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Hospitals are having to cancel operations and cancer scans are going unread for weeks because consultant doctors have suddenly begun working to rule in a standoff over NHS pensions. Doctors say the dispute is escalating so quickly that it will send NHS services “into meltdown” and is so serious that it poses “an existential threat” to the health service’s survival.
Source: The Guardian, 8 July 2019
A public inquiry will be held to examine safety and wellbeing issues at the new children's hospital in Edinburgh and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. The inquiry will determine how vital issues relating to ventilation and other key building systems occurred. It will also look at how to avoid mistakes in future projects.
In January, it was confirmed two patients had died after contracting a fungal infection caused by pigeon droppings at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Health Secretary Jeane Freeman later ordered a review of the design of the building and said there was an "absolute focus on patient safety".
Meanwhile, the new £150m Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh has been dogged by delays over health concerns. The hospital was supposed to open in 2017 - but will now not be ready until next autumn at the earliest - after problems with the specification of the ventilation system.
Scottish Labour's Monica Lennon said the inquiry was "the only way to get to the bottom of this outrageous series of errors". She added: "Children in Scotland are being let down because the hospitals they were promised are not fit for purpose. We have two hospitals built by the same contractor that are mired in controversy, and all the while patients are suffering. The public need to know the truth of what has gone so badly wrong at these two vital hospitals."
Source: BBC News, 17 September 2019
Suspended Belfast neurologist Michael Watt has offered his "sincere sympathy" to those affected by Northern Ireland's biggest patient recall.
Dr Michael Watt worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital as a neurologist diagnosing conditions like epilepsy and Parkinson's Disease. He was suspended after 3,000 patients were given recall appointments last year.
Dr Watt said he recognised the "distress these events have caused".
On Tuesday, a BBC Spotlight investigation found that he had carried out hundreds of unnecessary procedures on patients.
The programme also obtained details of a Department of Health report, as yet unpublished, that said one-in-five patients of the consultant neurologist were misdiagnosed.
Source: BBC News, 22 November 2019
A hospital for men with learning disabilities has been placed in special measures after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) identified “serious risks to patient safety”.
The CQC said it had also suspended its current rating of “good” for caring for Cygnet Woodside, Bradford, West Yorkshire, following an inspection in September.
The commission said it carried out the unannounced inspection following allegations of abuse by staff towards a patient, which are subject to an ongoing police investigation.
The hospital said it was “disappointed” with the CQC’s assessment, stressing that the inspection was triggered by its own management notifying the commission of a concern it had identified. It said the report “does not provide an entirely accurate representation” of the hospital.
Dr Kevin Cleary, the CQC deputy chief inspector of hospitals and lead for mental health, said: “Our latest inspection of Cygnet Woodside found that the hospital was not ensuring its patients’ safety.”
Cleary added: “The service showed warning signs that increased the likelihood of a closed culture developing. This would have put people at serious risk of coming to harm if we didn’t take action.”
He said care was compromised because there was not always the right number or skill level of staff looking after patients.
Source: Guardian, 23 December 2020
Long Covid is no respecter of youth, health or fitness. It afflicts more women than men but it can strike anyone down, including people whose initial infection seemed mild, or even asymptomatic. In some cases, long Covid could mean lifelong Covid.
The effects can be horrible. Among them are lung damage, heart damage and brain damage that can cause memory loss and brain fog, kidney damage, severe headaches, muscle and joint pain, loss of taste and smell, anxiety, depression and, above all, fatigue. We should all fear the lasting consequences of this pandemic.
Long Covid is shorthand for a range of conditions. Some scientists divide them into three broad categories, others into four. Of these, one seems to ring a bell. It’s a cluster of symptoms that bear a strong similarity to myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). This is a devastating condition that affects roughly a quarter of a million people in the UK, and is often caused, like long Covid, by viral infection.
Among the common symptoms of ME/CFS are extreme fatigue that is not relieved by rest, and “post-exertional malaise”: even mild physical or mental effort can make patients extremely unwell. Many sufferers are confined to their home or even their bed, with their working life, social life and family life truncated. There is, so far, no diagnostic test and no cure.
Yet ME/CFS has been disgracefully neglected by science and medicine.
The NHS is now setting up specialist clinics to treat long Covid. But already, apparent mistakes are being made. Without the necessary caveats, the NHS recommends steadily increasing levels of exercise for people suffering from post-Covid fatigue. But as ME/CFS patients with post-exertional malaise know, this prescription, though it sounds intuitive, could be highly damaging.
