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‘It should have been safe’: twin of woman found under coat in A&E says death avoidable

Inga Rublite died after being found unconscious under her coat in an A&E waiting room more than eight hours after arriving.

Learning what happened to Rublite in the hours before her death has been gut-wrenching for her friends and family. She sat through the night at Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham after arriving at 10.30pm on 19 January with severe headache, dizziness, high blood pressure and vomiting. When her name was called seven hours later, at about 5.30am, she did not respond and staff discharged her believing she had tired of waiting and gone home.

But over an hour later she was discovered having a seizure after falling asleep, and then unconscious, under her coat. She was rushed to intensive care but had suffered a brain haemorrhage, and the bleeding was so severe it was inoperable. She was declared dead two days later on 22 January, when her life support was switched off.

Inga's twin sister said, “In all those years, the one time she went to the hospital to ask for help, no one was looking at her. I can’t describe how that feels. That you can’t get help in the place where you’re supposed to go for help.”

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Source: Guardian, 26 April 2024

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‘It is not right to normalise the current GP workload’, says RCGP chair

It is ‘not right to normalise’ the current workload in general practice as numbers of GPs and practices goes down, the RCGP chair told delegates at Pulse Live this week. 

Professor Kamila Hawthorne highlighted the pressure GPs are under with general practice appointments increasing most last year, compared to A&E and outpatients. 

She also said her priority from a new GP contract would be better resourcing for GPs working in deprived areas. 

Her speech looked at the challenges facing general practice and imagined what the future could look like, including what the college can do to bring about change.

Professor Hawthorne said: ‘The workload that we’re facing – it’s not right to normalise it. The sort of work days that we have in general practice, it is not right to normalise this.

‘The number of GPs is going down because they’re leaving the profession faster than they’re entering it. The number of practices in England is going down, and compared with affluent areas, GPs in deprived areas earn less but see more patients with more chronic illness.’ 

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Source: Pulse, 21 March 2023

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‘It feels very unsafe’: the NHS staff bracing for winter as cuts loom

Further funding cuts to the NHS will unavoidably endanger patient safety, an NHS leader warned last week after the chancellor’s promise of spending cuts of “eye-watering difficulty”.

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said his members were issuing the “starkest warning” about “the huge and growing gulf between what the NHS is being asked to deliver and the funding and capacity it has available”.

The warning came as figures showed that paramedics in England had been unavailable to attend almost one in six incidents in September due to being stuck outside hospitals with patients. Service leaders say wait times for A&E and other care are being exacerbated by an acute lack of nurses, with a record 46,828 nursing roles – more than one in 10 – unfilled across the NHS.

"Patients are presenting more unwell," says a GP from South Wales,

"Wait times in A&E have become unmanageable, so we’re seeing patients who have waited so long to be seen they’re bouncing back to us. Things we can’t deal with, like injuries and chest pain. We tell them they have to go back to A&E.

"Abuse of surgery reception and admin staff began last year and it’s just scaled up from there. We’ve had staff members who have been verbally and physically threatened and we’re struggling to recruit and retain staff – people are hired and quit in a couple days. A lot of people are going off sick with stress."

Five healthcare workers describe the pressures they are facing, including ambulance stacking, rising A&E wait times and difficulties discharging patients.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 November 2022

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‘Irresponsible’: Alarm over Coffey’s ‘plans to let patients get antibiotics without seeing GP’

Doctors have criticised new health secretary Therese Coffey over reports that pharmacists will be allowed to prescribe antibiotics without the approval of a doctor.

According to The Times, Ms Coffey’s “Plan for Patients” will give pharmacists the power to prescribe certain drugs, such as contraception, without a prescription in an effort to reduce the need for GP appointments and tackle waiting lists.

Responding to reports of the plans, Rachel Clarke, an NHS palliative care doctor and writer, wrote on Twitter: “This is staggeringly irresponsible of Therese Coffey and will cause so much more harm than good.

“Doctors do not – unlike Coffey – dish out spare antibiotics to our family and friends because we’re painfully aware of the harms of antibiotic resistance. Utter recklessness.”

