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Lucy Letby: NHS could face record compensation bill of more than £60m

The NHS could face a record compensation bill of more than £60m from civil claims lodged by the families of Lucy Letby’s victims, experts have said.

Parents whose babies have disabilities caused by Letby’s attacks at the Countess of Chester hospital could each expect to receive a payout of more than £10m to fund their future care.

Compensation paid by the NHS to parents whose babies died or were left with disabilities as a result of care at Shrewsbury hospital in Britain’s largest maternity scandal reportedly amounted to almost £50m. In a separate case, the health service had to pay £37m to a boy who was left brain damaged at birth.

Stephen Jones, the head of Leigh Day’s medical negligence team in Manchester, said the trust could argue that by committing the offences, Letby breached the employer-employee relationship to an extent such that it was not responsible for her. But he added: “I think there would be outrage that the trust wouldn’t accept responsibility for babies in their care.” He said compensation could run into eight figures for a family whose baby was severely injured and had a long life expectancy.

Emma Wray, a partner in Hodge Jones & Allen’s medical negligence department, suggested the NHS could set up a scheme for victims, as it has done with other scandals, to make claiming compensation easier.

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Source: The Guardian, 23 August 2023

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NHS whistleblowers warn of 'unsafe' A&E staff shortages

A group of senior doctors has accused NHS Grampian of ignoring their safety concerns about emergency departments.

They told BBC Scotland News they were speaking out because they feel they cannot deliver a safe level of care.

The medics said staff shortages meant Grampian's two A&Es have no senior registrars on shift to make key decisions about patients for the majority of weekend night shifts.

Documents seen by the BBC News show medics have been raising concerns since 2021, both with NHS Grampian and the Scottish government, and in July this year submitted a formal whistleblowing complaint about the situation.

One doctor said: "The staff are in an impossible situation.

"We are witnessing ongoing harm with unacceptable delays to the assessment and treatment of patients.

"There have been avoidable deaths and at other times there are too long delays getting to patients who may be suffering from a serious condition like stroke or sepsis."

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Source: BBC News, 23 August 2023

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The new Angel of Death: The chilling comparisons between killer nurses Lucy Letby and Beverley Allitt - from befriending parents to stealing medical notes and passing the blame

In 1991, Stuart Clifton was a detective superintendent with Lincolnshire Police when a phone call came in from Grantham Hospital saying they were looking into a number of suspicious deaths on a children's ward.

Over a period of just 59 days four babies had died after being brought to Ward Four with minor complaints, such as chest infections and gastroenteritis. A further nine had collapsed for inexplicable reasons, only to be resuscitated again.

Two years later, a 22-year-old nurse called Beverley Allitt would be convicted of those crimes. Dubbed The Angel Of Death, she was handed 13 life sentences and to this day remains locked up in Rampton Hospital, a secure psychiatric facility.

Why would a young woman trained to care for the most vulnerable members of society instead choose to harm and, ultimately, kill them?

As the detective who interviewed and analysed the behaviour of Allitt in the two years it took to bring the case to court, Mr Clifton believes he has unrivalled insight into why a nurse would go from healer to harmer.

"She always seemed to want to be the centre of attention,' he explains of Allitt. 'She wanted to be the one that was present, the one that raised the alarm, the one that went in the ambulance with the child when it was transferred to another hospital. It was almost as if she was putting herself centre stage and felt that she needed that adoration from other nursing staff and parents.

"Maybe a part of this was to show she was capable of doing the job but then, obviously, it went further. It went to the stage of her causing the injury that she subsequently then highlighted. I think certainly with Allitt it was this desire to be recognised, to be needed - and what I have seen of the Letby trial also seems to echo that need."

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Source: Mail Online, 23 August 2023

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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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Mesh surgeries to be halted in New Zealand because of safety concerns

The use of surgical mesh to treat a common childbirth injury is now suspended in New Zealand because of safety concerns.

The extraordinary step, which follows a similar move in the United Kingdom, was announced today by Te Whatu Ora.

It is being celebrated by a woman who spearheaded a campaign to highlight the harrowing mesh injuries suffered by her and many other Kiwi women. “It is an acknowledgement that their concerns were not just in their heads,” Sally Walker told the Herald. “It will give us some hope.”