We need massive research programmes into both long Covid and ME/CFS, coupled with better information for doctors.
Source: The Guardian, 21 January 2021
Patients being assessed remotely in general practice, rather than face-to-face, has been raised as a risk in reports on five deaths by a single coroner since the pandemic hit.
Senior coroner for Greater Manchester Alison Mutch has written five prevention of future deaths reports highlighting concerns that doctors were missing details in telephone appointments which may have been spotted, had the patient been seen in person. The reports cover a variety of conditions, including covid, a broken femur, and anxiety and depression.
In March 2020, NHS England guidance instructed GPs to adopt a “total triage” approach, where face-to-face appointments should generally only follow a phone, video or digital consultation. But, in May, NHSE wrote to GPs to ask them to “ensure they are offering face to face appointments”, adding remote appointments “should be done alongside a clear offer of appointments in person”.
There have been growing calls in the media for increased face-to-face appointments, while, in March 2021, a report by Healthwatch concluded: “While telephone appointments are convenient for some, others are worried that their health issues will not be accurately diagnosed.”
Maureen Baker, former chair of the Royal College of GPs and Patient Safety Learning trustee told HSJ she was “not aware pre-pandemic of any major concerns with remote consulting”, adding: “It’s not that things don’t go wrong. They do, but things can and do go wrong in face-to-face consultations as well.”
“Many practices have been using remote consulting very successfully for many years [but for GPs introducing remote consultations during the pandemic] the concern is that practices will have had to change and implement it very quickly.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 9 September 2021
You may also be interested in a recent blog from Trish Greenhalgh: 'Why remote consultation with a doctor is difficult – and how it can be improved'
It could take more than a decade to clear the cancer-treatment backlog in England, a report suggests.
Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) estimated 19,500 people who should have been diagnosed had not been, because of missed referrals.
If hospitals could achieve a 5% increase in the number of treatments over pre-pandemic levels, it would take until 2033 to clear the backlog. However, if 15% more could be completed, backlogs could be cleared by next year.
Between March 2020 and February 2021, the number of referrals to see a specialist dropped by nearly 370,000 on the year before, a fall of 15%.
Behind these figures are thousands of people for whom it will now be too late to cure their cancer, the report, with the CF health consultancy, warns.
And it estimates the proportion of cancers diagnosed while they are still highly curable - classed as stage one and two - has fallen from 44% before to pandemic to 41%.
IPPR research fellow Dr Parth Patel said: "The pandemic has severely disrupted cancer services in England, undoing years of progress in improving cancer survival rates.
"Now, the health service faces an enormous backlog of care, that threatens to disrupt services for well over a decade. We know every delay poses risks to patients' chances of survival."
Source: BBC News, 24 September 2021
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Anti-vaccine Facebook groups in the United States have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.
Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with COVID-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.
Some people in groups that formed recently to promote the false cure ivermectin, an anti-parasite treatment, have claimed extracting Covid patients from hospitals is pivotal so that they can self-medicate at home with ivermectin. But as the patients begin to realize that ivermectin by itself is not effective, the groups have begun recommending a series of increasingly hazardous at-home treatments, such as gargling with iodine, and nebulizing and inhaling hydrogen peroxide, calling it part of a “protocol.”
The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave.
Those concerns echo various local reports about growing threats and violence directed toward medical professionals in the US. In Branson, Missouri, a medical center recently introduced panic buttons on employee badges because of a spike in assaults. Violence and threats against medical professionals have recently been reported in Massachusetts, Texas, Georgia and Idaho.
Source: NBC News, 24 September 2021
Where Healthcare Is Improving and Where It Needs More Work
While the public discourse on health equity has increased in recent years, there are still many problems in health disparities research and in care delivery. Health systems are struggling to tackle health equity issues as highlighted by a recent study that evaluated online consumer reviews of hospitals and experiences of racism.
However, organizations are making a positive impact toward health equity in a variety of areas. Walmart is partnering with virtual care company Grand Rounds Health and Doctor On Demand on a digital health program aimed at tackling health disparities among African American workers. Women's health company Tia is looking to welcome female-identifying patients in an effort to improve inclusivity in health tech. For more content on companies that are addressing health equity gaps, including specialized care for women and individuals with female biologies, check out the recent blog post where we collaborated with Rock Health: Building comprehensive women+ digital health: Eight sectors serving women+ needs.
Many feared that the UK leaving the EU would cause shortages and limitations to the medicine supply throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now ten months on from Brexit are we finally seeing the short fallings?
