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Women with chronic pain are already dismissed – new guidelines denying them painkillers are a disaster

New guidance from health officials on the treatment of chronic pain could be devastating for women already struggling to get doctors to take their pain seriously, write Sarah Graham, 

The guidelines, published last week by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), say that patients suffering from chronic pain that has no known underlying cause (known as chronic primary pain) should not be prescribed painkillers. Instead, it suggests, these patients should be offered exercise, antidepressants, talking therapies and acupuncture.

This has huge implications for the future treatment of anyone living with unexplained chronic pain – the majority of whom are women – and runs the risk of patients being viewed as hysterical until proven otherwise.

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Source: iNews, 7 April 2021

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For many sufferers of long Covid, proving they are sick is a big part of the battle

Lyth Hishmeh kept feeling ill months after contracting coronavirus a year ago in March. He had chest pain and couldn't concentrate. At 26 years old, the former regular runner was fatigued and breathless, struggling to function properly. Yet medical professionals kept telling him he simply could not still be ill.

"They were telling me it's all in my head," he said. For Hishmeh who lives in London and many sufferers of long Covid, proving they are sick has become a big part of trying to get better.

Another Londoner, Monique Jackson, has lost count of the number of times her pain was described as 'just anxiety.' The 32-year old illustrator was repeatedly told by medical professionals to go to the accidents and emergency, only to be discharged soon after. "I felt like I was wasting people's time, that people either didn't believe me ... or the ones who were sympathetic and supportive said 'we don't know, it's a new disease and we just don't know,'" she said.

Clinics are springing up around the country for what some call a potential second pandemic: Long Covid.

Learning that they were not alone, that other people were experiencing the same issues, was a huge revelation for both Hishmeh and Jackson. This was not just in their heads. They were not imagining the pain. They really were sick.

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Source: CNN Health, 11 April 2021

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Doctors raise concerns about NICE guidelines on chronic primary pain

Doctors in pain management have raised concerns about the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence’s guidance on treating chronic primary pain, which they said do not reflect clinical practice or current evidence.

Patients could be left in “despair,” said the British Pain Society, because of the recommendation that the only drugs that doctors should prescribe are certain antidepressants. Commonly prescribed drugs, including paracetamol, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, benzodiazepines, and opioids, should not be used to treat chronic primary pain, said NICE. Instead patients should be offered exercise programmes, therapy, and acupuncture.

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Source: BMJ, 9 April 2021

 

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Surge of patients hit A&Es over Oxford jab clot fears

Emergency clinicians have raised concerns and called for central guidance for dealing with a rush of unnecessary A&E attendances triggered by health anxiety over the Oxford covid vaccine’s safety.

HSJ has heard from numerous emergency clinicians who reported an increasing number of attendances from people with very mild symptoms, such as headaches, but who were concerned they might be having a potentially serious reaction to the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.

The reports have come from London, the Midlands, the South, the North West and the East of England. Some expressed concerns about the impact of increased attendances on already busy accident and emergency departments.

Senior staff said patients were self-presenting at A&E and at their GPs. HSJ has also been told some emergency departments have been alarmed by the number of patients presenting with mild symptoms who said they were told to go to A&E by their GPs.

The concerns follow the announcement by government and regulators earlier this week that under-30s should be offered different covid vaccines where they are available, because of uncertain evidence of a very small risk of serious blood clotting linked to the Oxford/Az jab.

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Source: HSJ, 9 April 2021

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Children bearing brunt of ‘terrifying’ coronavirus mental health crisis

Britain is facing a “terrifying” mental health crisis with tens of thousands more children needing specialist help since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Experts from the Royal College of Psychiatrists have warned the problem facing the country will get worse before it gets better with new analysis revealing almost 400,000 children and 2.2 million adults sought help for mental health problems during the crisis.

While the effect of lockdown and coronavirus has affected people of all ages, children appear to be particularly susceptible.

Some 80,226 more children and young people were referred to specialist mental health services between April and December last year, up by 28% on the same months in 2019 to 372,438.

