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NHS given its 10 priorities for 2022

NHS England has set out 10 priorities for 2022-23 in its annual planning guidance.

NHSE chief executive Amanda Pritchard makes clear in an introduction that many of its goals remain contingent on covid, stating: ”The objectives set out in this document are based on a scenario where covid-19 returns to a low level and we are able to make significant progress in the first part of next year.”

The 10 priorities are:

  • Workforce investment, including “strengthening the compassionate and inclusive culture needed to deliver outstanding care”.
  • Responding to COVID-19.
  • Delivering “significantly more elective care to tackle the elective backlog”.
  • Improving “the responsiveness of urgent and emergency care and community care capacity.”
  • Increasing timely access to primary care, “maximising the impact of the investment in primary medical care and primary care networks”.
  • Maintaining “continued growth in mental health investment to transform and expand community health services and improve access”.
  • Using data and analytics to “redesign care pathways and measure outcomes with a focus on improving access and health equity for underserved communities”.
  • Achieving “a core level of digitisation in every service across systems”.
  • Returning to and better “prepandemic levels of productivity”.
  • Establishing integrated care boards and collaborative system working, and “working together with local authorities and other partners across their ICS to develop a five-year strategic plan for their system and places”.

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Source: HSJ, 24 December 2021

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NHS unable to treat every child with eating disorder as cases soar

The NHS can no longer treat every child with an eating disorder, a leading psychiatrist has warned, as “worrying” figures reveal hospital admissions have risen 41% in a year.

A dramatic surge in cases during the pandemic has left already struggling community services overstretched with many unable to care for everyone who requires help, experts said.

NHS Digital data for England shows a sharp rise in admissions in every area of the country. The provisional data for April to October 2021 – the most recent available – shows there were 4,238 hospital admissions for children aged 17 and under, up 41% from 3,005 in the same period the year before.

Charities said the fast rising number of hospital admissions was “only the tip of the iceberg”, with thousands more children needing support for eating disorders.

Dr Agnes Ayton, the chair of the eating disorders faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “The hidden epidemic of eating disorders has surged during the pandemic, with many community services now overstretched and unable to treat the sheer number of people needing help. We are at the point where we cannot afford to let this go on any longer."

“Early intervention is key to recovery and to preventing serious illness, which is why it’s crucial that the money announced by government urgently reaches the frontline. The government must also deliver a workforce plan to tackle the shortages in eating disorder services so that they have enough staff to treat everyone who needs help.”

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Source: The Guardian, 4 January 2021

 

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Fat-shamed by banter at my pregnancy scan

A mum-of-four said she felt "fat-shamed" at a pregnancy scan and during follow-up appointments.

Alexandra Dodds said her weight was raised at every appointment, and circled with a pen so vigorously in her notes that she wanted to lose them.

"It was just kind of jokes, like 'hope you've stopped the Christmas snacks', or 'make sure you've thrown the box of chocolates away'," said Ms Dodds. "I didn't feel like it was said in a spiteful way to try to upset me, it was like banter, but I don't feel like you can banter about that," she added.

Baby Brianna was born healthy at home before a midwife could arrive in July, last year.

Alexandra said she only felt able to speak out about what she wanted during her pregnancy and labour because of three previous pregnancies.

"If I feel any level of shame, that's just a clear indication that I have to talk about it, because it means I'm not the only person and other people will understand," she added.

Joint research by Cardiff University and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) found women with higher BMIs felt stigmatised by risk messaging in maternity care.

The Wrisk Project, which surveyed more than 7,000 women, looked at how risk is communicated in pregnancy following concerns it didn't always "reflect the evidence base".

Clare Murphy, director of BPAS, said the work showed they hadn't got it right. "Pregnant women are often infantilized, and it feels like sometimes decisions are made about them, for them," she said.

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said care should be based on respect and understanding of women's needs.