Stephen Baker, a professor at Cambridge University and an expert in molecular microbiology and antimicrobial resistance, branded the health secretary’s plans “moronic”.

He told the newspaper that the more antibiotics were used “the more likely we are to get drug-resistant organisms”.

He added that it was “nuts” to consider widening access to drugs, adding that resistance against antibiotics is “clearly one of the biggest problems humanity is facing in respect of infectious disease at the moment”.

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Source: The Independent, 17 October 2022

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‘Insulting’ cut to staff support services confirmed by NHSE

NHS England has issued a ‘tokenistic’ and ‘insulting’ funding settlement for staff mental health and wellbeing hubs this year, which is not enough to provide proper support, HSJ has been told.

A letter sent by NHSE to its regional directors, and seen by HSJ, confirmed that the hubs have been allocated just £2.3m for 2023-24. NHSE says the funding, which is far below current running costs, must be spent within the financial year.

It appears to confirm fears that many of the 40 hubs will need to be shut, if they are not funded locally.

One hub lead said: “Day in, day out, we work with colleagues across the NHS who are struggling with a wide range of mental health issues, from anxiety and depression to burnout and dealing with the impacts of moral injury.

“Staff are exhausted, overwhelmed by their workload and struggling to give their patients the care they know they deserve.

“I urge ministers to speak directly to hub leads to find out exactly what the issues are on the ground, and how the hubs are helping staff who are working at their limits, while supporting staff retention.”

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Source: HSJ, 6 July 2023

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‘Insufficiently curious’ leaders ‘tolerated’ safety failures

Leaders at a mental health trust tolerated high levels of safety incidents and accepted verbal assurance with ‘insufficient professional curiosity’, a critical report has found.

An NHS England-commissioned review into governance at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Foundation Trust has been published, reviewing the organisation’s response to serious safety concerns flagged at the former West Lane Hospital in Middlesbrough.

It follows separate reports identifying “systemic failures” over the deaths of inpatients Christie Harnett, Nadia Sharif and Emily Moore.

The new report, conducted by Niche Consulting, criticises board and service leaders’ handling of concerns about the regular occurrence of restraint and self-harm.

More than a dozen incidents of inappropriate restraint, some seeing patients dragged along the floor, were identified in November 2018, resulting in multiple staff suspensions and some dismissals. 

Niche found there was a “lack of accountable leadership at all levels” and lack of evidence for decisions in response to the November 2018 incidents.

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Source: HSJ, 21 March 2023

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‘Insufficient’ national response to deaths review programme, report finds

The latest annual report into the deaths of people with learning disabilities has criticised the “insufficient” national response to past recommendations and called for “urgent” policy changes.

The national learning disabilities mortality review programme has criticised the response from national health bodies to its previous recommendations.

To date, just over 7,000 deaths have been notified to the programme and reviews have been completed for just 45%.

There have been four annual reports for programme to date, and in the latest published today, the authors warned: “The response to these recommendations has been insufficient and we have not seen the sea change required to reassure [families] that early deaths are being prevented."

“It is long over-due that we should now have concerted national-level policy change in response to the issues raised in this report and previous others. A commitment to take forward the recommendations in a meaningful and determined way is urgently required.”

The latest report also warns that black, Asian and ethnic minority children with learning disabilities die “disproportionately” younger compared to other ethnicities.

It also found system problems and gaps in service provision were more likely to contribute to deaths in BAME people with learning disabilities. 

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Source: HSJ, 16 July 2020

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‘Insufficient leadership’ as maternity unit drops two ratings to ‘inadequate’

Inspectors raised serious concerns around leadership and safety at Lister Hospital in Stevenage, run by East and North Hertfordshire Trust, when they visited in October. The maternity service was also rated inadequate for leadership.

The CQC also raised concerns about staffing shortages, infection prevention control, care records, cleanliness, waiting times and training.

The inspection did, however, find staff worked well together, managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and findings were used to make improvements.

Carolyn Jenkinson, the CQC’s head of hospital inspection, said: “This drop in quality and safety was down to insufficient management from leaders to ensure staff understood their roles, and to ensure the service was available to people when they needed it.”

