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Loughborough University to deliver course to NHS professionals in a bid to improve patient safety

Loughborough University is collaborating with NHS England to deliver learning to hundreds of healthcare professionals in a bid to improve patient safety.

Human factors and ergonomics experts in the School of Design and Creative Arts will deliver Levels 3 and 4 of the NHS Patient Safety Syllabus and Curriculum after winning a competitive tender process.

Under the leadership of Dr Mike Fray, supported by Professor Sue Hignett and Professor Thomas Jun, the Loughborough University team will craft and deliver educational content to 820 patient safety specialists across various NHS Trusts in England from 2023 to 2024.

In 2021, the NHS Patient Safety Syllabus was created by drawing upon best practice from a number of safety-critical industries. It has as a core aim of changing how staff think about improving patient safety. The key to this is switching the focus to proactive prevention of safety incidents, and away from the current largely retrospective analyses.

Dr Fray believes Loughborough University’s world-leading reputation in the delivery of human factors and ergonomics education will help the NHS achieve its goals.

Dr Fray said: “No healthcare worker goes to work thinking they will do harm, but the systems, processes and complexity of the work can lead to errors, omissions, or reductions in quality of care.  “With this new course we will be able to support patient safety specialists in each Trust to lead safety improvement work and provide safety science expertise to their organisations so that patients across the NHS can benefit.”

Aidan Fowler, National Director of Patient Safety said: ‘’Training and education is at the centre of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy so that we can empower people with the latest skills and knowledge in patient safety science.

“The launch of this training for our patient safety specialists is the latest development in this work, using the syllabus created with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and adding to the training already available to all staff in the NHS.”

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Source: Loughborough University, 15 November 2023

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Loss of NHS specialist nurses will lead to deaths of people with learning disabilities, experts warn

More hospital patients with learning disabilities will die if politicians do not tackle the “devastating collapse” in specialist nurse numbers, a leading charity and a union have warned.

The number of specialist learning disability nurses working in the NHS has dropped by 44 per cent over the course of the Conservative party’s time in government, a new analysis by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has revealed.

The nursing union found a 36 per cent drop in applicants for specialist nursing degrees, while applicants are so low some universities have stopped funding courses altogether, according to a report shared exclusively with The Independent.

The RCN and the charity Mencap have warned specialist nurses are vital in keeping patients with learning disabilities in hospital safe, as they are trained to spot life-threatening illnesses, such as sepsis, which can present differently.

Dan Scorer, head of policy at Mencap, said: “Learning disability nurses have that in-depth training and understanding about the complexity of how people with a learning disability can present, and about how they will show they are experiencing pain. They’ve got vital expertise and insights to make sure that we don’t miss things.”

He said the government must increase the number of training places available, and warned some universities have stopped courses altogether. He added: “I think the government removing bursaries for nurse training was pretty devastating. The impact of that was really significant, and whilst that’s been partially reversed, it significantly impacted the undergraduate training capacity that was available.”

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Source: The Independent, 4 June 2024

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Loss of 25,000 NHS beds caused ‘serious patient safety crisis’, finds report

The NHS has lost almost 25,000 beds across the UK in the last decade, according to a damning report  says the fall has led to a sharp rise in waiting times for A&E, ambulances and operations.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said the huge loss of beds since 2010-11 was causing “real patient harm” and a “serious patient safety crisis”. At least 13,000 more beds are urgently needed, it added, in order to tackle “unsafe” bed occupancy levels and “grim” waiting times for emergency care and handover delays outside hospitals.

Patients are increasingly “distressed” by long waiting times, the college said, as are NHS staff who face mounting levels of burnout, exhaustion and moral injury. The UK has the second lowest number of beds per 1,000 people in Europe at 2.42 and has lost the third largest number of beds per 1,000 population between 2000 and 2021 (40.7%), the report said.

There are currently 162,000 beds in the NHS across the UK, according to the college.

