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Lessons to be learned from covid public inquiry, says PM

The government is "fully committed to learning the lessons at every stage" of the pandemic, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.

He told MPs an independent public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic would be held in spring 2022. The inquiry would place "the state's actions under the microscope", he added, and take evidence under oath.

The inquiry's terms of reference have not yet been defined but would be published in "due course", he said, adding that the devolved administrations would be consulted.

Mr Johnson acknowledged many bereaved families would want the inquiry to begin sooner, but said because of the threat of new variants and a possible winter surge in infections, spring next year would be the "right moment".

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Source: BBC News, 12 May 2021

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Lessons learned after diabetic bled to death at Shropshire hospital

The family of a man who bled to death during kidney dialysis treatment at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital have said they believe lessons have been learned.

Mohammed Ismael Zaman, known as Bolly, died after hospital staff failed to check the connection on his dialysis machine, despite it sounding an alarm after the catheter had become disconnected.

During Mr Zaman’s treatment at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on October 18, 2019, his dialysis machine set off a venous pressure alarm.

An unidentified member of staff reset the alarm without checking that the connection was still secure. As a result of the reset, Mr Zaman bled out for seven minutes losing 49% of his blood circulating volume.

He was found unconscious in a pool of blood and despite resuscitation attempts, died two hours later.

The coroner, Mr John Ellery concluded that the death was due to systems failure and individual neglect on the part of the unidentified staff member.

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Source: Shropshire Star, 16 January 2021

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Less than half UK population to receive coronavirus vaccine, says task force head

Less than half of the UK population will get a Covid vaccine with the elderly being top priority - a top advisor has warned.

Kate Bingham, who was appointed as the chair of the Vaccine Taskforce back in May has claimed that the public has been “misguided” when it comes to availability of a vaccine.

In an interview with the Financial Times, she said the government “needs to vaccinate everyone at risk”.

She said: “People keep talking about ‘time to vaccinate the whole population’, but that is misguided."

“There’s going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It’s an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and carehome workers and the vulnerable.”

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Source: Financial Times, 4 October 2020

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Less than half of staff at maternity scandal trust feel able to speak out

Less than half of staff at scandal-hit Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust feel they can speak up about concerns, according to a staff survey, as a damning report warned serious problems persist in maternity care.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust is one of the worst-performing trusts on the latest national survey of staff for the NHS.

It comes after Donna Ockenden, who chaired a review into maternity failures at the trust, said her “biggest concern” was that staff had been told not to share concerns with her inquiry.

Ms Ockenden told The Independent her biggest concern was “that ordinary staff on the ground are telling me they were advised not to cooperate with the Ockenden review”.

The NHS staff survey, published on Wednesday, showed just 49% of staff at the trust reported they would feel safe enough speaking up about concerns in 2021 – down from 53% in 2020.

Meanwhile, just 34% of staff said they feel their concerns would be addressed if there were to speak up.

The trust is one of the worst three hospital trusts in the country when it comes to rising care concerns, the figures show. Only United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust performed worse.

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Source: The Independent, 31 March 2022

 

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Less than half of England has NHS access to jab months after roll-out, distressing patients and GPs

Less than half of England has access to tirzepatide (Mounjaro) through general practices, despite the NHS roll-out of the weight-loss jab having officially started over two months ago, The BMJ can disclose.

Just 18 of 42 commissioning bodies across the country confirmed that they had started prescribing tirzepatide in line with NHS England’s primary care roll-out plan.

The data, obtained through a freedom of information request, also show that, despite NHS England stating it expects 70% of eligible patients to come forward for treatment, only a fraction of integrated care boards (ICBs) have enough funding for that.

Experts warned that the lack of funding and poor communication to the public about the roll-out were resulting in “distress and uncertainty both in patients and primary care” and had left ICBs in a difficult financial situation.

Four ICBs reported that the NHS funding they had received covered just 25% or less of their eligible patients, with Coventry and Warwickshire faring the worst. That ICB told The BMJ it had received funding to cover just 376 patients, despite identifying 1795 eligible patients in the first year, meaning it can cover only 21% of its patients.