About 100 women around the country who are on waiting lists for urogynaecological surgeries involving mesh are being contacted by doctors to tell them their operations for stress urinary incontinence are on hold.

The Director-General of Health Dr Diana Sarfati said the Surgical Mesh Roundtable (MRT), an oversight and monitoring group chaired by the Ministry of Health, had been investigating a “pause” since earlier this year.

The group’s assessment was that the balance of benefit and harm from the procedure would be improved by the series of additional measures already planned, and it recommended a pause until those measures were substantively in place.

“After considering the MRT’s assessment, I have decided to support a pause to allow the following steps to be put in place to reduce the harms linked to the procedure as much as possible,” said Sarfati.

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Source: NZ Herald, 22 August 2023

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Trust reviewing 31,000 patients ‘lost’ by IT system

A trust has had to re-examine the cases of more than 31,000 patients after they were automatically and wrongly discharged from its care because they did not have another appointment within the next six months.

Dartford and Gravesham Trust in Kent has revealed that soaring waiting times post-covid meant patients who needed follow-up appointments were not offered them within six months, which before covid was a very unusual occurrence.

When they passed six months, they were dropped off waiting lists altogether, due to a feature in the trust’s patient administration system designed to ensure outdated pathways are closed. It is a common feature in many such systems, HSJ was told.  

The trust has now “validated” more than 31,000 patients who have been in contact with it since 1 September 2021. So far, it said, it had not found evidence of harm, although some people have been recalled for clinical review or investigation, and a small number are still to be seen.

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Source: HSJ, 22 August 2023

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Nearly 7,000 ambulance workers in England left in past year, figures show

Ambulance services in England have experienced a mass exodus of staff in the past year with nearly 7,000 leaving their jobs, figures have revealed.

The number of emergency service crew leavers has risen sharply compared with 2019 levels, prompting concern for patient safety during the next NHS winter crisis.

The government has been called on to launch an urgent recruitment drive before winter to cover the 2,954 vacancies across all ambulance services in England.

Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrats' health and social care spokesperson, said: “With patients struggling to see a GP at the front door of the NHS and unable to access social care at the back door of the NHS, ambulance crews are unfairly caught between a rock and a hard place, picking up the slack from a health and care system that is broken at both ends.

“Patients who struggle to access the care they need, when they need it, are then left waiting for emergency assistance in pain and distress for an ambulance. The shortage of NHS staff has caused untold pain for millions of people across the country, especially those left to wait for hours in pain for an ambulance to arrive.

“The government must begin an urgent recruitment drive before winter begins and our ambulance services are yet again put under unsustainable strain. There is no time to waste.”

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Source: The Guardian, 22 August 2023

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‘Chaotic’ maternity service was warned of same problems years earlier

A trust given an “inadequate” rating for its “chaotic” maternity service last week had been criticised for many of the same failings only last year by another regulator, it has emerged.

Bethan Harris died in a hospice 10 days after her birth at St George’s Hospital in South London in 2018. She had suffered hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy – a brain injury caused by lack of oxygen – during delivery, according to the coroner’s report.

HSJ has now seen the conclusions of a Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report into her death, completed and sent to the trust just last year.

It found that if Ms Heatley had had better care Bethan might have been born in a better condition, as did a 2019 inquest into Bethan’s death, which led to the coroner issuing a “prevention of future deaths” report.

It also shows St George’s University Hospitals Foundation Trust was warned about major problems in the maternity services in 2019 and in the 2022 ombudsman report, but had apparently not dealt with them when the Care Quality Commission inspected in March this year.

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Source: HSJ, 23 August 2023

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In Louisiana, pregnant women struggle to get maternal health care, and the situation is getting worse

The United States is in the middle of a maternal health crisis. Today, a woman in the US is twice as likely to die from pregnancy than her mother was a generation ago.

Statistics from the World Health Organization show the United States has one of the highest rates of maternal death in the developed world. Women in the US are 10 or more times likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than mothers in Poland, Spain or Norway.    

Some of the worst statistics come out of the South - in places like Louisiana, where deep pockets of poverty, health care deserts and racial biases have long put mothers at risk.

Dr Rebekah Gee: The state of maternal health in the United States is abysmal. And Louisiana is the highest maternal mortality in the US. So, in the developed world, Louisiana has the worst outcomes for women having babies."