Ninety percent of the UK's medicines are imported from abroad meaning disruptions caused by the outcomes of Brexit and a lack of HGV drivers has caused a significant problem in transporting drugs into the country.
Leaked Department of Health and Social Care documents revealed two hundred and nine medicines had supply “issues” in 2019, more than half of these remained in short supply for over three months. Drugs such as hepatitis vaccines and anti-epileptic drugs, faced “extended” problems.
A document published by the NHS Nottinghamshire Shared Medicines Management Team compiled a list of shortages and disruptions to supply due to COVID.
The following 5 products had long-term manufacturing issues:
A further thirty medicines had short-term manufacturing issues, including end of life medicines such as morphine and anti-vomiting drug, levomepromazine.
NHS Scotland and NHS Wales have published lists of drugs in low supply which are available to view on their NHS websites. NHS England consider this to be ‘sensitive information’ and have not published any shortfalls.
An amendment to The Human Medicines Regulations 2019 legislation has added a ‘Serious Shortage Protocol’ (SSP). This allows for pharmacists and contractors to supply patients with a ‘reasonable and appropriate substitute’ if their prescription has an active SSP.
Currently, shortages on Fluxoetine, (anti-depressive drug) and Estradot patches, (hormonal replacement therapy) have active SSP’s according to the NHS Business Service Authority.
Original source: National Health Executive
Advice on how new mothers with sepsis should be treated is to change after two women died of a herpes infection.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says viral sources of infections should be considered and appropriate treatment offered. This comes after the BBC revealed one surgeon might have infected the mothers while performing Caesareans on them.
The East Kent Hospitals Trust said it had not been possible to identify the source of either infection.
Kimberley Sampson, 29, and Samantha Mulcahy, 32, died of an infection caused by the herpes virus 44 days apart in 2018, shortly after giving birth by Caesarean section.
Their families were told there was no link between the deaths but BBC News revealed on Monday that both operations had been carried out by the same surgeon.
Documents we uncovered showed that the trust had been told two weeks after the second death that "it does look like surgical contamination".
Edward Morris, President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which set standards in maternity care, said routine investigation and management of maternal sepsis "should always consider viral sources of infection, and appropriate changes should be instituted to support earlier diagnosis and treatment".
Medics treating Ms Sampson and Mrs Mulcahy assumed they were suffering from a bacterial infection and didn't prescribe the anti-viral medication that may had saved their lives.
The Royal College said the two deaths should be "fully investigated" as "surgical infection appears to be a significant possibility".
But BBC News has learned that the East Kent Hospitals Trust, which treated both women, never told the coroner's office that the same surgeon had carried out both operations or that an investigation they had ordered had suggested the virus strains the two women had died from appeared to be "epidemiologically linked".
Source: BBC News, 23 November 2021
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.
Source: The Guardian, 30 December 2021
Related reading
More than 1 in 10 school entry-age children in England are at risk of measles because they have not had their vaccine jabs, data reveals.
Coverage for the two doses of MMR that helps protect five-year-olds against measles, mumps and rubella is currently at 85.5%.
That is the lowest for a decade, and well below the 95% target recommended to stop a resurgence of measles.
Measles is highly contagious, more than Covid, and can cause serious illness. Nine in every 10 people can catch it if they are unjabbed and exposed.
As well as a distinctive rash, measles can lead to severe complications, such as pneumonia and brain inflammation, and sometimes can be fatal.
Vaccination can remove almost all of these risks.
Two doses of the MMR vaccine give 99% protection against measles and rubella and about 88% protection against mumps.
When a high percentage of the population is protected through vaccination, it becomes harder for the disease to pass between people.
But since the start of the Covid pandemic, there has been a concerning drop in the number of children receiving these vaccines on time.
Experts say some parents may not have realised doctors were still offering appointments, or did not want to burden the NHS.
Coverage of the first dose of the MMR vaccine in two-year-olds has now fallen below 90%. This means that more than one in 10 children under the age of five are not fully protected from measles and are at risk of catching it.
Among all five-year-olds in England, 93.7% have had one dose and 85.5% have had the recommended two doses.
Source: BBC News, 1 February 2022
Those harmed by the NHS will “have to pay again by losing access to justice” as a result of government plans to introduce fixed costs, campaigners have claimed.
The Department of Health & Social Care has published long-awaited proposals for fixed recoverable costs for fast-track cases, and significantly chose to set the fees at levels recommended by defendant representatives, rather than higher ones proposed by the claimant side.
Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA), noted that the government consulted on similar proposals in 2017 and received a thumbs down from the majority of respondents.
He said: “It is shocking that the government is still pushing to bring in these illogical and potentially unfair proposals rather than looking at the root causes of high costs and addressing them…
“The government seems to have ignored the fact that the likely effect of these proposals would be that many people whose lives have been devastated by perfectly avoidable, negligent treatment will not be able to challenge denials or get access to justice.
“In effect, the very people that the NHS has harmed through lapses in patient safety will have to pay again by losing access to justice. If lawyers are unable to claim for time they spend overcoming denials of liability, injured people will not be able to get legal representation.”
Mr Walsh argued that the best way to save the NHS money was to improve patient safety to prevent these incidents in the first place, “and when mistakes do happen investigate them properly and make early, fair and appropriate offers of compensation without costly litigation”.
Source: Legal Futures, 1 February 2022
Long waits at accident and emergency (A&E) departments in Scotland continue to put patient safety at “serious risk”, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned.
New figures from Public Health Scotland show 78 per cent of patients visiting A&E in the week to January 23 were seen and admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
This is an increase on the previous week, but still below the Scottish Government target of 95%
It comes as the number of planned operations across NHS Scotland dropped 13% from November to December, to 17,835.
Dr John Thomson, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland, said the college was concerned poor A&E performance times are becoming the “status quo”.
“With fewer attendances performance has plateaued, but be in no doubt that the health service and its staff in Scotland remain under unprecedented pressure and increasing burnout,” he said.
Dr Thomson added: “The impact of this continued poor performance is distress and moral injury to staff and serious discomfort and risk to the safety of patients.
Source: The Scotsman, 2 February 2022
Thousands of children are falling through the cracks in youth addiction services owing to Covid, staff shortages and funding cuts, psychiatrists have said, as figures suggest the number able to get help has fallen to the lowest on record.
Analysis of data from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) found that 11,013 under-18s were in treatment for drug and alcohol dependency in England in 2020-21, which was 3,278 fewer (23% less) than in 2019-20. It was the sharpest annual fall since records began, and means 13,481 fewer children were being treated than at a peak in 2008-09.
The vast majority of children in treatment (89%, or 9,832) had a problem with cannabis and 41% (4,459) had a problem with alcohol. About 12% (1,333) were struggling with ecstasy use and 9% (976) reported a problem with powder cocaine.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, which analysed the data, said the pandemic, together with “drastic” historical funding cuts, was preventing young people from accessing the drug and alcohol treatment they need, potentially condemning them to a life of addiction.
Dr Emily Finch, the vice-chair of the addictions faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “Children and their families up and down the country are having their lives blighted by drug and alcohol use due to drastic cuts, workforce shortages and the impact of the pandemic.
“Addiction is a treatable health condition. Intervening early will mean many kids won’t go on to have an addiction in their adulthood, keeping them out of the criminal justice system and helping them to live full lives. It’s now time for the government to act on their promise and deliver the multimillion-pound investment into drug services.”
Source: The Guardian, 3 February 2022
The Nightingale surge hubs cost more than £10.6 million to set up but have admitted roughly seven patients, it has emerged.
Eight temporary sites were built at hospitals across the country during the height of the omicron wave, with the capacity to house about 100 patients each. However, it has now been revealed that the hubs cost £10,672,088 to build and only one has admitted a handful of patients.
Announcing the hubs in December, NHS England said they would be used if “the record number of Covid-19 infections leads to a surge in admissions and outstrips existing capacity”.
However, as of Jan 30, there were 1,285 daily admissions, an eight per cent decrease on the previous week.
The chief executive of the William Harvey Hospital, in Ashford, Kent – the location of one of the eight omicron hubs – has expressed concerns that the structure “may adversely impact” other services and never be used.
The cost of the hubs was revealed in response to a written question submitted by Damian Green, the Conservative MP Mr Green said that the temporary sites were an “insurance policy” and added “it looks like they won’t be needed”. He called on ministers to assess if they could be repurposed to help clear the backlog of patients waiting for treatment.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Telegraph, 2 February 2022
Research by Garmin finds 40% of young women say they have been accused of over-exaggerating symptoms of UTIs.
While it’s clear that already strained services and a lack of funding contributed to the impact of the pandemic on the healthcare system, health inequality isn’t something that’s unique to Covid-19.
Instead, it’s often the result of commonly misunderstood, misrepresented and mistreated conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis and urinary tract infections (UTIs).
