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Mississippi declares infant deaths emergency as CDC program that could have helped is halted

The Trump administration’s shake-up of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has forced Mississippi to stop gathering critical data on women’s experiences before, during and after pregnancy – even as the state recently declared a public health emergency over its surging infant mortality rate.

Mississippi has suspended data collection for Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (Prams), a national database that has been integral to policymaking on maternal and infant health for nearly four decades, the Guardian has learned.

Prams functions as a partnership between state-level health officials and a little-known but influential CDC agency called the Division of Reproductive Health, which has lost most of its staff – nearly 100 people – in the Trump administration’s purges of federal workers, according to records in a lawsuit filed by several Democratic-led states over the purges.

As a result, many of the division’s projects, including Prams, have sputtered to a halt, the lawsuit alleges.

The division will likely be unable to obtain accurate nationwide data on maternal and infant health in 2024, 2025 and 2026, an unnamed CDC staffer said in one declaration included in the lawsuit.

Researchers rely on Prams data to test out potential health interventions to improve maternal and child health, while states use it to make the case for federal funding for programmes that aim to reduce infant deaths, improve care for women and help children with special needs.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 September 2025

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Missing records hamper NHS complaint probes, watchdog says

Complaints about NHS care cannot always be investigated properly because of medical records going missing, the public services watchdog has said.

Ombudsman Nick Bennett said many people were left "suspicious" and thought there was a "darker motivation".

One woman whose notes went missing said she no longer trusted what doctors said and had lost faith in NHS transparency.

The Welsh NHS Confederation said staff were "committed to the highest standards of care".

In a report called Justice Mislaid: Lost Records and Lost Opportunities, Mr Bennett found 70% of 17 cases he looked at in Welsh NHS hospitals and care settings could not be properly investigated because of lost documents.

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Source: BBC News, 10 March

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Missed vaccinations could lead to other fatal outbreaks, doctors warn

Senior doctors fear that thousands of routine vaccination appointments may be missed or delayed because of the coronavirus lockdown, raising the risk of sudden and potentially fatal outbreaks of other diseases when restrictions on movement are finally eased.

GPs and accident and emergency departments have witnessed unprecedented falls in the numbers of people seeking medical care in recent weeks, prompting concerns that vital routine immunisations for infections such as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough are falling by the wayside.

“We are very concerned. There are no data yet because we have only been in lockdown for a month, but there are plenty of anecdotes from practice nurses and others saying they have noticed a decline in vaccine uptake,” said Helen Bedford, a professor of children’s health at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s health promotion committee.

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Source: The Guardian, 26 April 2020

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Missed contraceptive coil left woman unable to have children

A woman was denied the chance to have children with her husband after a contraceptive coil was accidentally left in place for 29 years.

Jayne Huddleston, from Crewe, had eight rounds of fertility treatment she did not need because the correct checks were not carried out by her doctor.

She said the mistake happened in 1990.

"The GP said it couldn't be seen, so I was sent for a scan and the scan didn't pick anything up, the GP recommended another coil was fitted," she told the BBC.

She was told the coil she had fitted around a year earlier had probably fallen out.

When she and her husband, David, then decided they wanted to have a child, the second coil was removed, but the first coil, which had gone undetected, remained inside her.

They tried for years to have a baby, with no success, including IVF treatment which cost them thousands of pounds.

The mistake was only discovered when she went for an X-ray in 2019 after complaining of back pain and the original coil was revealed.

Mr and Mrs Huddleston were awarded a six-figure out of court settlement after taking their case to Irwin Mitchell solicitors.

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Source: BBC News, 16 March 2023

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Missed cancer diagnosis widower criticises Southmead Hospital report

The husband of a woman who died after repeated failures to diagnose her cervical cancer says he is "convinced there are other victims out there".

Julie O'Connor was given the all-clear by doctors at Southmead Hospital in Bristol more than three years before a private doctor diagnosed her cancer. Mrs O'Connor and her husband Kevin later sued the hospital for its failings.