Because of the large number of people who could benefit from tirzepatide—an estimated 3.4 million—and the drug’s price, NHS England and its spending watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), agreed that the injections would be rolled out in phases over 12 years.

Jonathan Hazlehurst, consultant endocrinologist and academic clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham, said that although the central funding from NHS England was “extremely welcome” the roll-out had so far been “significantly underfunded.”

He said, “That clearly drives up distress and uncertainty both in patients and primary care and runs the risk of inequity in access to treatment, and that’s my biggest concern.”

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Source: The BMJ, 4 September 2025

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Less than half of eligible people received NHS ‘midlife MOT’ since 2019, says watchdog

Less than half of people over the age of 40 in England are getting the heart health checks they are entitled to, according to the government’s spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office called for a review of how NHS health checks are provided in England, after it found that only 44% of eligible adults attended one in the past five years.

The checks, known as a midlife MOT, were introduced in 2009, to help identify those at higher risk of developing heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and diabetes and offer tailored advice and treatment to help them manage their risk more effectively.

Heart disease is estimated to affect 6.4 million people in England, costing the healthcare system £7.4bn a year and the wider economy an estimated £15.8bn a year. It contributed to a quarter of all deaths in England in 2022. In 2019, NHS England’s long-term plan set a target to prevent 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases by 2028-29.

The report, “Progess in preventing cardiovascular disease”, calls on the government to assess whether local authorities are best placed to deliver health checks.

The Department of Health and Social Care should also “set clear targets for the numbers or percentages of the eligible population who should attend health checks, so they are attended and not just offered”, the NAO said. And there should be incentives to ensure those at highest risk of cardiovascular disease, receive their checks.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “Each year thousands of lives are lost to cardiovascular disease, with billions of pounds spent tackling it.

“Health checks can play a crucial role in bringing these numbers down, but the system isn’t working effectively, resulting in not enough people having checks. This is an unsatisfactory basis for delivering an important public health intervention.

“The Department of Health and Social Care needs to address the weaknesses in the current system for targeting and delivering health checks if it is to achieve the preventive effect it wants.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 November 2024

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Less than 3% of NHS England trusts hit key cancer waiting-time target

Patients are being warned of a “shocking gap in cancer care” as new figures reveal that fewer than 3% of England’s NHS trusts met a key waiting-times target last year for cancer patients to be treated within two months of an urgent GP referral.

Of 125 hospital trusts in England analysed, only three (2.4%) hit the standard of treating 85% of patients within 62 days after an urgent referral in 2022. Some trusts have not hit the standard for at least eight years.

More than 66,000 patients were forced to wait more than two months for their first treatment last year after a referral, the figures reveal. One leading cancer charity said this weekend the cancer care system was not fit for purpose, with “lives left hanging in the balance”.

Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dems health spokesperson, said the figures showed that even before the pandemic struck, the number of hospital trusts meeting targets was falling rapidly. “Now the situation is so bad that barely any hospitals are able to provide patients with the treatment they need on time. Ministers have consistently failed to plan ahead or provide adequate funding, while taking patients and NHS staff for granted. There is a shocking gap in cancer care from one area to another,” she said.

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Source: The Guardian, 5 March 2023

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Less than 1% of doctors feel NHS is well prepared for coronavirus, poll shows

A new poll has found only 8 out of the 1,618 respondents believed the health service was ready to deal with an outbreak when asked by The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), despite the prime minister’s insistence that the NHS will cope if it is hit by a surge in the number of people falling ill.

Common concerns included difficulties coping with increased demand, a shortage of beds and poor staffing levels, according to the group who led the poll. 

Some doctors asked said they were worried that there could be not enough laboratory space to do testing in the case of a pandemic. Others claimed that NHS 111 had been giving out “inappropriate advice” to go to A&E and GP practices, according to DAUK. 

“The NHS has already been brought to its knees and many frontline doctors fear that our health system simply will not cope in the event of a Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak,” Dr Rinesh Parmar, the DAUK chair, said. 

“Many hoped the threat of Covid-19 would prompt an honest conversation to address the issue of critical care capacity and our ability to look after our sickest patients. By simply saying ‘the NHS is well prepared to deal with coronovirus’ it seems that yet again doctors’ concerns have been brushed under the carpet.”

