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Vulnerable woman starved to death in NHS hospital following ‘unacceptable’ failures

“Unacceptable” failures by a mental health hospital to manage the physical healthcare of a woman detained under the mental health act contributed to her starving to death, The Independent has learned.

A second inquest into the death of a 45-year-old woman, Jennifer Lewis, has found that the mental health hospital to which she was admitted “failed to manage her declining physical health” as she suffered from the effects of malnutrition.

Ms Lewis had a long-term diagnosis of schizophrenia. Her family described how she had lived a full life, completed a degree, and given lectures about living with mental illness. However, after undergoing bariatric surgery, against the wishes of her family, her mental state declined and she was admitted to the Bracton Centre, run by Oxleas, in 2014.

In an interview with The independent, her sister, Angela, described how, in the year before her death, Ms Lewis lost her hair, suffered from diarrhoea, and developed sores on her legs as she effectively “starved to death” from malnutrition.

Ms Lewis’s sister told The Independent that in the year leading up to her death, when the family warned doctors she was “starving to death”, their concerns were dismissed and they were told that the hospital “will not let it come to that”.

Mental health charity Rethink has called for improvements to physical healthcare for patients with severe mental illness, whose physical needs they say are “all too often ignored”, while experts at think tank the Centre for Mental Health have warned that patients with mental illness are dying too young as the system “still separates mental and physical health”.

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Source: The Independent, January 2022

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Vulnerable people’s drug prescriptions to be reviewed following Ombudsman investigation

Hundreds of people across England with drug and alcohol dependencies who have been prescribed Valium long-term, will have their cases reviewed following an Ombudsman investigation.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found that Change Grow Live (CGL), on behalf of Cambridgeshire County Council, has been prescribing benzodiazepines to people long-term, against national guidance. The company also provides drug and alcohol services for 50 other councils.

Benzodiazepines – including diazepam (Valium) - are a class of medicines that can relieve nervousness, tension and other symptoms of anxiety and should usually only be prescribed short-term.

CGL’s policy explains people use them for anxiety, insomnia, to enhance opiate effects, to deal with mental health issues, improve confidence and to reduce psychotic symptoms like hearing voices. However, if they are prescribed for too long, they can have significant negative effects including dependence, withdrawal symptoms and drug-seeking behaviour.

People on these medicines should have their prescriptions reviewed regularly, and those reviews should consider the benefits and risks of continuing with the current dose, reducing or stopping it, with a management plan put in place after each review.

However, the Ombudsman’s investigation found CGL were either not reviewing people’s prescriptions regularly enough or not keeping proper records of those reviews.

Nigel Ellis, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Chief Executive, said:

“Clinicians need to weigh up the benefits and risks for patients who are taking these medicines long-term and should have a clear rationale for continuing to prescribe.

“I am pleased that patients in these vulnerable groups will now have their cases reviewed more regularly and comprehensively following my investigation.

“Both CGL and the council have co-operated fully with our investigation, and I welcome their ready acceptance of our recommendations.”

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Source: Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, 23 August 2023

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Vulnerable patients injured by 'inadequate' service

A troubled trust’s inpatient wards for people with a learning disability or autism have been rated “inadequate”, with staff criticised for resorting to restraint too readily which sometimes injured patients.

Care Quality Commission inspectors visited Lanchester Road Hospital in Durham and Bankfields Court in Middlesborough, run by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Foundation Trust, in May and June.

They found most people were being nursed in long-term segregation and some patients had very limited interaction with staff.

Among the CQC’s main criticisms was of high levels of restrictive practice used by staff, including seclusion, restraint and rapid tranquilisation.

Inspectors said incidents were not always recorded and staff did not learn from them to reduce levels of restrictions in place. They also warned staff were not always able to understand how to protect people from poor care and abuse.

Karen Knapton, CQC’s head of hospital inspection, said: “Three people had been injured during restraints, and 32 incidents of injury had been reported for healthcare assistants, some requiring treatment.

