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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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‘I kept begging for pain relief’: the women forced to give birth without gas and air

Some hospitals are suspending supplies of gas and air, after it was found to pose health risks to midwives. What can be done to ensure pregnant women still get the help they need?

When Leigh Milner was expecting her first baby, she knew exactly how she wanted her labour to go. Her birth plan included an epidural for the pain and she was hoping, she says ruefully, for “all the drugs”. But that is not how things worked out. Milner, 33, a BBC presenter, ended up giving birth to Theo at Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow last month with nothing but paracetamol for pain relief, in what she calls a positively “Victorian” experience.

“I kept begging over and over again – ‘I need something for pain relief’ – and the only thing they could give me was paracetamol because they didn’t have gas and air. I was quite frightened, I didn’t know what else to do,” says Milner.

"Birth is painful, but it shouldn’t be traumatic.”

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Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2023

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‘I had to do an 80-mile trip’: the stress caused by UK drug shortages

Patients have described the effect on their health and wellbeing of the “new normal” of drug shortages in the UK, which has led to three-month delays and 80-mile round trips to acquire medication.

Simon Bell, a 43-year-old data analyst from Tyne and Wear, has cystic fibrosis and requires medication that allows him to digest food. “For people with cystic fibrosis, the part of our pancreas which releases enzymes and allows us to digest food doesn’t work, so we have to take these tablets, which does the job of what’s missing from our pancreas,” he says.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Bell says he has been experiencing shortages of Creon 25000, the drug he takes, and once was unable to get his medication for more than three months.

Bell decided he had no choice but to stockpile the medication when he could get it, as the effects of going without the drug are much graver than taking a lower dose.

“I went three months without getting any, so after that I started just to build up stock by not taking my full amount of medication every month, so now I always keep three months’ supply. Doctors would never advise this but I feel like I have no choice,” Bell says.

The situation has prompted concerns for Bell that his other medications will begin experiencing shortages, which could make him seriously ill. “Kaftrio is an expensive drug that if we stop taking would make us really seriously ill,” he says. “If I couldn’t get hold of that medication that would have serious implications in terms of health, long-term health and my ability to work. It could be quite devastating.”

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Source: The Guardian, 18 April 2024

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‘I had the coronavirus months ago but I’m still too ill to work... or even watch TV’

When Dan Scoble came down with the coronavirus in March, all the classic symptoms landed in one fell swoop. “I had everything under the sun: a fever, temperature, fatigue and chest pain,” he said. “My head felt like a balloon.”

The 22-year-old, a personal trainer from Oxford who normally breezed through 10-mile runs, suddenly found himself bed-bound. He presumed it would soon blow over, but 12 weeks after falling ill as the country went into lockdown, he is still not back to normal.

Dan has left his house just five times in three months — twice to see his GP and three times to hospital. He still suffers from crippling fatigue, recurrent migraines and a persistent sore throat, as well as abdominal and musculoskeletal pain.

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Source: The Times, 14 June 2020

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‘I had no idea my baby was at risk’: The fight to raise awareness of pre-eclampsia

Pre-eclampsia affects between 1% and 5% of pregnant women, but more can be done to inform people about its dangers.

While pregnant with her son in 2015, Chipiliro Kalebe-Nyamongo’s pregnancy was generally smooth – until she reached about 33 weeks. She started to develop high blood pressure, and was admitted to hospital to be monitored. It was during this period that Kalebe-Nyamongo became concerned when she didn’t feel her baby’s movements as usual.

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Source: Guardian, 8 April 2024

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‘I felt humiliated’: parents respond to NHS maternity care racial bias inquiry

Feeling manipulated into having medical procedures, dismissed by professionals and labelled with racial stereotypes are among the complaints of parents who responded to a national inquiry into racial injustice in UK maternity care.

A panel established by the charity Birthrights is investigating discrimination ranging from explicit racism to racial bias and microaggressions that amount to poorer care.

It comes as parliament is due on 19 April to debate the large racial disparity in maternal mortality in British hospitals, after a petition from the campaign group Five X More gathered 187,519 signatures. Black women are four times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy or childbirth in the UK.

Testimonies include that of a British Bangladeshi woman who said her labour concerns were dismissed. “I felt unsafe and like maternity professionals are not used to being challenged by brown women,” she said. “There is a stereotype of Asian women that we are tame, quiet and compliant people who have no voice and will be obedient.

“I was treated like a vessel, not like a human. The experience left me feeling humiliated, disempowered and ashamed.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 April 2021

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‘I feel so let down’: long waits for ambulances in south-west England

More than four hours after an ambulance was called, Richard Carpenter, 71, who had had a suspected heart attack, began to despair. “Where are they?” he asked his wife, Jeanette. “I’m going to die.”

