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Nurses’ well-being: ‘burnout’ too gentle a term for mental distress

Burnout is not a strong enough term to describe the severe mental distress nurses and other NHS staff are experiencing, says a doctor who has led efforts to improve care for health professionals.

Medical director of the NHS Practitioner Health service Dame Clare Gerada told MPs radical action was needed to improve the mental well-being of NHS staff.

She said nurses and other healthcare staff should be entitled to one hour of paid reflective time per month to be written into NHS employees’ contracts, alongside mentoring, careers advice and leadership training built in throughout people’s careers.

Dr Gerada was among senior clinicians who gave evidence this week to the Health and Social Care Committee, which is looking at issues around recruitment and retention of staff.

She told the committee the term ‘burnout’ simply did not cover the level of stress and mental anguish experienced by NHS workers. ‘Burnout is too gentle a term for the mental distress that is going on amongst our workforce,’ she said.

High suicide rates among nurses and doctors, high levels of bullying and staff being sacked because they have long-COVID are all signs the health service is failing to look after its employees, she said.

‘The symptoms we have got are the symptoms of an organisation that is unable to care for its workforce in the way that it should be caring,’ she said.

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Source: Nursing Standard, 25 March 2022

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Three hundred babies lost to a fixation on natural births

When Debbie Greenaway was told by doctors that she should try to deliver her twin babies naturally, she was nervous. 

But the doctor was adamant, she recalls. “He said: ‘We’ve got the lowest caesarean rates in the country and we are proud of it and we plan to keep it that way'."

For Greenaway, labour was seemingly endless. She was given repeated doses of syntocinon, a drug used to bring on contractions. By the second day, the midwife was worried for one of the babies, whom the couple had named John. “She was getting really concerned that they couldn’t find John’s heartbeat.”

Her husband remembers “the midwife shaking her head”. “She said a number of times that we should be having a caesarean.”

By the time doctors finally decided to perform an emergency C-section, it was too late. Starved of oxygen, baby John had suffered a catastrophic brain injury. When he was delivered at 3am, he had no pulse. Efforts to resuscitate him failed.

Their son’s death was part of what is now recognised as the largest maternity scandal in NHS history. 

The five-year investigation will reveal that the experiences of 1,500 families at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust between 2000 and 2019 were examined. At least 12 mothers died while giving birth, and some families lost more than one child in separate incidents, the report is expected to show.

The expert midwife Donna Ockenden and a team of more than 90 midwives and doctors will deliver a damning verdict on the Shrewsbury trust, its culture and leadership — and failure to learn from mistakes or listen to families.

At its heart is how a toxic obsession with “normal birth” — fuelled by targets and pressure from the NHS to reduce caesarean rates — became so pervasive that life-or-death decisions on the maternity ward became dangerously distorted for nearly two decades.

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Source:  The Times, 26 March 2022

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Online retailers stop sales of some blood oxygen monitors after investigation

Amazon, eBay and Wish have stopped stocking some monitors that let people keep track of their blood oxygen levels after an investigation found they were not fit to be sold.

The online marketplaces removed a number of pulse oxygen testing devices known as oximeters from sale after being alerted to flaws identified by the consumer organisation Which?

Pulse oximeters have boomed in popularity as a result of Covid, with millions of people keeping one at home so they can quickly assess if their blood oxygen level has fallen worryingly low – a condition known as “silent hypoxia” – which is a common side-effect of the disease.

Some of the devices were not legally fit to be sold in the UK, did not carry the CE quality Kitemark or wrongly claimed that they had been approved by the NHS.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it would look into the unauthorised use of the health service’s iconic blue and white branding on the devices. It made clear that “the NHS does not approve or endorse any medical devices, including oximeters”.

“The department strictly controls the NHS identity and takes unauthorised use or adaptation of the NHS logo and the letters ‘NHS’ very seriously”, a DHSC spokesperson said.