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Source: HSJ, 20 January 2023

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‘Insufficient curiosity’ of trust’s leaders enabled abuse

A major review into a mental health unit abuse scandal has found a catalogue of failings, including repeated missed opportunities to act on concerns, and a board “disconnected” from the realities faced by patients and staff.

The independent review into failings at Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust was published today, commissioned after BBC Panorama revealed a “toxic culture of humiliation, verbal abuse and bullying” at Edenfield Centre in Prestwich in September 2022.

The trust’s then chair, Rupert Nichols, resigned in November 2022, and CEO Neil Thwaite stepped down in spring last year.

Review chair Professor Oliver Shanley, a former mental health trust CEO and chief nurse, describes in his report how the trust’s culture and leaders’ “insufficient curiosity” contributed to the “invisibility” of the deterioration in care quality. He says its board was focused on “expansion, reputation and meeting operational targets”.

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Read the report of the Independent Review into Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

Source: HSJ, 31 January 2024

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‘Institutionalised’ staff ‘perpetuating long hospital stays’

Nearly half of NHS patients with a learning disability or autism are still being kept inappropriately in hospitals, several years into a key programme to reduce inpatient care, a national review reveals.

The newly published review by NHS England suggests 41% of inpatients, assessed over an eight-month period to May 2022, should be receiving care in the community.

Reasons given for continued hospital care in the NHSE review included lack of suitable accommodation, with 19% having needs which could be delivered by community services; delays in moving individuals into the community with appropriate aftercare; legal barriers, with one region citing “ongoing concerns for public safety” as a barrier for discharge; and no clear care plans.

In some cases, individuals were placed in psychiatric intensive care units on a long-term basis, because “there was nowhere else to go”, while another instance cited a 20-year stay in hospital.

Other key themes included concerns about staff culture, particularly “institutionalisation” and suggestions that discharge delays were not being sufficiently addressed.

The report adds: “While the process around discharge can be time consuming, staff may perpetuate this by accepting such delays as necessary or inevitable.”

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Source: HSJ, 22 February 2023

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‘Insecure’ junior medics ‘crying every day’ in ‘chaotic’ department

Delays in patient care and a lack of consultant support have left junior medics fearing for their mental health, an NHS England investigation has discovered.

Junior doctors described haematology services delivered from University Hospitals Birmingham’s Heartlands Hospital as “chaotic”.

Their concerns are raised in a report by NHS England Workforce, Training and Education (formerly Health Education England). UHB’s haematology service has been under scrutiny since 2021, when HSJ revealed whistleblower concerns over patient safety, including a series of blood transfusion’ never’ events.

The WTE team visited UHB in April. As a result, the haematology service is now subject to the General Medical Council’s enhanced monitoring regime. This means intensive support is given to trainees and the trust to improve medical training. UHB’s obstetrics and gynaecology department is also under enhanced monitoring.

The WTE report warns that consultants working across multiple sites left trainee medics at Heartlands without sufficient support and supervision. Most conversations with consultants were via telephone, leaving juniors feeling “unsupported and insecure”. 

The report stated: “Trainees described the workload … as chaotic and some reported the stress … was affecting their mental health… Some reported they do not feel valued, and the panel heard examples of people crying every day. Most described their roles as 100 per cent service provision… [they] reported very limited learning opportunities overall.”

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Source: HSJ, 24 August 2023

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‘Innovation put over safety’ at world-famous hospital

A world-famous hospital has a culture where some staff may put research interests above patient safety, according to an external investigation.

A report published yesterday cited some employees at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children Foundation Trust as saying “they feel that the hospital sometimes put too much emphasis on pushing the boundaries of science” and “are concerned [this] may lead to a culture where some prioritise innovation over safety in their practice”.

The trust’s medical director Sanjiv Sharma commissioned the report into the effectiveness of its safety procedures, from consultancy Verita, in 2020, after families of several patients who died at the hospital raised concerns in the media about how it responded to safety incidents.

