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Hospitals 'inappropriately' turned down urgent cancer referrals during lockdown, GPs say

Urgent cancer referrals were "inappropriately" rejected by hospitals during the coronavirus lockdown without tests being carried out, GPs have said. 

Cancer Research UK said the findings from a survey of more than 1,000 GPs were "alarming", warning that patients whose lives may be at risk were being left "in limbo".

Family doctors were surveyed in June and asked what had happened to patients they had referred to hospitals for tests in the month to that point because cancer was suspected. 

A quarter of GPs said urgent referrals had been inappropriately turned down by hospitals more often than had been the case before the pandemic.  

Four in 10 said that, when tests were refused, patients had been left without proper checks to see whether their case could safely be left without investigation.

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Source: The Telegraph, 8 July 2020

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Hospitalising coronavirus patients can cause more deaths, data from Italy suggests

Sending coronavirus patients to hospital can dramatically increase death rates, the experience of two hard-hit Italian regions suggests.

Veneto and Lombardy are neighbouring regions but have seen sharply differing fatality rates since the contagion broke out in northern Italy in late February. Despite having equally well-equipped hospitals and similar levels of wealth, Lombardy’s death rate is around 17% while that of Veneto is around 5%.

One reason for the disparity is that Veneto has tested many more people – the more tests that are carried out, the more positive cases are found, and that brings down the overall death rate among those infected.

But another key factor, experts believe, is that Lombardy admitted more patients to hospital, whereas Veneto urged them to stay at home or treated them in local health clinics.

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Source: The Telegraph, 6 April 2020

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Hospital’s critical care unit overwhelmed by coronavirus patients

A major London hospital has declared a “critical incident” due to a surge in patients with coronavirus, with one senior director in the capital calling the development “petrifying”.

In a message to staff, Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow said it has no critical care capacity left and has contacted neighbouring hospitals about transferring patients who need critical care to other sites.

The message, sent last night and seen by HSJ, said: “I am writing to let you know that we have this evening declared a ‘critical incident’ in relation to our critical care capacity at Northwick Park Hospital. This is due to an increasing number of patients with Covid-19.

“This means that we currently do not have enough space for patients requiring critical care.

“As part of our system resilience plans, we have contacted our partners in the North West London sector this evening to assist with the safe transfer of patients off of the Northwick Park site”

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Source: HSJ, 20 March 2020

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Hospital’s ‘consistently high’ mortality rate under investigation

NHS England and local system leaders are investigating “consistently high” mortality rates over the last two years at an acute hospital after previous reviews failed to find an explanation, an integrated care board meeting was told this week.

A Lincolnshire integrated care board member said previous work had “never got to the bottom” of what is happening at Peterborough City Hospital, which sits outside Lincolnshire but provides services to the county’s residents.

Gerry McSorley, who chaired the predecessor clinical commissioning group and is now a non executive director on the ICB, said the problems at Peterborough were “masked” by better mortality rates at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, which is run by the same trust. He added that the concerns around the hospital’s summary hospital-level mortality indicator ration were also being looked into by NHS England.

However, after publication of the story, NWAFT told HSJ: “Following an internal review we found the variance in mortality rates between our two main acute sites… is down to clinical coding variation and in no way reflects the safety or quality of care provided to patients”.

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Source: HSJ, 29 September 2022

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Hospital's oxygen supply in 'critical' situation

A hospital's oxygen supply has "reached a critical situation" due to rising numbers of COVID-19 infections.

A document shared with the BBC showed Southend Hospital has had to reduce the amount it uses to treat patients. It said the target range for oxygen levels that should be in patients' blood had been cut from 92% to a baseline of 88-92%.

Hospital managing director, Yvonne Blucher, said it was "working to manage" the situation.

"We are experiencing high demand for oxygen because of rising numbers of inpatients with Covid-19 and we are working to manage this," she said.

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Source: BBC News, 11 January 2021

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Hospital's 'gross failings' led to pressure sores death

A double amputee suffered fatal pressure sores caused by "gross and obvious failings" in her hospital treatment.

Janet Prince, from Nottingham, developed the sores after being admitted to Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in July 2017. The 80-year-old died in January 2019.

Assistant Coroner Gordon Clow issued a prevention of future deaths report to Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH).