Which? said that 11 of the cheap pulse oximeters it bought from those websites failed to comply with UK and European Union law when it examined them closely.

“It is very concerning that our investigation found these medical devices for sale without the required safety markings or brazenly claiming to be approved by the NHS, and the biggest online marketplaces were not picking up on these red flags”, said Natalie Hitchens, the consumer group’s head of home products and services.

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Source: The Guardian, 26 March 2022

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Government asks NHS to ‘cut core funding’ by £500m

NHS England must find hundreds of millions of pounds in last-minute savings to pay for ongoing covid staff tests, it has been revealed

NHSE chief financial officer Julian Kelly told a meeting of NHS England’s board: “We have been asked to see if we can cut core NHS funding - at the moment that is probably to the tune of £500m.” Mr Kelly said achieving this would likely involve “slowing down” some transformation programmes and ambitions in the Long Term Plan.

He added that rising inflation could add an extra £1bn in financial pressure, telling the board “we’re going to have to look at what that means for our ability to deliver NHS goals in the round.”

It was reported in February that Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were at loggerheads over whether the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) should receive additional funding for covid testing on top of the health service’s spending envelope. The row is said to have led to a delay in plans to scrap all remaining virus-related restrictions.

The DHSC reduced its ask for extra cash down from £5bn to an eventual £1.8bn but even this lower sum was rejected by the Treasury, according to reports. This means continuing staff testing will have to paid for out of the existing NHS budget.

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Source: HSJ, 24 March 2022

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Persistent cough may be tuberculosis not Covid, doctor warns

The UK's top public health doctor says anyone with a persistent cough and fever should not dismiss it as Covid - and should consider other infectious illnesses like tuberculosis (TB).

Dr Jenny Harries' warning comes as provisional data shows there were 4,430 cases recorded in England in 2021, despite sharp declines in recent years.

Charities are calling for more funding to tackle the disease around the world. They say the pandemic and conflicts have set back progress worldwide.

In 2020, global deaths because of tuberculosis ranked second to Covid for any infectious disease.

The charity Stop TB Partnership warns the war in Ukraine could have "devastating impacts on health services", including the country's strong national TB treatment programme.

The charity is urging all countries to put facilities in place urgently so refugees can be given the care they need.

In the UK a requirement for Ukrainians to take a TB test before arrival has been waived for those who are coming to the country on the family scheme visa. Refugees arriving on the scheme will get medical care and testing via GPs.

Meanwhile Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said delayed diagnosis and treatment, particularly during the pandemic, will have increased the number of undetected cases in England.

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Source: BBC News, 24 March 2022

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Welsh Ambulance: Paramedics say job is soul destroying

"Absolutely soul destroying" is how one paramedic describes his job.

He is not alone.

Over the past few months, BBC Wales has been contacted by employees from the Welsh Ambulance Service who paint a dire picture of a service under immense pressure.

Ambulance waiting times have climbed and climbed throughout the pandemic. The impact that has on patients is well known - but what about those on the other side?

Mark, who did not want to disclose his real name or show his face for fear that he would lose his job, described the stress of his shifts with a radio strapped to his chest, hearing "red calls waiting, red calls waiting".

"That is the potential of somebody's life waiting in the balance - and you can't get there. It's absolutely soul-destroying. We wouldn't treat animals this way, why are we treating humans?", he said.

Mark said the job has always come with pressure and anxiety.

But over the course of the pandemic that has intensified and he has "never known as many people looking for other jobs as they are at the moment".

The stress has become so bad that he is now on antidepressants.

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Source: BBC News, 25 March 2022

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Covid-19: Public inquiry must include effects on children, say experts

The government’s upcoming Covid-19 public inquiry must include the effect of the pandemic on children and young people, a group of leading doctors and scientists have said.

The draft terms of reference for the inquiry were published on 15 March but made no specific mention of children or young people other than a single reference to “restrictions on attendance at places of education."

