learning disability services commissioned by Wes Streeting last year.

HSJ understands Dr Dash’s deep-dive is expected to be complete in the autumn, around the same time as the government review.

Analysis has begun in recent months, including on spending, variation, productivity and the potential for “reinvesting” current funding, according to sources briefed on the project.

The review has been referred to as “internal” and NHSE does not appear to be planning to publish it.

It was initiated by the “quad” of senior officials across NHSE and the Department of Health and Social Care (Dr Dash herself, NHSE CEO Sir Jim Mackey, DHSC permanent secretary Samantha Jones, and DHSC lead non-exec director Alan Milburn).

The review is also being overseen by an advisory group, with representation from mental health trusts, and others.

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Source: HSJ, 8 April 2026

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Alarm in health service over Palantir staff being given NHS email accounts

Health service staff have expressed alarm that engineers working for controversial tech company Palantir have been given NHS email accounts.

Employees using NHS.net email accounts have access to a directory with the contact details of up 1.5 million staff. Sources believe Palantir staff were granted the same access.

Palantir staff working on the introduction of its Federated Data Platform (FDP) for NHS England have also been given access to NHS SharePoint filesharing systems and internal Microsoft Teams groups.

Hospital trusts and integrated care boards across the country are being encouraged to adopt FDP, which Palantir won a £300m contract to provide in 2023. NHS England says FDP allows NHS organisations to connect patient records historically held across different systems, allowing staff to manage waiting lists, allocate appointments, speed up diagnoses and personalise treatment more effectively. It is part of the government’s plan to “reinvent the NHS” through “radical shifts”, including moving systems from “analogue to digital”.

The use of NHS email accounts and internal systems by private contractors is not unusual. However, Palantir’s association with AI-powered surveillance and war technology has made some staff, patients and human rights campaigners question the ethics and implications of allowing the spy-tech company to become embedded in the UK public sector.

Rory Gibson, a resident doctor, said: “I – as a doctor – absolutely don’t want my personal email and number to be accessible to someone who works for Palantir on the NHS, and might next month be working on systems for drone strikes. NHS staff have not consented to sharing their email addresses with Palantir staff.”

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Source: The Guardian, 8 April 2026

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Nearly half of 999 patients don’t need major A&E treatment

Nearly half of patients who arrive at hospital in ambulances are being discharged without needing major care, according to data obtained by HSJ.

Experts said the research also revealed a “postcode lottery”, with patients more likely to be taken to A&E in some areas due to a lack of alternative settings.

The internal NHS England data has tracked how many ambulance patients were later discharged without any inpatient or “same day” emergency care, or transfer to another service, at different sites. These patients may have required hospital-based diagnostics, for example, or review from emergency clinicians before they could be sent away.

At 24 hospitals, more than 50% of ambulance patients are being discharged without going to an inpatient or ambulatory unit. The highest proportion was 85% at St Peter’s Hospital in Surrey.

It was at less than a third at other sites. This put the national average at 46%, according to data obtained by a Freedom of Information request.

There was a wide range of acuity levels among ambulance patients discharged without further serious care.

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Source: HSJ, 8 April 2026

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Trust accused of ‘legal bullying’ after attempt to sue worker

A trust which took an employee to court for thousands of pounds has been accused of “legal bullying”.

Court documents seen by HSJ  reveal Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust attempted to sue its staff member Jonny Slade for “fundamental dishonesty” after he brought, and then dropped, a workplace injury claim against the trust.

The trust later withdrew its claim against the worker – in which it had sought around £14,000 in costs from Mr Slade – after a hearing had begun at Preston County Court. 

The court proceedings finished in 2023, but Mr Slade told HSJ he had now decided to speak publicly about the case because he had exhausted official channels with health and safety concerns he has been raising. 

He said: “I felt the only way to ensure the issues were taken seriously was to speak publicly.

“I simply hope [this] encourages greater accountability and ensures that staff who raise genuine safety concerns are treated fairly, rather than facing what I went through.”

Workplace culture expert Roger Kline said: “I hope this case acts as a lesson to NHS trusts to stop pursuing staff for extortionate costs when they have in good faith lodged a claim… It is a form of legal bullying.” He said this kind of action was a “surprisingly common feature” of his recent report into workplace investigations.