“The situation is dire and demands meaningful action,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, the college’s vice-president. “Since 2010-11 the NHS has lost 25,000 beds across the UK, as a result bed occupancy has risen, ambulance response times have risen, A&E waiting times have increased, cancelled elective care operations have increased.

“These numbers are grim,” Boyle added. “They should shock all health and political leaders. These numbers translate to real patient harm and a serious patient safety crisis. The health service is not functioning as it should and the UK government must take the steps to prevent further deterioration in performance and drive meaningful improvement, especially ahead of next winter.”

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Source: The Guardian, 31 May 2022

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Los Angeles hospital under investigation accused of ignoring Black woman’s pain

April Valentine planned to have a complication-free delivery and to enjoy her life as a first-time parent to a healthy baby girl. Instead, California’s department of health and human services is investigating the circumstances of the April's death during childbirth.

April, a 31-year-old Black woman, went to Centinela hospital in Inglewood on 9 January and died the next day. Her daughter Aniya was born via an emergency caesarean section. Her family and friends say that staff at the hospital ignored the pregnant woman’s complaints of pain, refused to let her doula be in the hospital room during the birth and neglected Valentine as her child’s father performed CPR on her.

“It’s hard to even sleep, to even look at my child after seeing what I saw in that hospital that night,” said Nigha Robertson, Valentine’s boyfriend and Aniya’s father, to the Los Angeles county board of supervisors during its 31 January meeting. “I’m the only one who touched her, I’m the one who did CPR. Nobody touched her, we screamed and begged for help … they just let her lay there and die.”

During the 31 January board of supervisors meeting, people who spoke in support of Valentine said that Centinela hospital is known around the community for being one of the “worst hospitals in the county” for Black and Latina mothers and their infants. 

Since 2000, the maternal mortality rate in the US has risen nearly 60%, with about 700 people dying during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth each year. More than 80% of the deaths are preventable, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The US has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized countries and Black women are three times more likely to die during childbirth than white women.

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Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2023

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Lords to investigate private health firms used to deliver NHS drugs

Peers are launching an inquiry into private health companies paid millions of pounds to courier NHS medicines in England, after the Guardian exposed how sick children and adults were being harmed by botched, delayed or missed deliveries.

The House of Lords public services committee will examine “the extent of the problems in homecare medicine services”, and the impact on patients, clinicians and the wider health service. More than 500,000 patients and their families rely on private companies contracted by the NHS to deliver essential medical supplies and care to their homes.

A Guardian investigation revealed how Sciensus, Britain’s biggest provider of homecare medicines services, has struggled to provide a safe or reliable service. Seriously ill children as young as four have been let down, with some becoming sicker because of failings by the company.

Patients and medics have complained to Sciensus and to regulators, but little has changed.

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Source: The Guardian, 13 June 2023

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Lord Mann's recommendations to tackle antisemitism accepted

NHS patients and staff will be better protected against hate, as the government has responded to Lord John Mann’s review of antisemitism and other forms of racism across the NHS and healthcare regulatory system, accepting all recommendations for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England.

In the wake of a series of horrific attacks on the Jewish community across the country, including shocking examples of intimidation and abuse within the health service, Lord Mann was commissioned by the former Secretary of State and the Prime Minister in October 2025 to lead an urgent review into how the NHS and its regulatory system recognises, reports and tackles antisemitism and other forms of racism.

Lord Mann has heard that Jewish people in the NHS experience “routine ostracism”, with Jewish staff being the only religious group in the latest NHS staff survey for whom discrimination from colleagues is rising rather than falling, resulting in some considering leaving the NHS.

The antisemitism identified extends to patients too. Some Jewish patients reported not wishing to present for treatment or putting off receiving important care.

The government is clear that all racism in the NHS is abhorrent, and NHS employers are the first line of defence and must be taking urgent action. With 16% of Muslim staff and 20% of Black and minority ethnic staff also reporting discrimination in the last year, the reforms will benefit everyone who experiences hatred or abuse in the health service.