An independent report concluded there were "serious errors" and a failing by the trust to act urgently when it was discovered Mrs O'Connor did have advanced cervical cancer.

But Mr O'Connor criticised the report and said it did not cover the full length of his wife's cancer care. "It doesn't go back to 2014, it doesn't cover the smears, the biopsies and the missed clinical observations," he said. "We need to consider other victims, look further back, look back to 2014, and make sure we've got a safe and effective screening."

Prof Tim Whittlestone, North Bristol NHS Trust's acting deputy medical director, said: "We are determined to learn from this and have made significant changes to the way we examine and test for cervical cancer, which I am confident will detect and prevent more cases in future."

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Source: BBC News, 16 October 2019

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Missed and delayed medication putting A&E patients at risk, new report reveals

Patients in A&E are being put in potentially life-threatening situations due to missed doses of prescription medicines, according to a new report.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) found people in A&E were not getting their medications on time and were missing doses needed to manage their illnesses – putting them at risk of getting worse.

Insulin for diabetes, Parkinson's drugs, epilepsy medicines and tablets for preventing blood clots are all time critical medicines (TCM).

If these drugs are delayed or missed, the patient can deteriorate and is at greater risk of complications or death.

While patients are advised to remember to bring their medications to A&E and to take them, there is also a responsibility on NHS staff to make sure this happens.

Despite the recognised risk of harm, the delivery of TCM is not consistent across emergency departments with long waiting times often contributing to this.

The study, which was part of the College's clinical Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) which aims to improve the care of A&E patients, found more than half of these patients were not identified as being on TCM within 30 minutes of their arrival in an emergency department.

In addition, 68% of doses were not administered within 30 minutes of the expected time.

"The findings contained in this report should serve as a call to action for both emergency medicine staff, as well as patients reliant on time critical medications, to ensure no dose is ever missed in A&E," said Dr Jonny Acheson, an emergency medicine consultant in Leicester who has Parkinson's, led the study.

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Source: The Independent, 7 April 2025

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Misplaced tube contributed to first UK child Covid death, coroner rules

A misplaced medical tube contributed to the death of the first child in the UK to die after contracting Covid, a coroner has found.

Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, 13, of Brixton, south London, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome, caused by Covid-19 pneumonia, on 30 March 2020, three days after testing positive for coronavirus. He had a cardiac arrest before he died.

Ismail’s death prompted widespread alarm about the potentially lethal impact of Covid on children.

Hours before Ismail died, an endotracheal tube (ET) used to help patients breathe was found to be in the wrong position. A consultant in paediatric intensive care decided to leave it and monitor him.

Giving his judgment on Thursday, senior coroner Andrew Harris said: “I am satisfied that he [Ismail] would not have died when he did were it not for the tube misplacement.”

On Wednesday, the inquest at London Inner South London coroner’s court heard evidence from Dr Tushar Vince, a consultant in paediatric intensive care at King’s College hospital who treated Ismail on 29 March after he had been intubated.

Asked by Harris if it would be reasonable to put the positioning of the ET on the death certificate as one of the causes, Dr Vince said: “I think it would be reasonable to consider it, yes.”

She said: “I was so focused on the lungs I just didn’t see how high this tube was and I’m so sorry that I didn’t see it.”

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Source: The Guardian, 2 March 2023

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Misogyny and racial bias routinely putting patients at risk, warns NHS England safety chief

Deeply ingrained medical misogyny and racial biases are routinely putting people in need of treatment at risk, the government’s patient safety commissioner in England has warned.

Dr Henrietta Hughes was appointed in 2022 in response to a series of scandals in women’s health. She outlined a “huge landscape” of biases in need of levelling, citing examples ranging from neonatal assessment tools and pulse oximeters that work less well for darker skin tones to heart valves, mesh implants and replacement hip joints that were not designed with female patients in mind.

Hughes said: “I don’t see this as blaming individual healthcare professionals – doctors and nurses – for getting it wrong. It’s pervasive in the systems we have – the training, the experience, the resources.

