Jump to content
  • articles
    9,839
  • comments
    83
  • views
    12,457,379

Contributors to this article

About this News

Articles in the news

 

Only 15% of healthcare apps meet safety standards, research reveals

Only 15% of healthcare apps meet minimum safety standards, highlighting a “desperate need” for a proper review process, new research has concluded.

Health app evaluation organisation ORCHA evaluated more than 5,000 apps against 260 performance and compliance factors and found that majority do not meet the minimum safety requirements.

Liz Ashall-Payne, ORCHA’s Chief Executive, said: “We believe that digital health apps are one of the most important tools available to help tackle health issues in an ageing population that’s facing more complex, long-term problems. The fact that only 15% of apps that we review meet the minimum standards show there is a desperate need to regularly and properly assess the apps available to ensure that people are protected against the serious risks associated with downloading ineffective or even harmful apps.”

Helen Hughes, Chief Executive of Patient Safety Learning, which is working with ORCHA to improve the safety of apps, said the research reiterated the need for consistent regulatory standards and accreditation frameworks to be applied to healthcare apps.

“One of the areas we are beginning to explore with ORCHA is whether or not we can consider what patient safety would be in part of the review process,” she said. “Essentially what we want is patient safety embedded in all of the review processes so that we can inform and guide clinicians and inform and guide patients."

“And that there is appropriate research on their use and their impact so that information can feed the improvement of standards.”

Read full story

Source: Digital Health. 9 October 2019

 

Read more
 

Australia’s health ministers agree to make 'Quality Use of Medicines' and medicines safety a National Health Priority Area

At last week’s meeting in Perth, Australia, the COAG Health Council discussed a number of national health issues, one of which was the Quality Use of Medicines.

The Council’s resulting communique highlights that medicines are the most common intervention in healthcare and can contribute to significant health gains – but can also be associated with harm.

“Half of all medication related harm is preventable and a coordinated national approach that identifies and promotes best practice models and measures progress towards reducing medication related harm has the potential to improve the health of Australians and create savings across the health care system,” it notes.

At the meeting, the Health Ministers agreed to make the Quality Use of Medicines and Medicines Safety the 10th National Health Priority Area

Read full story

Source: Australian Journal of Pharmacy, 4 November 2019

Read more

AI tools used by English councils downplay women’s health issues, study finds

Artificial intelligence tools used by more than half of England’s councils are downplaying women’s physical and mental health issues and risk creating gender bias in care decisions, research has found.

The study found that when using Google’s AI tool “Gemma” to generate and summarise the same case notes, language such as “disabled”, “unable” and “complex” appeared significantly more often in descriptions of men than women.

The study, by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), also found that similar care needs in women were more likely to be omitted or described in less serious terms.

Dr Sam Rickman, the lead author of the report and a researcher in LSE’s Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, said AI could result in “unequal care provision for women”.

“We know these models are being used very widely and what’s concerning is that we found very meaningful differences between measures of bias in different models,” he said. “Google’s model, in particular, downplays women’s physical and mental health needs in comparison to men’s.

“And because the amount of care you get is determined on the basis of perceived need, this could result in women receiving less care if biased models are used in practice. But we don’t actually know which models are being used at the moment.”

AI tools are increasingly being used by local authorities to ease the workload of overstretched social workers, although there is little information about which specific AI models are being used, how frequently and what impact this has on decision-making.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 11 August 2025

Read more
 

‘Inherently risky’ children’s cancer service to be overhauled

Children’s cancer services in south London are to be reconfigured after a new review confirmed they represented an “inherent geographical risk to patient safety” — following HSJ revelations last year of how serious concerns had been “buried” by senior leaders.

Sir Mike Richards’ independent review was commissioned after HSJ revealed a 2015 report linking fragmented London services to poor quality care had not been addressed, and clinicians were facing pressure to soften recommendations which would have required them to change.

The review, published in conjunction with Thursday’s NHS England board meeting, recommended services at two sites should be redesigned as soon as possible to improve patient experience.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 31 January 2020

Read more

Mysterious conditions are afflicting Americans after Covid. It could signal a looming cardiac crisis

Five months after being infected with the coronavirus, Nicole Murphy’s pulse rate is going berserk. Normally in the 70s, which is ideal, it has been jumping to 160, 170 and sometimes 210 beats per minute even when she is at rest — putting her at risk of a heart attack, heart failure or stroke.