The reforms include delivering mandatory antisemitism training for NHS leaders and introducing clear national guidance on uniform and responding to racist behaviour.

Lord Mann said: "Jewish people have to be confident that they will receive the same treatment as everyone else, at all times in all situations. If people feel, as they do, that some have to hide their identity as patients or suffer in silence as staff, then the universality of the NHS is fundamentally breached.

"The solutions are simple but require a consistency of approach across the whole of the NHS and clear leadership at the top and across all NHS trusts. The NHS as an employer must act as a responsible and inclusive employer and take the responsibility of making its employment and service to patients one that the entirety of the country, including our Jewish community, can feel and see is one that is for them as well as everybody else."

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Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 4 June 2026

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Loophole in the law leaves patients at risk of abuse and sexual assault

A loophole in the law is leaving vulnerable patients at risk of abuse and sexual assault by unregulated private ambulance staff, The Independent has revealed.

While many private ambulance providers are regulated, a small number, such as those providing services at events, those providing first aid, and those who are subcontracted, fall outside the reach of the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

This is due to a loophole in the legislation, which means that organisations providing healthcare at events are not required to be CQC registered.

The Independent has learned that around 10,000 patients a day are seen by ambulance workers who are unregulated and not part of any registered professional body.

Alan Howson, chief executive of the Independent Ambulance Association, said he was concerned about healthcare providers that “operate outside of the scope” of the care watchdog and in “plain sight and unchecked”, leaving patients at risk from staff who might “seek to misuse their power”.

His concerns were in response to an internal report by the CQC, completed last year, which identified specific risks around sexual harm in relation to private providers, as well as “inconsistency” in providers’ recording of incidents.

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Source: The Independent, 14 November 2021

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Looking up health symptoms online less harmful than thought, study says

That throbbing headache just won’t go away and your mind is racing about what may be wrong. But Googling your symptoms may not be as ill-advised as previously thought.

Although some doctors often advise against turning to the internet before making the trudge up to the clinic, a new study suggests that using online resources to research symptoms may not be harmful after all – and could even lead to modest improvements in diagnosis.

Using “Dr Google” for health purposes is controversial. Some have expressed concerns that it can lead to inaccurate diagnoses, bad advice on where to seek treatment (triage), and increased anxiety (cyberchondria).

Previous research into the subject has been limited to observational studies of internet search behaviour, so researchers from Harvard sought to empirically measure the association of an internet search with diagnosis, triage, and anxiety by presenting 5,000 people in the United States with a series of symptoms and asked them to imagine that someone close to them was experiencing the symptoms.

The participants – mostly white, average age 45, and an even gender split – were asked to provide a diagnosis based on the given information. Then they looked up their case symptoms (which, ranging from mild to severe, described common illnesses such as viruses, heart attacks and strokes) on the internet and again offered a diagnosis. As well as diagnosing the condition, participants were asked to select a triage level, ranging from “let the health issue get better on its own” to calling the emergency services. Participants also recorded their anxiety levels.

The results showed a slight uptick in diagnosis accuracy, with an improvement of 49.8% to 54% before and after the search. However, there was no difference in triage accuracy or anxiety, the authors wrote in the journal JAMA Network Open.

These findings suggest that medical experts and policymakers probably do not need to warn patients away from the internet when it comes to seeking health information and self-diagnosis or triage. It seems that using the internet may well help patients figure out what is wrong.

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Source: The Guardian, 29 March 2021

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Longest diagnostic waits at highest level since Covid lockdown

The share of referrals waiting more than three months for a diagnostic test — one of the key problems behind long waits for cancer treatment — is worse than at any point since February 2021, during the second national covid lockdown.

NHS England data released this morning for September shows 12.4% of the 1.6 million awaiting a test had been on the list longer than 13 weeks.

At the peak of June 2020, 32% waited more than 13 weeks, but the proportion dropped back beneath 1 in 10, in May 2021, as services ramped up activity following the impact of the major winter 2020-21 Covid wave.