The findings come after the number of people infected with the coronavirus which rose to 39 in the UK on Monday. 

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Source: The Independent, 3 March 2020

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Lengthy stay in A&E contributed to death

A lack of psychiatric beds and a 26-day stay in an accident and emergency department were among issues which contributed to the death of a 29-year-old patient who took their own life, a coroner said.

Matty Sheldrick took their life in the grounds of Brighton's Royal Sussex County Hospital in November 2022.

Horsham's senior coroner, Penelope Schofield, found eight issues which contributed to their death at the inquest conclusion on Friday.

James Ramsay, NHS Sussex's chief medical officer, said trusts in the region had been working together to improve the support and environment in which people were cared for when they were in crisis.

Ms Schofield said private housing was not suitable for Matty's ongoing sensory issues and that an A&E department was "not a suitable environment for a neurodivergent individual".

She said that Matty, a trans person, had been unable to access specialist advice and resources from the Transforming Care in Austism Team.

The inquest previously heard Matty took their life after reaching out for "help that did not appear to exist".

Matty's mother, Shelagh Sheldrick, previously said her child, who was autistic and had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), felt "dismissed, ignored and lied to" by mental health workers.

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Source: BBC News, 16 December 2024

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Lego builds anaesthesia skills according to new study

Lego could be used as a practical tool to train doctors in anesthetic skills according to new research that has shown a simple task using the building bricks can help improve technical skills—a finding that could improve medical training and patient safety.

Scientists from the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology and School of Medicine developed a task where people copied shapes using bricks that they could see in a mirror. They found this simple training improved student performance in an ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia task. The results of the study have been published in British Journal of Anesthesia

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Legal right to visit patients proposed by government

The government has proposed new legislation to make patient visiting a legal right and also give the Care Quality Commission (CQC) fresh powers to enforce it.

The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a consultation to seek views from patients, care home residents, families, professionals and providers on the introduction of new legislation which will require health and care settings, including hospitals, to accommodate visitors in most circumstances. 

It said the new visiting laws will also provide the CQC with a “clearer basis for identifying where hospitals and care homes are not meeting the required standard”, and enable it to enforce the standards by issuing requirement or warning notices, imposing conditions, suspending a registration or cancelling a registration.

It said although the CQC currently has powers “to clamp down on unethical visiting restrictions”, the expected standard of visiting rules is not “specifically outlined in regulations”.

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Source: HSJ, 21 June 2023

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Legal costs for NHS negligence claims may be capped

Lawyers’ fees for clinical negligence claims against the NHS could be capped under proposals being considered by ministers.

Launching a consultation, the government said “tackling increasing and disproportionate legal fees” for cases worth less than £25,000 would protect NHS funding.

The Department of Health said claimants’ legal costs for “lower value claims” were “currently more than four times higher on average” than the NHS’s legal costs in defending the claims. It cited a case in which lawyers claimed £72,000 in legal costs when the patient was awarded £3,000.

Patient Safety Minister Maria Caulfield said: “I’m committed to making the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world. When harm does occur, it’s essential the NHS learns from what went wrong, and people who have been negligently harmed are entitled to claim compensation.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing some law firms profiting at the NHS’ expense through legal costs that far outweigh the actual compensation awarded to patients. This diverts resources from the NHS frontline as staff work hard to tackle the COVID-19 backlogs.

“Our proposals will cap legal costs for lower value claims to ensure they are fair and proportionate, and ensure patients’ claims are resolved as swiftly as possible without reducing the compensation they deserve.”

A spokesman for Thompson’s Solicitors, which acts for patients in such claims, told iNews: “Costs already have to be reasonable, proportionate and necessary in order to be recoverable. The answer is for the NHS to admit fault quicker and not cause cases to drag on for years."

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Source: iNews, 31 January 2022

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Legal action may be needed to lower ‘appalling’ death rates of black women in childbirth

 

The death rates for black women in childbirth were revealed in a recent report from MPs and were described as “appalling”, yet action, not words, are needed for what could be considered breaches of the Human Rights Act.

Ministers are not giving priority to reducing the gap in health inequalities, write Nicola Wainwright and Suleikha Ali in a commentary to the Times. 