No one seems to be able to pinpoint why. She’s only 44, never had heart issues, and when a cardiologist near her hometown of Wellsville, Ohio, USA, ran all of the standard tests, “he literally threw up his hands when he saw the results,” she recalled. Her blood pressure was perfect, there were no signs of clogged arteries, and her heart was expanding and contracting well.

Murphy’s boomeranging heart rate is one of a number of mysterious conditions afflicting Americans weeks or months after coronavirus infections that suggest the potential of a looming cardiac crisis.

A pivotal study that looked at health records of more than 153,000 U.S. veterans published this month in Nature Medicine found that their risk of cardiovascular disease of all types increased substantially in the year following infection, even when they had mild cases. The population studied was mostly White and male, but the patterns held even when the researchers analyzed women and people of color separately. When experts factor in the heart damage probably suffered by people who put off medical care, more sedentary lifestyles and eating changes, not to mention the stress of the pandemic, they estimate there may be millions of new onset cardiac cases related to the virus, plus a worsening of disease for many already affected.

“We are expecting a tidal wave of cardiovascular events in the coming years from direct and indirect causes of covid,” said Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: Washington Post, 21 February 2022

Read more
 

Cuts to investigations of killings by mental health patients ‘put people at risk’

People have been put at risk because the NHS has stopped funding the automatic investigation of all killings by mental health patients, according to psychiatrists and victims’ families. Experts who had looked into every such homicide for 20 years had to stop doing so last year after NHS England stopped paying the £100,000-a-year cost involved, the Guardian has reported.

Previously, for 26 years until last year, researchers from Manchester University had looked into the mental health history and NHS care received by the perpetrator of every such homicide to try to identify patterns and flaws which could be tackled to reduce the risk of similar attacks in the future. Their findings had led to improved care of potentially dangerous mental health patients.

“This is a risky and reckless decision.... It’s outrageous,” said Julian Hendy, the founder of Hundred Families, a charity that helps bereaved families. 

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 17 July 2019

Read more
 

Obesity increases risk of COVID-19 death by almost 50%, study suggests

Obesity may double the risk of falling seriously ill with Covid-19 and increase the chances of dying by almost 50 per cent, according to researchers, who also warned any future vaccine may be less effective for the clinically overweight.

Health issues caused by obesity include a number of pre-existing conditions known to exacerbate a Covid-19 infection – including heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Now a global assessment of health data gathered since the start of the the pandemic by researchers at the University of North Carolina has found people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30 were 113 per cent more likely to be hospitalised.

Those admitted to hospital were found to be 74% more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit, while the risk of death among obese patients increased by 48%.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 26 August 2020

Read more

Leak reveals priorities of NHS long-term plan refresh

A drive to ‘transform’ access to urgent, emergency and planned care will be added to the goals of the NHS long-term plan, a document leaked to HSJ has revealed

The  long-term plan for the NHS was originally published in January 2019. Last September, NHS England said it was reviewing the commitments made within the plan, with senior officials warning that many of them could not be met after the damage of the pandemic.

HSJ has seen a document prepared for the most recent meeting of the NHS Assembly which sets out NHSE’s approach to the refresh.

Strategic developments expected include better joined-up community based and preventive care, transform access to urgent, emergency and planned care, improve care quality and operations, and tackle health inequalities, improve population health and develop a sustainable health service through greater collaboration.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 24 June 2022

Read more
 

Surrey hospital trust becomes first in country to appoint nurse to prevent patient falls

A Surrey hospital trust has become the first in the country to appoint a nurse dedicated to preventing patient falls and medication mix-ups.

The consultant nurse has been appointed by Ashford and St Peter's (ASP) Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to reduce the number of patients who are injured while being treated at its sites.

This includes looking at ways to reduce the amount of people who fall over, suffer with venous thromboembolism or experience tissue damage while in hospitals in north west Surrey.

The trust says the harms prevention nurse will be the first in the country hired for such a role and will also work with the team who look at incidents of medication mix-ups and mistakes.

Read full story

Source: Surrey Live, 4 February 2020

Read more
 

Even more’ nurses considering quitting the profession, survey reveals

There has been a sharp rise in the number of nurses considering quitting the profession compared to this time last year, suggest results from a new survey.