Echocardiography patients and those needing endoscopies had the highest proportion of patients waiting more than six weeks – these specialties jointly comprise about a third of the total national waiting list and had 48 and 38%, respectively, of their lists over six weeks. 

Katharine Halliday, president of The Royal College of Radiologists, said: ”Today’s cancer waiting times data is alarming. We know the longer patients wait for a diagnosis or treatment, the less their chance of survival.

“Our members are clinical radiologists and clinical oncologists, and much of their work involves diagnosing and treating cancer. Today’s figures show the NHS in England would have to employ 441 radiology consultants, the equivalent of a 16% increase in the current workforce, in order to clear the six-week wait for CT and MRI scans in one month.”

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Source: HSJ, 10 November 2022

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Longer GP consultations could help prevent cases where patient deterioration is missed, study finds

Patients who had longer consultations with their GP were less likely to subsequently self-refer themselves to hospital due to a worsening of their condition, a study has found.

The study, which looked at factors associated with potentially missed acute deterioration, said this might be because GPs with more time to assess patients ‘are more likely to recognise deterioration and refer the patient for secondary care’.

A longer consultation might also allow GPs more time to provide advice, such as telling the patient to contact the practice again if their condition worsens, the British Journal of General Practice study found.

The researchers defined a potentially missed acute deterioration as a patient having a self-referred admission to hospital after being seen by a GP in the three days beforehand.

They found that 116,097 patients had contacted a GP three days before an emergency admission, with patients with sepsis or urinary tract infections more likely to self-refer.

GP appointment duration was associated with self-referral, with a five-minute increase in appointment time resulting in a 10% decrease on average in the odds of self-referred admissions.

Patients having a telephone consultation compared with face-to-face, previous health service use, and the presence of comorbidities were all also associated with self-referred admission, according to the research.

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Source: Management in Practice, 2 June 2021

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Long-wait cancer patient list grows again

The backlog of urgent cancer referral patients who have waited 104 days or more for treatment has increased month-on-month again, internal NHS data reveals.

Data obtained by HSJ shows the total backlog of NHS patients waiting over three months for their first treatment since referral grew by 10% month-on-month, from 10,361 as of 26 June, to 11,212 by 28 August.

There are now nearly 341,000 patients are waiting to start their cancer treatment after being referred, the internal data also reveals.

Under current NHS rules, the 104-day point marks a “backstop” – beyond which any patient waiting longer than this for treatment should be reviewed for potential harm. The NHS has not achieved this target since 2014.

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Source: HSJ, 7 September 2022

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Long-term effects of Covid-19 can be considered a disability says Biden

US President Biden has said people suffering from long-term effects if Covid-19 could be considered a disability under federal civil rights laws.

The administration does make clear however that having long covid doesn't automatically mean disability and that an individual assessment may be needed to determine whether a person’s long-term symptoms “substantially limits a major life activity.”

President Biden has said the classification of long covid as a possible disability would “help Americans grappling with long-term effects of covid-19 that doctors call long covid.”

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Source: The Washington Post, 26 July 2021

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Long-term COVID-19 health impacts research study launched

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced one of the world’s largest comprehensive research studies into the long-term health impacts of coronavirus on hospitalised patients.

Backed by an award of £8.4m in funding by the Government, through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the study is expected to include around 10,000 across the UK and will support the development of new measures to treat NHS patients with coronavirus.

The study will be led by the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, a partnership between the University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and will draw on the expertise of a consortium of leading researchers and doctors from across the UK.

They will assess and publish findings on the impact of COVIDd-19 on patient health and their recovery, including looking at potential ways to help improve the mental health of patients hospitalised with the virus and how individual characteristics such as gender and ethnicity influence recovery.

Patients on the study from across the UK will be assessed using techniques such as advanced imaging, data collection and analysis of blood and lung samples, creating a comprehensive picture of the impact COVID-19 has on longer-term health outcomes.