“This is unacceptable and measures must be put in place to keep patients and staff safe.”

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Source: HSJ, 5 October 2022

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Vulnerable patients facing long delays for beds amid funding rows

Vulnerable patients, including some children, have faced long delays for a suitable bed as organisations argue over whose responsibility it is to fund and deliver their care, HSJ understands.

In a letter outlining winter arrangements, NHS England has warned trust leaders and commissioners against delaying emergency mental health admissions – typically needed when a patient is away from home, and understood to be more common over the Christmas period – while determining which area has which responsibility.

National mental health director Claire Murdoch wrote: “It is not acceptable to delay an emergency mental health admission while determining which area has clinical and financial responsibility for the care of an individual.”

She added such admissions should be arranged “as quickly as possible, and without delay caused by any financial sign-off process”. 

It comes as HSJ has been told patients can often end up waiting for several days in emergency departments or in “inappropriate” out of area or acute beds when disputes occur over who is responsible for their care.

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Source: HSJ, 15 December 2022

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Vulnerable patient deaths prompt hospitals warning

The deaths of three adults with learning disabilities at a failed hospital should prompt a review to prevent further "lethal outcomes" at similar facilities, a report said.

The report looked at the deaths of Joanna Bailey, 36, and Nicholas Briant, 33, and Ben King, 32, between April 2018 and July 2020. It found here were significant failures in the care of the patients at Jeesal Cawston Park, Norfolk.

Ms Bailey, who had a learning disability, autism, epilepsy and sleep apnoea, was found unresponsive in her bed and staff did not attempt resuscitation, while the mother of Mr King said he was "gasping and couldn't talk" when she last saw him. Mr Briant's inquest heard he died following cardiac arrest and obstruction of his airway after swallowing a piece of plastic cup.

The report found:

  • "Excessive" use of restraint and seclusion by unqualified staff.
  • Concerns over "unsafe grouping" of patients.
  • Overmedication of patients.
  • High levels of inactivity and days of "abject boredom".

Relatives described "indifferent and harmful hospital practices" and said their questions and "distress" were ignored

Joan Maughan, who commissioned the report as chairwoman of the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board, said: "This is not the first tragedy of its kind and, unless things change dramatically, it will not be the last."

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Source: BBC News, 9 September 2021

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Vulnerable man ‘abandoned’ and discharged from hospital into budget hotel

The government has been urged to protect “catastrophically” under-resourced mental health social services after a vulnerable man was discharged from a hospital into a Travelodge.

Will Mann, a 42-year-old with long-term mental health illness, was “abandoned” by social care services after he was discharged from an NHS hospital, his mother Jackie has said.

Speaking with The Independent, Jackie Mann, explained how Will, who had to declare himself homeless before his discharge this year, was told the only available housing accommodation for him was a Travelodge.

Mr Manns story has sparked warnings over the state of the shortage of social care and supported accommodation for those with severe mental illness, from the charity Rethink Mental Illness, which warned: “This is another reminder of how the crisis engulfing social care is impacting people’s lives, and why the government must protect mental health in the upcoming budget.”

In an interview with The Independent, Jackie Mann, Mr Mann’s mother said: “He had to go straight from there to a Travelodge in Christchurch, which was a very unsuitable place because it was just a room, no cooking facilities.

“During the time he was there, nobody came to visit him, he was just sort of abandoned there and during his time there, he was told he had to leave the Travelodge and go to another one because that Travelodge was overbooked.”

According to our major charity Rethink, the shortage of “appropriate accommodation” is one of the biggest drivers of delayed discharges for mental health patients.

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Source: The Independent, 21 November 2022

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Vulnerable Britons dying as not being given antibiotics at dentist, doctors say

Patients are dying needlessly every year due to vulnerable Britons with heart problems not being given antibiotics when they visit the dentist, doctors have said.