She tried to reassure her husband that the crew must surely be close. Perhaps they were struggling to find their rural Wiltshire home in the dark. “But I could see I was losing him,” she said. She gave her husband CPR and urged him: “Don’t leave me.” But by the time the paramedics arrived another hour or so later, it was too late.

Jeanette Carpenter, 70, a stoical and reasonable person, accepts it might have been impossible to save her husband. “But I think he would have had more of a chance if they had got here sooner,” she said.

It is the sort of sad story that is becoming all too common. Across England, but in particular in the south-west, ambulances are too often not getting to patients in a timely manner.

Before Covid, said one ambulance worker – who asked not to be named – he would do between six and 10 jobs in a shift. Now if the first person he is called to needs to go to hospital, he expects this will be his one job for the whole shift.

“At some hospitals we are waiting outside hospitals for 10, 11 or 12 hours,” he said. “There’s nothing more demoralising than hearing a general broadcast going out for a cardiac arrest or road accident and there’s no resources to send. It’s terrible to think someone’s loved one needs help and we can’t do anything because we’re stuck at a hospital.”

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Source: The Guardian, 10 April 2022

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‘Humiliated’ trust staff complain of ‘unprofessional behaviour’ and ‘lack of compassion’

‘Unprofessional’ behaviours, a lack of compassion, and tension among staff and managers are all contributing to pockets of ‘poor culture’ at an acute trust.

A Freedom to Speak Up report presented to the board of Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust found there had been an increase in bullying and reports of staff members being “humiliated” during the last three months.

The report, which covers the first two quarters of 2021-22, highlighted a “lack of compassion, kindness, and understanding” between colleagues and noted “increasing levels of frustration” that people are not being held to account for “unprofessional” poor behaviours.

The report added the findings were not surprising due to the pressures of the pandemic experienced by staff.

It found: “There appears to be an increase in the proportion of concerns around interpersonal behaviours and communication issues as well as levels of frustration and tension amongst staff and managers.”

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Source: HSJ, 24 November 2021

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‘Hospitals at home’ plan to save NHS

More than half a million patients a year will be treated in “hospitals at home” in an attempt to relieve pressure on A&E departments.

Under the plans, elderly and frail patients who fall will be treated by video link, with ministers saying that a fifth of emergency admissions could be avoided with the right care.

Health officials said the “virtual wards” would be backed up by £14 billion in extra spending on health and care services over the next two years, as the NHS tackles record backlogs, with seven million people on waiting lists.

Rishi Sunak said the Urgent & Emergency Care Recovery Plan showed that the NHS was one of his “top priorities”.

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Source: The Telegraph, 29 January 2023

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‘Horrifying’ failure to provide safety warnings for high-risk medicine

Concerns have been raised that patients may not be receiving “vital” safety information after HSJ discovered a high-risk medication was frequently not being dispensed as originally packaged. 

In 2018, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency asked pharmacies to dispense valproate-containing medications in their original pack where possible, to ensure packages include safety warnings. 

It also asked manufacturers to produce smaller pack sizes and add pictorial warnings, while pharmacists were additionally asked to add stickered warnings to the outer box of any valproate-containing medication not dispensed in its original packaging.

Yet, data obtained via freedom of information requests to the NHS Business Services Authority revealed that while the proportion and number of valproate-containing items dispensed as split packs – as opposed to whole packs – had decreased over the last five years, split packs still accounted for more than half of items dispensed in 2022-23. 

Emma Murphy, of campaign group In-Fact, said the figures on split pack dispensing were “quite horrifying” and showed “the system is not working”.

She added: “Attitudes have got to change – prescribers, GPs etc need to be proactive and warn women of the risks because this isn’t just a side effect, this is harming real babies. As a mum of five affected children, the consequences of valproate in pregnancy on that baby is devastating.”

Alison Fuller, of Epilepsy Action, said the high proportion of split packs being dispensed made it “clear why the change in guidance introduced in October 2023 was necessary”, adding: “The manufacturer’s original full pack always contains all the relevant information, which is why it’s the best option for patient awareness.”

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Source: HSJ, 

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‘Horrendous’ patient death after staff mistake physical injuries for mental health condition

A patient died from a serious spinal injury after emergency staff incorrectly attributed his physical condition to his mental health issues, an inquest heard.

Robert Walaszkowski, who had been detained at a secure mental health unit run by North East London Foundation Trust in October 2019, suffered a serious injury after running into a door on the unit.