“There is no doubt that school closures and broader lockdowns harmed children,” said the letter to the Times signed by 50 people including Russell Viner, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Andrew James, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. “Educational losses have been most marked in children from deprived families and in vulnerable children.”

They pointed out that mental health problems increased from being experienced by one in nine children and young people before the pandemic to one in six during 2020 and 2021. Childhood obesity rates last year were at least 20% above previous years.

One of the signatories to the letter, education committee chair Robert Halfon, has also written directly to the inquiry chair Heather Hallet.3 “The closure of schools and the restrictions placed on education settings has been nothing short of a national disaster for children and young people, not only in terms of their educational attainment but also with regards to their mental health and wellbeing, their life chances, and their safety,” he wrote.

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Source: BMJ, 24 March 2022

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Pregnant women to be offered NHS test to detect pre-eclampsia

Pregnant women with suspected pre-eclampsia will now be offered a test on the NHS to detect the condition.

Pre-eclampsia affects some women, usually during the second half of pregnancy or soon after their baby is born.

It can lead to serious complications if it is not picked up during maternity appointments, with early signs including high blood pressure and protein in the urine.

In some cases, women can develop a severe headache, vision problems such as blurring or flashing, pain just below the ribs, swelling and vomiting.

Tests have been available to help rule out the condition but midwives will now use tests designed to pick up a positive diagnosis.

In new draft guidance, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said midwives could use one of four blood tests to help diagnose suspected preterm pre-eclampsia.

Jeanette Kusel, the acting director for medtech and digital at NICE, said: “These tests represent a step-change in the management and treatment of pre-eclampsia. New evidence presented to the committee shows that these tests can help successfully diagnose pre-eclampsia, alongside clinical information for decision-making, rather than just rule it out.

“This is extremely valuable to doctors and expectant mothers as now they can have increased confidence in their treatment plans and preparing for a safe birth.”

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Source: The Guardian, 25 March 2022

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GPs to face six-month complaint response targets under ombudsman proposals

GP practices are set to face new targets for responding to patient complaints under standards being piloted by the health ombudsman.

All ‘straightforward’ complaints should be dealt with within six months and 95% within three, while 80% of ‘complex’ complaints should be completed within six months and half within three, under the proposals.

The new Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) complaint standards are currently being piloted in every sector of the NHS – including one GP practice – and were due to be implemented across the NHS this year. 

However, a PHSO spokesperson told Pulse that due to delays caused by the pandemic, the full rollout is now planned for the beginning of next year, with the ombudsman to implement the standards from April 2023.

The proposed complaints standards said staff should ensure they ‘consistently meet expected timescales for acknowledging a complaint’ and ‘respond to complaints at the earliest opportunity’, providing ‘regular updates throughout’.

They should also give ‘clear timeframes’ for how long investigating the complaint will take and ‘agree timescales with everyone involved’, including the complainant.

An accompanying draft model complaint handling procedure said that complaints will be acknowledged within three working days either verbally or in writing.

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Source: Pulse, 24 March 2022

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Acute trust to be prosecuted by CQC

The Care Quality Commission is to prosecute an acute trust after a patient was injured when allegedly exposed to “avoidable harm”.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust is due to appear tomorrow afternoon at Boston Magistrates’ Court.

The alleged incident took place at Lincoln County Hospital, the CQC said. Although the CQC declined to comment further, Lincolnshire Live reported the alleged incident involved 91-year-old Iris Longmate and relates to a failure to provide safe care and treatment on or before 3 March 2019.

The local publication added court papers claimed “at the same time ULHT also failed to give safe care and treatment to patients on Greetwell Ward, who were ‘being exposed to a significant risk of avoidable harm occurring’”. 

Proceedings are being brought under sections 22 and 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. These rules require providers to take reasonable steps to minimise risks to people’s health and safety during treatment, and make it a criminal offence if a provider fails to comply and a patient suffers avoidable harm or is exposed to a risk of this happening.