Nottingham Coroner's Court had heard Ms Prince was taken to QMC in Nottingham with internal bleeding on 15 July 2017. The patient was left on a trolley in the emergency department for nine hours and even though she and daughter Emma Thirlwall said she needed to be given a specialist mattress, she was not given one.

"No specific measures of any kind were implemented during that period of more than nine hours to reduce the risk of pressure damage, even though it should have been easily apparent to those treating her that [she] needed such measures to be in place," Mr Clow said.

Ms Prince was later transferred to different wards, but a specialist mattress was only provided for her a few days before she was discharged on 9 August, by which time Mr Clow said her wounds "had progressed to the most serious form of pressure ulcer (stage four) including a wound with exposed bone".

Mr Clow said there were "serious failings" over finding an appropriate mattress and other aspects of her care while at the QMC, including "a gross failure" to prevent Ms Prince's open wounds coming into contact with faeces.

Mr Clow said the immediate cause of her death was "severe pressure ulcers", with bronchopneumonia a contributory factor. Recording a death by "natural causes, contributed to by neglect", he said he was "troubled by the lack of evidence" of any changes to wound management at NUH.

NUH medical director Keith Girling apologised for the failings in Ms Prince's care, claiming the trust had "learnt a number of significant lessons from this very tragic case".

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Source: BBC News, 14 February 2020

 

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Hospital-acquired infection caused one-in-five covid deaths at several trusts

More than one in five ‘covid deaths’ were both probably hospital-acquired, and caused at least in part by the virus, at several trusts, according to analysis released to HSJ.

HSJ obtained figures from more than 30 trusts which have looked in detail at cases where patients died after definitely, or probably, catching covid in hospital. 

Thirty-two acute trusts provided HSJ with robust data, out of the total 120 in England. Across all 32, they had recorded 3,223 covid hospital deaths which were either “definitely” or ‘probably’ nosocomial — making up around 17% of their total reported 19,020 hospital deaths.

The trusts said 2,776 of the 3,223 deaths also had covid listed on their death certificate, either as an “immediate cause” or as a contributory factor. That constitutes about 15% of all the hospitals’ covid deaths, and 86% of the nosocomial deaths.

When approached by HSJ, these trusts said they followed robust infection control practices, and that high community covid prevalence, and covid admissions, were the main cause of hospital-acquired infection. Some trusts also cited their ageing infrastructure.

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Source: HSJ, 6 September 2021

 

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Hospital wrong to ban woman visiting partner on his deathbed

The partner of a dying man was denied the chance to be at his bedside during his final moments after a hospital wrongly banned her from daily visits, an ombudsman report has found.

Brian Boulton, 70, was admitted to Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, South Wales, after suffering from a chest infection, which was later diagnosed as aspiration pneumonia caused by oesophageal cancer.

Celia Jones, his “long term life partner” of twenty years, was accused by hospital staff of giving the retired tailor a larger dose of the prescribed furosemide medication than was allowed. Ms Jones, 65, was restricted to one-hour visits twice a week, meaning she was unable to be with him when he died a day after her last authorised visit on Wednesday 27 September 2017.

The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has upheld her complaints about her “appalling” treatment, ruling that the visiting restrictions were imposed “without warning” and resulted in a “significant injustice”.

It found no record of Ms Jones, a retired nurse, admitting to a senior ward manager that she gave the large dose of medicine to her partner.

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Source: The Telegraph, 6 January 2020

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Hospital with 600 estate ‘incidents’ demands ‘urgent’ government decision

A trust has called for ministers to make an ‘urgent’ decision on funding for a new hospital, as a raft of maintenance problems such as leaking roofs and overflowing sewage pipes are hampering efforts to tackle waiting list backlogs.

There was a surge in estates’ incidents reported by Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust last year — to an average of nearly 12 each week — and the Essex trust is calling for clarity on whether it will be given the green light to build a new hospital.

The trust is one of eight given priority status under the government’s new hospitals programme, but there has been speculation in recent weeks the programme could be scaled back as departments are told to find spending cuts.

Michael Meredith, estates director at Princess Alexandra Hospital, said patients still received good care, but admitted the problems – which include sewage overflow, outdated electrics and theatre roofs leaking – were “absolutely” affecting the hospital’s ability to recover elective care.

