Jump to content
  • articles
    9,899
  • comments
    84
  • views
    12,583,577

Contributors to this article

About this News

Articles in the news

 

NHS staff coronavirus inquests told not to look at PPE shortages

Inquests into coronavirus deaths among NHS workers should avoid examining systemic failures in provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), coroners have been told, in a move described by Labour as “very worrying”.

The chief coroner for England and Wales, Mark Lucraft QC, has issued guidance that “an inquest would not be a satisfactory means of deciding whether adequate general policies and arrangements were in place for provision of PPE to healthcare workers”.

Lucraft said that “if there were reason to suspect that some human failure contributed to the person being infected with the virus”, an inquest may be required. The coroner “may need to consider whether any failures of precautions in a particular workplace caused the deceased to contract the virus and so contributed to death”.

But he added: “An inquest is not the right forum for addressing concerns about high-level government or public policy.”

Labour warned the advice could limit the scope of investigations into the impact of PPE shortages on frontline staff who have died from COVID-19.

“I am very worried that an impression is being given that coroners will never investigate whether a failure to provide PPE led to the death of a key worker,” said Lord Falconer, the shadow attorney general. “This guidance may have an unduly restricting effect on the width of inquests arising out of Covid-19-related deaths.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 29 April 2020

Read more

NHS staff called 'heartless' over maternity comments

Staff working for a scandal-hit NHS trust allegedly made "heartless" criticisms about families involved in the largest-ever maternity review and claimed relatives are taking part so they can seek compensation.

Families also said they have been accused of grooming other affected families to join senior midwife Donna Ockenden's independent review of maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH).

The review began three years ago after allegations of harm to babies and mothers, and now involves nearly 2,500 families.

Trust chief executive Anthony May described the alleged comments made by staff as "shocking".

Speaking at the trust's annual meeting on Wednesday, Mr May said: "Some families very recently have fed back to me shocking examples of being stigmatised or gaslit - criticised for either being part of the independent review or for campaigning for better services.

"Families have heard that they are criticised for being in the review, and that they are in the review on the basis that they are seeking compensation.

"The families tell me that there are instances where they feel they have reason to believe they can trace that back to colleagues that work in NUH."

Dr Jack and Sarah Hawkins, who both used to work for the trust until their daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016, have been campaigning to highlight failures at NUH ever since.

They described the comments as "horrific" and "unfathomably heartless".

Dr Hawkins said: "We have been called 'compo seekers'.

"There has been a comment made that people are in this group because they have been groomed by Sarah and I and other people who have been around for a long time, and that has come out of NUH.

"We want change. We don't have any other reason to be in this fight.

"The first thing to allow you to change is to recognise that you need to change. And if your attitude is that you don't and that we are, in fact, scamming the system in some way, then it's so disheartening.

"We're not doing this for any reason other than babies are dying and being harmed and mums are dying and being harmed and families are being ripped apart."

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 3 September 2025

Read more

NHS staff battling wave of food supplement disinformation

Social media misinformation about the use of dietary supplements such as turmeric, St John’s wort and magnesium is now so common that dispelling online claims has become a routine part of NHS clinicians work.

Two out of five frontline health workers say they encounter patients who raise inaccurate or misleading information about supplements at least once a week.

Polling by YouGov for the World Cancer Research Fund found that the figure is even higher (53%) among nurses and midwives, with false information about nutrition and supplements now taking up what doctors describe as “precious time” in NHS consultations.

The WCRF says it fears that patients’ belief in unproven dietary regimes, vitamins and minerals is putting their health in danger and increasing their risk of getting cancer.

Dr Philippa Kaye said she saw the consequences of health misinformation every week in her GP surgery.

“My patients arrive clutching newspaper stories, social media screenshots, printouts from wellness websites or saved videos from TikTok.

“What particularly worries me is the widely held belief that if something is sold over the counter, marked as ‘natural’ or endorsed online, then it must automatically be safe and harmless, while prescribed medicines are somehow toxic,” she added. “As doctors, we know this simply is not true.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 14 June

Read more

NHS staff are suffering from ‘moral injury’, a distress usually associated with war zones

With the latest UK government figures showing that there have been nearly 150,000 deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, it’s understandable why some people compare the pandemic with a war. Indeed, daily life in the NHS is now peppered with military language: the frontline, gold command calls, redeployment, buddy systems and 'moral injury'

Moral injury can be defined as the distress that arises in response to actions or inactions that violate our moral code, our set of individual beliefs about what is right or wrong. In the medical literature, moral injury has historically been associated with the mental health needs of military personnel, arising from their traumatic experiences during active service.