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Source: HSJ, 8 April 2026

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Maternity deaths at 20-year high as NHS ‘ignores warnings’

Women’s deaths during pregnancy, labour or soon after giving birth are at the highest level for two decades despite the NHS receiving dozens of recommendations to act on life-threatening symptoms.

An investigation by The Times shows the NHS was issued with 67 separate warnings between 2013 and 2023 to take signs of potentially fatal complications in mothers — known as red flags — seriously.

Over the same decade, there was a 50% rise in the UK’s maternal death rate — defined as deaths in pregnancy, childbirth, or the six weeks after giving birth — from 8.54 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies in 2013 to 12.80 in 2023. The last time the rate was this high was in 2005.

The most recent available data shows 257 women died in the two years to 2023. The biggest killer was blood clots, followed by heart issues, suicide, stroke, sepsis and severe bleeding.

Over the past decade, a string of reviews have issued 748 recommendations for improving NHS maternity services across 59 official reports, yet death rates have soared.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has commissioned a national maternity inquiry led by Baroness Amos, a Labour peer, which is due to deliver its recommendations in the summer. Campaigners are sceptical about whether another report will result in real change.

Theo Clarke, a former Conservative MP who led a parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma in 2024, said it was a “national scandal” that maternal deaths were rising while “recommendations are ignored”.

She said: “NHS maternity services are swamped with recommendations from scores of reports, and still women and their babies are being harmed by a lack of focus and leadership necessary to implement them.”

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Source: The Times, 5 April 2026

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People living with incontinence face shortage of sanitary pads as NHS limits supplies

Millions of people across the UK living with incontinence are facing shortages of sanitary products due to supplies being rationed by NHS trusts, according to a coalition of charities.

The shortages are leading to a “pad gap” where people are having to pay for incontinence products themselves, according to an open letter from organisations including the Royal College of Nursing, Prostate Cancer UK, and Bowel and Bladder UK.

Around 14 million people across the UK experience incontinence. Healthcare workers in the NHS expect to fit up to five pads a day for patients who experience incontinence, according to research, but freedom of information data from 110 NHS trusts show that more than half (53%) have a cap on the availability of products.

Of these trusts, 34% have a cap of three products a day, while the remaining 66% have a cap of four products a day, which is lower than the expected need.

As a consequence of the shortages, many people with incontinence and their families are forced to use their pension or personal independence payment (PIP) to purchase these products while struggling to cover other basic costs.

According to the letter, these measures represent a “once in a generation opportunity to improve health outcomes for all” that will benefit people who experience incontinence and ease the burden on NHS staff and carers.

Prof Alison Leary, the deputy president of the Royal College of Nursing, said she often heard from nurses who were concerned about the shortages of incontinence products. “The effective rationing of incontinence products means that staff and patients both suffer – patients do not get the dignified care they need and nursing colleagues feel they are not meeting patients’ fundamental needs,” Leary added.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2026

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Warning thousands of Black men will die of prostate cancer in next decade without targeted screening

More than 2,000 Black men will die from prostate cancer in the next 10 years if the UK doesn’t change its screening programme, new figures reveal.

Around 1 in 4 Black men in the UK will be diagnosed with the disease – twice the rate of white men. The reasons for the disparities vary, but contributing factors include genetics, a lack of awareness, delays in seeking help and barriers to accessing diagnostic tests.

Last month, the government’s National Screening Committee (NSC) rejected proposals for a targeted prostate cancer screening programme for high-risk men, which includes Black men and those with a family history of cancer, because it said the harms of widespread testing outweigh the benefits and also cited a lack of available data on Black patients.

Now, new estimates from the charity Prostate Cancer UK, shared with The Independent, suggest that if nothing changes, more than 2,300 Black men will die over the next decade, and at least 16,000 men will be diagnosed, if current rates of the disease continue.

Amy Rylance, director of health services, equity and improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said: "We were bitterly disappointed by the UK NSC's announcement that the evidence isn't yet strong enough to recommend targeted screening for Black men.