He told HSJ: “It means you have to cancel some of your elective work. And at the moment that is critical, because we know [we’ve] got a long waiting list, we know we need to recover, we know we’ve got people waiting longer than they need to…

“That has a real impact on our staff morale, and a real impact on patients waiting to be seen.”

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Source: HSJ, 1 November 2022

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Hospital whistleblower wins right to protection in landmark case

Max McLean didn’t see himself as a whistleblower. As chair of the Bradford Royal Infirmary he had simply raised a number of issues including preventable deaths in newborn babies

But he was, he claims, forced out by the Board.  And when he tried to take the trust to an employment tribunal, they argued that he was not a worker and was not protected under whistleblowing law.

Now, in a landmark ruling, the tribunal said he was a worker and was protected. The tribunal ruling will have massive implications for those who sit on trust boards across England.

Too often when there have been scandals involving patient care there has been a resounding silence from those who are meant to be holding senior executives to account. Now they are being told that they can speak up and that they will be protected.

Dr McLean, a former police officer, had been trust chair for two years when he raised his concerns, which were confirmed by an independent report.

He told Channel 4 News: “There is no freedom to speak up. It is a sham.”

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Source: Channel 4 News, 26 March 2025

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Hospital whistleblower raised alarm over doctor seen injecting himself

A whistleblower raised the alarm over patient safety at West Suffolk Hospital because of concerns about the behaviour of a doctor who had been seen injecting himself with drugs, the Guardian has revealed.

The incident had already prompted internal complaints from senior staff at West Suffolk hospital, but the whistleblower decided to take matters a step further when the same doctor was later involved in a potentially botched operation. The whistleblower then wrote to relatives of a dead patient and urged them to ask questions about the conduct of the doctor and his background.

When they did this, the hospital launched a widely criticised “witch-hunt” in an attempt to find out the identity of the leaker.

The doctor’s drug use, which the trust has never acknowledged until now, helps explain why it demanded fingerprint and handwriting samples from staff – tactics which the NHS regulator roundly condemned in a hard-hitting report last week.

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Source: Guardian, 5 February 2020

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Hospital where baby died from infected feed had ‘entirely unsafe system’

An NHS trust that gave four newborn babies contaminated feed has admitted that it was operating “an entirely unsafe system” at the time they became infected.

The admission came during evidence by a senior doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust (GSTT), who led its investigation into the outbreak, during an inquest into how one of the very premature babies died.

Dr William Newsholme was answering questions last week at the inquest at Southwark coroner’s court in London into the death of Aviva Otte at St Thomas’ hospital on 2 January 2014.

Newsholme was questioned about why the results of tests carried out on samples of the baby feed on 26 December 2013 did not come back until 6 January, by which time the baby had died and three others were ill.

He was asked if he would agree that the long delay meant that “that this is an entirely unsafe system within which to be preparing parenteral nutrition for the most vulnerable cohort of patients in your hospital”.

Newsholme, a consultant in infectious diseases and the trust’s clinical lead for infection prevention and control, answered: “Yes, I would.”

The inquest is examining events surrounding the deaths of Aviva and of two other babies, nine day-old Yousef Al-Kharboush and one-month-old Oscar Barker, in an outbreak of Bacillus cereus five months later which also involved contaminated feed. Nineteen babies at nine hospitals were infected in that outbreak, three of whom died.

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Source: The Guardian, 24 September 2024

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Hospital water supply faces bacteria risk

A coroner has written to the health secretary warning a lack of guidance around a bacteria that could contaminate new hospitals' water supply may lead to future deaths.

It follows inquests into the deaths of Anne Martinez, 65, and Karen Starling, 54, who died a year after undergoing double lung transplants at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge in 2019.

Both were exposed to Mycobacterium abscessus, likely to have come from the site's water supply.

The coroner said there was evidence the risks of similar contamination was "especially acute for new hospitals".

In a prevention of future deaths report, external, Keith Morton KC, assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said 34 people had contracted the bacteria at the hospital since it opened at its new site in 2019.

He said the bacteria "poses a risk of death to those who are immuno-suppressed" and there was a "lack of understanding" about how it entered the water system.

There was "no guidance on the identification and control" of mycobacterium abscesses, the coroner said.

Mr Morton said documentation on safe water in hospitals needed "urgent review and amendment".

"Consideration needs to be given to whether special or additional measures are required in respect of the design, installation, commissioning and operation of hospital water systems in new hospitals," he said.