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Source: BBC News, 3 January 2021

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My ob-gyn kept shaming me for my weight gain during pregnancy - patient video

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Lincolnshire hospitals declare 'critical incident' over staff shortages

A critical incident has been declared at four Lincolnshire hospitals because of staff shortages due to COVID-19.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust said it was taking "additional steps to maintain services" at all its hospitals in Lincoln, Boston and Grantham.

The trust's medical director, Dr Colin Farquharson, said there were "significant staffing pressures due to absence related to COVID-19".

But he said essential services "remain fully open".

According to a leaked email seen by The Sunday Times, the trust declared a critical incident on Saturday night "due to extreme and unprecedented workforce shortages".

It issued an "urgent appeal" for clinical and non-clinical staff to offer extra time supporting colleagues "over the next 72 hours".

It also asked staff to "consider limiting social contacts with people outside of work".

Original tweet on Twitter:

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Source: BBC News, 3 January 2022

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Nightingale surge hubs to be set up in eight hospitals, NHS England says

Coronavirus "surge hubs" are to be set up at hospitals across England in preparation for a potential wave of Omicron admissions, the NHS has said.

The eight temporary "Nightingale" units will each house about 100 patients, with building starting this week.

There are also plans to identify sites for a further 4,000 beds if needed.

Record Covid case numbers were reported in the UK on Wednesday and NHS medical director Prof Stephen Powis said the service was on a "war footing".

The NHS is often required to deploy extra beds over winter, but hospitalisations in England with Covid have risen above 10,000 for the first time since March.

Across the UK 183,037 daily cases were reported in the latest figures, with over 900,000 cases reported over the last seven days - up 41.4% on the week before.

Prof Powis said the NHS "cannot wait to find out before we act" given the number of infections and uncertainty about Omicron's severity.

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Source: BBC News, 30 December 2021

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No. 10 criticised for failing to respond to damning MP report on Covid

The government has been criticised for failing to respond to a damning parliamentary report that accused ministers of mishandling the early stages of the pandemic.

The report, compiled by the Health and Science and Technology Committees, found the government’s initial response to Covid-19 “amounted in practice” to the pursuit of herd immunity, with the delayed decision to lock down ranking as one of the “most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”.

More than 50 witnesses contributed to the cross-party report, including ministers, NHS officials, government advisers and leading scientists, with the authors saying it was was “vital” that lessons were learnt from the failings of the past 18 months.

The findings from the joint inquiry were published on 12 October and a deadline for an official government response was set for 12 December.

However, that date has now passed and the committees have yet to formally hear back from ministers, according to the parliamentary website, which states that a response is now “overdue”.

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said the government’s failure to “meet a very reasonable deadline” called into question the willingness of ministers to engage with the coming independent public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.

"The government have had months to get a response delivered to the Health and Science and Technology committees following their lessons leant from the pandemic report,” said Jo Goodmand, co-founder of the campaign group.

“Unfortunately those of us who have lost loved ones are far too used to this with responses to FOIs late and it taking far too long to announce the inquiry.

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Source: 30 December 2021

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Inquests to be held into deaths of new mothers who died from herpes

A coroner will investigate the deaths of two women from herpes following childbirth, amid fears they contracted the virus from their surgeon.

Kim Sampson, 29, and Samantha Mulcahy, 32, died weeks apart after their babies were delivered by caesarean section at different hospitals in Kent.

Their families have campaigned for answers as to whether they contracted the infection from their surgeon, after a BBC investigation found the women were treated by the same person.

Sampson’s mother, Yvette, said: “We’ve wanted this since Kim died in 2018 – it’s been a long time coming. We hope we are finally going to get answers to the questions we’ve always had – both for ourselves and for Kim’s children.”

Herpes infections are commonly found in the genitals and on the face, often with mild symptoms. Sampson’s baby boy, her second child, was delivered at Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Margate in May 2018, but she died at the end of the month in hospital in London after becoming infected.

In July the same year, first-time mother Mulcahy died from an infection caused by the virus at William Harvey hospital in Ashford.

Sampson’s family requested documents from Public Health England which revealed emails from the trust, some NHS bodies, staff at PHE, and a private lab.