Moral injury is generally thought to arise in high-stakes situations so it’s no surprise that the term has gained traction in healthcare settings over the course of the pandemic, given that healthcare staff have been faced with extreme and sustained pressure at work. In many ways, working in the NHS over the past year has felt like being some sort of circus acrobat, contorting ourselves to balance various competing realities: the desire to provide high-quality care for all our patients in the context of limited resources, looking after our own health needs alongside those of our patients, trying to make peace with the responsibility we feel towards our loved ones while still upholding our duty of care to patients.

If we fail to deliver, particularly in high-stakes situations where we think things should have been done differently, it can shake us to our core. Our moral code transcends the relatively superficial responsibilities of our professional role: it gets to the heart of who we are as human beings. If we feel like our core values have been attacked, it can leave us feeling devastated and disillusioned.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 12 April 2021

Read more

NHS staff are carrying out the equivalent of one 'never-event' every day, figures show

NHS staff are carrying out the equivalent of one 'never-event' every day, figures show. 

This is despite the Government ordering a crackdown on the mistakes, which cost hospitals an estimated £800million in compensation each year. 

Experts today demanded further action on 'unacceptable' levels of never-events, blaming inadequate staffing levels and a lack of investment in the NHS. 

A MailOnline audit of a decade's worth of NHS data found a colossal 4,328 never-events have occurred in England since 2013. This equates to roughly eight a week. 

Shocking incidents uncovered include women getting parts of their reproductive anatomy cut out instead of an appendix, men getting unwanted circumcisions and laser procedures to the wrong eye. 

The Royal College of Surgeons said the level of never-events was 'unacceptable' and blamed NHS staffing levels for increasing the risk to patients. 

"Surgeons will be working hard to do their best for patients, but they do so in difficult circumstances," a spokesperson said. 

"The NHS is overstretched, with staff shortages, a workforce suffering from burn-out and pressure to get record waiting times down. 

"This increases the risk of mistakes happening." 

Read full story

Source: MailOnline, 10 October 2023

Read more

NHS staff and families accounted for one in six Covid hospital cases, study reveals

NHS staff and their families accounted for one in six patients in hospital with Covid, due in part to inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE), new research suggests.

A study of hospitals from March to June revealed that healthcare workers in patient-facing roles were around three times more likely to be hospitalised with the virus than the general population.

Writing in the BMJ, the study's authors called for an urgent focus on how COVID-19 spreads around hospitals to prevent a similar toll in future waves of the pandemic.

They also call for hospitals to consider re-deploying staff with vulnerable family members away from high-risk zones.

Read full story

Source: The Telegraph, 29 October 2020

Read more

NHS staff ‘petrified’ of how bad winter will be at hospitals in England

Doctors and nurses are “absolutely frightened and petrified” about how bad this winter will be for the NHS in England, hospital bosses have revealed.

Staff fear services will not be able to cope with a combination of flu, resurgent Covid, winter and the cost of living crisis damaging people’s health, and also the wave of looming strikes over pay.

“People are genuinely scared,” said the chief executive of one acute NHS trust in England.

“I’m talking to senior clinicians and consultants and nurses who are absolutely frightened and petrified about what’s potentially to come,” added the hospital boss, speaking on condition of anonymity. Staff are anxious because of “the potential for the impact of Covid and flu, the impact of industrial action, the impact of cost of living, the impact on people’s health from that, [and] the massive increases in mental health need, and the breakdown in primary care and social care.”

Chiefs of other NHS trusts in England said they shared that gloomy prognosis. They are bracing themselves for having to curtail and cancel services on days when staff stop work over pay, including outpatient clinics and non-urgent surgery. The NHS will face an “onslaught” this winter, one said.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 15 November 2022

Read more
 

NHS staff ‘can access covid-19 testing’, government insists

NHS staff are to be given access to testing for covid-19, the government said this morning, but it remains unclear how the policy will be applied.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said at lunchtime: “Our testing regime is set up to provide for those who need tests the most. This includes key workers, such as NHS staff. We will set out more details shortly.”

It remains unclear how this will be applied.