New research from fitness company Garmin, published by The Independent, found that 40% of young women say they have been accused of over-exaggerating symptoms of UTIs or being “overdramatic” about their wellbeing when seeing a doctor. 45% also said they’ve had their UTI symptoms written off as “part of being a woman”.
According to the Chronic Urinary Tract Infection Campaign (CUTIC), 50% of all women will suffer at least one UTI episode in their lifetime, one third of these by the age of 24.
“Statistics show that UTI is the most common infection seen by GPs,” says CUTIC. “In fact, doctors are so familiar with UTIs that they are frequently dismissed as merely a woman’s problem, rooted in the ‘flawed female anatomy’.
“With little training in UTI management, GPs and urologists rely heavily on discredited laboratory tests which miss up to 60% of infections."
“The medical training for UTI diagnosis is inadequate and most doctors are not aware of the complexity of this illness. They are trained to accept the test results and look no further,” CUTIC suggests.
“It is clear from the recent government probe into menopause that women’s health has not been an area of priority. Conditions which primarily affect women are underfunded and under researched – this includes UTIs. Women are frequently patronised and not believed when they describe symptoms relating to UTIs, peri-menopause, menopause and vaginal atrophy. Medical training fails to include proper diagnosis and effective treatment for such conditions. Change is needed now.”
Source: The Stylist, 2 February 2022
Have you attempted to access treatment for a urinary tract infection (UTI), or recurrent UTIs? We'd love you to share your experiences with us? Share your experience on the hub.
Pfizer and BioNTech said Tuesday that they were seeking emergency-use authorisation for the first coronavirus vaccine for children younger than 5 in the US and have begun submitting data on the safety and efficacy of the first two doses of a planned three-dose regimen.
The Food and Drug Administration asked the companies to apply for authorization of their vaccine, and in an email, FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo said the omicron surge had generated new data “impacting the potential benefit-risk profile of a vaccine for the youngest children.”
In December, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that the immune response generated by the vaccine in children between 2 and 4 years old was not sufficiently robust. But the companies said the vaccine had provoked a strong enough response in children 6 months to 2 years old. A third shot was added to the trial to increase the immune response.
An earlier vaccine trial in children 5 to 11 years old was also focused on showing that those children had adequate immune responses after vaccination. In addition, there were enough cases of illness in that study population to determine that the vaccine was 91% effective in preventing symptomatic illness.
The companies said Tuesday that the FDA requested they move forward with an application because of the “urgent public health need in this population,” noting that 1.6 million children under the age of 4 have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“The need for a safe and effective vaccine for our youngest children is significant, particularly given the rapid spread of the omicron variant, the notable rise in the number of hospitalizations in young children with severe disease, and the possibility that future variants could cause severe disease in those who are unvaccinated,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.
Source: The Washington Post, 1 February 2022
An amputee's wife having to "carry him to the toilet" after her husband was sent home from hospital without a care plan was just one of many findings in a report into vascular services at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in north Wales.
The critical report by the Royal College of Surgeons England makes five urgent recommendations "to address patient safety risks".
Part one of the report, published last summer, made nine urgent recommendations and raised issues including too many patient transfers to the centralised hub, a lack of vascular beds and frequent delays in transfers.
The final part of the report, published on 3 February, focussed on the clinical records of 44 patients dating from 2014 - five years before centralisation - to July 2021, two years after the Ysbyty Glan Clwyd hub opened.
Assessors were "extremely concerned" about the case of a man where a decision was made to "amputate the foot rather than proceed to a below-the-knee amputation as the primary procedure".
The report adds: "The review team also noted that the patient had been discharged without a care plan and that the patient's wife was having to 'carry him to the toilet'."
It also highlights an "inappropriate" decision to offer a patient an "unnecessary and futile" amputation when "palliation and conservative therapy should have been considered instead".
Referring to that case, the report added that the risk from "major amputation was extremely high".
Source: BBC News, 3 February 2022
Campaigners have welcomed the "life-saving" legislation to bring opt-out organ donation to Northern Ireland.
The legislation, which will align Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK, passed its final stage in the assembly on Tuesday. It means people will automatically become donors unless they specifically state otherwise.
Máirtín MacGabhann, whose son Dáithí is waiting on a heart transplant, said it was "phenomenal".
The bill is to be known as 'Dáithí's Law' after the five-year-old whose family have campaigned for the law change.
Mr MacGabhann said it was an emotional day for them.