Dr Bernadka Dubicka, chairwoman of the child and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "Our children and young people are bearing the brunt of the mental health crisis caused by the pandemic and are at risk of lifelong mental illness."

"As a frontline psychiatrist I've seen the devastating effect that school closures, disrupted friendships and the uncertainty caused by the pandemic have had on the mental health of our children and young people."

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Source: 9 April, 2021

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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.

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Source: The Guardian, 12 April 2021

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Publish figures on long Covid to show ‘untold suffering’, MPs urge

The number of people suffering with long Covid should be published routinely, as happens with those infected with or hospitalised with coronavirus, MPs and peers are urging Boris Johnson.

The cross-party group of parliamentarians want the prime minister to ensure that the “untold human suffering” that the condition involves helps shape future government policy towards the pandemic.

Thirty-two MPs and 33 peers have signed a letter urging Johnson to give greater priority to the potential harm posed by long Covid following the Office for National Statistics’ finding last week that an estimated 1.1m people are suffering its effects – far more than previously thought.

The signatories come from eight parties and include the Tory MP Dr Dan Poulter, a former health minister; Lord Darzi, the surgeon and ex-health minister; and the SNP MP Dr Philippa Whitford, who is an NHS breast surgeon.

In the letter, coordinated by the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, they say: “Cases, hospitalisations and deaths are not the only measure of this pandemic. We urge the government to also count the number of people left with long Covid, many of them whose lives have been devastated by this pandemic.

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Source: The Guardian, 9 April 2021

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COVID-19 mental health support programme made free for all

SilverCloud, a digital mental health platform, has launched a new COVID-19 support programme – ‘Space from COVID-19’ – which it has made free and available to everyone in the UK over the age of 18 years, indefinitely.

The company hopes to improve access to digital mental health services during the pandemic and beyond, to help shoulder some of the demand that now faces health services in the UK and across the globe. 

SilverCloud’s new programme brings together a suite of digital resources and support that will assist users in managing and improving their mental health and wellbeing, specifically in regard to the impact of COVID-19. Crucially, it removes potential barriers by being open to all, with or without a clinical referral, and is fee-free for everyone.

Dr Lloyd Humphreys, Clinical Psychologist and Head of Europe for SilverCloud, told HTN: “For us, what is really important is to support people during this difficult time. Everyone is talking about the mental health impact of COVID-19, everyone is talking about the problem, but no-one is really offering a solution."

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Source: Health Tech Newspaper, 8 April 2021

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Hospitals using out-of-date sepsis triage tools put A&E patients at risk

Some hospitals are using an out of date triaging tool for emergency patients suffering from sepsis that could leave them at risk of harm.

A warning has been issued to NHS trusts to make sure their triage tools are up to date with the latest advice after several reported incidents in accident and emergency departments.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine flagged the risk to NHS England in a letter seen by The Independent warning patients could come to harm if action wasn’t taken.

NHS England and NHS Digital has issued an alert to hospital chief executives warning of a potential safety risk.

It told members: “The latest version of the system has updated treatment priorities especially in relation to the treatment of adult and paediatric sepsis. It is therefore crucial that if your organisation uses the Manchester Triage System clinical risk management triage tool, please ensure that the most recent version is being used and where this is not the case, specific local mitigation for the risks is in place.”

It added that hospitals should ensure the latest versions of any clinical systems were being used to safeguard patient care.

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Source: The Independent, 8 April 2021

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UK vaccine rollout 'breaking link' between infections and death

Increasingly strong evidence shows that the UK's vaccination programme is breaking the link between COVID-19 cases and deaths, scientists tracking the epidemic have said.

A study found infections had fallen by roughly two-thirds since February, before beginning to level off. 

This is probably because people are beginning to mix more - but deaths have not followed the same pattern.

This was not the case before January, when the vaccine rollout began.