The findings will support the development of new strategies for clinical and rehabilitation care, including personalised treatments based on the particular disease characteristics that a patient shows, to improve their long-term health.

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Source: National Health Executive, 10 August 2020

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Long-lasting Covid-19 symptoms rare in children

According to research by King's College scientists, children who become ill with Covid-19 rarely experience long-term symptoms. 

The study was conducted using data provided by the Zoe Covid Study App and looked at 1,734 children, aged between five and 17 who had been reported to have tested positive for the virus between September 2020 and February 2021, with the most common long-term symptoms being found to be headaches and tiredness. 

"This study is reassuring for the majority of children and young people who develop Sars-CoV-2 infection, and reflects what paediatricians are seeing in clinical practice." Says Dr Liz Whittaker, infectious disease lead at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health who was not involved in the research

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Source: BBC News, 4 August 2021

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Long-acting HIV jabs to replace daily pills in ‘great step forward’

The NHS has been given the green light to offer people living with HIV the first "long-acting injectable" to keep the virus at bay.

Charities have hailed the "incredible news" which offers an alternative to adults living with HIV who have to take daily antiretroviral drugs.

Many people living with HIV can keep the virus at very low levels by taking antiretroviral tablets each day. These drugs keep the number of virus particles in the blood - also known as the viral load - so low that it cannot be detected or transmitted between people.

But now an estimated 13,000 people will be eligible for the injectable treatment in England which means they no longer need daily treatment but will have two injections every two months. This means they can reduce the days they receive treatment from 365 to 6 per year.

Meindert Boysen, deputy chief executive NICE, said: "Despite scientific advances HIV is still incurable, but the virus can be controlled by modern treatment. However, for some people, having to take daily multi-tablet regimens can be difficult because of drug-related side effects, toxicity, and other psychosocial issues such as stigma or changes in lifestyle."

"We're pleased therefore to be able to recommend cabotegravir with rilpivirine as a valuable treatment option for people who already have good levels of adherence to daily tablets, but who might prefer an injectable regimen with less frequent dosing."

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Source: 18 November 2021

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Long waits at Scotland's A&E 'putting patients at serious risk'

Long waits at accident and emergency (A&E) departments in Scotland continue to put patient safety at “serious risk”, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned.

New figures from Public Health Scotland show 78 per cent of patients visiting A&E in the week to January 23 were seen and admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

This is an increase on the previous week, but still below the Scottish Government target of 95%

It comes as the number of planned operations across NHS Scotland dropped 13% from November to December, to 17,835.

Dr John Thomson, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland, said the college was concerned poor A&E performance times are becoming the “status quo”.

“With fewer attendances performance has plateaued, but be in no doubt that the health service and its staff in Scotland remain under unprecedented pressure and increasing burnout,” he said.

Dr Thomson added: “The impact of this continued poor performance is distress and moral injury to staff and serious discomfort and risk to the safety of patients.

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Source: The Scotsman, 2 February 2022

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Long waits at A&E becoming normal, warn doctors’ groups

Long waiting times in emergency departments are becoming normal, with some patients spending days in A&E wards before they can be moved into other hospital beds, emergency physicians have warned.

Leaders of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) and the Society for Acute Medicine (SAM) said that some hospitals had effectively run out of space, meaning patients could not receive the right care until a bed became free.

NHS figures for September show that 5,025 patients waited for more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital in England. That is only 1% of the 506,916 admitted via A&Es, but it is more than 10 times as many as the 458 waiting more than 12 hours in September 2019 and nearly twice as many as the January peak of 2,847.

Scientists at the Zoe Covid study said last week that UK cases of coronavirus may have peaked. But the React study at Imperial College found that the R number was between 0.9 and 1.1 with Covid cases at their highest levels.