"If the response to the review is foot-dragging from the government and senior health service officials, then legal action may be the only way to draw focus to this issue and to try to reduce the number of ethnic minority women and babies dying unnecessarily."

The report, published by the women and equalities committee last month, highlights the “glaring and persistent” disparities faced by ethnic minority women compared to their white counterparts with regards to pregnancy and birth. However, these same disparities have been known and reported on for 20 years, while progress on improving the situation has been shockingly slow.

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Source: The Times, 11 May 2023

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Left lying in excrement for 20 hours and scenes ‘like war films’: The elderly patients neglected in NHS hospitals

Elderly patients have been left languishing in their own excrement and puddles of urine for hours on end in NHS hospitals, a major charity has said.

Corridor care is a “crisis in plain sight” in A&Es across the country, charity Age UK warned ministers, as it described “truly shocking” incidents of poor care of elderly people waiting days on end for attention.

In a new report, The Longest Wait, Age UK revealed “heartbreaking” incidents of poor care, including a woman dying from a heart attack after being left to wait; a patient who was “lost” after being put on a disused corridor; and a man left hooked up to an IV drip in a chair for 20 hours, who soiled himself because he was unable to get to the toilet.

Age UK warned that many patients are unwilling to go to A&E, even if they are in a life-threatening situation, because of their past experiences.

It called on the government to “urgently” tackle corridor care as it warned that older people are disproportionately affected.

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Source: The Independent, 31 October 2025

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Leeds Teaching Hospitals launch patient and volunteer support fund

Leeds Teaching Hospitals has launched a support fund for patients, their relatives and volunteers who may be struggling financially due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The fund is intended to assist (but is not limited to):

  • Bereaved relatives facing immediate financial pressures until their personal financial affairs are sorted eg having weekly bills to meet and no immediate access to bank accounts
  • Patients isolating for 14 days in advance of admission to hospital and suffering income loss, excess cost or other financial hardship as a result
  • Patients, their immediate families or volunteers who have experienced significant household income loss as a result of the pandemic and are struggling with financial obligations
  • Those experiencing significant increases in costs as a direct result of the pandemic, eg increased childcare costs

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Learning the lessons of the past to restore the nation’s health and prevent widening health inequalities post-COVID-19

A healthy population is one of any nation’s most important assets. We have known for a long time that not everyone has the same opportunity to access the things they need to lead a healthy life, such as good quality work and safe secure stable housing. Now we can see that the COVID-19 pandemic is replicating and exacerbating deep-rooted health inequalities. Without concerted action, this health crisis will also become a health inequalities crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought health inequalities into sharp focus. While every part of the population has been affected by the current crisis, some communities have been hit much harder both by the virus itself and by the measures taken to control its spread.

Evidence is starting to emerge, for example, of the unequal impact of the shutdown of the economy. For example a recent survey of UK households found that the lowest earners have been worst hit by loss of earnings, with the most severe losses for single parents.

The uneven impact of COVID-19 has also highlighted the inequalities faced by Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Recent data shows that some ethnic groups are at much higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than the rest of the population (e.g. Black men are four times more likely to have died of COVID-19 than their White peers).

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Learning disability training for all nurses set to be mandated in law

Members of the House of Lords have passed an amendment to the Health and Care Bill to enshrine mandatory training for health and care staff on learning disabilities and autism in law.

The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disabilities and Autism programme is being developed by Health Education England in partnership with organisations such as Skills for Care and the Department of Health and Social Care, and alongside Oliver’s family.

“It means that organisations have no choice but to free up their staff to attend this training”

The training is named after Oliver whose death shone a light on the need for health and social care staff to have better training on learning disabilities and autism, and has been campaigned for by his parents Paula and Tom McGowan who believe his death was avoidable.

The 18-year-old, who had mild hemiplegia, focal partial epilepsy, a mild learning disability and high-functioning autism, died in November 2016 after he was given antipsychotic medication even though he and his family warned it could be harmful to him.

Following campaigning efforts and a consultation on training proposals for health and care staff, in November 2019, the government committed to developing a standardised training package. It draws on existing best practice, the expertise of people with autism, people with a learning disability and family carers and subject matter experts.