The research, commissioned by the government and run by Imperial College London, is based on swabs taken from 140,000 people selected to represent England's population. Of that group, who were tested for the virus between 11 and 30 March, 227 had a positive result, giving a rate of 0.2%, or one in 500 people. But in people over the age of 65, the infection rate was half that with one in 1,000 people testing positive for Covid.

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Source: BBC News, 8 April 2021

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Contraception blood-clot risk: ‘public need better access to advice’

Women need more information about contraceptive options, experts said, after concerns over rare blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca Covid jab prompted a debate over side-effects caused by certain forms of the pill.

On Wednesday the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said that evidence that the jab could be causing a rare blood clotting syndrome was growing stronger. As a result the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended that healthy people under the age of 30 who were at low risk of Covid should be offered a different vaccine if possible.

But the announcement prompted numerous posts on social media questioning why there had been little comment on combined hormonal contraceptives.

These methods, which include certain pills, vaginal rings and patches, contain forms of oestrogen and progesterone hormones and have been associated with increased risk of clots, including deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) – a very rare clot on the brain.

Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain Adam Finn, a professor who is part of the JCVI, confirmed the difference in risk.

“The risks of thrombosis that come with taking the pill are very much higher than the risks that we were just seeing on those slides [relating to the rare blood clots from the AstraZeneca vaccine],” he said.

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Source: The Guardian, 9 April 2021

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Covid: Unpaid carers 'struggled to get pain relief' for terminally ill

Unpaid carers looking after terminally ill friends and relatives during the pandemic struggled to access pain relief, with some patients dying in unnecessary pain, a survey has found.

The survey of 995 unpaid carers by Marie Curie also found people had difficulties getting personal care and respite nursing for loved ones.

Figures show the number of people dying at home rose by 42% in the past year.

Nearly two-thirds of carers surveyed by the charity said their loved one did not get all the pain relief they needed when they were dying.

Susan Lowe, from Solihull, cared for her mother Sheila before she died with bowel cancer in April last year, aged 74.

She said caring for her mum during lockdown was hard as "the system was just under so much pressure that we had to manage largely on our own".

The public health worker says she struggled to get the right pain relief medication for her mother in her final weeks and spent hours travelling to different chemists.

Susan, 50, told the BBC: "My biggest regret is that my mum died in pain - more pain than she needed to be. She really wanted to be comfortable at the end. She knew she was dying."

"What she really wanted - and this is what she was assured would happen - was to be comfortable. She was told she would get the drugs that she needed for it to be as bearable as possible... I remember breaking down in tears a couple of times in the pharmacy when I was told the medication mum needed wasn't in stock."

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Source: BBC News, 8 April 2021

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Weigh up risks of blood clots before giving AstraZeneca vaccine to certain patients, GPs told

GPs should only give the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine to patients with medical conditions which put them at higher risk of developing blood clots if the benefits outweigh the risks, the UK medicines regulator has said.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued the advice to healthcare professionals regarding while it continues to review a link between the vaccine and rare blood clots.

It has also added to previous advice regarding symptoms for patients to look out for following their Covid vaccination with the AZ vaccine.

The new advice from the MHRA said:

  • Administration of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in people of any age who are at higher risk of blood clots because of their medical condition should be considered only if benefits from the protection from COVID-19 infection outweighs potential risks.
  • Anyone who experienced cerebral or other major blood clots occurring with low levels of platelets after their first vaccine dose of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca should not have their second dose. Anyone who did not have these side effects should come forward for their second dose when invited.
  • Pregnancy predisposes to thrombosis, therefore women should discuss with their healthcare professional whether the benefits of having the vaccine outweigh the risks for them.

Meanwhile, ‘anyone who has symptoms four days or more after vaccination is advised to seek prompt medical advice’. These include:

  • a new onset of severe or persistent headache, blurred vision, confusion or seizures
  • develop shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling or persistent abdominal pain,
  • unusual skin bruising or pinpoint round spots beyond the injection site.