The messages showed that the same two clinicians – a midwife and the surgeon who carried out the C-sections – had been involved in both births.

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Source: The Guardian, 30 December 2021

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Lateral flow tests to be ‘constrained’ over next two weeks, warns Sajid Javid

The health secretary, Sajid Javid, has warned MPs he may need to “constrain” the Covid testing system over the next fortnight, as demand for lateral flow kits surges.

Ministers have repeatedly encouraged members of the public to test themselves using a lateral flow device (LFD) before attending gatherings or meeting vulnerable relatives.

However, test kits have repeatedly been unavailable online in recent days, and many pharmacies have complained of being unable to secure them.

Labour has accused the government of presiding over a “shambles”, with many members of the public struggling to obtain tests despite ministers putting testing at the centre of efforts to control the spread of Omicron.

Demand for the tests has also been boosted by a change in quarantine rules that allows people to emerge from self-isolation after seven days instead of 10, as long as they carry out two negative lateral flow tests.

In a letter sent to MPs on Wednesday evening, Javid acknowledged the intense strain being put on the system as cases of the Omicron variant continue to increase, with 183,037 new infections recorded on Wednesday.

“In light of the huge demand for LFDs seen over the last three weeks, we expect to need to constrain the system at certain points over the next two weeks to manage supply over the course of each day, with new tranches of supply released regularly throughout each day,” he wrote.

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Source: The Guardian, 30 November 2021

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Study suggests coronavirus lingers in organs for months

Data from a new study suggests that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can persist in different parts of the body for months after infection, including the heart and brain.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found the virus can spread widely from the respiratory tract to almost every other organ in the body and linger for months.

The researchers described the study as the "most comprehensive analysis to date" of the virus's persistence throughout the body and brain. They performed autopsies on 44 patients who died either from or with COVID-19 to map and quantify virus distribution across the body.

Daniel Chertow, principal investigator in the NIH’s emerging pathogens section, said along with his colleagues that RNA from the virus was found in patients up to 230 days after symptom onset.

The findings, released in a pre-print manuscript, shed new light on patients who suffer from Long Covid.

The study found that the virus had replicated across multiple organ systems even among patients with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19. 

While the "highest burden" of infection was in the lungs and airway, the study showed the virus can "disseminate early during infection and infect cells throughout the entire body,” including in the brain, as well as in ocular tissue, muscles, skin, peripheral nerves and tissues in the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endocrine and lymphatic systems.

"Our data support an early viremic phase, which seeds the virus throughout the body following pulmonary infection," the researchers wrote. 

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Source: The Hill, 27 December 2021

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NHS pressures having ‘devastating’ impact on dying patients

Patients are dying in hospital without their families because of pressure on NHS services, hospices have told The Independent.

A major care provider has warned that it has seen a “huge shift” in the number of patients referred too late to its services.

The warning comes as NHS England begins a new £32m contract with hospices to help hospitals discharge as many patients as possible this winter.

NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the health service was preparing for an Omicron-driven Covid wave that could be as disruptive as, or even worse than, last winter’s crisis.

Hospices are already dealing with a “huge volume of death and patients needing support”, according to the head of policy at Hospice UK, Dominic Carter.

He told The Independent that hospices had seen a huge shift in the number of patients referred to their services too late, when they are in a “very serious” state of health.

He added: “We don’t really know what kind of support is actually out there for those people, while hospitals have difficulties and deal with challenges around backlogs and Covid. There are lots of people that have been in the community, where hospices are trying to reach them but aren’t always able to identify who needs that care and support.

“They’re really important, those five or six final days, for the individual and their families. Yet this is spent in crisis rather than being helped as much as possible in a comfortable environment by the hospice ... [instead] an ambulance is called, and they’re having to be cast into hospital.”

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Source: The Independent, 26 December 2021

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Prostate screening could be ready in five years

Screening for prostate cancer could be possible in the next five years, according to one of the UK's leading experts.

Prof Ros Eeles, from the Institute of Cancer Research, said advances in genetics and medical imaging were making it possible.

About 50,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with the disease each year, and nearly 12,000 die.