The report said: “We believe that it is sometimes culturally difficult within Great Ormond Street to accept that things can go wrong and to respond appropriately. We were told that some see the organisation as ‘bullet-proof’ in the face of criticism."

“There is also a view outside the trust that some clinicians at Great Ormond Street can find it difficult to accept that something had gone wrong. Some believe that this reflex is deeply ingrained. This is potentially indicative of a culture of defensiveness. Acknowledging this trait is the first step on the road to changing it.”

Dr Sharma said in a statement yesterday that GOSH had already taken steps to improve its culture and systems, appointing patient safety educators and patient safety leads in each directorate.

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Source: HSJ, 7 July 2022

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‘Inhumane’ NHS fees left more than 900 migrants without treatment

Hundreds of migrants have declined NHS treatment after being presented with upfront charges over the past two years, amid complaints the government’s “hostile environment” on immigration remains firmly in place.

Data compiled by the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act shows that, since January 2021, 3,545 patients across 68 hospital trusts in England have been told they must pay upfront charges totalling £7.1m. Of those, 905 patients across 58 trusts did not proceed with treatment.

NHS trusts in England have been required to seek advance payment before providing elective care to certain migrants since October 2017. It covers overseas visitors and migrants ruled ineligible for free healthcare, such as failed asylum seekers and those who have overstayed their visa. The policy is not supposed to cover urgent or “immediately necessary” treatment. However, there have been multiple cases of people wrongly denied treatment.

Dr Laura-Jane Smith, a consultant respiratory physician and member of the campaign group Medact, said: “I had a patient we diagnosed as an emergency with lung cancer but they were told they would be charged upfront for treatment and then never returned for a follow-up. This was someone who had been in the country for years but who did not have the right official migration status. A cancer diagnosis is devastating. To then be abandoned by the health service is inhumane.”

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Source: The Guardian, 20 August 2023

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‘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.

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Source: HSJ, 31 January 2020

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‘Independent review of NHS’ ahead of second wave

There should be independent reviews of the NHS’ readiness for a potential second major outbreak of coronavirus in the UK, senior doctors are arguing.

The Royal College of Anaesthetists said a series of reviews should be carried out, overseen by an independent group formed from clinical royal college representatives, independent scientists and academics.

It would encompass investigation of what happened to care quality during the peak of infection and demand through March, April and May — there are major concerns that harm and death was caused by knock of effects, with some health services closed and people being afraid to use others.

Hospitals were unable to provide many other services as staff, including most anaesthetists, were redeployed to help with critical care.

Ravi Mahajan, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, told HSJ areas such as capacity, workforce and protective equipment were key issues to be reviewed. He said: “We can’t wait for [the pandemic] to finish and then review. [The reviews] have to be dynamic, ongoing, and the sooner they start the better.

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Source: HSJ, 17 June 2020

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‘Inadequate’ children’s mental health hospital ‘put safety of patients at risk’ CQC report finds

Serious safety concerns have been raised about a children’s mental health hospital where staff lacked respect for patients, as the provider faces a police investigation into another one of its units.

The Huntercombe Hospital in Stafford has been rated as “inadequate” by watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) after inspectors found the safety of children within the hospital was at risk.

The concerns about this hospital come as The Independent revealed police have launched an investigation into another mental health unit run by the provider in Maidenhead.

Following an inspection in October inspectors sent an urgent warning notice to the provider, after it found there were not enough staff to keep patients safe.

The hospital was described as relaying on agency workers who did not have knowledge of the patients.

The CQC inspectors found children’s wards were dirty with poor hygiene measures in the hospital and patients at risk of infection.

According to the report staff were found “sitting with their eyes closed for prolonged periods of time”, and that staff observations of at risk patients were “undermined by a blind spot where people could self-harm unseen.”

Craig Howarth, CQC head of inspection for mental health and community health services, said: “Further to these issues, we saw that staff sometimes showed a lack of respect to patients and one ward was poorly furnished and maintained and there wasn’t always enough emphasis on some people’s individual requirements.”