A third of Louisiana's parishes are maternal health deserts – meaning they don't have a single OB-GYN, leaving more than 51 thousand women in the state without easy access to care and three times more likely to die of pregnancy related causes.

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Source: CBS News, 20 August 2023

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US approves first RSV vaccine for use during pregnancy to protect babies

US regulators this week have approved the first RSV vaccine for pregnant women so their babies will be born with protection against the respiratory infection.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s maternal vaccination to guard against a severe case of RSV when babies are most vulnerable – from birth through six months of age.

The next step: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must issue recommendations for using the vaccine, named Abrysvo, during pregnancy. 

“Maternal vaccination is an incredible way to protect the infants,” said Dr Elizabeth Schlaudecker of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a researcher in Pfizer’s international study of the vaccine. If shots begin soon, “I do think we could see an impact for this RSV season.”

RSV is a coldlike nuisance for most healthy people but it can be life-threatening for the very young. It inflames babies’ tiny airways so it’s hard to breathe or causes pneumonia. In the US alone, between 58,000 and 80,000 children younger than five are hospitalised each year, and several hundred die, from the respiratory syncytial virus.

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Source: The Guardian, 22 August 2023

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All GP surgeries in England to have digital phone lines by March 2024

Patients at all general practices across England will soon benefit from new digital phone lines designed to make booking GP appointments easier.

Backed by a £240 million investment, more than 1,000 practices have signed up to make the switch from analogue systems - which can leave patients on hold and struggling to book an appointment - to modern, easy-to-use digital telephones designed to make sure people can receive the care they need when they need it.

It is expected every practice in the country will have the new system in place by the end of this financial year, helping put an end to the 8am rush - a key pillar of the Prime Minister’s primary care recovery plan to improve patient access to care.

Patients will be able to contact their general practice more easily and quickly - and find out exactly how their request will be handled on the day they call, rather than being told to call back later, as the government and NHS England deliver on the promises made in the primary care recovery plan announced in May. If their need is urgent, they will be assessed and given appointments on the same day. If it is not urgent, appointments should be offered within 2 weeks, or patients will be referred to NHS 111 or a local pharmacy.

The upgraded system will bring an end to the engaged tone, see care navigators direct calls to the right professional, and the use of online systems will provide more options and help those who prefer to call to get through.

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Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 18 August 2023

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Workplace sexual-harassment clampdown for doctors

Conduct guidelines for UK doctors are being updated to spell out what constitutes workplace sexual harassment, amid concerns abuse is going unchallenged.

The General Medical Council, which regulates doctors to ensure they are safe and fit to care for patients, says it is adopting a zero-tolerance policy.

The new advice explains it is not just physical acts that can be a breach. Verbal and written comments or sharing images with a colleague count too.

The new guidance will not come into effect until the end of January, after a five-month familiarisation period for staff. And some say there is still a long way to go.

Dr Chelcie Jewitt, an emergency-medicine doctor who is part of the Surviving in Scrubs campaign group, which aims to raise awareness of sexism, harassment and sexual assault in the healthcare workforce, said: "We have spoken with the GMC about the guidelines and we do think that they are a step in the right direction - but there is still a long way to go on this journey to eradicating the culture of sexual misconduct within healthcare.

"The GMC has the potential to make a real difference and we need to see them supporting victims when they report perpetrators.

"We need their reporting processes to be transparent and clearly explained to victims.

"We need cases to be thoroughly investigated rather than dismissed.

"And we need appropriate, proportionate sanctioning of perpetrators."

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Source: BBC News, 22 August 2023

Read a blog Dr Chelcie Jewitt wrote for the hub: Calling out the sexist and misogynist culture within healthcare

 

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‘Inhumane’ NHS fees left more than 900 migrants without treatment

Hundreds of migrants have declined NHS treatment after being presented with upfront charges over the past two years, amid complaints the government’s “hostile environment” on immigration remains firmly in place.

Data compiled by the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act shows that, since January 2021, 3,545 patients across 68 hospital trusts in England have been told they must pay upfront charges totalling £7.1m. Of those, 905 patients across 58 trusts did not proceed with treatment.

NHS trusts in England have been required to seek advance payment before providing elective care to certain migrants since October 2017. It covers overseas visitors and migrants ruled ineligible for free healthcare, such as failed asylum seekers and those who have overstayed their visa. The policy is not supposed to cover urgent or “immediately necessary” treatment. However, there have been multiple cases of people wrongly denied treatment.