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Source: HSJ, 24 March 2022

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A&E tents ‘borderline immoral’ and ‘dangerous’, claims royal college

The use of temporary treatment areas for patients arriving via ambulance at over-crowded A&Es is ‘borderline immoral’ and ‘a danger to patient safety and dignity’, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned.

The college said NHS England had told regional bosses to prepare to errect more of the so-called “tents” outside their major emergency departments as part of plans to get a grip on ambulance handover delays, which have reached record highs in the last two weeks.

Senior figures also told HSJ that trusts have been instructed by NHS England to call the overflow facilities “temporary external structures” and not tents – a move also criticised by RCEM president Katherine Henderson.

Dr Henderson told HSJ: “Using tents is just wrong on every level… We’ve been down this route before. It doesn’t work. It’s a huge distraction, and I think what upsets me the most about it is it creates the appearance that people are taking action when it’s not the action that will deal with the problem.”

In an opinion piece for HSJ, Dr Henderson says: “We find ourselves in the completely unacceptable situation where the ‘solution’ to ambulance handover problems is to put up tents or sheds in front of emergency departments – euphemistically being called ‘temporary external structures’.

“Trust leaders and NHS England must not be afraid to stand up and make this case – putting patients in tents is a bad, borderline immoral bodge job to treat the symptom rather than cause, and our patients need to see some real leadership to protect them."

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Source: HSJ, 25 March 2022

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NHS trust apologises over death of woman, 27, after cancer misdiagnosis

An NHS trust has apologised over the death of a 27-year-old events manager after a locum gynaecologist mistook aggressive cervical cancer for a hormonal or bowel problem.

The family of Porsche McGregor-Sims, who died a day after being admitted to Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, told her inquest that she had felt she was not listened to and that the misdiagnosis had robbed them of a chance to say goodbye.

The area coroner Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp said the case was one of the most “shocking and traumatic” she had dealt with and she would write to Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust expressing her concern.

In December 2019, McGregor-Sims’ GP referred her to a consultant after she complained of abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding.

She saw Dr Peter Schlesinger, an agency locum at the Queen Alexandra hospital, at the end of January 2020. He did not physically examine her and believed her symptoms were linked to changing hormones or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

After the UK went into lockdown two months later, McGregor-Sims continued to report symptoms but was prescribed antibiotics over the phone and was seen in person only after a GP thought she might have Covid because she had shortness of breath.

McGregor-Sims was finally diagnosed with an aggressive form of cervical cancer and on 13 April was taken to hospital, where she died a day later.

During the inquest, her family accused Schlesinger of having denied them their chance to say goodbye. Her mother, Fiona Hawke, told him: “You robbed us of the opportunity to prepare for her death and say goodbye to her.”

Schlesinger insisted McGregor-Sims’ symptoms – including bleeding after sex – did not lead him to think she had a serious illness.

Dr Claire Burton, a consultant gynaecologist, said Schlesinger should have physically examined McGregor-Sims, and apologised for the care she received at the trust.

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Source: The Guardian, 24 March 2022

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Trust loses whistleblowing case over ‘pioneering’ procedure

A senior medic has won a whistleblowing case after judges ruled she was dismissed after raising concerns about a new procedure her department was using.

An employment tribunal found consultant nephrologist Jasna Macanovic was fired from Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust in March 2018 after telling bosses a dialysis technique called “buttonholing”, which had been “championed” there, was potentially dangerous.

The trust’s case was that the way she had gone about raising concerns had made for an untenable working environment in the Wessex Kidney Centre.

The process saw a Care Quality Commission complaint, an independent investigation and multiple referrals to the General Medical Council.

Employment Judge Fowell said: “The plain fact is that after over twenty years of excellent service in the NHS, Dr Macanovic was dismissed from her post shortly after raising a series of protected disclosures about this one issue. It is no answer to a claim of whistleblowing to say that feelings ran so high that working relationships broke down completely, and so the whistleblower had to be dismissed.”