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Source: Nursing Times, 18 March 2022

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Learning CPR on manikins without breasts puts women’s lives at risk, study finds

Most CPR manikins don’t have breasts, which contributes towards women being less likely to receive life-saving first aid from bystanders, a study has found.

The study led by Dr Rebecca Szabo, the lead of the Gandel Simulation Service at the Royal Women’s hospital in Melbourne, analysed all manikin models on the global market designed for adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation training.

Of the 20 different manikins, the researchers found all them had flat torsos, with only one model having a breast overlay. Eight were identified as male and seven had no gender specified.

The study, published in the journal Health Promotion International, highlights the findings as an equity issue with implications for the human right to health.

Australian research published in June found women are less likely to receive life-saving CPR after cardiac arrest and less likely to survive.

A survey by St John Ambulance in the UK, published in October, found women who go into cardiac arrest in public are less likely than men to receive chest compressions from bystanders as people “worry about touching their breasts”. The study suggested “unequal outcomes for women after cardiac arrest may start in CPR training and CPR manikin design related to implicit bias.”

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Source: The Guardian, 21 November 2024

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Leapfrog Group: Patients report worse hospital experiences during COVID-19 pandemic, raising safety concerns

The latest batch of hospital patient safety ratings from America's Leapfrog Group shows a general decline among “several” hospital safety measures concurrent with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the healthcare safety watchdog.

Released Tuesday, the scores are accompanied by a report from Leapfrog that highlights a “significant” decline in the experiences of adult inpatients at acute care hospitals during the pandemic, with many areas “already in dire need” prior to the pandemic deteriorating even further.

“The healthcare workforce has faced unprecedented levels of pressure during the pandemic, and as a result, patients' experience with their care appears to have suffered,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of the Leapfrog Group, said in a statement.

Leapfrog’s twice-annual reports assess more than 30 patient safety measures and component measures compiled from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Leapfrog’s hospital surveys between July 2018 and March 2021. The most recent release assigns letter grades to nearly 3,000 US general hospitals and is the second collection of scores to incorporate safety and experience data from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Source: Fierce Healthcare, 10 May 2022

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Leapfrog Group will measure US hospitals on diagnostic performance in 2024

The Leapfrog Group will add a section to its annual survey in 2024 asking US hospitals to report their progress on evidence-based practices designed to prevent and reduce patient injury and death from diagnostic error and delay.

This Autumn, Leapfrog will pilot test survey questions about a range of diagnostic practices from holding leaders accountable for diagnostic safety to openly communicating diagnostic errors to patients and optimising electronic records to support accurate and timely diagnosis.

Results of the Leapfrog Hospital Survey — completed voluntarily each year by more than 2,300 U.S. hospitals — rate participants’ progress toward Leapfrog’s standards for safety, quality and transparency and are publicly reported. Since 2000, the survey has been the centerpiece of Leapfrog’s mission to “support informed health care decisions and promote high-value care.” The results are also used by hospitals to benchmark their performance to others in the industry.

The addition to the survery is part of a larger push to reduce harm caused by diagnostic error.

Leapfrog is working with the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) on a multi-year project called “Recognizing Excellence in Diagnosis.”

Mark L. Graber, SIDM’s Founder and President Emeritus, expects that including diagnosis in the survey will elevate organizations’ interest in addressing diagnostic error. “Healthcare organizations need to address the harm arising from diagnostic error in their own hospitals.” says Dr. Graber. “The new Leapfrog report gives them ideas on where to start.”

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Source: Betsey Lehman Center, 14 September 2022

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Leap in staff scared to report safety concerns

NHS staff are significantly less comfortable raising concerns and are less confident in their organisation to address them, the service’s annual staff survey has revealed.

The 2022 results, with a response rate of 46%, showed a decline on all measures relating to raising concerns about clinical safety and speaking up more generally, with the greatest deterioration seen in the percentage of staff who would feel secure raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice.

Helen Hughes, chief executive of charity Patient Safety Learning, warned an “alarmingly high” number of staff could not say they felt safe raising concerns.