Almost 400,000 people in the UK are at high risk of developing life-threatening infective endocarditis any time they have dental treatment, the medics say. The condition kills 30% of sufferers within a year.

A refusal to approve antibiotic prophylaxis (AP) in such cases means that up to 261 people a year are getting the disease and up to 78 dying from it, they add. That policy may have caused up to 2,010 deaths over the last 16 years, it is claimed.

That danger has arisen because the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) does not follow international good medical practice and tell dentists to give at-risk patients antibiotics before they have a tooth extracted, root canal treatment or even have scale removed, the experts claim.

The doctors – who include a professor of dentistry, two leading cardiologists and a professor of infectious diseases – have outlined their concerns in The Lancet medical journal. In it, they urge NICE to rethink its approach in order to save lives, citing pivotal evidence that has emerged since the regulator last examined the issue in 2015, which shows that antibiotics are “safe, cost-effective and efficacious”.

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Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2024

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Volunteers to use ambulance cars to transport patients to hospital

Volunteers will transport patients who need extra assistance to hospital to increase ambulance availability for higher-risk patients.

The pilot scheme, using ambulance cars, is due to start in London in May.

London Ambulance Service said the trained volunteers would be sent to lower category 999 calls where the patient needed help to get to hospital.

The service's board meeting was told the scheme would reduce waiting times and increase ambulance availability.

Currently, taxis are used to transport "low acuity patients" to hospital, the meeting heard.

But there were some patients who required "the assistance of one person to walk or mobilise", which taxis could not provide.

"This results in the dispatch of an emergency ambulance, reducing ambulance availability for higher priority incidents and longer waiting times for patients," the meeting heard. As part of the pilot scheme, a volunteer car would be dispatched to these patients.

A spokesperson for the service said: "This project builds on our well-established network of volunteers who respond to emergencies to help ensure our ambulances can reach the patients that need us the most.

"These fully trained volunteers, who already respond to 999 calls in their communities, will help patients who have been assessed not to need of an ambulance but who may need more support than a taxi can provide."

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Source: BBC News, 18 April 2022

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Virus patients more likely to die may have ventilators taken away

Stable coronavirus patients could be taken off ventilators in favour of those more likely to survive, it emerged on Wednesday, as another sharp rise in deaths left the UK braced for the outbreak to reach up to 1,000 deaths a day by the end of the week.

In a stark new document issued by the British Medical Association (BMA), doctors set out guidelines to ration care if the NHS becomes overwhelmed with new cases as the outbreak moves towards its peak.

Under the proposals, designed to provide doctors with ethical guidance on how to decide who should get life-saving care when resources are overstretched, hospitals would have to impose severe limits on who is put on a ventilator. Large numbers of patients could be denied care, with those facing a poor prognosis losing the potentially life-saving equipment even if their condition is improving.

The BMA suggested that younger, healthier people could be given priority over older people and that those with an underlying illness may not get treatment that could save them, with healthier patients given priority instead.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2020

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Virus almost 'wholly responsible' for spike in dementia deaths

People with dementia, particularly care home residents early in the pandemic, were “disproportionately” vulnerable to fatal Covid infections, according to a new report.

The analysis, commissioned by the Scottish Government, also found that excess deaths involving dementia during 2020 were “almost wholly” attributable to Covid.

Of the 2,154 deaths where both dementia and Covid were listed on the death certificate, 95 per cent had Covid as the main underlying cause.

This contradicts previous suggestions that a rise in dementia deaths early in the pandemic may have been linked indirectly to the virus as a result of “lockdown distress” or an increased use of potentially harmful sedation in elderly people confused by restrictions.

The report also found that 73% (1,577) of those who died with both Covid and dementia mentioned on their death certificates had passed away in care homes.

Henry Simmons, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Scotland, said their loved ones had been “torn apart by grief and loss” and that the report “raises many more questions as to why so many people with dementia living in care homes quickly became victims of Covid-19”.