The research also found that “existing tensions” among the workforce appeared to have been “exacerbated” by the COVID-19 crisis.

The survey findings feature in a new report published by Royal College of Nursing and cover the views of almost 42,000 of its members across the UK and Channel Islands.

Of those who responded to the survey, 36% of nurses were thinking of leaving the profession, an increase from 27% reported in a similar piece of research carried out at the end of last year.

When considering the reasons for quitting, 61% of staff indicated that the level of pay was the “main driver”, while others said they were dissatisfied with the way nursing staff had been treated during the pandemic (44%).

Meanwhile, 43% of nurses cited low staffing levels and 42% a lack of management support as key reasons for wanting to leave nursing.

Read full story

Source: Nursing Times, 17 July 2020

Read more

Covid rule changes leave clinically vulnerable as ‘collateral damage’, charities warn

Leading charities have spoken out against the government’s scrapping of COVID-19 measures warning that clinically vulnerable people have been made “collateral damage for political considerations.”

Those representing thousands of clinically vulnerable people have warned the government’s decisions to scrap COVID-19 restrictions leaves people “marginalised” and warned there was a risk to 5-11 year old vulnerable children who are yet to be vaccinated.

The removal of COVID-19 restrictions next week will mean masks are no longer mandatory and the government will no longer ask people to work from home. Blood Cancer UK has called for the government to do more to support immunocompromised people such as giving them priority testing.

Alzheimer's Society has said it is too early to drop basic measures, such as mask wearing, which help protect vulnerable members of society.

Charlotte Augst, chief executive for the charity National Voices said clinically vulnerable people had now become “collateral damage in political considerations.”

She said: “The pandemic has obviously been difficult for everyone, but it’s been the most difficult for people who are vulnerable to the virus, and some of these people have never really come out of 22 months of lockdowns.

“There are obviously infection control measures that are harmful to society and lockdown is one of them - it causes harm. But there are some infection control measures which are not and which enable people to get on with their lives - wearing masks, improving ventilation.

“Why would we not do this? When we understood that dirty water caused illness, we cleaned up the water. It cannot be a political statement to say we should clean up the air this is just fact-based decision making, but the situation] has now become all about politics.

Read full story

Source: The Independent. 21 January 2022

Read more

Children’s services rated ‘inadequate’ as trust remains ‘outstanding’

The children’s inpatient unit at an ‘outstanding’ mental health trust has been downgraded to ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), amid a surge in demand for its services.

The CQC previously rated child and adolescent mental health wards at Hertfordshire Partnership University Foundation Trust as “outstanding” in May 2019.

But after an inspection in November and December 2021, these services were downgraded to “inadequate” overall and for the key categories of safety and leadership.

Although inspecting a core service, the CQC said its visit was “not wide-ranging enough” to update overall trust ratings, so HPFT remains “outstanding” overall.

Teenagers aged from 13 to 18 and admitted to Forest House, a 16-bed unit in Radlett providing HPFT’s only inpatient service for children and adolescents, told CQC inspectors they felt “unsafe”, dissatisfied with their care, and had experienced bullying by fellow patients.

Leadership in the service had “significantly deteriorated” since previous inspections, CQC chiefs wrote in a report published today, and this was having a “knock-on effect in all areas of care being provided”.

Staff morale was low and access to clinical psychologists limited, with a reduced ability to provide therapeutic interventions, inspectors added.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 30 March 2022

Read more
 

NHS England asked ‘inadequate’ hospital to admit patient despite ban

NHS England asked an “inadequate” hospital for people with learning disabilities and autism to admit a patient, despite the service having a “voluntary” ban on admissions in place — and shortly before inspectors decided to impose a legal restriction.

The provider said it was an “exceptional case”, where the individual “had several failed placements”, and had stayed at the hospital — Jeesal Cawston Park in Norfolk — “in the past”. 

However, it appears to highlight the shortage of good quality accommodation and placements available and pressure on commissioners to make use of “inadequate” facilities.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 21 January 2020

Read more
 

Reviewer ‘felt bullied by CCG’ over findings on young man’s death

An independent review found that commissioners’ investigation of a young boy’s death was ‘mismanaged’, and heard allegations that the person who coordinated it was bullied over the contents.  