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Source: The Independent, 11 March 2022

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‘Impossible’ to improve delayed discharges as picture worsens

The number of patients stuck in hospitals despite being ‘medically fit’ to leave has continued to increase in recent months, leading to warnings from NHS Confederation that trusts are finding it ‘impossible’ to make progress on reducing the numbers.

Official statistics for April suggest an average of 12,589 patients per day in NHS hospitals in England – 13% of all occupied beds – did not meet the “criteria to reside”. At 31 trusts, the proportion was 20% or more.

NHS England has since told local leaders to make reducing the numbers of delayed discharges an operational priority. The issue is a key factor behind the long waits in emergency care, as ward beds are taking longer to become available to accident and emergency patients.

Rory Deighton, acute lead at NHS Confederation, said targets to reduce delayed discharges “will not be met” unless the government “invests in domiciliary care wages,” amid high numbers of vacancies in the social care sector.

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Source: HSJ, 1 June 2022

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‘If we catch Covid, we die’: UK shielders reflect on still feeling unsafe

Sarah Spoor and her two adult sons have spent the past 14 months shielding in a one-bedroom apartment, with no garden, in west London. Her youngest sleeps in the bedroom, his brother has a pull-out bed in the kitchen, while Spoor takes the living room in another fold-out bed.

All three have complex medical conditions that leave them vulnerable to Covid, and despite the strain of living in such close quarters, they don’t feel safe leaving home any time soon.

“If we catch it, we die; it’s that simple. In the 14 months, I have probably been out about four times, and that’s usually in some dire emergency,” said Spoor, who provides round-the-clock care for her sons, 20 and 24, after their medical team decided it was too risky for their usual carers to continue visiting.

The family has yet to be vaccinated as their medical conditions, which include type 1 diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, pernicious anemia and thyroid failure, mean they are likely to experience a severe reaction leading to hospital admission, and they are concerned about the risk of catching Covid in hospital when cases are still prevalent.

Spoor is not alone in fearing a return to life after lockdown, with disability charity Scope estimating 75% of disabled people plan to continue shielding until after their second vaccine dose, and some for longer.

“I think there is a potential long-term impact that groups of people become squirrelled away and it’s potentially easy for governments and local authorities to forget about them,” said James Taylor, executive director of strategy and social change at Scope. “We’re really worried that, in the long-term, lots of the rights that disabled people have fought for, the visibility, the recognition of disabled people as equal, that all falling away and going backwards.”

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Source: The Guardian, 19 April 2021

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‘Ideologically driven’ NHSE maternity model causing national tension

A policy ‘at the heart’ of NHS England’s efforts to improve maternity care is under question after being sharply criticised by an independent inquiry, and is the subject of major tensions within NHSE and midwifery, HSJ understands.

The Ockenden report into major care failings at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust included 15 “immediate actions” for all maternity services in England, which government has accepted and said it would begin implementation.

However, one of these relates to the “continuity of carer” model, which NHS England has championed since 2017, when it was described as “at the heart of” its national plans for improving maternity care and outcomes.

The model intends to give women “dedicated support” from the same midwifery team throughout their pregnancy, with claimed benefits including improved outcomes, with a particular focus on some minority groups.

However, Ms Ockenden indicated its implementation in recent years had stretched staffing, and therefore harmed quality and safety overall, and also appeared to question whether the model was evidenced.

Some midwifery leaders are advocates for the model, but others have described how it can result in awful working patterns, with concerns it is causing some staff to leave the profession.

Royal College of Midwives director for professional midwifery Mary Ross-Davie told HSJ: “With the right resources and the right number of midwives, CoC can have a positive impact on maternity care – but in too many trusts and boards this is simply not the situation. We are really pleased, therefore, to see that the review team has echoed the RCM’s recommendations around the suspension of continuity of carer where too few staff puts safe deployment at risk.”

She said the model was “something to which many maternity services aspire, particularly for women who need enhanced monitoring throughout their pregnancy to deliver better outcomes for them and their baby”.

Helen Hughes, chief executive of Patient Safety Learning charity, said that although it had heard positive feedback that the model can improve outcomes, there must also be a “robust assessment of the safety impact of implementing such changes and the sources and staffing in place to deliver this”.