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Source: The Herald, 10 February 2022

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Virtual wards set up ‘to save A&E’ only staffed 12 hours a day

Virtual wards, set up to relieve pressure on A&E departments, could create extra NHS demand as some are only staffed for 12 hours a day, the country’s top emergency doctor has warned.

The service allows patients to be monitored remotely from their own homes, freeing up hospital beds and capacity in emergency departments.

Patients are given devices to track their vital signs, such as blood pressure and oxygen levels, with readings sent back to doctors via smartphone apps.

Dr Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that virtual wards “must not be seen as a silver bullet for all the problems in urgent and emergency care”.

“We’re very wary of virtual ward beds being used to say that there are increased beds within hospitals because that’s simply not true,” he said. “The plan for 7,000 or 5,000 extra beds need to be actual beds, with pillows, sheets and staff looking after them.”

Source: Telegraph, 11 February 2023

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Virtual wards and at-home antibiotic kits part of £160m funding to cut NHS waiting lists

Virtual wards, at-home antibiotic kits and using artificial intelligence in GP surgeries are among new initiatives to be trialled as part £160m funding to tackle waiting lists in the NHS.

NHS England announced the funding to aid in the health service’s recovery after the pandemic, after figures last month revealed the number of people waiting to begin hospital treatment in England had risen to a new record.

A total of 4.7 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of February - the highest figure since records began in August 2007. But NHS England said indicators suggest operations and other elective activity were at four-fifths of pre-pandemic levels in April, which is "well ahead" of the 70% threshold set out in official guidance.

It said it is working to speed up the health service's recovery by trialling new ways of working in 12 areas and five specialist children's hospitals.

The so-called "elective accelerators" will each get some of the £160m as well as extra support for new ways to increase the number of elective operations, NHS England said.

Tens of thousands of patients in the trial areas will be part of initiatives including a high-volume cataract service, one-stop testing facilities and pop-up clinics to allow patients to be seen and discharged closer to home.

Other trials over the next three months include virtual wards and home assessments, 3D eye scanners, at-home antibiotic kits, "pre-hab" for patients ahead of surgery, artificial intelligence in GP surgeries and so-called "Super Saturday" clinics, bringing multi-disciplinary teams together at the weekend to offer more specialist appointments.

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Source: The Independent, 

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Virtual wards ‘not a silver bullet’ for NHS as occupancy levels grow

More than 8,500 patients in England were being treated on virtual wards in the run-up to Christmas, figures have revealed, as the NHS moves to ease pressures on hospital capacity.

However, experts said the so-called hospitals at home are not a “silver bullet to solve the crisis in health and social care”.

Figures published by NHS Digital revealed some 8,586 patients were treated virtually in December 2023, up from 7,886 in November.

The snapshot was taken on 21 December 2023, meaning it is likely those patients spent Christmas on a virtual ward rather than an actual hospital.

Virtual wards allow patients to receive care in their own homes, with clinical staff using apps or wearable technology to monitor them remotely.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said the “rapid expansion” of virtual wards beds and patients “is a real NHS success story”.

He added: “This not only frees up vital hospital beds for those who need them most but ensures patients can recover in the place they are most comfortable with support from families, carers and friends, and while occupancy has been growing rapidly as NHS teams make the most of all bed capacity available, we want to see continued growth right across the country so as many patients as possible can benefit."

However, Wendy Preston, the head of nursing practice at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said “virtual wards aren’t a silver bullet to solve the crisis in health and social care”.

“Whether they’re in a physical bed or on a virtual ward, patients still need to be able to see a nurse,” she added.

“But there are over 40,000 nursing vacancies across the NHS, and social care is chronically understaffed. Run effectively, virtual wards can relieve pressure, but on every single shift nursing staff are fighting an uphill battle to care for too many patients.