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Source: BBC News, 22 November 2022

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Hospital watchdog chief calls for honesty over Covid pandemic’s impact on patient care

The chief inspector of hospitals has called for honesty about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on patients warning poor care could become normalised.

Professor Ted Baker told The Independent it was vital staff continued to report incidents and revealed the Care Quality Commission had seen a 60% rise in whistleblowing concerns during the last national lockdown in November.

He said staff must report incidents and be free to speak up about any concerns as well as being transparent with families where things have gone wrong.

He emphasised that where a patient was unable to get the care they clinically needed because of the demand on services, this would amount to a notifiable patient safety incident.

Professor Baker’s comments follow multiple anonymous leaks from NHS staff to The Independent in recent weeks, showing how bad the situation has become in some hospitals. Many staff have only spoken out on condition of anonymity.

Many hospitals have declared major incidents, cancelled operations and been forced to stretch staffing ratios to unsafe levels to cope with the increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients.

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Source: The Independent, 7 January 2021

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Hospital warns it may become ‘impossible’ to stop patients catching covid

A trust has warned it may reach a ‘tipping point’ where it is ‘impossible’ to separate covid positive and negative patients.

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust also revealed in papers published ahead of its Thursday board meeting that it planned to distribute a “duty of candour” leaflet for patients, warning them of the risk of contracting covid in hospital.

The papers noted covid patients at the trust increased from 80 pre-Christmas to 230 by January, filling half its beds. HSJ’s figures suggest covid patients at the trust continued to rise until around 14 January before dropping back slightly. 

The report from the trust’s safety and quality committee — which met on 7 January — said: “It is becoming more difficult to separate the covid+ and covid- patients. In an increasing number of instances, patients are admitted to cold areas for non-covid treatment and without symptoms but then test positive. These patients then need to be admitted to hot areas and any contacts (including patients from the same bay) isolated.

“At some point a tipping point could be reached where it may be impossible to retain hot and cold areas.”

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Source: HSJ, 27 January 2021

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Hospital warned over safety and ‘undermining behaviour’

Regulators are carrying out “enhanced monitoring” of clinical radiology services at a major London hospital, after concerns about safety and “undermining behaviour”.

The General Medical Council introduced the special measures on the department at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow last month, it has emerged, after concerns were raised in the regulator’s annual survey by higher specialty trainees.

Enhanced monitoring is used when a department or hospital has failed to improve after concerns have been raised locally, and where the GMC feels the quality of training could affect patient safety or junior doctors’ ability to progress.

In relation to Northwick Park’s clinical radiology, issues highlighted included staff behaviour, whether there is a “supportive environment”, trainee safety, clinical supervision out of hours, educational supervision, and resources for trainers.

GMC medical director and director for education and standards Professor Colin Melville said it was concerned about “the quality of training in the department and undermining behaviours”.

He added: “We’ll continue to work closely with NHS England London to make sure an improvement plan is implemented. We will check that progress is being made to make sure trainees and registrants are working in a safe, supportive, and sustainable training environment.”

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Source: HSJ, 23 October 2024

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Hospital warned over 'significant' safety gaps

An acute trust has been served a warning notice due to “significant concerns” over patient safety in one of its emergency departments.

The Care Quality Commission said there was a lack of oversight of patients in the ED at Basildon Hospital, one of three main sites run by Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust (MSEFT), and that the absence of a robust booking system was putting them at risk of harm.

MSEFT has published the warning notice in the papers ahead of its board meeting this week. The notice followed an unannounced inspection in December and a follow-up visit last month.

The CQC said: “We have taken this urgent action as we believe a person will or may be exposed to the risk of harm if we do not do so.”

Ms Roberts said there was a lack of clinical oversight in the waiting room during the follow-up visit on 8 January. She said the only clinical staff in the large and busy waiting area were navigation nurses who were going in and out of rooms to assess patients.

MSEFT had said a nurse and health care assistant would be added to the waiting room team after the first visit, but inspectors did not see any during the follow-up, according to the letter. Ms Roberts said: “This puts patients at risk of unmonitored deterioration and harm.”

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Source: HSJ, 12 February 2025

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Hospital wards face ‘pandemic-level’ strain with soaring flu cases triggering winter crisis

Around 20 hospital trusts across England have declared critical incidents with staff facing ‘mammoth demand’ due to the cold weather and flu.