The independent review, commissioned by NHS England, has published its final report following an investigation into Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire clinical commissioning group’s LeDer review into the death of Oliver McGowan.

Chaired by Fiona Ritchie, the independent review was commissioned last year after evidence emerged that the CCG had rewritten earlier findings of the review, removing suggestions his death at North Bristol Trust in 2016 was avoidable.

Oliver died in November 2016 after being given anti-psychotic medication against his own and his parents’ wishes and despite medical records showing he had an intolerance to anti-psychotics. He developed severe brain swelling because of the drugs and died.A local LeDer review — part of a programme aimed at improving care based on deaths among people with learning disabilities — was launched in 2017, seven months after his death, by the CCG (then operating as three separate organisations), then published in 2018. 

In 2018, a coroner concluded Oliver’s care prior to his death was “appropriate” and made no recommendations. His death is also currently the subject of a police investigation. 

The lead reviewer (Ms A) stated in her panel interview that during the time she was undertaking this LeDeR she had felt bullied, overworked and overly stressed by the demands placed on her by the various correspondences with solicitors and her line management. The fact that Ms A believed she was isolated and unsupported during this review illustrates evident failures in the CCG assurance and management processes at the time.

In a final report by the subsequent independent review, published today, the panel led by Ms Ritchie “unanimously” agreed Oliver’s death was “potentially avoidable”.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source HSJ, 20 October 2020

Read more
 

London hospital maternity unit criticised by regulator after mother’s death

The safety of maternity services at a major north London hospital has been criticised by the care watchdog after an inspection prompted by the death of a woman.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued the Royal Free Hospital, in Hampstead with a warning notice after inspectors identified serious safety failings in its maternity unit.

An unannounced inspection of the hospital’s maternity service took place in October, following the death of Malyun Karama, in February this year.

The 34-year-old died while giving birth to her stillborn baby. She suffered a ruptured uterus after being given an overdose of misoprostol to induce her labour.

In a report following an inquest into her death Coroner Mary Hassell said: “Abnormal observations were relayed by a midwife to a senior registrar, but the doctor failed to attend Ms Karama and instead ordered fluids. The uterine rupture would have been life threatening whatever the care rendered to Ms Karama, but if the doctor had attended immediately and had reviewed and treated appropriately, the likelihood is that Ms Karama’s life would have been saved.”

The CQC has yet to publish a full report on its inspection of the hospital but confirmed it had taken enforcement action and issued the trust with a warning notice.

The concerns relate to the trust being too slow to investigate and make changes after incidents of harm. It’s understood a panel to investigate Ms Karama’s death did not meet until June this year.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 1 December 2020

Read more
 

Long Covid: ‘It’s a year since I’ve felt like myself’

Today is an anniversary that George Hencken never imagined. It is exactly one year since she caught COVID-19. But unlike most people who have suffered from the disease, she remains ill.

“It’s a year since I’ve felt like myself,” she said. “It’s a year since my life as I knew it came to an end. And I don’t know if I’m going to get it back again.”

Long Covid doesn’t quite describe the depths of her fatigue. “It’s not tiredness. It’s like having jet lag and a hangover. It feels like I’ve been poisoned,” she said.

The problem for Hencken and the thousands still suffering from the virus months later is that long Covid doesn’t describe much at all.

The umbrella term covers people who are breathless and fatigued, or who have brain fog, headaches and tingling arms, or who have chest pains and heart palpitations, or all of those and dozens more symptoms besides.

Support groups such as LongCovidSOS have been fighting hard for the condition to be recognised and taken seriously – sufferers say they feel disbelieved, and doctors initially had little information, support or even funding.

Last week the government announced £18.5m through the National Institute for Health Research to fund four major studies attempting to understand exactly what long Covid means, why it affects so many apparently healthy people, and how they can be helped. Research by University College London will track the health of 60,000 people, including people with long Covid and a control group who will wear a Fitbit-style wristband to measure heart rate, breathing and exercise levels.