“While we accept the committee's decision that the data they reviewed had too many gaps, a significant opportunity has been missed. The NHS holds electronic health data that could fill these gaps – but nobody has made full use of these records, and they weren't reviewed by the committee."

She said that the charity would work alongside the NSC to find the missing data and build the evidence base needed to secure screening for Black men.

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Source: The Independent, 6 April 2026

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Medicines watchdog to investigate UK peptide clinics over health claims

The medicines regulator is investigating whether UK clinics are breaking the law by making claims about the benefits of unregulated, experimental peptide therapies, the Guardian can reveal.

Interest in experimental peptides has boomed in recent years. The substances are delivered by injection and are touted by sellers, influencers and even some medics as aiding everything from anti-ageing to recovery from injury.

There is little scientific evidence to support such health and wellness claims in humans. Where studies have been carried out, most are in animals or cells.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said clinics are not permitted to make medicinal claims for the peptide treatments offered by their service.

An MHRA spokesperson said: “If clinics offering peptide injections make medicinal claims for those treatments, the products will be considered medicines and subject to regulation under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.

“The MHRA will take action against clinics which are identified as breaching the legal requirements.”

However, a Guardian investigation has found a number of clinics operating in the UK offering a variety of unregulated, experimental peptides and making a host of claims about their benefits on their websites.

These include approved prescription weight-loss medications based on synthetic peptides that mimic natural hormones, such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, found in weight loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro respectively. But many other peptides on the market have not undergone the strict regulatory processing that those used in medications have undergone, and remain experimental.

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Source: The Guardian, 4 April 2026

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Key stroke treatment still not available around the clock across England

The NHS has not made a “life-changing” treatment for stroke available around the clock across England despite ministers repeatedly promising that it would.

The health service was expected to improve stroke care by making a clot removal technique called mechanical thrombectomy available everywhere in the country 24/7 from 1 April.

Doctors describe it as a gamechanging intervention that, if done quickly, can help someone who has had a severe stroke avoid ending up with a serious disability as a result.

However, seven of England’s 24 regional stroke centres are still not providing thrombectomy on an all-hours basis, mainly because they do not have enough doctors and other staff to do so.

Experts fear the NHS’s failure to deliver universal 24/7 access to the treatment could mean patients who have a stroke overnight, in the evening or at weekends in underserved areas may become avoidably severely disabled, or may even die, because they could not have the procedure.

More than 100,000 people a year in the UK have a stroke, of whom 38,000 die and many others are left with life-changing disabilities that rob them of their independence.

Dr Sanjeev Nayak, a stroke specialist at the Royal Stoke hospital in Stoke, said: “A patient presenting during normal working hours in a well-served area may receive rapid, life-changing treatment, whereas the same patient presenting at night or in a different region may not receive thrombectomy at all. This creates a real postcode lottery in access to one of the most effective treatments in modern medicine.”

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Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2026

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Safety risks ‘normalised’ under ‘ineffective’ group model

A trust group that has seen a rise in “never events” has been heavily criticised for “inadequate” oversight and management of patient safety. 

An assessment commissioned by the Humber Health Partnership also found incidents were “not always being escalated appropriately” and reported “persistent delays” in addressing issues previously raised by the Care Quality Commission.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole trusts, which formed the group in 2024, were subject to NHS England intervention over major performance, safety and governance concerns last year.

Late last year, the trusts commissioned a firm called Thevaluecircle to carry out an independent review of governance. The assessment, which was finalised in January, has now been released to HSJ following a freedom of information request.

It found there was “inadequate rigour in the management of never events and other patient safety incidents” and claimed risks had been “normalised over time, reducing the sense of urgency and active management”.

HUTH recorded six never events in the six months to January, the ninth highest figure for a provider, while NLAG recorded one. Never events are the most serious preventable clinical mistakes and include wrong site surgery, leaving surgical instruments inside a patient after surgery, and blood transfusion errors.

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Source: HSJ, 7 April 2026 

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NHS England publishes fresh guidance on safe use of ambient scribes

NHS England has published new guidance on the use of AI-powered ambient scribing tools in health and care settings, setting out how organisations can safely adopt the technology while meeting data protection and patient rights requirements.