“Anatomy books are very narrow in their focus. Even the resuscitation models are of pale males – we don’t have female resuscitation models, we don’t have them in darker skin tones. This is deeply ingrained in the way that we assess and listen to patients.”

She described the realisation that pulse oximeters, used to measure blood oxygen levels, work less well for darker skin tones as a “real shock to the system” when the problem was highlighted during the pandemic. More recently, the NHS Race and Health Observatory highlighted concerns about neonatal assessments.

Bilirubinometers, widely used to assess jaundice in newborn babies, are less reliable for darker skin tones and some guidelines for the assessment of cyanosis (caused by a shortage of blood oxygen) refer to “pink”, “blue” or “pale” skin, without reference to skin changes in minority ethnic babies. The Apgar score, a quick test given to newborns that was rolled out in the 1950s, traditionally includes checking whether a baby is “pink all over”.

“Even the names of those conditions – jaundice and cyanosis – suggest a colour. The Apgar score includes P for pink all over,” said Hughes. “There are systemic biases in that if you have a darker skin tone those conditions may not be so apparent.”

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Source: The Guardian, 4 February 2024

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Misinformation warning as vaccine uptake drops

Yorkshire has recorded one of the sharpest drops in childhood vaccination rates in England, with uptake in Bradford among the worst nationally.

NHS data shows the proportion of two year olds in the region who have received their first dose of the vaccine fell from 92.8% in 2018-19 to 90.1% in 2023-24.

Health authorities warn that coverage needs to reach 95% to prevent outbreaks of the viruses.

Andrew Taylor, interim director of public health at Bradford Council, said the authority was working hard to address the issue, adding that misinformation was partly to blame.

"We really do want to improve the rates of immunisation," he said.

"It is disappointing to see that we're lower in this latest period than we really wanted, because we're putting in a lot of work to encourage people."

He said there was a growing feeling of reticence around vaccinations, saying people were becoming "more hesitant than they used to" and criticised those in the public eye who cast doubt on vaccine safety.

"Any politician, as far as I'm concerned, who promotes ideas that vaccinations don't work is actually putting the public at risk and should think very carefully before they spread that [message]."

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Source: BBC News, 26 September 2025

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Misinformation preventing women from getting effective menopause treatment, study finds

Most women going through menopause are not receiving effective treatment for their symptoms, in part because of widespread misinformation, according to new research.

A comprehensive literature review led by Prof Susan Davis from Monash University in Australia calls for more personalised treatment plans that address the greatly varying physical and mental symptoms of menopause.

After adverse affects were reported from the landmark 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study into menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), Davis said there was a blanket fear that “hormones are dangerous” and as a result, “menopause [treatment] just went off the radar”.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 September 2023

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Misinformation about perimenopause on social media ‘putting women at risk’

Misinformation about perimenopause is putting women at risk of unintended pregnancies, unnecessary medication and missed diagnoses, experts have said.

Awareness of menopause and treatments such as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been raised by efforts including a prominent documentary by Davina McCall.

But as a growing number of women encounter misleading information on social media, there are concerns that some could be led to false conclusions that can obscure real underlying health difficulties.

“Everyone thinks they’re menopausal,” said Dr Paula Briggs, a consultant in sexual and reproductive health. “So we are seeing younger and younger women asking for HRT when what they need is hormonal contraception, as they’re still fertile.

“I work in an abortion service and we’re seeing more women over 35 now who believe themselves to be menopausal and are gobsmacked when they become pregnant.”

Briggs said misinformation around perimenopause is concerning.

“I look at things like Instagram to see what they are exposed to and I am horrified,” she said, citing examples of women in their 30s being told to demand HRT if they are unable to sleep or are struggling with migraines – and to switch GPs if denied. Or women being told they should seek testosterone treatment.

“I’m not anti any of these things in the right person, but females produce their own testosterone lifelong, even women without ovaries, so the idea that everybody has to demand testosterone is bonkers,” Briggs said.

Dr Channa Jayasena, an expert in reproductive endocrinology at Imperial College London, also raised concerns.