Ms Hughes continued: “If we are to effectively learn from and prevent future incidents of avoidable harm, staff need to feel safe to raise and discuss patient safety incidents.

“This year’s staff survey results are a clear indication that too often this is still not the case. This is reinforced by the experiences and testimonies of many whistleblowers and the findings of numerous inquiries into major patient safety scandals.”

She added there were a lack of “tangible measures” in place to create a safety culture where staff feel safe to speak up and called for “more resources to support improvement and evaluate their impact”.

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Source: HSJ, 9 March 2023

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Leap in mental health absences among NHS staff

According to data shared with HSJ, the amount of NHS staff taking time off for their mental health has leapt in the past few months. The data, collected by FirstCare and covering 46,000 NHS staff from nine trusts, showed mental health absences from May to June of this year was at least 20 per cent up on April and 35 per cent up on February with more than 40 per cent up on the same months last year. 

“Trust leaders remain acutely aware of the impact that the pandemic, coupled with existing NHS pressures, is having on the workforce. They are deeply concerned about their staff’s mental health and wellbeing and are doing what they can to look after their staff, but they cannot do this sustainably without a fully costed and funded multi-year workforce plan.” Said NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson. 

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Source: HSJ, 6 August 2021

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Leaks reveal record waits for emergency care due to covid pressures

Very long waits for emergency hospital care have surged in London since mid December, due to a rapid rise in COVID-19 admissions combined with limited capacity, according to figures leaked to HSJ.

Data sent to HSJ indicates that December will set a new record high nationally for the number of 12-hour “trolley waits”. This is when there are 12 hours or longer from the decision is made to admit a patient from the emergency department to hospital, to when they are actually admitted to a bed.

It adds to fears about what will happen if rising covid occupancy — which has left some hospitals running out of staff and acute beds, and intensive care well over normal capacity —  combines with potential additional winter demand in coming weeks.

Several senior hospital managers in areas heavily affected by covid said there were two main factors. One is shortage of beds and operational issues: there are about 6,300 fewer general and acute beds open nationally this winter, due to infection prevention measures. The beds that remain have to be split between covid positive and negative, often taking time to convert more.

Two sources said bed shortages were exacerbated by problems with discharge, particularly of covid patients who no longer need acute care, including “local authorities taking their eye off the ball on designated settings and covid-positive pathways”, according to one.

And another reason behind delays is waiting for covid test results before admitting patients.

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Source: HSJ, 4 January 2021

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Leaking vials supplied for NHS test and trace, say whistleblowers

Leaking vials and suspected contamination were identified in a batch of more than 500,000 test tubes produced for the NHS Covid test and trace operation over the summer, whistleblowers have said.

The test tubes were provided by a small UK-based company, Life Science Group (LSG), which produces materials for the diagnostics industry.

According to the whistleblowers, there have been repeated problems with test tubes filled by LSG leaking. Stocks of some 600,000 test tubes were inspected in August as a result, and records seen by the Guardian describe the discovery of what looked like hair and blood contamination.

It is understood firms in the supply chain concluded that the contamination was not hair or blood, following inspections. However, records seen by the Guardian suggested at least one bag of LSG test tubes thought to be contaminated “cannot now be found”.

The whistleblowers said that rather than rejecting the entire potentially compromised batch, as would be normal safety protocol with NHS supplies, only part of the batch with visible problems was removed from use. They said they had blown the whistle because they were concerned for public safety.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 October 2020

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Leaked stats reveal 7,000 year-long waiters at major trust

Almost 7,000 patients have waited for treatment for a year or more at a major north London trust, according to NHS data seen by HSJ.

Royal Free Foundation Trust had 6,875 patients waiting 52 weeks or more, as of 26 July, according to a leaked document. It stopped reporting its elective waiting list to the centre in February 2019, citing concerns over accuracy. In a statement, it said these concerns continue.

But the document suggests the Royal Free accounted for around a third of the 20,000 year-long waiters across London at the end of July.

Minutes from the May meeting of the trust board’s quality, finance and compliance committee acknowledged “there was now a large number of RTT 52 week waiters on the trust patient tracking list… due to much of the elective work having been cancelled during covid-19, and these numbers were growing”.

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Source: HSJ, 18 August 2020

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