NHS England said prostate screening had been notoriously tricky.

Despite it being one of the most common cancers, there is no equivalent of the regular mammograms that detect breast cancer.

There is a blood test that looks for levels of a protein called prostate specific antigen (PSA). But it is controversial and the UK's National Screening Committee does not recommend it.

PSA tests are used to guide doctors and help monitor tumours. But using them to screen healthy people means they miss some cancers and cannot distinguish between people with high PSA levels who need treatment and those who do not.

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Source: BBC News, 27 December 2021

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Give FFP3 masks to NHS staff during Omicron, doctors say

NHS staff treating Covid patients should be given much more protective facewear than thin surgical masks to help them avoid getting infected during the Omicron rise, doctors say.

The British Medical Association (BMA), Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) and Doctors’ Association UK are calling for frontline personnel to be given FFP3 masks.

Making the much higher-quality face masks standard issue would save the lives of health workers who fall ill as a result of treating Covid patients, the BMA said. “At this critical point in the pandemic this is extremely urgent – a matter of life and death,” said Prof Raymond Agius, the acting chair of the doctors’ union’s occupational health committee.

FFP3 masks, also known as filtering facepiece respirators, have been shown in a trial in Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge to reduce the number of healthcare staff who become infected.

However, the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) guidance on personal protective equipment, updated last week, only recommends their use in limited circumstances.

“With a high transmissible new strain now circulating, and clear evidence that Covid-19 spreads in small airborne particles, healthcare workers must be given the best possible protection against the virus. Surgical masks don’t give the necessary protection against airborne transmission of Covid,” Agius said.

The BMA has written to every hospital trust in England demanding that any health professional treating patients who are or may be Covid-positive should be routinely issued with FFP3s, which are much more expensive than the surgical masks usually provided.

Surgical masks are “unsuitable” given the threat Covid poses, the BMA believes.

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Source: The Guardian, 27 December 2021

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Mass rapid tests in Liverpool cut hospital stays by a third

Mass lateral flow testing cut the number of people needing hospital treatment for Covid by 32% and relieved significant pressure on the NHS when the measures were piloted last year, a study has shown.

Liverpool conducted the first city-wide testing scheme using rapid antigen tests in November last year, amid debate about whether or not lateral flow tests (LFTs) were accurate enough to detect the virus in asymptomatic carriers.

It expanded the project to cover the whole of the Liverpool region, offering people LFTs whether or not they had symptoms. Key workers did daily tests before going to work to show they were not infectious.

Now an analysis has shown that it was more successful than Liverpool’s scientists and public health teams had anticipated, after they compared Covid cases and outcomes in the region with other parts of England.

Professor Iain Buchan, dean of the Institute of Population Health, who led the evaluation, said: “This time last year, as the Alpha variant was surging, we found that Liverpool city region’s early rollout of community rapid testing was associated with a 32% fall in Covid-19 hospital admissions after careful matching to other parts of the country in a similar position to Liverpool but without rapid testing.

“We also found that daily lateral flow testing as an alternative to quarantine for people who had been in close contact with a known infected person enabled emergency services to keep key teams such as fire crews in work, underpinning public safety.”

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Source: The Guardian, 19 December 2021

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NHS mental health services in ‘desperate’ situation

NHS mental health services are facing a “desperate” situation as all hospitals across the country are dangerously full and leaked data shows hundreds of patients waiting over 12 hours in A&E, The Independent can reveal.

The news comes as the spread of Omicron risks outbreaks in mental health hospitals, with a large hospital in London forced to close its doors to new admissions on three wards.

In response to the growing bed pressures in the capital over the past month the NHS has commissioned 40 beds from private sector hospitals run by The Priory Group, The Independent understands.

NHS data, seen by The Independent, has revealed that almost all mental health hospitals in London have been at “black alert” levels of bed availability during October and November, meaning their beds were nearly 100 per cent full.

A senior national source has warned the situation is similar across the country, with nearly all mental health trusts 94 per cent full and services at their most stressed ever.