Dr Laura-Jane Smith, a consultant respiratory physician and member of the campaign group Medact, said: “I had a patient we diagnosed as an emergency with lung cancer but they were told they would be charged upfront for treatment and then never returned for a follow-up. This was someone who had been in the country for years but who did not have the right official migration status. A cancer diagnosis is devastating. To then be abandoned by the health service is inhumane.”

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Source: The Guardian, 20 August 2023

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Revealed: the files that show how Lucy Letby was treated as a victim

Lucy Letby sat with her parents in a meeting with senior managers at the Countess of Chester Hospital, where she worked, waiting patiently for an apology. She had prepared a statement that was read out by her parents to Tony Chambers, the hospital’s chief executive, about being bullied and victimised on the neonatal unit.

It was December 22, 2016, and for the previous 18 months, two doctors on the unit had been trying to find an answer for a series of mysterious deaths of babies. Their detective work had led them to a single common denominator: Letby. The neonatal nurse had been on shift for each of the incidents.

Rumours of a killer on the ward had spread and Letby had complained about the doctors and their finger-pointing, claiming she was being wrongly blamed.

Chambers, who had trained as a nurse, was convinced by Letby’s account, and in front of her parents, John and Susan, offered sincere apologies on behalf of the hospital trust. The doctors in question would be “dealt with’’.

Except the doctors were right. By that point Letby had secretly murdered seven babies and tried to kill six more, one of them twice.

An investigation by The Sunday Times, based on a cache of internal documents, reveals in detail how the hospital delayed calling the police for months and that senior management, including the board, sided with Letby against doctors after commissioning perfunctory investigations.

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Source: The Times, 19 August 2023

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Fury in The Gambia over India cough syrup deaths

In September last year, Ebrima Sajnia watched helplessly as his young son slowly died in front of his eyes.

Mr Sajnia says three-year-old Lamin was set to start attending nursery school in a few weeks when he got a fever. A doctor at a local clinic prescribed medicines, including a cough syrup.

Over the next few days, Lamin's condition deteriorated as he struggled to eat and even urinate. He was admitted to a hospital, where doctors detected kidney issues. Within seven days, Lamin was dead.

He was among around 70 children - younger than five - who died in The Gambia of acute kidney injuries between July and October last year after consuming one of four cough syrups made by an Indian company called Maiden Pharmaceuticals.

In October, the World Health Organization (WHO) linked the deaths to the syrups, saying it had found "unacceptable" levels of toxins in the medicines.

A Gambian parliamentary panel also concluded after investigations that the deaths were the result of the children ingesting the syrups.

Both Maiden Pharmaceuticals and the Indian government have denied this - India said in December that the syrups complied with quality standards when tested domestically.

It's an assessment that Amadou Camara, chairperson of the Gambian panel that investigated the deaths, strongly disagrees with.

"We have evidence. We tested these drugs. [They] contained unacceptable amounts of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, and these were directly imported from India, manufactured by Maiden," he says. Ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol are toxic to humans and could be fatal if consumed".

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Source: BBC News, 21 August 2023

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Trust admits patients harmed due to huge follow-ups backlog

At least 20 patients have suffered harm due to their follow-up appointments not being booked at a hospital department where people ‘continue to come to harm’, according to an internal review.

Torbay and South Devon Foundation Trust is reviewing its ophthalmology service after 22 people were harmed following “system failures” with their follow-up appointments.  

The trust’s initial investigation, obtained by HSJ with the Freedom of Information Act, warned there were “potentially” other patients affected by the failures who had not yet been identified.

In response, the trust said its ophthalmology department had already “undertaken a significant amount of work to address a large proportion of the actions arising from the review”, including building another operating theatre and recruiting more staff.

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Source: HSJ, 21 August 2023

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‘You’re just going to leave me to die’: Harrowing plea of anorexia patient told she was ‘too thin’ for help

“So you’re just gonna leave me to die? That’s what you’re doing? Because I can’t do that, I’m telling you: I’ve been trying to do that, and I can’t. So now what?”

Over a year on, Amy, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, is still waiting for an answer – and for the help she desperately needs.