The aim is to chart and identify clusters of symptoms, Professor Nishi Chaturvedi said. “My sense is that the multiplicity of symptoms that people are reporting suggests to me and many others that it’s not one thing, but several syndromes. We’re not even at the starting point yet of knowing what it is,” she said.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 20 February 2021

Read more

NHS ambulance service doctored documents to cover up truth about deaths

Quinn Evie Beadle died in 2018. Her parents later found out that the “kind, caring” 17-year-old had been failed by a paramedic at the scene of her death — and that the ambulance service altered documents to try to stop them finding out the truth.

The teenager, who dreamt of becoming a medic but suffered poor mental health, was found after she hanged herself near her home in Shildon, Co Durham, on the evening of 9 December 2018. The paramedic who attended the scene made basic mistakes, and made no effort to clear her airway or continue with basic life support — despite the fact her heart was still active.

But instead of attempting to learn lessons, bosses at the North East Ambulance Trust (NEAS) set out to prevent the family learning what happened.

They changed a key witness statement given to the coroner at her first inquest, removing references to mistakes the paramedic had made and inserting the claim that any life support offered would “not have had a positive outcome”. They also withheld from the coroner a key piece of evidence — a reading from a heart monitor — which demonstrated Quinn’s heart activity.

It is thought Quinn’s death could be one of more than 90 cases in the past three years in which the NEAS failed to provide families with the whole truth about how their relatives died.

Senior managers repeatedly withheld key evidence from coroners about deaths linked to service failures, an internal report shows. In some cases, bosses doctored or suppressed evidence to cover up failures by staff.

An independent report into a small number of the cases, including Quinn’s, raised by whistleblowers found that, as in her case, statements were changed or suppressed and pieces of key evidence not disclosed.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Sunday Times, 22 May 2022

Read more
 

Trust warned by CQC sees fourth inpatient death following ‘humongous’ problems

A fourth suspected suicide has occurred at a mental health trust which was recently warned by the Care Quality Commission after three other similar inpatient deaths in quick succession, HSJ can reveal.

All four deaths at Devon Partnership Trust had common themes, including the use of ligatures, and occurred amid a year-long delay to the trust’s plan to reduce ligature risks.

Figures obtained by HSJ under freedom of information laws also reveal the trust took nearly a year to investigate the first two deaths. The target is 90 days.

The trust told HSJ it had faced “humongous” problems addressing ligature risks and had been too “patient” with another trust which was helping to investigate the deaths.

Read full story (paywallled)

Source HSJ, 27 October 2020

Read more

‘People are being very angry with us’: A&E doctor on abuse of NHS staff

Dr Katherine Henderson, a senior A&E consultant in London and President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, says physical and verbal attacks have increased in recent months.

Speaking to the Guardian, she says: “It is a sad reality that in recent months there has been a rise in abuse directed towards healthcare workers, but this abuse is not something new to frontline staff or emergency departments. It was bad before the pandemic, but there’s a changed atmosphere now.

“During the pandemic people were being very positive about healthcare workers. But now the public are frustrated that services aren’t getting back to normal. Maybe people who weren’t the source of abuse before are now being the source of abuse. Abuse may be physical or verbal, it may be through social media, or it may be racial or misogynistic.

“People are being angry – very angry – with us. They are angry about long waits, about having to stand outside emergency departments in queues, about delays in ambulances coming, including to take their relative home from hospital. The public haven’t really caught up with how struggling the whole NHS is."

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 10 October 2021

Read more
 

Experts warn of racial disparities in the diagnosis and treatment of Long Covid

It has long been clear that Black Americans have experienced high rates of coronavirus infection, hospitalisation and death throughout the pandemic.

But those factors are now leading experts to sound the alarm about what will may come next: a prevalence of Long Covid in the Black community and a lack of access to treatment.

Long Covid — with chronic symptoms like fatigue, cognitive problems and others that linger for months after an acute coronavirus infection has cleared up — has perplexed researchers, and many are working hard to find a treatment for people experiencing it. But health experts warn that crucial data is missing: Black Americans have not been sufficiently included in Long-Covid trials, treatment programmes and registries, according to the authors of a new report released on Tuesday.

“We expect there are going to be greater barriers to access the resources and services available for Long Covid,” said one of the authors, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who is the director of Yale University’s health equity office and a former chair of President Biden’s health equity task force.

“The pandemic isn’t over, it isn’t over for anyone,” Dr. Nunez-Smith said. “But the reality is, it’s certainly not over in Black America.”