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Source: The Independent, 23 December 2021

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West Suffolk hospital chair resigns after whistleblowing scandal

The chair of West Suffolk hospital trust has resigned over a whistleblowing scandal exposed by the Guardian, as fresh questions are asked over why the trust continues to pay at least £270,000 a year to its former chief executive.

Sheila Childerhouse was criticised by an independent NHS report for her failure to question senior executives who had hounded Dr Patricia Mills after Mills had raised concerns about a colleague seen injecting himself with drugs while on duty.

Childerhouse has announced that she will step down in January after consultants at the Bury St Edmunds hospital told her last week that her position was “untenable”.

The NHS report, by Christine Outram, found that Childerhouse failed to take up Mills’ concerns when she was sent a “confidential” email in 2018 expressing alarm that the self-injecting doctor was being allowed to continue to treat patients.

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Source: The Guardian, 23 December 2021

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NHS 24 warns of call delays over high festive demand

NHS 24 is urging people to treat common illness at home as it faces its busiest period over the festive season.

Helpline bosses have warned that it will take longer to answer calls as the service faces staffing pressures and increased demand caused by Covid.

It expects 170,000 calls over Christmas and New year - including two four-day weekends with GP surgeries closed.

The public have been advised to use the NHS Inform website to check symptoms before phoning NHS 24.

Janice Houston, NHS 24 associate director of operations and nursing, said the spread of Omicron had left the service "missing key staff" with people required to self-isolate.

"This year is exceptional and particularly busy," she said.

"We plan within an inch of our life for our busiest period, so I would just ask the public to be patient with us.

"We need to re-plan depending on who can't come to work from self-isolating. It might take a bit longer to answer the phone, but you will always get good care."

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Source: BBC News, 24 December 2021

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NHS London’s plans for virtual wards create unnecessary risk

NHS London’s plan for dealing with the omicron wave needs to take a more multidisciplinary approach and be more evidence-based if it is to not build unwarranted variation into services, write Elaine Maxwell and Alison Leary in HSJ.

A key tenet of high reliability organisations is to expect the unexpected. The start of the global COVID-19 pandemic was perhaps a little too unexpected to have good plans in place, but nearly two years on there really is no excuse and the NHS London plan for the omicron wave leaves a lot to be desired. Standing down Covid Virtual Wards across the summer with limited capacity to restart them (and no clear evaluation) was, in hindsight, a mistake - but standing up a different model without careful forethought is perhaps a bigger mistake.

We have talked for at least a decade about unwarranted variation and we seem to be building it into services now, because we don’t spend the time considering the research evidence and consulting the whole multidisciplinary team in order to set meaningful standards. In safety science terms, this is a nightmare. We should and could do better.

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Source: HSJ, 23 December 2021

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Neglect was one of biggest killers in care homes during pandemic, report finds

The pandemic has disproportionately affected people living in care homes, who accounted for an estimated 30% of all deaths from covid-19 across 25 countries despite making up only 1% of the world’s population, a report has estimated.

The analysis was carried out by Collateral Global, a research group that says it is dedicated to reporting on the effects of governments’ mandatory COVID-19 mitigation measures. The report said the pandemic had exacerbated long running problems in the care sector, such as chronic underfunding, poor structural organisation, staff undertraining, underskilling, and underequipping, and a “lack of humanity in dealing with the most vulnerable members of society.”

“Neglect, thirst, and hunger were—and possibly still are—the biggest killers,” the group said. They also said that care home residents faced barriers in access to emergency treatments during the pandemic.

The study authors suggested that undiagnosed COVID-19, poor testing, and inadequate staffing and infection control were the likely factors contributing to the excess deaths in care homes.

Martin Green, chief executive officer of Care England, said, “Adult social care and the NHS are two sides of the same coin and need to be treated as such. The government shouldn’t have placed such a myopic focus on the NHS without due consideration for social care too.”

He said that he was “phenomenally” proud of the care workforce and wanted to ensure that they were recognised as professionals with proper career pathways and commensurate funding.