The announcement follows concerns from healthcare professionals they are not being tested for the virus, even if they had been exposed to infected patients.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 17 March 2020

Read more
 

NHS staff 'not told when colleagues test positive for COVID-19'

NHS staff at a hospital that has stopped taking new patients amid a COVID-19 spike have lodged a series of concerns, including that they are not routinely being informed of when colleagues test positive for the virus.

The concerns were laid out in a letter from union representatives to management at Weston general hospital in Somerset, which is now testing all staff while carrying out a deep clean.

Another concern raised by Unison was that priority for testing was not being given to BAME staff. 

University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS foundation trust said on Wednesday that as many as 40% of staff from a cohort tested after contact with infected patients were found to be positive.

The trust’s chief executive, Robert Woolley, told the BBC the figure was from a sample testing last week and authorities were now attempting to understand the scale of the infection. More than 60 patients were found to be infected last weekend.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 28 May 2020

Read more
 

NHS staff 'at risk' over lack of protective gear

NHS staff say they are being put at risk during the coronavirus outbreak because of a lack of protective gear.

One doctor told the BBC that frontline healthcare workers felt like "cannon fodder" as they do not have access to equipment such as face masks. Health workers also expressed concerns that not enough of them were being tested for the virus.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK had "stockpiles" of personal protective equipment (PPE). But Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, from lobbying group the Doctors' Association, said she had heard from doctors who had not got access to PPE - or it had expired or run out.

"All these doctors are worried that that's increasing their likelihood of contracting the virus and then ultimately spreading it to patients," she said.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 18 March 2020

Read more

NHS spent more than two billion on private mental health hospitals last year

NHS spent more than two billion sending patients to psychiatric units last year, following decades of cuts to beds, new analysis reveals.

The huge sum on private mental health hospitals in 2023 was a £279 million increase on the year before. A report by Laignbuisson, shared exclusively with The Independent, said the lack of beds within the NHS is a major driver of spending on private hospitals, warning healthcare leaders are “stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

The two biggest private providers, Priory Group and Cygnet Health Care, took 509 million and 560 million in profits last year They account for more than 68% of the market, according to the report.

Almost £200 million was spent on private children’s hospitals by the NHS in the same year, figures show.

Tim Read, author of the report, said private mental health hospitals face stable conditions despite the move to more community care due to the “limited capacity” in NHS beds.

“Despite being a policy priority, it is clear the system is struggling to get a grip on out-of-area placements. With NHS Mental Health Trusts’ seeing occupancy rates climb to nearly 90 per cent, commissioners are stuck between a rock and hard place – either admit locally to an overcrowded ward or place a vulnerable person a long way from the local support networks.

“The NHS has seen its own bed capacity dwindle over decades and with significant re-investment unlikely given other priorities, the way that local areas engage collaboratively with the independent sector on how to best meet local need becomes ever more important.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 20 December 2024

Read more

NHS spends record £241m outsourcing scan analysis to private firms

The NHS is paying private firms record sums to analyse diagnostic scans because hospitals are too busy and understaffed to do the work themselves, research has revealed.

The amount being spent on outsourced the interpretation of CT and MRI scans is “spiralling out of control” and reflects a short-sighted failure to train enough doctors, ministers are being told.

Scans are vital for diagnosing diseases such as cancer and for monitoring patients’ responses to treatment, so they need to be done quickly. Many hospitals, however, rely on non-NHS health companies reading some scans to ensure they get the results promptly.

NHS trusts and health boards across the UK gave £241m to private firms to undertake such work last year. As demand increases, spending has doubled in five years from £120min 2021 and tripled from the £81m spent in 2018.

The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR), which collated the figures in its annual workforce census, said health service spending on private scan reading was “ballooning”. The NHS-wide shortage of radiologists has left hospitals with too little capacity to read all scans, meaning the service is “haemorrhaging” cash to independent firms, it said.

The RCR also raised concerns that the analysis done by private firms was sometimes so poor that NHS radiologists had to read scans again, raising questions about the benefit of outsourcing.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 25 May 2026

Read more

NHS spends £14.7bn a year treating patients in England hurt by care mistakes, says report

The NHS is forced to spend a “staggering” £14.7bn a year treating people who have been harmed by mistakes made during their care, a report reveals.

And a stark north/south divide on patient safety has opened up across England, with double the amount of death and disability caused by medical negligence in the north-east than in London.