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Source: Pulse, 7 April 2021

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Consultants blow whistle on 10,000 ‘hidden’ follow-up cases amid trust merger

An acute trust is reviewing thousands of gastroenterology cases for possible patient harm, after details emerged of an ‘extremely concerning’ list of patients who have not had follow-up appointments for up to six years since being treated.

HSJ understands major concerns have been raised internally at Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust, over 9,500 patients who received treatment at Aintree University Hospital as far back as 2015, but have not had a follow-up appointment.

Whistleblowers have also contacted the Care Quality Commission, which has confirmed it is looking into the issues.

Well-placed sources said around 7,000 of the cases have “target dates” for an outpatient follow-up that are in the past. Around 20 of these cases were supposed to be seen in 2015 or 2016, with around 400 dating back to 2017, and around 900 to 2018, the sources said.

The remaining 2,500 cases either have no target date or have not yet had a follow-up appointment booked.

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Source: HSJ, 8 April 2021

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'Long Covid has destroyed me but I am fighting back'

Health coach Jasmine Hayer had to give up her life in London and move back in with her parents after catching Covid. Now she is focused on a twin goal - battling back to health while helping others get the right treatment for Long Covid.

Dr William Man, the head of the Royal Brompton Hospital's chest clinic, started treating her in December, as part of a clinic seeing 100 severe long Covid cases in the UK.

Jasmine describes it as a "complete game changer".

However, she worries that other so-called "long haulers" are not getting the help they need because they face "such a battle" to be taken seriously.

She decided to start a blog to document her symptoms and wants to share her story as widely as possible in the hope of helping others.

"I've had messages from around the world and I was so happy to hear that one girl has shown her doctor my blog and he is giving her more tests as a result," she says.

"I know how lonely and scary it is when you are fighting to be believed. You are literally on your own."

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Source: BBC News, 7 April 2021

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Rugby player develops device to track head trauma

A rugby player has developed a wearable device to monitor head trauma after a teammate was forced to stop playing the sport due to injury.

Euan Bowen, 28, played the game at university and in his final year in 2018, when a teammate suffered three concussion injuries in one season.

It spurred Mr Bowen to develop an idea for a device to track brain health into the HIT Impact technology, which detects g-force and records impact on an app.

After spending time at Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh Business School (EBS) Incubator, his product is expected to move into production within the next two months.

The sensor he developed can clip on to headguards, any helmet or halo headband and is accompanied by an app which has a 150-metre range capable of recording from multiple devices - with a "Team Play" recording function for sports like football and rugby.

It displays a graph showing the force threshold, set by a user, and severity, with a traffic light system and notifications enabling those monitoring to check on a user's injury.

Kallum Russell, EBS Incubator manager, said it is "much-needed technology", adding: "The current parliamentary inquiry into concussion recently heard evidence about the long-term implications of repetitive head trauma on sports people, with MPs asking how sports could be made safer.

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Source: The Independent, 8 April 2021

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UK's long Covid patients facing postcode lottery for support

Long Covid patients have voiced growing frustration at a “postcode lottery” in clinical support for debilitating symptoms, with some areas of the UK offering no specialist clinics more than a year after coronavirus took hold.

Other sufferers said they were disappointed by long Covid clinics investigating certain symptoms only, with no comprehensive treatment plan.

Official figures suggest there are almost 700,000 Britons with Covid symptoms lasting over three months. In October, NHS England announced more than £10m for a network of clinics bringing together doctors, nurses, therapists and other NHS staff to conduct physical and psychological assessments and recommend treatments for long Covid patients.

Additional local funding would also be available to help establish a clinic in every area, the NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, said. By December, 69 clinics had been set up in England with a further 12 sites earmarked to launch in January.

But Louise Barnes, founder of the Post Acute Covid Syndrome 19 (Pacs19) patient advocacy group, said a survey of 200 British members revealed about 90% had not been able to access a clinic because there wasn’t one available, their GP could not refer them or they were declined without explanation. Others were disappointed by the type of services on offer.