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Source: The BMJ, 22 December 2021

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US Patients can order ‘don’t weigh me’ cards to take to doctors

 

Patients in the US are able to order “don’t weigh me” cards to take to the doctors in a move aimed at reducing anxiety and stress on a visit.

The US group behind the initiative said being weighed and talking about weight “causes feelings of stress and shame for many people”.

The cards say: “Please don’t weigh me unless it is (really) medically necessary.”

It adds: “If you really need my weight, please tell me why so that I can give you my informed consent”.

On the other side, it explains why the patient may not want to be weighed, including “when you focus on my weight I get stressed” and “weighing me every time I come in for an appointment and talking about my weight like it’s a problem perpetuates weight stigma”.

It also says most health conditions can be addressed without knowing the patient’s weight.

Public Health England guidance to health and care professionals says they are in a “unique position to talk to patients about weight management to prevent ill-health” and recommends brief interventions.

It says the first step in a brief intervention over a patient’s weight is to weigh and measure them. “You should view this as a normal part of a routine consultation,” it says.

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Source: The Independent, 23 December 2021

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More than a million of us are suffering with long Covid – yet still it’s not taken seriously

Nearly two years into the pandemic, people like me are still out of action. We need better support and more funding, writes Joanna Herman, consultant in infectious diseases in London.

Joanna caught Covid in March 2020, and was by definition a “mild” case: not admitted to hospital and no risk factors for severe disease, but how it has affected her and her  family is anything but mild. Having been fit and active, Joanna now finds that on bad days that she still struggle with everyday chores, and her usually quick-firing brain "remains in slo-mo ('brain fog')".

For many months, it has felt as though long Covid has not been on the political agenda, but many people are still struggling with their everyday lives, and struggling to get the help they need. Why is long Covid not included in the daily statistics, or as one of the main incentives to avoid Omicron, and to get a vaccine and booster jab? It’s never mentioned, and it often feels as if sufferers don’t exist.

Even if the new variant results in milder disease than previous ones, could more people still end up like Joanna? And how will an already stretched NHS cope if there are new cases of long Covid after this current viral surge? There’s a lot we still don’t know about Omicron; a fuller picture will become evident over the coming weeks and months...

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Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2021

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Ministers pledge to ‘reset the dial’ on women’s health in England

Ministers have pledged to “reset the dial” on women’s health to tackle decades of gender inequality in England, with plans to appoint a women’s health tsar, eradicate medical taboos, boost menopause support and ban harmful “virginity repair” operations.

The Department of Health and Social Care has published its Vision for Women’s Health strategy after 100,000 women came forward to share their healthcare concerns. Maria Caulfield, the minister for women’s health, described some of their experiences as “shocking”.

The vision document sets out initial government commitments on women’s health, recognising that “systemwide changes” are needed to tackle “decades of gender health inequality”. The final plan – the Women’s Health Strategy – will be published in spring 2022.

On Wednesday night, ministers pledged to introduce legislation criminalising hymenoplasty or any procedure to rebuild or repair the hymen. Such surgery creates scar tissue so that a woman will bleed the next time she has intercourse, making it appear she has never had sex. Young women can be forced to prove they are “pure” on their wedding night. Doctors have called for a ban on the surgery for years, saying it can never be justified on health grounds and is harmful.

Separately, the government will appoint a women’s health ambassador to raise the profile of key issues and boost awareness of taboo topics. Ministers will also establish a UK-wide menopause taskforce to investigate how women going through the menopause can be better supported. The cost of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescriptions will also be cut by implementing longer prescribing cycles so women will need fewer prescriptions and therefore pay less.

The consultation provided “stark and sobering insights” into women’s experiences of health and care and highlighted entrenched problems within the NHS, officials said.

Ministers are also considering compulsory training for GPs on women’s health after the idea was raised by women who came forward. The vision document said: “We also heard about a lack of awareness amongst some GPs of the causes of infertility, miscarriages and their relationship with infertility, and the reasons for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) failure.”