Ambient scribes are AI tools that passively listen to clinical conversations and automatically generate outputs such as consultation notes, summaries or letters. The technology helps reduce administrative burden and allows clinicians to spend more time with patients.

The guidance, developed with input from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the National Data Guardian (NDG), includes sections for patients, healthcare workers, and IG professionals.

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Source: Digital Health, 2 April 2026

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Deaths linked to ‘overwhelmed’ department

At least eight cancer patients were harmed – and in some cases potentially died – because of operational and admin failures in an “overwhelmed” hospital department, HSJ  has learned.

A thematic review of 15 cases from the urology department at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust said several of the patients had died, in some cases having developed metastatic cancer, following missed or late diagnoses. Others had suffered psychological harm as a result of delays.

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Source: Health Service Journal, 2 April 2026

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Jesy Nelson ‘proud’ as NHS announces rollout of SMA screening for newborns

Former Little Mix star Jesy Nelson has said she is “proud” of having reached a “major milestone” as a rollout of screenings for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is to begin earlier than expected.

The singer, 34, campaigned for all newborn babies to be screened for SMA after her twins, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe Nelson, were diagnosed with the rare condition, which causes progressive muscle wastage.

In a letter addressed to Nelson and Giles Lomax, the chief executive of the charity SMA UK, health secretary Wes Streeting confirmed that screenings will be rolled out earlier than planned and begin as part of in-screening evaluations (ISE) from October 2026 instead of January 2027.

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Source: The Independent, 2 April 2026

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Trust halts launch of AI tool that lacked NHSE-required sign-off

An NHS trust has abandoned plans to trial a major US supplier’s ambient voice technology after concerns were raised about its compliance with NHS England accreditation requirements, HSJ has revealed.

Epic Systems had this week planned to launch a trial of its native AI Charting functionality at Frimley Health Foundation Trust, despite not holding Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Class I medical device status, which is required of all AI scribing tools capable of summarisation.

Frimley Health has since confirmed the trial did not go ahead as it had not gone through the trust’s internal governance processes and has been paused pending further work.

Epic’s AI Charting tool does not appear on the MHRA Class I medical device registry and the company is also not on NHSE’s AVT registry.

HSJ understands that two other trusts – understood to be one in the north of England and one in the east – are currently live with Epic’s AVT.

Several other trusts are understood to be in conversations with Epic about trialling its AVT, including University College London Hospitals FT, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s FT, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Trust, and East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust.

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Source: HSJ, 1 April 2026

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Hundreds of hospitals across the US threatened by Medicaid cuts, report says

More than 400 hospitals across the United States are facing closure or slashing crucial services due to coming Medicaid cuts, a new analysis from progressive watchdog organization, Public Citizen, has found.

Cuts to the federal and state health insurance program are expected to reduce access to health care for many Americans, raising insurance costs and limiting state funding.

Roughly 8 million people are projected to become uninsured by 2034, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said.

Losing millions of patients could throttle income for 446 hospitals in 44 states and Washington, D.C., Public Citizen said. The hospitals serve 6.6 million patients and employ 275,458 workers.

“[The cuts] will have knock-on effects on hospitals that disproportionately serve these communities, deepening the financial strain already plaguing rural and safety-net hospitals and compromising their ability to deliver care, potentially leading many to close,” the report warned.

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Source: The Independent, 31 March 2026

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‘Should never have been prescribed’: private UK cannabis clinics face call for tighter regulation

Oliver Robinson felt he had exhausted conventional therapies when he left the Priory, a private mental health facility where he was treated for depression and addiction between 2019 and 2022. Initially he found relief from a new kind of prescription elsewhere. But by the time he took his own life in November 2023, aged 34, his family believe his medicine was making him worse.

In January, an inquest concluded that Robinson’s prescription for medicinal cannabis had “probably contributed to his death”. Catherine McKenna, the coroner for Manchester North, also ruled that his continued use of the prescription, first issued to him in May 2022 by Curaleaf Clinic, a private cannabis provider, “acted as an obstacle” to him receiving appropriate psychiatric and addiction care. His family understand this to be the first ruling of its kind.