In the first three months of the pandemic, the average weekly case rate per 100,000 Black Americans was 36.2, compared with 12.5 for white Americans, the authors write. The Black hospitalisation rate was 12.6 per 100,000 people, compared with 4 per 100,000 for white people, and the death rate was also higher: 3.6 per 100,000 compared with 1.8 per 100,000.

“The severity of Covid-19 among Black Americans was the predictable result of structural and societal realities, not differences in genetic predisposition.” 

"Many Black Americans who contracted the coronavirus experienced serious illness because of pre-existing conditions like obesity, hypertension and chronic kidney disease, which themselves were often the result of “differential access to high-quality care and health promoting resources,” the report says.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: New York Times, 29 March 2022

Read more

NHSE sets trusts ‘100-day challenge’ to reduce delayed discharges

NHS England has set trusts and systems a ‘100-day challenge’ to discharge more patients from hospital and free up beds before winter.

David Sloman, chief operating officer of NHSE, has asked leaders of integrated care boards, acute and community trusts in a letter sent last week to adopt 10 “best practice initiatives” which he said “can make a significant difference in facilitating discharge and improving care for patients”.

Trusts and systems have been given until 30 September to have a “full understanding” of the initiatives (listed below) and “infrastructure in place” to implement them.

The initiatives include setting expected dates of discharge for patients within 48 hours of admission, “apply seven-day working” to discharge more patients at weekends, treat delayed discharge as “a potential harm event” and to manage workforces in community and social care services “to better match predicted patterns in demand”.

Sir David has told regional and local leaders that a dedicated national NHSE team will set up “launch meetings” in each system, which will ensure there is “a focus on improving processes and performance around discharge”.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 5 July 2022

Read more
 

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

Read the full article here

Read more

BBC criticised for letting cardiologist ‘hijack’ interview with false Covid jab claim

The BBC has come under fire from scientists for interviewing a cardiologist who claimed certain Covid vaccines could be behind excess deaths from coronary artery disease.

Experts have criticised Dr Aseem Malhotra’s appearance on the BBC's news channel last Friday, accusing him of pushing “extreme fringe” views, which are “misguided”, “dangerous” and could mislead the public.

Scientists have described the doctor as “hijacking” an interview on statins to air his views, causing BBC staff to be “alarmed and embarrassed” by their booking. Malhotra recently retweeted a video by the MP Andrew Bridgen, who had the Tory whip removed on Wednesday after comparing the use of Covid vaccines to the Holocaust.

After criticising new guidance on statins, he cited British Heart Foundation (BHF) figures that suggested there had been more than 30,000 excess deaths linked to heart disease since Covid first arrived.

Malhotra, a cardiologist at ROC Private Clinic, claimed mRNA Covid vaccines play a role, saying his “own research” showed “Covid mRNA vaccines do carry a cardiovascular risk”. He added that he has called for the vaccine rollout to be suspended pending an inquiry because of the “uncertainty” behind excess deaths.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 13 January 2023

 

Read more
 

Plans for 150 new diagnostic hubs to cut rising waits

Plans for up to 150 new community diagnostic hubs to tackle the NHS’ ballooning diagnostic waiting lists are included in NHS England ‘blue print plans’ leaked to HSJ.

The document pointed out the hubs “were highlighted in the phase 3 letter [from Sir Simon Stevens] and will be recommended as part of new service models for diagnostics in the forthcoming [Sir Mike] Richards’ Review of Diagnostics Capacity”.

It said “at least 150 community diagnostic hubs should be established in the first instance (broadly equivalent to the number of acute hospitals)” although it appears many of these may be temporary facilities.

The phase 3 letter said systems should mange the “immediate growth in people requiring cancer diagnosis and/or treatment returning to the service by… the development of community diagnostic hubs” among other measures

The Richards review was commissioned by NHS England in 2019 as it had long been recognised that England has one of the lowest levels in Europe of diagnostic equipment as well as a shortage in facilities and staff. Last month think-tanks warned of significant worsening of cancer outcomes because of the backlog in diagnosis and treatment created by a fall in referrals during the pandemic..."

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 4 September 2020

Read more

© 2026 Patient Safety Learning. All rights reserved.

Patient Safety Learning is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission Registration number 1180689.

×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.