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Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2021

Related reading

Gender bias: A threat to women’s health (August 2020)

Dangerous exclusions: The risk to patient safety of sex and gender bias

Patient Safety Learning: Women’s Health Strategy Consultation Response

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Safety fears found at home where gran was killed

A watchdog found there were safety concerns at a south-east London care home weeks after a resident killed a woman in her bedroom, it has emerged.

Alexander Rawson, 63, beat 93-year-old Eileen Dean to death at Fieldside Care Home in Catford on 3 January. 

Inspectors visited the care home on 26 January after the murder of the grandmother-of-five triggered alarm about patient safety. Inspectors concluded that the home failed to record dangers properly and residents "were not always safe".

Mrs Dean suffered catastrophic injuries after she was attacked by Rawson with a walking stick, about two weeks after he had been moved into the home from a mental health unit.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the report said: "People were not always safe. The provider had not ensured risks to people were always documented and mitigated.

"Risk assessments and care plans contained conflicting information which could potentially lead to people being exposed to harm."

Specific concerns were also raised to the watchdog about the home's "risk management processes."

The 63-year-old was sentenced to indefinite detention in a secure psychiatric unit on Monday.

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Source: BBC News, 22 November 2021

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Immensa lab closed one month after ‘unusual’ Covid results first detected

Authorities were aware of discrepancies in Covid test results across England one month before the lab responsible was ordered to shut down its operations, legal papers show.

An estimated 43,000 incorrect false negative tests were processed for the NHS by the Immensa laboratory in Wolverhampton between 8 September and 12 October.

UK Health Security Agency became aware of an “unusual spike” in suspicious test results on 14 September, with large numbers of people testing positive on lateral flow devices but negative via PCR.

It took a month before the UKHSA determined that the “likely cause was a technical issue at the Immensa laboratory”, according to court papers filed by the government in response to a lawsuit.

The Independent also revealed in October how machines at the Wolverhampton lab were poorly maintained, concerns over quality control dismissed and untrained staff regularly “left to their own devices”.

Samples at the site were wrongly processed or cross-contaminated, leading to incorrect test results, while faulty air conditioning and fluctuating humidity levels within the lab also led to spoiled tests, whistleblowers said.

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Source: The Independent, 22 December 2021

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Suspected Covid outbreaks in UK hospitals double in a week

Suspected Covid outbreaks in hospitals across the UK have doubled in a week, official figures reveal – though the number of people admitted to wards with the virus is falling across much of England.

As parts of the NHS battle to cope with a surge in infected staff and patients, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data show there were 66 acute respiratory infection incidents in UK hospitals in the seven days to 16 December.

Coronavirus was confirmed in most of these incidents, according to a UKHSA document reviewed, by the Guardian. It represents a doubling in outbreaks compared with the previous week (33) and is the highest total recorded since the third week of January 2020.

Most of the outbreaks happened in London, with 28 recorded in the last week, almost half of all those in England (62). Nine were recorded in West Midlands hospitals, six in the east of England and five in the east Midlands.

Hospitals are scrambling to try to stop the highly transmissible Omicron variant spreading between patients and staff, NHS leaders said, while trying to cope with more pressure than last year.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “The safety of staff and patients is a key priority of trust leaders, and trusts are doing everything they can to keep nosocomial [hospital-acquired] infections to a minimum, including following stringent infection control measures and social distancing rules.”

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Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2021

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NHS hospitals are not ‘scaremongering’ about a winter Covid wave

David Oliver, NHS consultant physician and a columnist for the BMJ makes a plea on behalf of his colleagues as they face a surge of admissions due to the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 this Christmas.

"Pandemic health protection measures are not all about you and your own personal risk or appetite for it, your own ‘natural immunity’ or fitness, your own liberty or freedom. They are about protecting everyone else. 

It might be your own parent, grandparent or sibling that dies from COVID-19 or from lack of access to overwhelmed services. It might be your neighbour’s or someone in another town or from another social class or ethnic group,

This isn’t a game and we need to take it seriously and stop posturing and point-scoring, before, once again, we have left it too late to act"

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Source: Byline Times, 21 December 2021

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