The 30-year-old, who has battled anorexia since she was 16 and has been admitted to hospital multiple times, was responding to her eating disorder psychiatrist telling her the service could no longer help her.

Amy was told to try to get better on her own by upping her calorie intake, and was warned that she could only be referred to her GP for emergency help if her BMI dropped below 13. A healthy level is between 18 and 25.

She is just one example of what experts fear is a growing number of patients who are being told they are “too thin” for care, as stretched NHS services attempt to “ration” the help they offer in an effort to manage demand.

Amy complained to the NHS East of England commissioners about the decision by psychiatrists to withdraw her treatment.

In a response seen by The Independent, the service treating Amy admitted the move was not conventional.

“The decision to use this approach is not taken lightly, but is seen as positive risk management, intended to empower the person to meet their goals for recovery with the support of their GP, who will medically monitor their health, with a clear aim of [the service] ultimately engaging the person in active treatment following a period of self-recovery,” it said.

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Source: The Independent, 21 August 2023

Related reading on the hub:

People with eating disorders should not face stigma in the health system and barriers to accessing support in 2022

 

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More than 3,000 patients have died following incidents in Irish health service since 2018

More than 3,000 patients have died following incidents in the Irish health service since 2018, new data shows.

New HSE data shows more than 480,000 incidents potentially causing harm were recorded across hospitals and community healthcare groups since 2018. These include falls, attacks on patients or staff, problems with medication, treating the wrong limb, or reactions to medical devices, among other issues.

Last year’s total of 106,967 was the highest of five years recorded, up from 94,422 in 2018.

While around half the incidents annually led to no injury, last year 0.65% or 556 led to a death. That stood at 0.59% or 557 deaths in 2018.

A spokesperson for the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said the figures are very high, but not surprising.

“Hospitals are not supposed to be dangerous places," she said.

"No matter how highly skilled your staff are, patient safety issues and the risk of missed care incidents are inevitable in a situation where patients are lining corridors on trolleys and there aren’t enough staff to care for them."

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Source: Irish Examiner, 18 August 2023

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Nurse Lucy Letby guilty of murdering seven babies on neonatal unit

Nurse Lucy Letby has been found guilty of murdering seven babies on a neonatal unit, making her the UK's most prolific child serial killer in modern times.

The 33-year-old has also been convicted of trying to kill six other infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.

Letby deliberately injected babies with air, force fed others milk and poisoned two of the infants with insulin.

Commenting on the verdict, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Rob Behrens said:

“We know that, in general, people work in the health service because they want to help and that when things go wrong it is not intentional. At the same time, and too often we see the commitment to public safety in the NHS undone by a defensive leadership culture across the NHS.

“The Lucy Letby story is different and almost without parallel, because it reveals an intent to harm by one individual. As such, it is one of the darkest crimes ever committed in our health service. Our first thoughts are with the families of the children who died. 

“However, we also heard throughout the trial, evidence from clinicians that they repeatedly raised concerns and called for action. It seems that nobody listened and nothing happened. More babies were harmed and more babies were killed. Those who lost their children deserve to know whether Letby could have been stopped and how it was that doctors were not listened to and their concerns not addressed for so long. Patients and staff alike deserve an NHS that values accountability, transparency, and a willingness to learn.  

“Good leadership always listens, especially when it’s about patient safety. Poor leadership makes it difficult for people to raise concerns when things go wrong, even though complaints are vital for patient safety and to stop mistakes being repeated. We need to see significant improvements to culture and leadership across the NHS so that the voices of staff and patients can be heard, both with regard to everyday pressures and mistakes and, very exceptionally, when there are warnings of real evil.”

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Medical neglect by London NHS trust contributed to suicide of girl, 12, rules coroner

Medical neglect and “gross failures” by a mental health trust contributed to the suicide of a 12-year-old girl in a case that has highlighted national concerns about underfunding, a coroner has ruled.

Allison Aules from Redbridge, in north-east London, died in July last year after her mood changed completely during the Covid lockdown, her family told the inquest at an east London coroner’s court.

At the conclusion of the inquest, the area coroner Nadia Persaud highlighted a series of failures by North East London NHS foundation trust (NELFT) that contributed to her death. In a narrative verdict she ruled it was a “suicide contributed to by neglect”.