Staff from London Ambulance Service did not suspect a spinal injury and he was taken to the emergency department at Queen’s Hospital in Romford with a suspected head injury. An inquest heard he did not receive a spinal examination and imaging of the spine, despite this being required due to the nature of his injury and presentation.

He was discharged from A&E the following day, and was then placed on the floor of a private patient transport vehicle, to be transported back to the mental health unit, Goodmayes Hospital. He arrived at the hospital unresponsive. He never recovered consciousness and died of his injuries a month later.

An inquest jury has recorded a narrative conclusion and found that neglect contributed to Robert’s death.

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Source: HSJ, 24 September 2021

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‘Hips, knees and eyes’ funding focus ‘not fair’, says medical leader

Physical health and “hips, knees and eyes” still command the lion’s share of government money, despite persistent calls for fairer mental health funding, the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ departing president has told HSJ.

Adrian James also said future leaders must tackle bed and workforce shortages, while upcoming inquiries into poor care must allow people to speak openly without fear. 

NHS England CEO Amanda Pritchard has called the minimum investment standard for mental health “non-negotiable”. However, in an interview with HSJ, Dr James said mental health services are often missing out while “big chunks” of government money are allocated to reduce waiting lists. 

He said: “The [covid] recovery plan that was negotiated with the government really was about your hips, knees and eyes, in spite of big voices – one of them mine – saying, ‘what about the mental health backlog’. At that point, we didn’t get any extra money.”

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Source: HSJ, 18 July 2023

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‘High use of agency staff’ contributed to care failings exposed by hidden cameras

High use of agency staff contributed to the care failings exposed at a mental health trust by undercover reporters, an internal inquiry has found.

Essex Partnership University Trust was at the centre of a Channel 4 documentary last year which raised concerns over care, including the use of restraints and patient observations.

The trust initially refused to release the final report after a freedom of information request by HSJ, but has now released a redacted version on appeal. 

The report identified a number of concerns in relation to patient and staff safety, saying factors that contributed to these concerns included high usage of temporary staff and high patient acuity on the two acute mental health wards recorded.

The internal inquiry looked into allegations of the inappropriate use of restraints raised in the documentary. This section, which contained redactions, found restraint was taught to be used as a last resort, but suggested high temporary staffing levels and a “lack of confident and adequately skilled staff” contributed to guidance not being followed.

Another concern was around staff sleeping on duty and the use of mobile phones during patient observations. The internal inquiry found there was an “absence of visible leadership and role modelling” to ensure this did not happen during clinical practice.

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Source: HSJ, 17 October 2023

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‘Hepatitis in children: Any delays in diagnosis could lead to negligence claims, say lawyers

Parents whose children have mysteriously fallen ill with hepatitis and received a delayed diagnosis could be entitled to negligence claims, lawyers believe.

Officials are no closer to explaining a recent and unusual outbreak in cases of liver inflammation recorded among young children across the UK.

To date, a total of 163 children have been diagnosed. Eleven of these have received liver transplants, while 13 are currently in hospital. Globally in recent months, 300 children have been struck down by the illness, which has no clear cause.

Because the UK cases have been identified retrospectively, there is potential that doctors and medics may have “missed signs” which would have led to earlier hepatitis diagnoses and treatment, lawyers say.

“There are a significant number of these diagnoses which are actually retrospective,” said Jonathan Peacock, a partner at VWV specialising in clinical negligence.

“The obvious issue there from a negligence point of view is if you have missed signs, which ought to have led you to a diagnosis of hepatitis earlier, as a result of which it’s gone untreated and the outcome is worse, then potentially you’re negligent.

“There’s two stages: was the care diagnosis, treatment, intervention, was that of a reasonable standard? If the answer is no – there was clearly a negligent delay, or a breach of duty of care, then the second question that then arises is has the individual been harmed by that delay?”

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Source: The Independent, 10 May 2022

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‘Helpless’ CEO’s report expresses ‘extreme concern’ over doctors strikes

Acute trust leaders have expressed ‘extreme concern’ over their ability to maintain safe services in the upcoming junior doctor and consultant strikes.

Leaders at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust are “extremely concerned about the impact on patients… as well as on the health and wellbeing of staff”, according to its latest CEO report to the board,

Junior doctors are striking between 7am on Thursday 13 July and 7am on Tuesday 18 July. The report warned this would result in “complete withdrawal of labour, with no exemptions to cover emergency and critical services”.