Dr Macanovic resigned from the regional renal transplant team in July 2016 when she discovered two incidents had occurred that “had not been reported by either surgeon” and felt that one of the surgeons had misled the medical director over the issue, the tribunal heard.

In an email sent after the resignation meeting, Dr Macanovic said the practice was considered inappropriate by the vast majority of experts in the field and that no other renal unit in England was using it. 

The case exposes some worrying governance, both within the trust and between it and the Care Quality Commission, with which the issues were raised in 2016.

When the CQC asked the trust for more information the unit’s clinical director responded that in his view that the deaths and infections were not due to the buttonholing.

The CQC made no further enquiries and wrote back saying “they were satisfied that there were no safety concerns and that appropriate governance had been followed”.

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Source: HSJ, 24 March 2022

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Burnout: set up watchdog to protect NHS staff, says wellbeing champion

A regulator that sets standards on staff wellbeing and holds the NHS to account should be established to help protect doctors from burnout, a champion of physicians’ wellbeing has said.

The proposal was one of several put forward by Clare Gerada, president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, who recently stepped down as medical director of the confidential mental health support service NHS Practitioner Health.

She was speaking on 22 March to MPs on the House of Commons health and social care committee about how the Covid-19 pandemic had increased the number of doctors struggling with mental health problems, particularly in general practice.

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Source: BMJ, 24 March 2022

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Chancellor ‘doubles NHS efficiency target’

The government has doubled the annual efficiency expectation on the NHS, he has said, as systems and trusts grapple with large gaps in their financial plans for 2022-23.

The Treasury told the media over the weekend the Chancellor was doubling the NHS’s annual savings target to 2.2% from 1.1%. Reports said this would deliver an annual saving of £4.75bn. 

It is unclear whether the move represents a change to the underlying efficiency expectation in NHS planning — which would require all systems and trusts to revise their plans for 2022-23 — or is simply a re-statement or recognition that the effective efficiency requirement was already well above the 1.1 per cent envisaged under the pre-covid NHS long-term plan.

Rishi Sunak told the Mail on Sunday the move was linked to the “health and social care levy” which will see a rise in National Insurance next month. He also said he would chair a new cabinet committee to reduce waste in the public sector.

Speaking ahead of his Spring Statement on Wednesday, he said: “Your readers should be reassured that unlike any other tax that they pay, every penny of this levy goes specifically to the thing that they care most about… So we are setting up a new Cabinet committee, that I am chairing, to focus on efficiency, value for money, waste and reform. Working with the health secretary we are doubling the efficiency target for the NHS. Every pound from this levy is going to go incredibly far.”

In NHS England’s annual report, published last month, its chief executive Amanda Pritchard said: ”The certainty we have recently received on both capital and revenue budgets for the years ahead provide a welcome basis on which the NHS nationally and locally can now plan. We should however be under no illusions that the challenges ahead – for financial balance and operational performance – are anything other than unprecedented.”

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Source: HSJ, 20 March 2022

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Covid crisis ‘not over’ as hospitalisations to rise for two weeks, warns Chris Whitty

Covid hospitalisations will continue to rise for at least two weeks, England’s government’s chief medical officer warned on Wednesday as Britain’s daily cases breached 100,000 for the second time this month.

Professor Sir Chris Whitty said the country’s Covid crisis “is not over” and that new variants of the disease could arise at any time.

He pointed to the latest data showing that the number of people with Covid in hospitals has been rising, and said this would likely continue for at least two weeks.

The current rise in cases is “currently being driven by Omicron rather than new variants”, he told an audience at a Local Government Association conference, but added: “We need to keep a very close eye on this, because at any point new variants could emerge anywhere in the world, including the UK, obviously, as what happened with the Alpha variant.”

Another 194 Covid deaths were reported on Wednesday, up 27% on last week.