The report, by experts at Imperial College London, found that the safety of the care patients receive had declined over the past two years.

The authors include Prof Lord Ara Darzi, the surgeon and former health minister who produced a major NHS report for the Labour government, which highlighted avoidable patient deaths.

Darzi said there had been “alarming declines” in 12 key metrics of patient safety in England since 2022. They include maternity care, in which there are growing rates of stillbirth, babies dying during or soon after they are born and also women dying while giving birth.

“Our analysis highlights a troubling increase in neonatal and maternal deaths, with Black women disproportionately affected,” said Darzi, the co-director of Imperial’s Institute of Global Health Innovation, which drew up the report.

He urged ministers and NHS bosses to take “immediate action” to improve maternity care. The Royal College of Midwives said staff shortages, including of specialist midwives, were a key reason for the recent deterioration in women’s experiences during pregnancy, labour and afterwards – a decline which reviews by other organisations have also identified.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 12 December 2024

Read more

NHS spending up to £19k a time treating people suffering after overseas surgery, research finds

The NHS is spending up to almost £20,000 a time treating people who have suffered serious setbacks after having medical procedures abroad, research has found.

Hospitals are having to “pick up the pieces” when things go wrong for the growing number of Britons going overseas for weight loss surgery, breast enlargements or other operations.

As many as 53% of those who do end up with complications such as infections, organ failure and wounds that do not heal, according to a study published in the journal BMJ Open.

Some people need a stay in intensive care, further surgery and large amounts of antibiotics in order to recover from botched treatment they have paid for in another country, researchers found.

Patients have ended up in a UK hospital for as long as 45 days as a result of complications that arose after an operation to lose weight and even longer – 49 days – after cosmetic surgery.

It costs NHS hospitals between £1,058 and £19,549 to treat such cases, according to a review of evidence undertaken by Welsh researchers led by Dr Clare England of Health Technology Wales.

Prof Vivien Lees, the vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “Too often people are drawn in by cut-price deals and glossy online marketing, only to return with serious, sometimes life-changing complications.

“When things go wrong, the NHS is left to pick up the pieces, often in emergencies and without full information about what surgery was done or by whom. That puts patients at risk and adds avoidable pressure to already stretched services.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 13 January 2026

Read more

NHS signs nationwide £20m deal for ‘electronic infection control’ systems

The NHS has signed a £20m deal to enable health-service organisations to deploy technology to help better manage the spread of infections.

The contract – awarded to US-based healthcare giant Baxter – is intended to offer NHS trusts a means through which they can buy a comprehensive infection-control platform. According to newly published commercial information such a system would, in many cases, replace various specialist software programmes used by NHS trusts to collect and process data, alongside spreadsheets and paper documents.

“The system will support infection prevention and control activities to identify critical issues, proactively respond to improve the quality of care and streamline processes to reduce time spent on administrative and reporting tasks,” the contract notice said. 

“Most NHS Trusts tend to manage infection control surveillance through the use of various systems, collating laboratory, patient and surgery data and manually searching through the data to identify patients of interest or complex scenarios. Paper and excel spreadsheets are also used to record and manage surveillance. This process is time consuming and risk of error.  NHS trusts are finding that they do not have a robust infection control system to monitor and manage their patients.”

Read full story

Source: Public Technology, 15 February 2023

Read more
 

NHS shutdown risks thousands of deaths in COVID-19 second wave

The NHS will be inflicting pain, misery and risk of death on tens of thousands of patients if it again shuts down normal care when a second wave of COVID-19 hits, doctors’ and surgeons’ leaders are warning.

They are urging NHS bosses not to use the same sweeping closures of services that were introduced in March to help hospitals cope with the huge influx of patients seriously ill with Covid.

“The NHS must never again be a Covid-only service. There is a duty to the thousands of patients waiting in need and in pain to make sure they can be treated,” said Prof Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

The leader of Britain’s doctors warned that hospitals should not leave patients “stranded” by again suspending a wide range of diagnostic and treatment services.

“We cannot have a situation in which patients are unable to access diagnostic tests, clinic appointments and treatment which they urgently need and are simply left stranded,” said Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of council at the British Medical Association (BMA).

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 6 August 2020

Read more

NHS sets up mental health hubs for staff traumatised by Covid

The NHS is setting up dozens of mental health hubs to help staff who have been left traumatised by treating Covid patients during the pandemic.