The report said: “Junior doctors may only be recalled to work in the event of a mass casualty incident… Although other staff can cover for junior doctors they are becoming exhausted and increasingly reluctant to do so. 

“We are therefore extremely concerned about our ability to maintain safe services.”

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Source: HSJ, 12 July 2023

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‘Heavy-handed, expensive’ inspections wrong way to regulate hospitals, says ex-CQC chair

‘Very heavy-handed, laborious and expensive’ inspections ‘have not been the right way’ of regulating hospitals, according to the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) former chair.

Speaking at a Royal Society of Medicine event on Wednesday, Lord David Prior, who is now the chair of NHS England, said “very few” physicians will have improved their work after reading a report from the regulator.

He added that there is a role for the CQC to move in when “things are going wrong” although he is “sceptical” the regulator can actually drive improvement in hospitals.

Lord Prior said: “I am highly sceptical as to whether or not CQC or any regulator can really drive improvement and drive the top hospitals to make them better.

“And certainly I think there’ll be very few physicians who will say that their clinical work has improved as a result of reading a CQC report.

“I think the sadness I have about CQC is that we have not been able, or it has not been able, to develop a series of predictive metrics that could replace these very heavy handed, very laborious and very expensive visits that we used to do.”

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Source: HSJ, 9 September 2021

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‘He tarnished my reputation’: whistleblower demands action against CQC accuser

A former adviser for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has called on the regulator to explain what action it has taken against the officials responsible for wrongly dismissing him after he raised whistleblowing concerns.

Shyam Kumar, a surgeon who was part of inspection teams in the North West, told HSJ that he had to live with question marks over his reputation for several years. He is furious that a senior CQC official sought to question his honesty and integrity in evidence submitted to the employment tribunal examing his dismisal.

The tribunal heard Mr Kumar had raised a number of whistleblowing disclosures to the CQC, including concerns about the lack of appropriate expertise on inspection teams.

After a wide-ranging review around its handling of whistleblowing concerns, CQC chief executive Ian Trenholm last week apologised to Mr Kumar for “unacceptably poor treatment” by his organisation, and thanked him for contributing to the review.

However, Mr Kumar told HSJ: “I’m glad the CQC has looked at this and finally acknowledged what they did to me was wrong. But I want to know what has happened to the individuals that were responsible.”

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Source: HSJ, 6 April 2023

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‘He could have died’: family calls for better jaundice testing of black and Asian babies

Soon after her son Jaxson was born, Lauren Clarke spotted that his eyes were yellow and bloodshot. “We kept asking if he had jaundice, but each time we were told to keep feeding him and just put Jaxson in front of a window,” she says.

It was only when Clarke was readmitted six days later with an infection that Jaxson’s jaundice was detected by a midwife. By this time, his levels were becoming dangerously high.

“We spent a further five days in hospital for Jaxson to be treated with light therapy and antibiotics. If I hadn’t had to go back to hospital, he could have died or had serious long-term health conditions,” she says.

This week, the NHS race and health observatory will announce new funding for research into the efficacy of jaundice screening in black, Asian and minority ethnic newborns on the back of a recent report showing that tests to assess newborn babies’ health are not effective for non-white children.

The research cannot come too soon. Jaxson’s aunt, Gemma Poole, a midwife from Nottingham, created her company, the Essential Baby Company, to develop resources and training about the specific needs of women and babies with black and brown skins, after Jaxson’s jaundice was initially missed by clinicians.

Poole believes the trauma her nephew, brother and sister-in-law had to go through could have been avoided if health professionals had known better ways to spot jaundice in non-white babies.

“The colour of gums, the soles of the feet and hands, the whites of eyes, how many wet and dirty nappies and if the baby is waking for feeds and alert could be more reliable indicators if a black or brown baby has jaundice,” she says.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 July 2023

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‘Gross’ care delays could become ‘new normal’, says CQC report

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has urged system leaders to move away from “quick fixes” to the “enormous gap in resources and capacity” in urgent and emergency care.

A report by the CQC and a large group of emergency clinicians and other health and care leaders calls for a ”move away from reactive ‘quick fixes’ such as tents in the car park or corridor care to proactive long-term solutions and to address the enormous gap in resources and capacity”.

The use of tents and treating more patients in corridors have been increasingly adopted by hospitals in recent months, sometimes encouraged by NHS England, particularly when they are under pressure to reduce handover delays from ambulances.

The report, 'People First: a response from health and care leaders to the urgent and emergency care system crisis', suggests:

  • expanding use of urgent community response teams to attend minor injuries 999/111 calls,
  • giving acute and social care providers direct access to GP and community service booking systems, and
  • providing “rapid access” to support packages to help people avoid hospital admission.