“If the UK government wants to turn around the state of the NHS and deliver the ‘hospital level’ care at home that patients expect, nursing staff need to see game-changing investment in the workforce.”

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Source: The Independent, 15 January 2024

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Virtual ward costs twice that of inpatient care, study finds

Researchers have found the costs of treating patients in a 40-bed virtual ward were double that of traditional inpatient care.

The study’s authors said the findings should raise concerns over a flagship NHS England policy, which has driven the establishment of 10,000 virtual ward beds.

Virtual wards, sometimes described as “hospital at home”, are cited as a safe way to reduce pressure on hospitals, by reducing length of stay and enabling quicker recovery.

The study at Wrightington Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals, in Greater Manchester, found a clear reduction in length of stay but also found higher rates of readmission.

The authors said this led to additional costs, with the cost of a bed day in the virtual ward estimated at £1,077, compared to £536 in a general inpatient hospital bed. 

“This raises concerns [over] the deployment of large-scale virtual wards without the existence of policies and plans for their cost-effective management. This evidence should be taken into consideration by [the] NHS in planning the next large deployment of virtual wards within the UK…

“Virtual wards must be cost effective if they are to replace traditional inpatient care, the costs must be comparable or lower than the costs of hospital stay to be economically sustainable in the medium to long terms.”

To break even, the paper said the virtual ward would need to double its throughput, but warned this would risk lowering the standard of care.

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Source: HSJ, 25 January 2024

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Virtual reality transports hospice patients to other side of the world

A hospice is using virtual reality (VR) to help patients relax and transport them away from their beds.

St Giles Hospice, which has bases in Lichfield and Sutton Coldfield, said the headsets allowed patients "to escape the realities of their present situation".

"I've never experienced anything quite like it in my life - I was totally lost in the moment," Janet, 71, said.

The VR experiences include cities of the world, space, and wildlife.

Beth Robinson, Occupational Therapist at St Giles Hospice, said the VR headsets helped patients "immerse themselves into a calming space".

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Virtual outpatient drive at heart of effort to end 78-week waits, says Mackey

Patients at trusts with long waiting lists should no longer think ‘they have to go to their local hospital’ for outpatient appointments, but should instead be offered virtual consultations elsewhere in the country where there is greater capacity, Sir Jim Mackey has told HSJ.

The NHS England elective chief said recent efforts to abolish two-year waiters by July had meant a “very big” surgical focus. However, the next phase of the elective recovery plan would see a major shift of emphasis onto reducing the wait for outpatient appointments.

Sir Jim said: “Providers have been split into tiers again with tier one having national oversight and tier two, regional oversight. Behind that we will be pairing up organisations so that organisations with capacity can help those with the biggest challenges from a virtual outpatient perspective.

He added: “There still is a lot to work through [on virtual outpatients], we’re going to be testing the concept… We need to work through how all the wiring and plumbing needs to work. For example, what happens if the patient needs a diagnostic locally, having seen a clinician virtually in another part of the country?

“It would be great also to try and stimulate more of a consumer drive on this – encouraging patients to ask about virtual outpatients when the waits locally may be too long, so they don’t just think they have to go to their local hospital. I think this could really help shift the model if we can get it right.”

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Source: HSJ, 9 August 2022

 

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Virtual hospital model ‘new gold standard’ for treatment

The chief executive at a trust behind one of the UK’s first ‘virtual hospitals’ has said this model is the ‘new gold standard’ for care provision and the trust is looking at a significant expansion.

West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals Trust boss Matthew Coats said the trust aimed to eventually have “hundreds” of virtual beds for patients to be monitored at home.

The trust has been at the forefront of NHS England’s programme to significantly expand the use of virtual wards across the NHS. It was also among the first to launch a virtual ward to monitor Covid patients at home during the pandemic.

Its virtual ward model has since evolved beyond covid, to what the trust calls its “virtual hospital”, providing remote care for patients across several different pathways and specialties, including heart failure, respiratory and frailty patients, who are admitted from either a hospital bed, the emergency department or by GPs.