There is mounting concern that large numbers of frontline workers have experienced mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder over the last year.

NHS personnel will be able to ring one of the 40 new hubs in England, receive advice and be referred for support from psychologists, mental health nurses, therapists and recovery workers.

Frontline workers who are struggling with their mental health will be encouraged to use the service, and hub staff will call workers deemed at highest risk directly to offer their help. Higher-risk groups are likely to include those who work in intensive care, on Covid wards and in A&E units.

Almost half of doctors, nurses and other ICU staff have reported symptoms of PTSD, severe depression or anxiety, according to research published last month. Of these, about 40% had probable PTSD – far higher than the rates seen among military veterans.

Sir Simon Stevens, NHS England’s chief executive, announced the hubs in an interview with the House magazine. They are being set up at locations across England including Bedfordshire, Lancashire and north-east London. A handful are already in operation.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 22 February 2021

Read more

NHS sets out Long Covid action plan for thousands of people with persistent symptom

Patients with long-lasting symptoms from Covid will have access to more convenient tests and checks closer to home, under new NHS measures announced.

Specialist clinics, dedicated to Long Covid, will now be able to send people for tests at local one stop shops and mobile clinics, rather than people going back to their GP practice for multiple different tests.

Backed by an additional £90 million investment, the updated Long Covid plan includes ambitions for all patients to have an initial assessment within six weeks to ensure they are diagnosed and treated quickly.

Latest estimates from the ONS show that around 1.6 million people in England are experiencing ongoing COVID symptoms lasting more than four weeks, with around one in five saying it has a significant impact on their daily life.

The plan, which has been developed with expert insights from patients, clinicians and partners across the health and care system, shows the NHS has already made significant progress on delivering the 10 commitments it set out for Long Covid services just over one year ago.

This includes establishing a nationwide network of 90 specialist long COVID clinics, 14 hubs for children and young people and investment in training and guidance to support GP teams in managing the condition.

Dr Kiren Collison, GP and chair of the NHS long COVID taskforce said: “Long COVID can be devastating for those living with it, and while we continue to learn more about this new condition, it’s important people know they’re not alone, and that the NHS is here for them.

“In just under two years, the NHS has invested £224m to support people experiencing long term effects from COVID – from setting up specialist clinics, hubs for children, and an online recovery platform, to providing training for GP teams.

“Today’s plan builds on this world-leading care, to ensure support is there for everyone who needs it, and that patients requiring specialist support can access care in a timely and more convenient way.”

Read full story

Source: NHS England, 28 July 2022

Read more

NHS sets out 'safer' child gender services model

Six new regional centres created to support under 18s struggling with their gender identity will open over the next two years, NHS England has confirmed.

They will join two existing clinics, as part of an overhaul of gender services for children and young people.

The emphasis will be on providing a more holistic approach, with a particular focus on supporting mental health and those with conditions such as autism.

It follows a ban earlier this year on the routine prescription of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria. The changes come in response to a landmark review published in April, which was critical of the way young people had been supported.

NHS England has also announced details of how the clinics will work.

GPs will no longer be able to refer patients directly. Instead, referrals will have to come via children and young people’s mental health services and hospital child health specialists.

The move is designed to ensure the wider needs of these children are assessed before they are sent to a specialist centre, and follows a sharp rise in referrals in recent years.

NHS England medical director Prof Stephen Powis said the new system was about establishing a “fundamentally different and safer model of care for children and young people”.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 7 August 2024

Read more
 

NHS set to roll out £160m ‘Covid-friendly’ cancer initiative

As part of a £160m initiative, the NHS will look to roll out and expand ‘Covid-friendly’ cancer treatments which are safer for patients during the pandemic, the health service’s Chief Executive Sir Simon Stevens has announced.

The funding will help pay for drugs which treat patients without having as significant of an impact on their immune system, or which could offer other benefits such as a reduced number of hospital visits.

Almost 50 treatments have been approved for use as ‘swaps’ for existing drugs, with thousands of patients having already benefitted, and more are expected to be made available this week as part of deals struck between the NHS and pharmaceutical companies.

Within these treatments include options which allow patients to take tablets at home or receive medicines with fewer side effects rather than undergoing hospital-based treatment which can leave them more susceptible to coronavirus and other infections.