Persaud also said failures in Allison’s care raised wider national issues about under-resourcing and “outstanding concerns” about the lack of consultant psychiatrists.

These will be addressed later in a prevention of future deaths report. Persaud told the court: “There are national concerns around children and adolescent mental health services … and I’m also going to write a report at the national level to reduce the risk of this happening again.”

Persaud said Allison’s case showed “both operational failures of individual practitioners and systemic failings on behalf of the trust”. She added: “This was on a backdrop of a very under-resourced service.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 August 2023

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The huge growth in long-term prescription of strong painkillers

Almost 180,000 patients have been prescribed strong painkillers every month for two years, a rise of over a third compared to levels recorded just before the pandemic, data obtained by HSJ shows.

The figures collected by the NHS Business Services Authority showed 179,353 patients had been prescribed an opioid analgesic every month between April 2021 and March 2023, a 36% increase compared with 131,876 receiving the same prescription between April 2017 and March 2019. 

Guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in 2021 advised clinicians not to prescribe opioids to manage chronic pain. A statement published alongside an earlier draft of these guidelines explained: “While there was little or no evidence that they made any difference to people’s quality of life, pain or psychological distress, there was evidence that they can cause harm, including possible addiction.”

In 2020, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency asked healthcare professionals to discuss the risks of dependency and addiction with any patient taking or planning to take an opioid-containing medicine and made sure such warnings were reinforced in the patient information leaflet. The regulator at the time defined long-term use as longer than three months.

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Source: HSJ, 18 August 2023

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Mesh bowel patients call for publication of Bristol Spire Hospital report

Patients whose lives were damaged by surgery for bowel problems are calling for a long-awaited report to be published.

More than 200 patients underwent mesh bowel operations in Bristol that they might not have needed.

The surgery was carried out by Tony Dixon at Southmead Hospital and the private Spire Hospital, in Redland.

A review by North Bristol NHS Trust was published in May 2022, but patients are still waiting to hear from Spire.

Jill Smith, 69, from Westbury-on-Trym, paid privately to go to Spire. She said she is still in severe pain following her surgery.

"Emotionally it has affected me big time. It is just horrible," she said. "The stress and panic I get going anywhere, is, 'will I have an accident or something?'."

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Source: BBC News, 18 August 2023

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Met wins battle with NHS over not attending mental health calls

The Metropolitan police has won its battle to stop attending most of the mental health calls it receives after a tense behind-the-scenes row with the health service, the Guardian has learned.

From 31 October the Met will start implementing a scheme that aims to stop officers being diverted from crime fighting to do work health staff are better trained for.

In May, the Guardian revealed that the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, had written to health and social care leaders setting a deadline of 31 August – leading to furious reaction from health chiefs who wrote to the commissioner protesting that it would put vulnerable people at risk.

The agreement means Rowley will push his deadline for the start of the changes back by two months, before a phased introduction. Health services will not publicly criticise the police decision, and will race to put measures in place to pick up the work.

The scheme is called Right Care Right Person (RCRP), and has been agreed nationally by government departments and national police and health bodies.

The letter sent on Thursday says: “In practice, this means that police call handlers will receive a new prompt relating to welfare checks or when a patient goes absent from health partner inpatient care. The prompt will ask call handlers to check that a police response is required or whether the person’s needs may be better met by a health or care professional.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 August 2023

 

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Covid vaccines should be available to buy privately in UK, scientists say

Covid vaccines should be made available for people to buy privately in Britain, leading scientists have urged, amid concerns over a new wave of the virus which could worsen in autumn and winter.

Unlike flu jabs, which individuals or employers can buy for about £15 from high street pharmacies, Covid jabs are only available on the NHS in the UK.

This month the UK government announced that the Covid autumn booster programme would cover a smaller pool of the population than earlier vaccination drives. The age limit has been raised from 50 to 65 and above, with some younger vulnerable groups also eligible.

Covid is on the rise, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Experts raised concerns the wave could continue to grow and add to winter pressures on the NHS.

Prof Adam Finn, of the University of Bristol, a member of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said Covid jabs should be available commercially. Some employers might want to offer the vaccines to their staff, he added.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Finn said: “I think it will be a good idea for vaccines to be made available to those that want them on the private market. I don’t really see any reason why that shouldn’t be happening.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 August 2023

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