Barnes said: “Patients in the UK have waited going on a year to get support for the multitude of symptoms they’ve been experiencing. To finally think you are going to get referred to a clinic but your GP tells you they don’t have any information, or you get there to find it’s a ‘respiratory-only clinic’ or only staffed by physiotherapists leaves them feeling despondent. For the most part, sadly, patients are coming away massively feeling let down and with no viable treatment plan offered – even a rudimentary one, whilst a treatment is found."

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Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2021

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Chronic pain sufferers should take exercise, not analgesics, says NICE

People suffering from chronic pain that has no known cause should not be prescribed painkillers, the medicines watchdog has announced, recommending such patients be offered exercise, talking therapies and acupuncture instead.

In a major change of pain treatment policy, the National Institute for health and Care Excellence (NICE) say that in future, doctors should advise sufferers to use physical and psychological therapies rather than analgesics to manage their pain.

Painkillers such as aspirin 'do more harm than good' for chronic primary pain

Medical teams can also consider prescribing antidepressants, the government health advisers suggest.

NICE’s new guidance potentially affects the way many hundreds of thousands of people in England and Wales tackle their condition because between 1% and 6% of the population of England is estimated to have chronic primary pain.

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Source: The Guardian, 7 April 2021

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One in three survivors of severe Covid diagnosed with mental health condition

One in three people who were severely ill with coronavirus were subsequently diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of infection, a study has found.

The observational research, which is the largest of its kind, used electronic health records of 236,379 patients mostly from the US and found 34% experienced mental health and neurological conditions afterwards. The most common being anxiety, with 17% of people developing this.

Experts warned that healthcare systems need to be resourced to deal with patients affected by this, which could be “substantial” given the scale of the pandemic. They anticipate that the impact could be felt on health services for many years.

Neurological diagnoses such as stroke and dementia were rarer, but not uncommon in those who had been seriously ill during infection. Of those who had been admitted to intensive care, 7% had a stroke and almost 2% were diagnosed with dementia.

The study, which was published in the Lancet Psychiatry, found that these diagnoses were more common in COVID-19 patients than among those who had the flu or respiratory tract infections over the same time period.

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Source: The Guardian, 7 April 2021

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Dozens of patients seen by independent provider suffered ‘moderate or severe’ harm

Nearly 30 patients suffered severe or moderate harm due to quality issues with ultrasounds carried out by an independent provider, a review has found. 

Scans of 1,800 patients carried out by two sonographers employed by Bestcare Diagnostics were examined as part of a clinical harm review initiated by Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group in 2019.

Papers for next week’s governing body meeting of West Sussex CCG — which has absorbed Coastal West Sussex CCG — reveal the review found 29 cases of severe or moderate harm. 

According to the NHS’ National Recording and Learning System, moderate harm is that where a patient needs further treatment or procedures but the harm is short-term. Severe harm results in permanent or long-term harm. Both require NHS bodies to exercise the duty of candour.

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Source: HSJ, 6 April 2021

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Consultant ‘cliques’ and ‘unacceptable behaviours’ put patients at risk

Deep-rooted relationship problems between consultants in a major trust’s neurosurgery department distracted from patient care, according to a review leaked to HSJ.

A review by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) into neurosurgery services at University Hospitals Birmingham FT last year found serious concerns over consultant “cliques” and relationship problems across the department.

It comes as a new review has been launched into the care of 23 patients in the deep brain stimulation service, which is a sub-speciality in the department.

According to the RCS report, which was completed in May last year, there have been wide-ranging problems within the department for several years.

The report said: “Poor team working and inter-relational difficulties, which had been deep-rooted and recognised to have existed for some time, have had the potential to compromise patient care and will be likely to continue to do so if these issues remain unresolved.”

It suggested some consultant neurosurgeons had prioritised their personal or professional differences over patient care, with the relationship issues being “amplified” within the wider surgical workforce.

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Source: HSJ, 7 April 2021

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Russells Hall Hospital: NHS trust charged over patients' deaths

An NHS trust has been charged over the deaths of two patients.