“It’s great that there’s better [public] awareness [about perimenopause]. And I think many doctors are completely unaware about how debilitating the symptoms of perimenopause can be,” he said. “But the flipside of that, I think there’s a risk that some women are being mislabelled as having perimenopause when they have other things that are wrong.”

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Source: The Guardian, 25 May 2026

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Misery of the COVID-19 long-haulers: ‘We’re all guinea pigs, we don’t know what’s around the corner’

It has a plethora of symptoms, strikes the young and old, and lasts for months – maybe much longer. It’s also so new that scientists aren’t sure what they’re dealing with. For those whose lives have been deeply affected by long-term repercussions of Covid, the battle to be recognised is just the start.

There are thousands of people in the UK dealing with the long-term effects of COVID-19, experiencing debilitating symptoms that last for weeks and months beyond the initial infection.

One of the most commonly reported is fatigue, along with breathlessness, joint pain and muscle aches. Neurological issues are common, particularly brain ‘fog’ and a loss of memory and concentration. Some have chest pain or heart palpitations, skin rashes, diarrhoea, headaches, hearing or eyesight problems, or hair loss. Others have lost their senses of taste and smell. In online support groups, people are sharing stories of bone-crippling exhaustion, constant pain in their chest or heart, or the inability to remember a name or follow a conversation.

These people don’t fit the binary model of the virus we thought we knew – that if you’re in the small minority who are seriously affected you might be hospitalised, end up in ICU or worse; otherwise you’ll likely be better after two weeks. Many only had mild cases originally and were not deemed to be in vulnerable categories.

Widely varying symptoms have added to the confusion and fear surrounding the condition, which currently has no formal definition. For months, people with Long Covid had no one to turn to but each other. It’s only recently – through increasing research emerging, and sufferers publicly sharing their stories – that it has started to be taken more seriously. Earlier this month, NHS England announced a £10 million investment to set up one-stop services for physical and mental health issues caused by Covid alongside a Long Covid task force and, crucially, research on 10,000 patients.

Not much is known about what causes Long Covid and there is little firm consensus. There are theories it occurs when a patient’s immune system overreacts to the infection, which can lead to widespread inflammation that theoretically affects any organ. Last week, a study by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) suggested Long Covid symptoms could actually be caused by four separate syndromes: post-intensive-care syndrome, post-viral fatigue syndrome, permanent organ damage to the lungs and heart, or lingering COVID-19 symptoms.

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Source: The Telegraph, 24 October 2020

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Miscarriage: 'I was in pain and they did not listen'

Research shows black women are at a 40% higher risk of pregnancy loss than white women.

It is an urgent problem, which the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says needs greater attention, with many complex reasons driving this higher risk.

These include a lack of quality research involving all ethnicities - but RCOG head Dr Edward Morris says implicit racial bias is also affecting some women's experience of care.

Isabel Gomes Obasi and her husband, Paulson, from Coventry, are expecting a baby boy in March. They are extremely anxious as almost a year ago their baby boy Andre died four months into Isabel's pregnancy.

Giving birth to Andre was extremely traumatic, Isabel says, but how she was treated when in severe pain and bleeding, in the days before her loss, made the experience worse.

"We knew something was wrong, so we went into hospital and waited five hours to be seen by a doctor," she says. "I remember being laughed at by one of the nurses, who said, 'Just go home. Why do you keep coming in?'"

Isabel was checked over and told the baby was fine but says her intuition and pain were belittled and ignored.

Within 48 hours of going home, Isabel began bleeding heavily.

There is little doctors can do at this relatively early stage of pregnancy to save a baby's life. But the feeling of not being listened to has stayed with Isabel ever since.

"I just shut down," she says. "The experience made me anxious and depressive, if not suicidal."

Asked why she was not listened to, she said: "The colour of my skin,"  the attitude of some staff was: "'You have black skin - you are not from here - you can wait.'"

Dr Morris says it is "unacceptable" women belonging to ethnic minorities face worse outcomes than white women - especially in maternity care.