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Source: HSJ, 22 September 2022

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‘Great’ trust seen as ‘insular and dismissive of integration’

A “great” ambulance trust’s “uncompromising” focus on outcomes and its own performance has been a barrier to system working and affected relationships with partners, an external review has advised it.

The report from the Good Governance Institute on West Midlands Ambulance Service University Foundation Trust found partners felt it was “increasingly out of sync with new ways of working under integrated care” and even “somewhat dismissive of the integrated care agenda”.

It praised the trust overall, saying: “WMAS is seen by all those we spoke to as being a great organisation: well run, with strong leadership and a clear focus on operational delivery.

But it said communications, especially through the press, were seen as “bullish and at times damaging to the reputation of partners and harmful to patients”. Its reputation and performance can create a culture of engagement with external partners that “seems defensive at best and arrogant/dismissive at worst”, with the trust being “prickly towards external challenge”, the consultants’ report added.

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Source: HSJ, 27 July

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‘GP said I might be blocked up. At hospital they told me I was heading towards sepsis’

Monica Evans's initial misdiagnosis could have proved life-threatening – and she is just one of many to have suffered during pandemic.

Since The Telegraph began reporting on the struggles of patients around the country to access GP services during the pandemic, they have been inundated with messages and letters.

There have been multiple stories of serious misdiagnoses made after telephone consultations with doctors that took place in lieu of face-to-face assessments; of interminable waits to get through to practices on jammed phone lines; and of lengthy delays while worried patients have waited for referrals to be made.

Those who shared their experiences have also shared their fury, frustration, fear and dismay. Some who could afford to have felt they had no option but to turn to private healthcare, unable to obtain the help they needed from an NHS struggling with Covid and all its knock-on effects. Others have been left with nowhere to turn. 

GPs have spoken, too, about their dissatisfaction with a system that has discouraged face-to-face consultations. 

Amid an outpouring of anger from both patients and doctors, NHS England yesterday rowed back on plans for "total triage" of patients to keep them out of surgeries whenever possible. But for many the damage has already been done.

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Source: The Telegraph, 13 May 2021

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‘Global crisis’ of violence: 161 healthcare workers were killed last year, study finds

Violence against healthcare workers has become a “global crisis”, with 161 medics killed and 188 incidents of hospitals being destroyed or damaged last year, according to a new report.

Data collected from 49 conflict zones by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC), also found that 320 health workers were wounded in attacks, 170 were kidnapped and 713 people were arrested in the course of their work.

The US-based group said on Tuesday that, although the total number of attacks was similar to those recorded in recent years, there had been an increase in violence in areas of new or renewed conflict in 2021, “underlining the fact that attacks on healthcare are a common feature in many of today’s conflicts”.

Christina Wille, director at Insecurity Insight, which led the data collection and analysis, said: “Violence against healthcare resulted in widespread impacts on public health programmes, vaccination campaigns and population health, contributing to avoidable deaths and long-term consequences for individuals, communities, countries and global health writ large.”

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Source: The Guardian, 24 May 2022

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‘Get the vaccine’: family of Covid victim’s plea to pregnant women

Saiqa Parveen was eight months pregnant and weeks from welcoming her fifth daughter to the world, but died of Covid after putting off getting the coronavirus jab. Her family have now issued an emotional plea for pregnant women to get vaccinated.

Parveen, 37, had planned to delay having the jab until her baby was born, her family said, but she was admitted to hospital with breathing difficulties in September and put on a ventilator.

A decision was taken by medical staff at Good Hope hospital in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, to deliver the baby by emergency caesarean section. Parveen died on 1 November after spending five weeks in intensive care.

Asked what her last words were, her husband Gahfur said: “She couldn’t even talk. She couldn’t breathe properly … She couldn’t talk.”

He added: “I’m going to pass this message to the whole world, I just beg all people to get the vaccine, otherwise it’s very hard for them. It’s a very deadly disease, you know. She planned so many things, and this disease didn’t give her a chance.”

Covid vaccines are recommended for pregnant women. In a letter to midwives, obstetricians and GP practices in July, the chief midwife for England, Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, said all healthcare professionals had “a responsibility to proactively encourage pregnant women” to get vaccinated.

Parveen chose not to have the vaccine, but concerns have been raised that pregnant women are being turned away from vaccine clinics despite clinical advice.

Members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation told the Guardian that they were urging ministers to focus more on pregnant women because only about 15% in the UK have been fully vaccinated. 

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Source: The Guardian, 7 November 2021

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