“Otherwise the core intentions and benefits will be lost,” Ms Hughes said.

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Source: HSJ, 31 March 2022

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‘I’ve been treated like the accused’: NHS nurse reveals 8 years of hell after raising sexual harassment claims

A nurse whistleblower has described her eight years of hell as she fights the NHS over its failure to properly investigate claims she was sexually harassed by a colleague.

Michelle Russell, who has 30 years of experience, first raised allegations of sexual harassment by a male nurse to managers at the mental health unit where she worked in London in 2015.

Years of battling her case saw the trust’s initial investigation condemned as “catastrophically flawed” while the nursing watchdog, the Nursing Midwifery Council, has apologised for taking so long to review her complaint and has referred itself to its own regulator over the matter.

With the case still unresolved, Ms Russell will see her career in the NHS end this week after she was not offered any further contract work.

Speaking to The Independent she said: “If I’m going to lose my job, I want other nurses to know that this is what happens when you raise a concern. I want the public to know this is what happens to us in the NHS when we are trying to protect the public.

“I have an unblemished career. They’re crying out for nurses. I’ve dedicated my life to the NHS. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

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Source: The Independent, 6 February 2024

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‘I worry my young patients will die’: UK’s eating disorder services not fit, say GPs

Young people with eating disorders are coming to harm and ending up in A&E because they are being denied care and forced to endure long waits for treatment, GPs have revealed.

NHS eating disorders services are so overwhelmed by a post-Covid surge in problems such as anorexia that they are telling under-19s to rely on charities, their parents or self-help instead.

The “truly shocking” findings about the help available to young people with often very fragile mental health emerged in a survey of 1,004 family doctors across the UK by the youth mental health charity stem4.

The shortage of beds for children and young people with eating disorders is so serious that some are being sent hundreds of miles from home or ending up on adult psychiatric wards, GPs say.

“The provision is awful and I worry my young patients may die,” one GP in the south-east of England told stem4. Another described the specialist NHS services available in their area as “virtually non-existent and not fit for purpose”.

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Source: The Guardian, 22 March 2023

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‘I was worried I was going to die’: why one NHS patient had to go private

Dee Dickens, 52, from Pontypridd, made the difficult choice to seek private healthcare even though she is ideologically opposed to it. After discovering a lump in her breast she was referred for a scan on the NHS’s two-week rule for suspected cancer. But after waiting six weeks, and being continually being told the waiting time was going up, eventually to a three-month wait, she was forced to pay for her own scan and appointment privately.

“In February last year, I found a lump in my breast, and went to the doctor that day. The doctor examined me and said, ‘I don’t like that.’ She said the lump was the size of the top of her index finger and she would rush me through for an urgent screening that would take no longer than two weeks.

“Two weeks later, I’d heard nothing so I gave them a call. They said that because of Covid, things had slowed down and it might take four weeks. 

“A week later, one of my breasts had swelled up. It was itching and hot and it felt like it was infected. I felt unwell, too. But I was stressed to the gills. Every day, I was worried I was going to die. We know that we’re against the clock when it’s cancer.

“I went straight back to the doctor and she rang the hospital. They said, ‘We will put your patient right at the top of the waiting list, but it will now be six weeks.’

“At six weeks, I still hadn’t heard anything, so I called the hospital. They said that I was at the top of the list still, but it would now be 10 weeks. The wait was going up because, during the worst of Covid, they hadn’t seen anyone so they were now on catchup."

“I’d had enough. Every single day I was more and more worried and my mental health was worse and worse, and my family was having to deal with me crying over stupid things. been talking about going private. But I’d been resistant – we’re both very leftwing and believe passionately in the NHS.

However, in the Dee made an appointment with a private clinic. She was seen immediately.

“After the scan, the doctor told me that the lumps were glandular tissue. The swelling, the pain and itching – were all stress related. As soon as he said, ‘You’re not going to die,’ they stopped.

“The NHS is the only thing I’m truly proud of in the UK. What worries me is I can see it disappearing, if not in my lifetime then in my children’s lifetime. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to go private. It felt absolutely awful to have to make the choice I did.