Prof Whitty said that death rates were fortunately still low but that hospitalisations meant there was still pressure on the NHS.

Asked about the end of free testing for the public on 1 April, Sir Chris said it was a “trade-off between disparities, because the effects of free testing are probably going to be differential across society, and [there are] very substantial sums that are going into it, which otherwise would be going into other public health issues."

However, he said that testing for staff within health and social care was “slightly different” as the risks are greater, and those who are in hospital or care homes are more vulnerable.

His comments come on the second anniversary of the day the UK announced a national lockdown.

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Source: The Independent, 23 March 2022

 
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England’s CNO says 50,000 more NHS nurses ‘no longer enough’

The chief nursing officer for England has spoken about the ongoing shortages of nurses across the country and how the government’s previous pledge for 50,000 more nurses is now “not enough”.

At one of her first in-person speeches since the start of the pandemic, Ruth May also revealed that she thought the removal of the student nurse bursary in England was “fundamentally the wrong decision”.

Ms May was speaking at an event organised by the League of St Bartholomew’s Nurses in honour of pioneering nurse Pam Hibbs, who died following a Covid-19 infection last year.

During her keynote address, Ms May said workforce remained a “big focus” for her team due to the “shortage” of nursing staff nationally.

She said work to address the gaps was centred on the three areas of international recruitment, domestic training, and retention.

She said numbers of nurses being recruited from overseas annually had risen from around 5,000 to 6,000 before the pandemic, to an expected 20,000 in this financial year.

“I’m very, very glad that the NHS has had a diverse workforce from its very inception. We have welcomed colleagues from across all countries of the world, and we will continue to do that,” Ms May said.

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Source: The Nursing Times, 22 March 2022

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As a nurse in the US faces prison for a deadly error, her colleagues worry: Could I be next?

Four years ago, inside the most prestigious hospital in Tennessee, nurse RaDonda Vaught withdrew a vial from an electronic medication cabinet, administered the drug to a patient, and somehow overlooked signs of a terrible and deadly mistake.

The patient was supposed to get Versed, a sedative intended to calm her before being scanned in a large, MRI-like machine. But Vaught accidentally grabbed vecuronium, a powerful paralyser, which stopped the patient’s breathing and left her brain-dead before the error was discovered.

Vaught, 38, admitted her mistake at a Tennessee Board of Nursing hearing last year, saying she became “complacent” in her job and “distracted” by a trainee while operating the computerized medication cabinet. She did not shirk responsibility for the error, but she said the blame was not hers alone.

“I know the reason this patient is no longer here is because of me,” Vaught said, starting to cry. “There won’t ever be a day that goes by that I don’t think about what I did.”

If Vaught’s story followed the path of most medical errors, it would have been over hours later, when the Board of Nursing revoked her RN license and almost certainly ended her nursing career. But Vaught’s case is different: This week she goes on trial in Nashville on criminal charges of reckless homicide and felony abuse of an impaired adult for the killing of Charlene Murphey, a 75-year-old patient who died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center on the 27 December 2017.

Prosecutors do not allege in their court filings that Vaught intended to hurt Murphey or was impaired by any substance when she made the mistake, so her prosecution is a rare example of a health care worker facing years in prison for a medical error. Fatal errors are generally handled by licensing boards and civil courts. And experts say prosecutions like Vaught’s loom large for a profession terrified of the criminalization of such mistakes — especially because her case hinges on an automated system for dispensing drugs that many nurses use every day.

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Source: Kaiser Health News, 22 March 2022

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Lack of transcripts 'prejudices employment hearings'

Judges’ notes are regarded as the official record and are made available to employment appeal tribunals, but they are seen as private documents and are not available to the parties.

If the judgment that follows a hearing omits substantial elements of oral evidence that support the claimant’s case, the prospects of a successful appeal are hampered without a court record.

'This imbalance irretrievably denies parties the right to prepare adequately an appeal and it is manifestly unfair,' the letter states. Reference to the full record 'is the only way to determine whether the decision made was fair and proper'.