"Implicit racial bias from medical staff can hinder consultations and negatively influence treatment options," he says.

This can stop some women engaging with healthcare.

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Source: BBC News, 8 February 2022

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Miscarriage rates 'over 40% higher' in black women

Black women face a significantly higher risk of having a miscarriage than white, research suggests.

The Lancet analysis of data on 4.6 million pregnancies in seven countries suggests being black increases miscarriage risk by 43%. 

It calls for people in the UK to be given support after their first pregnancy loss. Currently, referral to specialist clinics usually occurs after three consecutive losses only.

Most countries, including the UK, do not collect statistics, but researchers estimate:

  • 15% of pregnancies end in loss
  • 1% of women will experience recurrent miscarriage.

Some estimates of miscarriage rate are higher, but this is due to differences in how countries define pregnancy loss, which can be from a positive pregnancy test or from a scan.

The report also found that women who suffered miscarriage, from all ethnic backgrounds, are more vulnerable to long-term health problems, such as blood clots, heart disease and depression.

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Source: BBC News, 27 April 2021

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Miscarriage can lead to 'long-term post-traumatic stress'

One in six women who lose a baby in early pregnancy experiences long-term symptoms of post-traumatic stress, a UK study suggests.

Women need more sensitive and specific care after a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, researchers say.

In the study of 650 women, by Imperial College London and KU Leuven in Belgium, 29% showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress one month after pregnancy loss, declining to 18% after nine months. The study recommends that women who have miscarried are screened to find out who is most at risk of psychological problems.

"For too long, women have not received the care they need following a miscarriage and this research shows the scale of the problem," says Jane Brewin, Chief Executive of miscarriage and stillbirth charity Tommy's.

"Miscarriage services need to be changed to ensure they are available to everyone and women are followed up to assess their mental wellbeing with support being offered to those who need it, and advice is routinely given to prepare for a subsequent pregnancy."

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Source: BBC News, 15 January 2020

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Miscarriage associated with higher risk of women’s early death

Miscarriage may be associated with an increased risk of early death, researchers have said.

The BMJ published a study suggesting that this risk is particularly acute for those who have experienced repeated miscarriages, especially ones that occurred early on in a woman’s life.

US-based researchers said that women who had experienced a miscarriage were 19% more likely to die prematurely. They pointed out that a miscarriage “could be an early marker of future health risk in women.”

The authors of the paper hoped to see if there was any link between miscarriage and a risk of death before the age of 70. Data used was taken from 101,681 women as part of the Nurses’ Health Study in the US. This was made up of female nurses aged between 25 and 42 years.

The researchers followed the women for 24 years and said that 2,936 premature deaths were recorded, this included 1,346 from cancer and 269 from cardiovascular disease.

It appeared that death rates from all causes were comparable both for women with and without a history of miscarriage. However, rates were higher for women who had experienced three or more miscarriages as well as for women who had their first miscarriage under the age of 24.

The study found that the association between miscarriage, or “spontaneous abortion,” and premature death was strongest for deaths from cardiovascular disease.

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Source: The Independent, 25 March 2021

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Minority ethnic staff ‘told to adopt Western names’ by managers

Concerns have been raised amid allegations that hospital managers have told minority ethnic staff to adopt 'Western work names' as their original names were 'too difficult to pronounce'.

In a letter from the Care Quality Commission, published in the trust's July board papers, workers at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston Foundation Trust told inspectors about their experiences during an unannounced visit in June. 

“This is not acceptable, individuals can only truly thrive in a work environment where they feel safe as themselves and belong rather than having to ‘fit in’.” Wrote the CQC’s head of hospital inspections Amanda Williams. 

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Source: HSJ, 4 August 2021

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Minority ethnic and deprived children more likely to die after UK intensive care admission

Minority ethnic children and children from deprived backgrounds across the UK are more likely to die following admission to intensive care than their white and more affluent counterparts, a study has found.

These children consistently had worse outcomes following their stay in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU), the research by academics at Imperial College London discovered.