He told BBC NI's Evening Extra programme: "The most important thing, regardless of the name, is that it's passed its final stage and that life-saving legislation will go through."
Source: BBC News, 9 February 2022
The midwife leading a review into Nottingham's maternity services has urged families and staff to come forward with their experiences. Donna Ockenden was appointed in May to head the inquiry into the services at Queen's Medical Centre and City Hospital.
It was launched after more than 100 families with experiences of maternity failings wrote to former Health Secretary Sajid Javid demanding the action. A much-criticised initial review was subsequently scrapped.
Ms Ockenden, who uncovered 200 avoidable baby deaths at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust across two decades, said the review is now open to families, NHS workers and others who wish to contribute.
"By September 1 we'll be ready to receive contact from families," she told Nottinghamshire Live. "In the mean time if there are either families or members of the NHS that want to get in touch they can use our new email. And also those who represent communities, whether that's safe communities or women's groups in Nottingham."
People can contact the review through the email nottsreview@donnaockenden.com, which was launched last week. Ms Ockenden said that positive steps were being made in putting in place the "building blocks" for the review, which is due to start on 1 September 2022.
Source: Nottinghamshire Live, 17 August 2022
Five promising technologies that could help improve symptoms and quality of life for people with Parkinson’s disease have been conditionally recommended by NICE.
The wearable devices have sensors that monitor the symptoms of people with Parkinson’s disease while they go about their day-to-day life. This information may more accurately record a person’s symptoms than a clinical assessment during in-person appointments and help inform medication decisions and follow up treatment such as physiotherapy.
Parkinson's disease is an incurable condition that affects the brain, resulting in progressive loss of coordination and movement problems. It is caused by loss of the cells in the brain that are responsible for producing dopamine, which helps to control and coordinate body movements.
Mark Chapman, interim director of Medical Technology at NICE, said: “Providing wearable technology to people with Parkinson’s disease could have a transformative effect on their care and lead to changes in their treatment taking place more quickly.
“However there is uncertainty in the evidence at present on these five promising technologies which is why the committee has conditionally recommended their use by the NHS while data is collected to eliminate these evidence gaps.
“We are committed to balancing the best care with value for money, delivering both for individuals and society as a whole, while at the same time driving innovation into the hands of health and care professionals to enable best practice.”
Source: NICE, 27 October 2022
Parkinson’s patients are suffering from “devastating effects” as GPs have started to switch to cheaper drugs which have different release rates into the body.
Parkinson’s UK put out a warning when a 65-year-old man who had been successfully managing the condition for 17 years suddenly needed help eating and getting dressed.
This happened after his branded medication Sinemet was changed to a cheaper form of the drug.
Barrie Smith - who comes from Birmingham - was left in pain, developed slow speech and experienced an uncontrolled tremor when his normal Sinemet medication was switched to a more generic form of medication last year without consultation. He called the effects “devastating”.
Dr Rowan Wathes, Associate Director of the Parkinson’s Excellence Network at Parkinson’s UK, said: “Changes to brands or manufacturers can trigger a significant deterioration of symptoms. It is vitally important for prescribers to specify the Parkinson’s medication brand or generic manufacturer on prescriptions for people with Parkinson’s. ”
Source: The Independent, 30 January 2023
You may also be interested in the following blogs written by Parkinson's UK for the hub:
Black people have the highest rate of sexually transmitted infections in Britain and officials are not doing enough to address the issue, sexual health experts have warned.
Black Britons have “disproportionally high rates” of various STI diagnoses compared to white Britons, with those of Black Caribbean heritage specifically having the highest rates for chlamydia, gonorrhoea, herpes and trichomoniasis.
Experts have told The Independent that healthcare providers are failing to address these disparities in STIs. They have called for more research to fully understand the complicated reasons why STIs are higher among people of Black ethnicity.
Research conducted through the Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) found that there were no clinical or behavioural factors explaining the disproportionately high rates of STI diagnoses among Black people.
But higher rates of poverty and poor health literacy among marginalised communities are all linked with higher STI rates, according to a 2016 study, which found that behavioural and contextual factors are likely to be contributing.
Moreover, experiences of racism among Black people can fuel a reluctance to engage with sexual health services and test frequently, according to HIV activist Susan Cole-Haley.
She told The Independent: “I very much believe that it is linked to socioeconomic disadvantage and racism, often in healthcare settings, which can be a significant barrier for people accessing testing, for instance, and feeling comfortable engaging with care.”
Source: The Independent, 19 February 2023
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