Signatories include Sir Adam Ridley, a former senior civil servant at 10 Downing Street and the pioneering cardiologist Jane Somerville of Imperial College, London.

A spokesperson for the judiciary said: 'The letter has been received and is being reviewed.'

Barrister Sophie Walker, founder of the company Just Transcription, told the Gazette: 'Providing litigants and their legal teams recordings and automated transcripts of the hearing would be a major leap forward for open justice and access to justice.' 

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Source: The Law Society Gazette, 22 March 2022

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'My husband cried on the phone, begging for help'

A man who experiences regular mental health crises says an NHS scheme designed to offer support during emergency episodes has become broken.

The trust running the service says a crisis team offers immediate support in an emergency, and a 24-hour helpline.

But when Mark Doody, who has bipolar disorder, cried "down the phone, begging the team for help", he was told to call an ambulance, his wife said.

The trust said a 999 call could sometimes be the appropriate action.

Trish Doody cited a "dreadful" deterioration in mental healthcare where the couple lived in Redditch, Worcestershire.

She said while her husband was able to get support if an emergency happened "between 9am and 5pm", assistance became difficult outside of those hours.

Mr Doody said his condition meant he experienced a mental health crisis every three months. He has also made suicide attempts.

Mental healthcare provision in the county had gone downhill over the last 20 years, Mrs Doody said, with her husband adding: "The system is just broken really."

Healthwatch Worcestershire, which helps hold the NHS to account locally, said it was "exploring" whether there was a problem with the crisis helpline, and was also aware of delays for those seeking one-to-one counselling, which it said the trust was tackling.

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Source: BBC News, 22 March 2022

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Thousands more women getting tested for autism after ‘being missed for decades’

Tens of thousands more women tested themselves for autism last year with numbers seeking tests now far outstripping men, new data shows.

Statistics seen by The Independent show around 150,000 women took an online test verified by health professionals to see if they have autism last year, up from about 49,000 in 2020.

Health professionals said the increase was a consequence of women not being diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental disorder as children and teens due to autism wrongly being viewed as a male disorder.

Experts told The Independent autistic women and girls are routinely overlooked and neglected by health services due to them being more likely to conceal or internalise symptoms.

Data from Clinical Partners, one of the UK’s leading mental health care providers which works closely with the NHS, shows women made up 56 per cent of those using their autism tests last year. This is substantially higher than the 46 per cent of women testing themselves for autism in 2020.

Hannah Hayward, neurodevelopmental specialist at Clinical Partners, who provided the exclusive data, explained: “Diagnosis is crucial – without which, women and men can be susceptible to symptoms of mental health conditions including anxiety and depression and it is common for them to be misdiagnosed with or develop other conditions such as anxiety, anorexia, depression or Borderline Personality Disorder,” 

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Source: The Independent, 23 March 2022

 

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Long Covid could create a generation affected by disability, expert warns

Long Covid could create a generation affected by disability, with people forced out of their homes and work, and some even driven to suicide, a leading expert has warned.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Prof Danny Altmann – an immunologist at Imperial College London – said that the UK’s current approach to Covid fails to take the impact of infections sufficiently seriously, adding that more needs to be done to aid diagnosis and treatment of Long Covid.

“It’s kind of an anathema to me that we’ve kind of thrown in the towel on control of Omicron wave infections and have said ‘it’s endemic, and we don’t care any more, because it’s very benign’,” he said. “It just isn’t. And there are new people joining the long Covid support groups all the time with their disabilities. It’s really not OK, and it’s heartbreaking.”

According to data from the Office for National Statistics, by the end of January this year about 1.5 million people – or 2.4% of the population – in the UK said they were experiencing ongoing symptoms more than four weeks after their first suspected Covid infection, with 45% reporting that infection was a year or more ago.