Now, Oliver’s brother, Alexander Robinson, is launching a campaign for tighter controls on UK private cannabis clinics, including a ban on prescribing to patients with serious mental illness, and greater oversight of a rapidly expanding industry.

Alexander worries that others in Oliver’s position could be harmed by accessing medicinal cannabis. “If things do not change he is not going to be the last,” he said.

The NHS typically prescribes only a small number of licensed CBMPs – those approved by the medicines regulator – for conditions such as severe epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and chemotherapy-related pain. Legally, specialist doctors can prescribe cannabis-based medicines, including unlicensed products, in NHS and private settings where they judge it clinically appropriate.

According to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the healthcare regulator that oversees private cannabis clinics, most products prescribed privately are unlicensed, meaning they have not been approved by the medicines regulator. 

Freedom of information data from NHS Business Services Authority showed there were 659,293 unlicensed cannabis products privately prescribed in 2024, more than double the 282,920 issued in 2023.

About 80,000 people in the UK are thought to be in receipt of a private prescription. But there is limited evidence that cannabis is a suitable treatment for depression.

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Source: The Guardian, 31 March 2026

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Almost half of primary teachers in England see pupils with eating disorders, survey finds

Almost half of primary school teachers are seeing pupils with eating disorders “at least occasionally”, rising to four in five at secondary level, according to a survey by the UK’s largest education union.

The findings emerged in a poll of 10,000 teachers in English state schools about pupils’ mental health, which also revealed “overwhelming” exam anxiety in secondaries and dwindling numbers of counsellors to support students.

Asked whether they had observed children showing signs of an eating disorder in the past year, 45% of primary teachers and 78% of secondary teachers said they had seen it at least occasionally.

Of those, 4% at primary level said they saw evidence of eating disorders “regularly”, compared with 14% of secondary teachers and 20% in special schools and pupil referral units.

The National Education Union (NEU) poll also revealed that two-thirds (68%) of secondary school teachers who responded regularly encountered absenteeism linked to students’ mental ill-health.

The rise in mental health problems among children and young people is well documented. A study published in the Lancet last year reported a 65% increase in annual hospital admissions between 2012-3 and 2021-2 for children and young people aged five to 18 with mental health concerns. Increases were “particularly steep” for eating disorders, rising from 478 to 2,938 over the same period – an increase of 515%.

The consultant paediatrician Dr Lee Hudson said eating disorders had become more common but pointed out that the term covered a wide spectrum of conditions, not just anorexia.

He said young children could have early anorexia or avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (Arfid), characterised by limiting food type or quantity. “Eating disorders have become more common. We know it’s going up, but we don’t know why,” he said.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2026

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More than one million people to get ‘life-changing’ weight loss drugs to prevent heart attacks and strokes

More than a million people with heart disease could be prescribed weight loss jabs on the NHS to prevent them from having heart attacks or strokes.

Sold under the brand name Wegovy and made by Novo Nordisk, the weekly jab is a type of drug called a GLP-1 receptor agonist. It works by mimicking the natural hormone which regulates blood sugar, appetite and digestion.

The drug can be prescribed to lower blood sugar in people living with type 2 diabetes, but can also help people to lose weight and has been shown to work directly on the heart and blood vessels.

Now the NHS’s spending watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), has given the green light to give semaglutide to overweight and obese patients living with certain heart and circulatory conditions.

It is expected that 1.2 million people across England could benefit.

Naveed Sattar, Professor of Cardiometabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, said the move was a “genuine win–win” that will improve patients’ quality of life.

“We now have medicines that not only reduce heart attacks, strokes, and peripheral arterial disease, but also simultaneously lead to meaningful weight loss – which in turn lowers the risk of many weight‑related conditions,” Prof Sattar said.

“Given that so many people living with cardiovascular disease also struggle with excess weight, it’s no longer sufficient to focus solely on lipids and blood pressure. We must also address weight directly if we want to deliver the best possible outcomes for our patients,” he added.

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Source: The Independent, 1 April 2026

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