“On the one hand, I knew I would have an answer. But on the other, I knew there were so many women who wouldn’t be able to do what I was doing. I felt guilty, I felt I’d put my own life above my principles."

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Source: The Guardian, 11 September 2022

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‘I was told to live with it’: women tell of doctors dismissing their pain

As a teenager, Kelly Moran was incredibly sporty: she loved to run and went to dancing lessons four times a week. But by the time she hit 29, she could barely walk or even drive, no longer able to do all the activities she once enjoyed. She had pain radiating into her legs.

Her pain was repeatedly dismissed by doctors, who told her it was in her head. She moved back to her parents’ house in Manchester and left her job. She decided to seek treatment privately and was told she had endometriosis. Soon, with the right treatment, her life improved.

Kelly is among dozens of women who got in touch to share their stories with the Guardian on the topic of women’s pain. Women are almost twice as likely to be prescribed powerful and potentially addictive opiate painkillers than men, a Guardian analysis shows. Data from the NHS Business Services Authority, which deals with prescription services in England, shows a large disparity in the number of women being given these drugs compared with men, with 761,641 women receiving painkiller prescriptions compared with 443,414 men, or 1.7 times, and the pattern is similar across broad age categories.

The women who reached out said they felt that they were often “fobbed off” with painkillers when their problems required medical investigation.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 February 2021

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‘I want to hide under the covers’: Female NHS staff suffering stress and exhaustion amid coronavirus crisis

Women working in the NHS are suffering from serious stress and exhaustion in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, a troubling new report has found.

Some 75% of NHS workers are women and the nursing sector is predominantly made up of women – with 9 out of 10 nurses in the UK being female.

The report, conducted by the NHS Confederation’s Health and Care Women Leaders Network, warns the NHS is at risk of losing female staff due to them experiencing mental burnout during the global pandemic.

Researchers, who polled more than 1,300 women working across health and care in England, found almost three quarters reported their job had a more damaging impact than usual on their emotional wellbeing due to the COVID-19 emergency.

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Source: The Independent, 25 August 2020

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‘I thought she’d be safe’: a life lost to suicide in a place meant for recovery

"I thought she would be safe at Chadwick Lodge,” said Natasha Darbon, recalling how she felt in April 2019 when her 19-year-old daughter, Brooke Martin, was admitted to the mental health hospital in Milton Keynes.

Eight weeks later, Brooke took her own life.

The jury at the inquest found that Brooke’s death could have been prevented and that the private healthcare provider Elysium Healthcare, which ran the hospital, did not properly manage her risk of suicide. It also found that serious failures of risk assessment, communication and the setting of observation levels contributed to her death. Elysium accepted that had she been placed on 24-hour observations, Brooke would not have died.

In 2018, Brooke, who was autistic, was repeatedly sectioned under the Mental Health Act because of her escalating self-harm and suicide attempts. After a spell in an NHS facility in Surrey she moved to Chadwick Lodge, which specialises in treating personality disorders.

After a few weeks there, Brooke was doing well and staff were pleased with her progress. She was due to move to Hope House, a separate unit at the hospital, to start more specialist therapy for emotionally unstable personality disorder, and was keen to make the switch.

But then the teenager’s mental health deteriorated again. On 5 June 2019 she tried to kill herself. Five days later she was seen twice that evening secretly handling potential ligatures, but no appropriate action was taken. A few minutes later she was found unresponsive in her room. She received CPR but died the next day in Milton Keynes university hospital.

After hearing the evidence about the care Brooke received in her final days, Tom Osborne, the coroner at the inquest, took the unusual step of issuing a prevention of future deaths notice. He sent it to Sajid Javid, the health secretary, and to Elysium Healthcare, as the owner of Chadwick Lodge.

It set out the detailed criticisms that the jury had made of Elysium’s interaction with Brooke after her attempt to take her own life on 5 June. They cited the hospital’s failures to communicate information regarding Brooke’s suicide attempt, to search her room after she was found handling potential ligatures on the night she died, and to place Brooke on constant observations afterwards.

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Source: The Guardian, 24 April 2022

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