Mr Coats told HSJ its virtual hospital is not only supporting better flow through the hospital, but is also leading to better patient experience.

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Source: HSJ, 25 September 2023

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Violence against ambulance staff in England at record high

Violence against ambulance staff in England has reached a record high, as the NHS crisis in emergency care continues to deepen.

An estimated 12,626 incidents were reported in the 12 months to April 2022, according to nationwide data shared with The Independent – a 7% rise on the previous year.

However, since 2016, the number of paramedics who have been verbally or physically assaulted, or threatened with assault, has nearly doubled, rising from 7,689.

Adam Hopper, the national ambulance violence prevention and reduction lead for the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), which provided the data, said the findings “confirm the worrying trend of increasing violence against ambulance staff”.

One paramedic told The Independent a bone was broken in his neck after he was strangled by a drunken patient he was attempting to treat.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, a membership body for trusts in England, said that alcohol is the most prominent factor in such assaults, followed by drugs and people being in mental health crisis. “Race and sexuality have also increased as exacerbating factors in these assaults, as have delays to treatment and arrival times,” he added.

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Source: The Independent, 19 June 2022

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Victims of failed surgery demand recall of all patients

Michelle Nolan takes morphine daily for the pain she has lived with for 14 years after botched surgery at the hands of a once renowned surgeon.

She suffered irreversible nerve damage in July 2010 when John Bradley Williamson, a former president of the British Scoliosis Society, inserted a screw that was too long into her spine at Spire Manchester Hospital.

The 49-year-old from Chadderton, near Oldham, needs crutches and lost her job as a legal secretary and later her house and marriage. “I lost everything because of him,” she said. “I thought I was the only one he had harmed.”

She was not. Families and patients operated on by Williamson over two decades at the Salford Royal Hospital, Spire Manchester Hospital and the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, have formed a support group and want a full recall of all of his patients.

They fear some could be suffering without realising they are victims of poor care.

Williamson told the coroner investigating Catherine’s death that her surgery “progressed uneventfully” and “the blood loss was perhaps a little higher than one would usually anticipate but was certainly not extreme”.

Yet days after her death, Williamson sent an internal letter to the hospital’s haematology department head Simon Jowitt describing the surgery as “difficult” and involving “a catastrophic haemorrhage”.

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Source: The Times, 18 February 2024

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Victims of contaminated blood scandal denied financial support by arbitrary cut-off date

A woman infected with hepatitis C from contaminated blood has launched legal action after the government denied her financial support available to other victims despite accepting she was made sick by tainted blood.

Carolyn Challis told The Independent her life had been dramatically affected by the virus, which left her with debilitating fatigue and other symptoms meaning she couldn’t work and was left to look after three children.

With the help of lawyers from Leigh Day, she is bringing a judicial review against the Department of Health and Social Care, challenging what she believes is an arbitrary cut-off date for victims of the contaminated blood scandal to receive financial support including payments of a £20,000 sum and ongoing help.

The government has said only patients infected before September 1991 are eligible for the payments, but Ms Challis was infected at some stage between February 1992 and 1993 following three blood transfusions and a bone marrow transplant to treat Hodgkin’s Disease, a form of blood cancer.

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Source: The Independent, 21 March 2021

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Victims and families call for prosecutions as contaminated blood inquiry nears end

Victims and family members affected by the contaminated blood scandal are calling for criminal charges to be considered as the public inquiry into the tragedy draws to a close.

While the inquiry, which will begin to hear closing submissions on Tuesday, cannot determine civil or criminal liability, people affected by the scandal are keen for the mass of documents and evidence accumulated over more than four years to be handed over to prosecutors to see whether charges can be brought.

About 3,000 people are believed to have died and thousands more were infected in what has been described as the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. The inquiry has heard evidence that civil servants, the government and senior doctors knew of the problem long before action was taken to address it and that the scandal was avoidable. But no one has ever faced prosecution.