The findings chime with a recent UK study that found only around one in three patients who had ongoing Covid symptoms after being hospitalised with the disease reported feeling fully recovered a year later.

Asked whether Long Covid could lead to a generation affected by disability, Altmann agreed. “Totally,” he said.

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Source: The Guardian, 23 March 2022

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£3bn group of hospitals moves to centralise electives

North west London’s acute trusts are exploring whether to set up a new elective orthopaedic centre in the region as they seek to capitalise on the concept of “fast-track” surgical hubs.

Last week, a report to Imperial College Healthcare Trust’s board said a more “strategic, larger-scale” approach was being sought to improve capacity for more high-volume, low-complexity work across the sector.

This covers the four acute trusts in the area, which now share a single chair, and have a total turnover of more than £3bn: Imperial, Chelsea and Westminster, London North West, and Hillingdon.

The board report said leaders were exploring how best to establish the centre for the region while “maximising” planned surgery capacity overall, with the South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre run by Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals Trust highlighted as a “well-established example”.

Central Middlesex Hospital, which is operated by London North West University Healthcare Trust, has been identified as a preferred location for the centre, the report said. A project management team is also being set up to explore the options available before proposals are developed for broader consideration.

It comes after 14 “fast-track” hubs were set up across hospitals in north west London to maximise theatre capacity, which predominantly focused on high-volume, low-complexity work surrounding specialties such as gynaecology, urology, orthopaedics and ear, nose and throat.

The report to ICHT’s board warned that, without some “further intervention,” the number of patients awaiting orthopaedic surgery in north west London could increase to just under a fifth by 2030 from a current position of 12,000 people seeking inpatient or outpatient care.

However, it added that a “large amount of work” was still required to explore the case for an elective orthopaedic centre, including establishing the best location and identifying capital and revenue funding and workforce requirements.

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Source: HSJ, 22 March 2022

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No evidence Covid vaccines lead to young deaths

There is no evidence that Covid vaccines have led to an increase in deaths in young people, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.

Six months after the mass rollout of Covid vaccines, medical regulators started to report slightly higher rates of two heart conditions after receiving the Pfizer and Moderna jabs.

Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle itself, while pericarditis is inflammation of the fluid-filled sac the heart sits in. Both side effects are very rare but appear to be more common after a second dose of either Covid jab, particularly in younger men.

The ONS looked at outcomes shortly after vaccination, when the risk of any side effect is highest.

The chance of a young person dying in that time was no different to later periods the researchers looked at.

Julie Stanborough, deputy director at the ONS said: "We have found no evidence of an increased risk of cardiac death in young people following Covid-19 vaccination."

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Source: BBC News, 22 March 2022

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‘You lose your human rights’: Mental Health Act usage up by 12%

“When you’re sectioned under the Mental Health Act, you not only lose your voice, but you lose your human rights too”, Kelly a 47-year-old from Surrey tells The Independent.

After experiencing a mental health crisis in 2019, Kelly was subject to a “traumatic” detention under the Mental Health Act, during which she says she was “criminalised” for being unwell.

Kelly’s story comes as a new analysis of NHS data has revealed the number of people detained under the Mental Health Act increased by 12% in December 2021 compared to the 12 months prior.

Major charity Mind, which carried out the analysis, has called for promised reforms to the Mental Health Act to be implemented after recommendations following a major review published in 2019.

According to the analysis, the number of people subject to detention under the mental health act increased from, 10,760 in December 2020 to 12,013 December 2021.

Speaking with The Independent Kelly, who has had several experiences of being detained under the Mental Health Act, described her most recent experience in 2019 as “very traumatic.”

She said: “I had a very public breakdown near where I live. I had neighbours on the phone to the ambulance, and I had, you know, warrants for a psychiatrist or social worker and to enter my property. To have people invade your privacy like that, and to have a warrant to enter property, it’s almost like they’re criminalising you because you’re unwell.

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Source: The Independent, 21 March 2022

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