The study showed they were more likely to arrive at intensive care severely ill, more likely to die after admission, and more likely to stay longer or be readmitted unexpectedly after discharge.

The report, published in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, looked at 14 years of UK-wide data between 2008 and 2021, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership, on more than 160,000 critically ill children aged 15 and younger.

While previous studies have shown that minority ethnic children have an increased rate of admission to PICUs, this study is the first to look at the health outcomes of these children, and children from more deprived backgrounds, following admission.

More specifically, Asian children were 52% more likely to die following admission to a PICU than their white counterparts. Their mortality rate was 1,336 deaths per 26,022 admissions, compared with a rate of 4,960 deaths per 154,041 admissions for white children, who had the lowest mortality rate overall.

Dr Hannah Mitchell, the lead author of the study from the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London, said the reasons behind this disparity were complex and could be due to structural factors such as discrimination and language barriers.

Prof Padmanabhan Ramnarayan, the senior author of the study, said: “These children may face discrimination, both within and outside healthcare, which can lead to hesitancy seeking help or delays accessing urgent care. Language barriers may further complicate access.

“Children from some ethnic minority groups have a higher prevalence of complex or life-limiting conditions, making them more vulnerable. Children living in poverty are more likely to develop serious illnesses such as asthma or traumatic injuries, and may struggle to access timely care due to difficulties getting help from GPs or A&E.”

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Minnesota nurses’ strike vote puts safety and conditions in spotlight

Nurses at 15 hospitals in the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis-St Paul) and Duluth, Minnesota, that are negotiating new union contracts with their respective hospitals have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike. A date for the work stoppage has not been set yet by the union, the Minnesota Nurses Association, which represents about 15,000 nurses who voted on the strike authorization, but a 10-day notice must be given ahead of any strike.

If a strike is carried out, it would be one of the largest nurses’ strikes in US history.

Jayme Wicklund, a registered nurse at the Children’s hospital in St Paul, Minnesota, and member of the negotiating committee, said, “We need more resources to take care of the patients. The hospitals are very focused on wages. We have to be comparable to other places. But that’s all that they focus on. Once you start talking about wages, they don’t want to talk about the other important issues around patient safety or actually, other ways to save money.”

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Source: The Guardian (23 August 2022)

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Ministers were warned two years ago of care homes' exposure to pandemics

Ministers faced fresh allegations on Wednesday of failing to prepare care homes for a pandemic, as it emerged that COVID-19 may have killed 22,000 residents in England and Wales – more than twice the official toll.

Council social care directors in England warned the government two years ago, in a series of detailed reports, about care homes’ exposure to a pandemic, the Guardian has learned.

They called for better supply plans for personal protective equipment (PPE) – warning that “demand for PPE could rapidly outstrip supply” – plus improved infection control and a system to enlist volunteers to help services expected to be stretched to breaking point.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass), which represents directors of adult social services in England, told the Guardian it carried out the work to improve government planning for a flu pandemic at the request of the Department of Health and Social Care. But it said: “We are not aware of whether government departments picked up on any of the recommendations set out.”

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “As the public would expect, we regularly test our pandemic plans – allowing us to rapidly respond to this unprecedented crisis. Our planning helped prevent the NHS being overwhelmed and means we are past the peak of the virus.”

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Source: Guardian, 13 May 2020

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Ministers warned to plan for ‘exponential’ Covid infections in schools

Government experts have said the reopening of schools next month will likely trigger an exponential rise in Covid infections among children. According to members of SPI-M-O, the governments committee on on pandemic modelling, the removal of certain measures such as face masks, and the lack of vaccinations, may mean children will be susceptible to the virus. 

“Vaccines have amazingly weakened the link between infections and illness and hospitalisations, but not broken it. No one wants to reimpose restrictions but we face a challenging winter. I do believe we need an informed public debate on the options through 2021 and 2022. The infection is not going away, we have incredible tools (tests, treatment, vaccines). No one wants restrictions reimposed but we will have to accept some illness, hospitalisations and deaths.” Said Sage member and director of the Wellcome Trust, Sir Jeremy Farrar

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Source: The Independent, 28 August 2021

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Ministers warned over new powers to control patient safety watchdog

Plans to give the health secretary control over a patient safety watchdog risks “massive untold consequences” for the NHS, experts have warned.