The Care Quality Commission alleges Natalie Billingham, 33, and Kaysie-Jane Bland were exposed to "significant risk of avoidable harm" at Dudley's Russells Hall Hospital.

The regulator has brought the charges against Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust over two alleged breaches of the Health and Social Care Act.

This relates to the trust's duty to ensure safe care and treatment.

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Source: BBC News, 6 April 2021

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People with eating disorders in England denied help as 'BMI not low enough'

Growing numbers of women and men in England with eating disorders are being denied support because they are not considered to be thin enough to warrant it, a leading psychiatrist and other experts have warned in a briefing shared with ministers.

Against the backdrop of a fourfold rise in people admitted to hospital with eating disorders during the Covid pandemic, doctors said body mass index (BMI) was too often used as a blunt measure to decide whether someone should get treatment.

In some cases, women have not received an eating disorder diagnosis despite their periods stopping due to overexercising or restrictive eating.

BMI uses height and weight to calculate a healthy weight score. A normal body weight is considered to be between 18.5 and 24.9, and some doctors consider anything below this a signifier of an eating disorder.

Dr Agnes Ayton, the chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists eating disorders faculty, and the mental health campaigner Hope Virgo shared a briefing paper with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) urging funding to meet demand and “as a direct result of an increase in the number and severity” of patients during the pandemic. The paper, seen by the Guardian, said there had been a significant increase in eating disorders among ethnic minorities and men.

Concern has been raised about “a state of emergency” for eating disorders, the briefing paper said. Hospital admissions have seen a fourfold increase in the last year without extra investment in specialist eating disorder inpatient services during this time, it added.

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Source: The Guardian, 5 April 2021

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21-year-old died after dialling 999 from his hospital bed

A young NHS patient suffering a sickle cell crisis called 999 from his hospital bed to request oxygen, an inquest into his death was told.

Evan Nathan Smith, 21, died on 25 April 2019 at North Middlesex Hospital, in Edmonton, north London, after suffering from sepsis following a procedure to remove a gallbladder stent.

The inquest heard Smith told his family he called the London Ambulance Service because he thought it was the only way to get the help he needed.

Nursing staff told Smith he did not need oxygen when he requested it in the early hours of 23 April, despite a doctor telling the inquest he had “impressed” on the nurses he should have it.

Smith’s sepsis is thought to have triggered the sickle cell crisis – a condition that causes acute pain as blood vessels to certain parts of the body become blocked.

Barnet Coroner's Court heard Smith, from Walthamstow in east London, might have survived if he had been offered a blood transfusion sooner but the hospital’s haematology team were not told he had been admitted.

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Source: The Independent, 3 April 2021

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'A truly frightening backlog': ex-NHS chief warns of delays in vital care

Patients could be waiting as much as two years for vital operations by the time of the next election due to a “truly frightening” backlog of care caused by the pandemic, the NHS’s former boss has said.

Lengthening delays in getting treatment in England are will become a major political problem for Boris Johnson and pose a risk to patients’ health, Sir David Nicholson told the Guardian.

“The backlog is truly frightening. We can very easily get to the next election with people waiting over two years. It’s easy to do that,” said Nicholson, citing an explosion in the number of people waiting at least a year since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.

“The whole issue of access [to care] is a greater threat to the NHS than privatisation because poor access undermines confidence amongst those people who fund the service – taxpayers,” he added.

The widespread suspension of normal NHS diagnostic tests and surgery during the pandemic as hospitals prioritised Covid care has left the service in England with a record 4.59 million people waiting for hospital treatment.

That number is set to rise to what the NHS Confederation believes could be as much as 6.9m cases by the end of the year as people on a “hidden waiting list” – who put off seeking help after discovering symptoms of illness – finally visit a GP.

According to the most recent figures, the number of people who have been waiting for at least a year has rocketed from 1,613 before the pandemic struck to 304,044.

Under the NHS Constitution, 92% of people waiting are meant to be treated within 18 weeks. However, a third of the 4.59 million people have already waited longer than that.

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Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2021

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