England’s top doctor has warned staff in hospitals are facing conditions similar to the “height of the pandemic” amid a national surge in flu cases on wards. NHS figures reveal there were an average of more than 5,400 patients with flu in hospitals each day last week, up 21 per cent from the previous week and more than three times the level seen at the same point last year.

Visits to A&E also rose to an unprecedented level for December, making last year the busiest ever year for emergency departments.

Professor Stephen Powis, the national medical director for NHS England, said: “It is hard to quantify just through the data how tough it is for frontline staff at the moment – with some staff working in A&E saying that their days at work feel like some of the days we had during the height of the pandemic.”

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Source: Independent, 9 January 2024

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Hospital wanted rid of us, Steve James says after daughter’s sepsis death

Five years after her daughter died from an avoidable heart attack at Cardiff’s University Hospital Wales, Jane James was sat in the same chaotic emergency department last month with her elderly mother and saw nothing had changed.

“I sat in that same area, just looking around, thinking, ‘This is not a professional setup’,” she said. “Apart from the horrific feeling of sitting there again and being in that environment, I thought, ‘This has got to change, surely. It is broken’.”

This week a coroner concluded that Bethan James, 21, a promising journalism student, died from sepsis and pneumonia because of multiple failures by paramedics and doctors at University Hospital Wales (UHW) to spot the signs of life-threatening sepsis and follow standard procedures to save her life.

Patricia Morgan, the coroner for South Wales, found Bethan would not have suffered her fatal cardiac arrest if “early recognition and prompt action had occurred”. The inquest heard that Bethan and her concerned parents felt “dismissed” by medics in the two weeks before her death as her health deteriorated.

On the day she died, several paramedics failed to spot the signs of sepsis and did not alert the emergency department about her serious ill health. Once in hospital, nurses and doctors did not identify her life-threatening condition for about an hour, by which time her chance of survival was gone and she suffered a fatal heart attack.

Her father, Steve James, 57, a cricket and rugby writer for The Times, and mother Jane, 59, a physiotherapist for Sport Wales, sat together in Pontypridd coroners’ court this week to hear the vindication of five years of fighting tooth and nail to get an inquest into their daughter’s sudden death.

“They’ve been an absolute disgrace from start to finish and I think it’s a culture of cover-up,” Mr James, a former England and Glamorgan cricketer, said. “From the start, it’s just been covering up and not admitting anything. There’s no culture of trying to get better.”

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Source: The Times, 19 June 2025

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Hospital waiting list deaths double in five years

More than 120,000 died waiting for NHS treatment, as backlog hits all-time high. 

The number of NHS patients dying while waiting for treatment has doubled in five years, new figures suggest.

More than 120,000 people died while on waiting lists last year, according to an analysis of health service data. The total is even higher than it was in lockdown, with health leaders saying the pandemic and NHS strikes have made clearing backlogs more difficult.

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “These figures are a stark reminder about the potential repercussions of long waits for care. They are heartbreaking for the families who will have lost loved ones and deeply dismaying for NHS leaders, who continue to do all they can in extremely difficult circumstances."

“Covid will have had an impact on these figures – but we can’t get away from the fact that a decade of under-investment in the NHS has left it with not enough staff, beds and vital equipment, as well as a crumbling estate in urgent need of repair and investment.”

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Source: The Telegraph, 31 August 2023

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Hospital violence ‘going through the roof’, says CEO

A London acute trust is planning to provide staff working in frailty units with body cameras and those in antenatal clinics with additional security, as violence and aggression against them goes ‘through the roof’.

Matthew Trainer, chief executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust in north east London, described the measures the trust is planning to take in response to growing staff concerns about their safety.

Speaking at a King’s Fund event about making NHS careers more attractive, Mr Trainer said: “We need to understand the impact of violence and aggression against the workforce and that’s going through the roof just now.

“Our ultrasound technicians have now asked for help as their antenatal scans are becoming so fraught. We are about to introduce body cameras in our frailty wards to help with the increase in violence and aggression against staff there.”

Mr Trainer – who joined BHRUT in 2021 from Oxleas Foundation Trust – said a long-running problem with violence and aggression in emergency departments was spreading to other departments.