Pressures on hospitals have prompted the Royal College of Nursing to call for a return to compulsory mask-wearing, while Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said that ministers should reimpose a legal obligation to wear masks on public transport, allowing police to enforce the law.

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Source: The Guardian, 7 November 2021

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Long waits and ‘unacceptable’ lack of data at NHS gender clinics in England, review finds

Doctors treating vulnerable patients with gender dysphoria have no way of assessing whether the NHS treatment provided has worked because outcomes are not systematically recorded, a damning official inquiry into the clinics has found.

Waiting times for a first appointment at NHS adult gender dysphoria clinics (GDCs) in England are projected to reach 15 years unless there are improvements, the review found. The number of people seeking treatment is rising significantly and on average patients are already waiting five years and seven months for a first assessment.

The review conducted by Dr David Levy, an NHS medical director and cancer specialist, was commissioned after last year’s Cass report on gender care for children and young people.

His report found that the clinics’ failure to study outcomes for their patients made it impossible to judge the safety of these services. Long waiting lists were also leading to safety issues, driving people to self-source hormone drugs from high-risk online providers abroad.

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Source: The Guardian, 18 December 2025.

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Long waits 'leave mental health patients in limbo'

Patients with mental health problems are being left in limbo on "hidden" waiting lists by England's NHS talking therapy service, the BBC can reveal.

The service, Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, provides therapy, such as counselling, to adults with conditions like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

It starts seeing nine in 10 patients within the target time of six weeks, but that masks the fact many then face long waits for regular treatment. Half of patients waited over 28 days, and one in six longer than 90 days, between their first and second sessions in the past year.

Charities said the headline target was giving a false impression of what was happening, warning that patients were facing "hidden waits" that were putting their health at risk.

NHS England acknowledged the pressure on the system was causing delays, but pointed out that despite the delays, half of patients given treatment still recovered.

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Source: BBC News, 5 December 2019

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Long wait for NHS mental healthcare has ‘stark consequences for children’s life chances’

One in three child and adolescent consultant psychiatrist posts in England are vacant, according to a “shocking” analysis laying bare the workforce crisis that experts say is fuelling “unacceptable” long waits for NHS care. Dr Elaine Lockhart, a consultant paediatric liaison psychiatrist who works in NHS child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), describes the frustrating but rewarding daily battle to meet the soaring demand and to help those most in need.

At a time when children’s mental health is supposed to be a public policy priority, waiting times for children’s and adolescent mental health services are unacceptably long. Some children wait more than two years to be treated. And that delay can have stark consequences for their mental health and their life chances.

Some of our most vulnerable children are ending up in crisis, needing urgent referrals and emergency care when they should have been treated effectively months before and allowed to enjoy what they will miss out on: their childhood.

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Source: The Guardian, 28 November 2024

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Long delays to NHS care for children in England ‘creating forgotten generation’

Thousands of children’s lives are being blighted by shocking delays to NHS care of up to three years, according to a report that warns a “forgotten generation” will suffer long-term harm as a result.

The health service is struggling to cope with rapidly rising demand for increasingly complex and acute care needs among children and young people, the research by NHS Providers shows.

Health leaders say the crisis in England is so severe that there is now “deep concern” that lifelong, permanent harm is being caused by crippling delays to NHS care. Long waits for basic healthcare are derailing children’s development, educational attainment and mental health, they revealed.

One trust reported that waiting times for children’s autism assessments had risen from about 14 months before the Covid-19 pandemic to 38 months today. Children are also being forced to wait too long for essential speech and language therapy, hearing tests, medical treatment and surgery.

“Too many young lives are being blighted by delays to accessing vital NHS care,” said Sir Julian Hartley, the chief executive of NHS Providers. “We’re in danger of seeing a forgotten generation of young people.”

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Source: The Guardian, 15 July 2024

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Long delays in NHS care causing serious damage to children’s health across UK

Children across the UK are suffering serious damage to their health – including chronic pain, asthma flare-ups, weight loss and developmental problems – because of long delays for NHS care.