Eileen Burkert, whose father, Edward, died aged 54 in 1992 after – like thousands of others – contracting HIV and hepatitis C through factor VIII blood products used to treat his haemophilia, said the inquiry had shown there was a “massive cover-up”.

She said: “In my eyes it’s corporate manslaughter. You can’t go giving people something that you know is dangerous, and they just carried on doing it. As far as my family’s concerned, they killed our dad and they killed thousands of other people and there’s been no recognition for him since he died, there’s been nothing.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 January 2023

See UK Infected Blood Inquiry website for further details on the inquiry.

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Ventilator manufacturers form ventilator training alliance, create App to help front-line medical workers during COVID-19 pandemic

According to an Allego press release, several of the world’s ventilator manufacturers have formed a Ventilator Training Alliance (VTA) and partnered with Allego to create a mobile app that front-line medical providers can use to access a centralised repository of ventilator training resources.

Dräger, GE Healthcare, Getinge, Hamilton Medical, Medtronic, Nihon Kohden, and Philips have joined this humanitarian training coalition.

The VTA app – powered by learning and readiness platform provider Allego – connects respiratory therapists, nurses and other medical professionals with ventilator training resources from alliance member companies, including instructional how-to videos, manuals, troubleshooting guides, and other ventilator-operation expertise critical to helping responders treat patients suffering from COVID-19-related respiratory distress.

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Source: American Association for Respiratory Care, 16 April 2020

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Vaping: BMA to review effects of “growing public health epidemic”

The BMA will review the dangers posed by e-cigarettes, after its annual representative meeting passed a motion warning that vaping was a “growing public health epidemic.”

The motion, which was passed by the meeting in Liverpool on 5 July, called on the BMA’s Board of Science to rereview the dangers of vaping, and discuss restrictions on marketing and cracking down on illegal sales to children. The BMA’s last position paper on vaping was published in 2017.1

The motion urged the board to consider whether doctors should include history of e-nicotine use as a “regular and essential” part of patient history and examination. 

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Source: BMJ, 5 July 2023

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Vapes '95% safer' than cigarettes messaging backfired

The message that vaping is 95% safer than smoking has backfired, encouraging some children to vape, says a top health expert.

Dr Mike McKean treats children with lung conditions and is vice-president for policy at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He says the 2015 public messaging should have been clearer - vapes are only for adults addicted to cigarettes.

Evidence on the possible health risks of vaping is still being gathered.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Dr McKean said: "Vaping is not for children and young people. In fact it could be very bad for you," although he stresses that it is not making lots of children very sick, and serious complications are rare.

"Vaping is only a tool for adults who are addicted to cigarettes."

He says the 95% safe messaging was "a very unwise thing to have done and it's opened the door to significant chaos".

"There are many children, young people who have taken up vaping who never intended to smoke and are now likely addicted to vaping. And I think it's absolutely shocking that we've allowed that to happen."

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Source: BBC News, 26 September 2023

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Valdo Calocane ‘fell off radar’ of mental health services

Campaigners have said that more lives would be lost unless mental health services were reformed. Figures show 120 people each year are killed by people with mental illnesses.

Julian Hendy, whose father was killed by a psychotic man with a long history of mental ill health 17 years ago, said health professionals must be “more assertive” and work better with other agencies such as the police.

Valdo Calocane, who was sentenced on Thursday to an indefinite hospital order after being convicted of manslaughter of three people in Nottingham, had fallen off the radar of mental health services, which allowed him to avoid taking his medicine.

Hendy accused Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which was responsible for Calocane’s care, of “washing their hands” of him.

He said: “It’s not responsible and it’s not safe. It doesn’t look after people properly … That hasn’t helped him at all, or protected his rights at all, because he has now committed this terrible offence.”

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Source: The Times, 26 January 2024

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