Mr Trainer stressed the main problem, particularly in frailty units, was not patients’ own behaviour, but that of family and friends visiting them.

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Source: HSJ, 13 December 2023

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Hospital turns away patients as heatwave forces critical incident

Patients may be turned away at A&E in Portsmouth as the UK’s heatwave drives extreme hospital pressures.

Staffing pressures coupled with additional strain from the current heatwave have forced Portsmouth Hospitals University Foundation Trust to declare a critical incident.

The trust said it only had space in its emergency department for patients with life-threatening illnesses and critical conditions and so would be forced to redirect other patients elsewhere.

In a statement, Portsmouth Hospitals University FT said: “Our emergency department remains full with patients and we have very limited space to treat emergency patients. We are only able to treat patients with life-threatening conditions and injuries, so anyone patients who arrive at ED without a life-threatening condition or injury, will be redirected to alternative services that can help...

“Our immediate priority is to ensure there are beds available to admit our most seriously ill patients into and we are focusing on safely discharging as many patients as possible. We ask that families and loved ones support us with this and collect patients as soon as they are ready to be discharged.”

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Source: The Independent, 11 July 2022

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Hospital trust pleads guilty over baby death

An NHS trust has admitted failing to provide safe care and treatment for a mother and her baby boy, who died seven days after an emergency delivery.

Mother Sarah Richford said it brought "some level of justice" for baby Harry's death in 2017.

Lawyers for the East Kent Hospitals Trust pleaded guilty to the charge at Folkestone Magistrates Court.  The trust said it had made "significant changes" and would "do everything we can to learn from this tragedy".

Mrs Richford said: "Although Harry's life was short, hopefully it's made a difference and that other babies won't die".

She added: "If somebody had done this before Harry was born he may be alive today."

The prosecution by the Care Quality Commission followed an inquest in 2020, which found Harry's death was wholly avoidable and contributed to by neglect at Margate's Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital.

The inquest found more than a dozen areas of concern in the care of Harry and his mother, including failings in the way an "inexperienced" doctor carried out the delivery, followed by delays in resuscitation.

Coroner Christopher Sutton-Mattocks criticised the trust for initially saying the death was "expected", adding that an inquest was only ordered due to the family's persistence.

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Source: BBC News, 19 April 2021

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Hospital trust must 'immediately improve' services

A hospital trust has been told to "immediately improve" its maternity and surgical services.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) made unannounced inspections in September and October at four of the hospitals run by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.

Inspectors raised concerns about staff shortages, skills training and risk management.

At the trust's four maternity services, inspectors found departments "did not have enough staff to keep women and babies safe" and staff were "not up to date" with training.

Infection prevention measures in surgical services at the Royal Sussex County Hospital were "not consistently applied" and managers were not running services well, inspectors noted.

The report also said morale was low and often staff "did not have time to report incidents".

The trust said it has taken "urgent action" to make improvements.

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Source: BBC News, 10 December 2021

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Hospital trust criticised last year for promoting 'natural' labour over C-sections under fire again after advertising for a maternity doctor with 'a desire to promote normal birth'

A scandal-hit hospital trust has come under fire yet again after advertising for a maternity doctor with "a desire to promote normal birth". 

Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it was seeking an obstetrics and gynaecology consultant in its high risk baby unit who would support "active" labour.

Yet safe birth campaigners have reacted with fury online, claiming 'normal' has become a codeword for 'natural' birth — a fixation which has led to many midwives frowning on medical intervention and caesareans, even when needed. 

This 'obsession', they add, has been linked to failures at a number of maternity units in recent years where hundreds of babies died, major inquiries have found. 

The trust was embroiled in a similar controversy last year after Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital faced a claim of unfair dismissal by a former consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist. 

Martyn Pitman, who had worked at the hospital for 20 years, was sacked last March after raising concerns about midwifery care and patient safety at the hospital. 

In a post on X, Catherine Roy linked to the advert, adding: "Where Martyn Pitman used to work. The takeover by normal birth is now complete I think. What a scandal."

In response, consultant paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram, whose evidence helped catch convicted serial baby-killer Lucy Letby at Countess of Chester Hospital, said: "Anyone who applies for this should be immediately excluded from consideration for the post."

He added: "[It] should read 'desire to support and promote safe birth' — if it needed to be said at all."

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Source: The MailOnline, 13 June 2024

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