Some under-18s are finding it so hard to obtain prompt treatment for their diabetes or epilepsy that they are forced to turn to A&E for care because their health has deteriorated so badly.

Children’s doctors said the findings were “shocking” and warned that some children would endure “lifelong consequences” as a result of delays that could sometimes last several years.

The details have emerged in a dossier of evidence the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has collated illustrating the harm that treatment unavailability causes.

One paediatrician specialising in neurodevelopmental problems said children who joined the list had to wait six years for their first appointment because the service was unable to meet demand. Another said the average waiting time for an initial consultation was three years and five months.

The anxiety and challenges caused by the delays can be so difficult for children and families to deal with that some parents have even split up as a result of that pressure, because they have reached “breaking point”, the college said. In addition, some families are being forced to pay for private care, in order to circumvent NHS waiting lists.

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Source: The Guardian, 5 August 2024

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Long delays for surgery ‘will trigger public health crisis’

Surgery waiting lists will triple by 2030, triggering a “population health crisis”, unless there is a huge increase in NHS capacity, according to new research.

Experts from Birmingham University have said efforts to reduce hospital backlogs are not enough and that it is “impossible” for the existing frontline workers to tackle increasing waiting lists.

The most in-depth analysis of the challenge facing hospital waiting lists in England has revealed 4.3 million people need invasive surgery or procedures such as endoscopy, the largest number since 2007.

Of these, an estimated 3.3 million are on a “hidden waiting list”, likely to need treatment but yet to be identified by the NHS due to the impact of the pandemic.

More than 2.3 million people, 53% of the waiting list, are of working age, meaning their delayed diagnoses and treatments could have an impact on the economy.

Without a substantial increase in NHS capacity, the team behind the work say the total figure for those waiting for surgery in England could rise to 14.6 million by 2030.

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Source: The Times, 26 June 2022

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Long Covid: Who is more likely to get it?

Old age and having a wide range of initial symptoms increase the risk of "long Covid", say scientists. 

The study estimates one in 20 people are sick for least eight weeks. The research at King's College London also showed being female, excess weight and asthma raised the risk.

The aim is to develop an early warning signal that can identify patients who need extra care or who might benefit from early treatment.

The findings come from an analysis of people entering their symptoms and test results into the COVID Symptom Study app.

Scientists scoured the data for patterns that could predict who would get long-lasting illness.

"Having more than five different symptoms in the first week was one of the key risk factors," Dr Claire Steves, from Kings College London, told BBC News.

COVID-19 is more than just a cough - and the virus that causes it can affect organs throughout the body. Somebody who had a cough, fatigue, headache and diarrhoea, and lost their sense of smell, which are all potential symptoms,- would be at higher risk than somebody who had a cough alone. The risk also rises with age, particularly over 50, as did being female.

Dr Steves said: "We've seen from the early data coming out that men were at much more risk of very severe disease and sadly of dying from Covid, it appears that women are more at risk of long Covid."

No previous medical conditions were linked to long Covid except asthma and lung disease.

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Source: BBC News, 21 October 2020

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Long covid: WHO calls on countries to offer patients more rehabilitation

The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries to prioritise rehabilitation for the medium and long term consequences of covid-19 and to gather information on “long covid” more systematically.

WHO has produced a standardised form to report clinical data from individual patients after hospital discharge or after their acute illness to examine the medium and long term consequences of COVID-19.1 It has also set up technical working groups to build a consensus on the clinical description of what WHO now calls “the post-covid-19 condition” and to define research priorities.

Speaking at the first of a series of seminars, WHO’s director general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, highlighted the “three Rs”—recognition, research, and rehabilitation. Recognition of the post-covid-19 condition was now increasing, he said, but still not enough research was carried out. He added that countries needed to show commitment to including rehabilitation as part of their healthcare service. “Long covid has an impact on the individual, on society, and on the economy,” he warned.

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Source: BMJ, 10 February 2021

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