Under proposals, Matt Hancock would be able to determine which incidents the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) should investigate, while also being able to remove protections for NHS staff that mean they can give evidence without fear of reprisals.

The move, outlined as part of wider reforms to the NHS, would give the health secretary far greater control over the HSIB than ministers currently have over the Air Accident Investigation Branch – on which the watchdog was modelled.

Experts said the proposals cut across the original intention of an independent body that would act without fear or favour and earn the confidence of NHS staff.

It is designed to operate under a so-called “safe space” for NHS staff to provide evidence of what went wrong during an incident without their testimony being used against them.

Martin Bromiley, chair of the Clinical Human Factors Group and member of the expert panel that recommended the creation of HSIB in 2016, said he was seriously concerned over the plans.

He said: “I am concerned about the reference to lifting safe space. As it stands with the Air Accident Investigation Branch people can apply to the High Court for it to be lifted and that makes sense because a judge can consider the whole case and the longer-term impact."

Carl Macrae, Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Psychology at Nottingham University Business School, told The Independent: “I am very pleased to see there are concrete plans to establish HSIB as an independent body, but I am concerned this independence appears to be undermined by giving the secretary of state the power to tell it what to investigate."

“People need to be able to trust that the healthcare investigator is acting with the sole purpose of improving safety and isn’t subject to political interference.”

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Source: The Independent, 24 February 2021

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Ministers warned getting rid of free Covid tests will lead to £500 ‘caring tax’

Abolishing free Covid tests for those who look after the vulnerable will amount to a “tax on caring” that would cost them more than £500 a year, ministers have been warned.

All remaining domestic Covid regulations that restrict public freedoms are ending, with Boris Johnson announing a move away from government intervention to “personal responsibility”. However, the scale of free testing to be retained is still being thrashed out within government.

Current data suggests that nearly 4 million people take regular Covid tests, including those who visit and help vulnerable relatives. That number also includes vulnerable people who work in settings that could put them at greater risk, where they have face-to-face contact with others.

Research based on the average cost of tests internationally, compiled by the Liberal Democrats, suggests that people who take two tests a week face an average bill of £534 a year. It comes after the government’s own scientific advisers have warned that removing free testing will “increase anxiety” and limit the “social participation outside the home” of those who are clinically vulnerable or who live with someone in that position.

“Charging people for the tests they need to safely see vulnerable loved ones is a tax on caring that risks leaving millions of people in lockdown by stealth,” said Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader. “It means vulnerable people will see fewer loved ones and will be able to enjoy less of their lives. It is unfair and unjust. Ministers need to scrap these plans to stop a ‘cost of living with Covid’ crisis. Throughout the pandemic, people have been trying hard to do the right thing and keep others safe. The government should not be making that harder.”

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Source: The Guardian, 19 February 2022

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Ministers using ‘misleading indicator’ to champion waiting list reduction

The recent reduction in the waiting list repeatedly cited by ministers as evidence of the NHS’s recovery has given a “misleading” impression to the public about the service’s underlying performance, two leading think tanks have warned.

The warning follows health and social care secretary Wes Streeting announcing last month that the reduction in the elective waiting list by “more than 260,000 since we took office” was “not a coincidence”, but was because this government had got “our NHS moving in the right direction”.

However, a new report shared exclusively with HSJ  concludes recent waiting list reductions were mainly due to “unreported removals”. These removals are not explicitly reported in published data, so researchers have had to calculate them manually.

They include removals following list validation exercises, but also a range of other factors, such as the design of the data reporting methods and the nature of software management processes.

And when factoring in these removals, the report from Quality Watch, a joint funded-project between The Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust, concludes the majority of the waiting list reduction was therefore not produced by increased clinical activity.

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Source: HSJ, 13 August 2025

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