Sir Stevens said: “Since the first case of Covid in England six months ago, NHS staff have fast tracked new, innovative ways of working so that other services, including A&E, cancer and maternity could continue safely for patients and it is thanks to these incredible efforts that 65,000 people could start treatment for cancer during the pandemic.

“We are now adopting new, kinder treatment options which are not only effective but safer for use during the Covid-19 pandemic and more convenient for thousands of patients, who can take medication at home or be given medicines with less harmful effects on their immune system.”

Read full story

Source: National Health Executive, 3 August 2020

Read more

NHS set to publish hidden figures which expose true scale of A&E waiting times

The NHS will start publishing “hidden” figures on A&E waiting times following several leaks reported by The Independent.

After unveiling its emergency care plan on Monday, NHS England confirmed it would release internal data each month - currently only made public once a year - showing how many people are waiting for longer than 12 hours after arriving at an emergency department.

The Independent has published several leaks of this data, which shows that these waiting times can be up to five times higher than publicly available NHS figures. Official monthly figures only count the number of hours patients wait after a decision to admit them has been made, and so mask the true scale of the problem.

The move comes after health secretary Steve Barclay said the NHS would, from April, publish this “real” number in a bid for “greater transparency.”

Writing in The Telegraph, he said: “Too much of the debate about A&E and ambulance services is based on anecdotal evidence. I want NHS managers and the wider public to have access to the same facts from the front line, starting with publishing the number of 12-hour waits from the time of arrival in A&E from April.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 31 January 2023

Read more

NHS set to miss key targets in fight against antibiotic-resistant infections

The NHS is falling behind in the race to tackle antibiotic-resistant infections, with the service set to miss two key targets. 

As part of the government’s 2019 five-year-action plan to tackle the growth in antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the NHS was set the target of reducing the number of healthcare-associated bloodstream infections of three gram-negative bacteria by 25% by March this year, and 50% by the end of March 2024.

Infections caused by E. coli, pseudomonas aeruginosa and klebsiella can cause urine or wound infection, blood poisoning or pneumonia. The AMR action plan said: “In the UK, the biggest drivers of resistance [include] a rise in the incidence of infections, particularly gram-negatives.”

Last week, health and social care secretary Sajd Javid stressed the continuing importance of the issue, stating that antimicrobial resistance is “one of the biggest health threats facing the world”.

Analysis by HSJ has shown there has been only a small decline in the numbers of cases involving the three bacteria since monitoring started. The baseline for measuring the reduction was 2016-17, when there were 23,037 healthcare associated infections related to the bacteria.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 21 April 2022

Read more

NHS set to miss cancer backlog target three years running, NHSE plans reveal

NHS England has effectively admitted the backlog of cancer long-waiters will still be higher in March 2024 than before covid hit, in a document seen by HSJ.

The consultation document, detailing trajectories for reducing numbers waiting 62 days or more from referral, shows the expected national total in March 2024 is 18,755.

NHS England previously committed to reducing this to pre-pandemic levels (14,226) by March 2022, then delayed the target until March this year. 

There are now significant backlogs in diagnostics, with particular challenges in endoscopy and breast screening.

NHS Providers director of policy and strategy Miriam Deakin said: “Cancer is a key priority for trusts. They understand the risk to patients who have to wait.

“The pandemic left people waiting longer than NHS trusts wanted for diagnosis or to start treatment, with some people not coming forward, but now urgent referrals for suspected cancer are far higher than pre-pandemic.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 1 February 2023

Read more

NHS set for months of strike chaos after doctors vote to walk out over 29% pay rise demand

The NHS is facing months of disruption after doctors in England voted in favour of strike action which could see walkouts last until January next year.

The British Medical Association announced that resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, had backed strike action as part of demands to secure a 29%

The dates of the strikes have not yet been confirmed but the NHS will huge disruption with hundreds of thousands of appointments at risk of being cancelled if the action goes ahead.

The move would threaten to undermine Sir Keir Starmer’s key ambition to cut waiting lists and could leave the government’s new ten-year plan for the NHS, unveiled last week, in tatters.

The BMA said there is “still time to avert strike action” as it urged Health Secretary Wes Streeting to “come forward as soon as possible with a credible path to pay restoration”.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 8 July 2025

Read more

© 2026 Patient Safety Learning. All rights reserved.

Patient Safety Learning is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission Registration number 1180689.

×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.