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A&Es not being overwhelmed by ‘low acuity’ patients, NHSE review finds

An NHS England review has found the proportion of ‘low acuity’ patients attending emergency departments is far smaller than expected.

During a trial of new acuity measures at 17 accident and emergency sites, NHSE found the proportion of patients with low acuity was just 4 per cent, when it had expected the figure to be between 20 and 40 per cent.

Low acuity cases are those which could often be seen by less specialist services, such as urgent treatment centres.

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Source: HSJ, 13 May 2024

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Staff ‘belittled’ for contacting senior doctors, NHSE finds

The safety of a teaching hospital’s out-of-hours supervision has been questioned, including reports trainees were told not to ask for help “unless your patient is dying”.

The General Medical Council put University Hospital Southampton Foundation Trust’s general surgery training under enhanced monitoring at the end of 2023 following a referral and quality management visit by NHS England South East, Workforce Training and Education – Wessex.

The NHSE team’s visit and subsequent report said doctors in training had claimed senior staff were “not contactable” out of hours and there was “difficulty” in securing senior clinical advice, particularly on Sundays. 

The report added foundation year doctors were “discouraged” from contacting senior staff out of hours by “inappropriate” and “belittling” comments and behaviours, such as being told not to ask for help “unless your patient is dying”. Foundation doctors also reported starting rotation on call and conducting ward rounds without appropriate supervision.

While the GMC open case is centred on patient safety concerns relating to supervising trainee doctors, the workforce and training directorate report also raised concerns about bullying, inappropriate sexual comments made by consultants, and a feeling that foundation doctors were unable to speak up.

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Source: HSJ, 1 May 2024

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More NHS hospitals leaving patients in corridors to free up ambulances

More and more UK hospitals are leaving patients in corridors due to a lack of bed space. NHS bosses say so-called corridor care is freeing up ambulances and saving lives, but BBC Newsnight has spoken to patients who say the growing practice is humiliating and degrading.

Gregory Knowles counted 13 other patients alongside him on a corridor at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) in March. Complications after an operation put him back in hospital and on to a ward but at 04:00 one morning he was moved.

The 68-year-old was wheeled in his bed to reception. "I was waking up with people around me. It was horrendous," he told the BBC. "I had no screens and no facilities for water or for really getting changed. My possessions were on the bottom of the bed. My daughter and partner were as horrified as I was," he said.

His partner Alicia Goulty described how staff had been too rushed to attend to him. "One day when we got there his catheter had leaked in the bed when he was on the corridor. He was wet with no covers or any screens and I had to take him to the bathroom to get him cleaned". Ms Goulty said her partner's medication had been missed. "We had to ask for water for him. We had to ask sometimes for his meals because he got forgotten."

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Source: BBC News, 15 May 2024

You can read a nurse's first-hand account of a corridor care shift in this blog on the hub: A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift

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Staff shortages stop 1.4 million NHS operations each year, top doctors warn

Hospitals in the UK are facing shortages of almost 2,000 anaesthetists, leading the NHS to miss 1.4 million operations a year, doctors have warned.

The government has been urged to increase funding for the number of newly qualified doctors who can train as anaesthetists as more than 2,000 miss out on places each year.

The Royal College of Anaesthetists has said the NHS will not be able to tackle waiting lists without more of these specialist doctors. Their warning comes amid fears hospitals are substituting doctors for staff without sufficient training, called anaesthesia associates.

This week the NHS will publish new waiting list figures. They stood at 7.6 million in March.

Dr Fiona Donald, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists warned: “The shortage of anaesthetists has reached crisis levels and is preventing patients from getting the operations they so desperately need. During the election campaign, I’m sure we’ll see all parties pledge to reduce NHS waiting lists but unless their policies include plans for more anaesthetists they will have limited impact.”

According to the college, each year 2,600 doctors apply for anaesthetist training however only 550 places are funded. For more advanced training there are around 650 applicants a year yet only 400 are funded.

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Source: Independent, 8 May 2024

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Doctor exodus: tens of thousands planning to move abroad, NHS warned

Tens of thousands of doctors are hoping to quit the NHS and move abroad this year in search of better pay, the medical regulator has warned.

Half of the doctors planning to leave said they wanted to move to Australia, which has been the most popular destination for emigrating UK doctors for the past five years.

The General Medical Council surveyed 3,154 doctors about their attitudes towards leaving the UK, including 1,000 who had recently left to practise abroad. Some 13% of those working in the NHS said they were “very likely” to move in the next 12 months, while another 17% said they were “fairly likely” to move.

The GMC said this would amount to 96,000 doctors quitting over the next year if applied to the total number of doctors on the medical register, although it acknowledged that the actual rate of departures was likely to be much lower.

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Source: The Times, 12 April 2024

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Medical device companies pay millions to NHS while pushing products, says study

Medical device companies are paying millions of pounds to hospitals in the UK to fund staff places, as well as training and awareness campaigns, while pushing sales of their products, including implants, heart valves and diagnostic equipment, a new report reveals.

An analysis of disclosures by medical device companies found that between 2017 and 2019 they reported €425m (£367m at today’s rates) in payments to healthcare organisations in Europe, according to the study in the journal Health Policy and Technology.

The businesses reported paying more than €37m to hospitals and other healthcare bodies in the UK over the three-year period. The disclosures include payments to some of the biggest hospital trusts in England.

James Larkin, one of the authors of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said the filings did not include consultancy fees for medical staff and many companies did not register their payments. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “There is a huge number of payments that are not being disclosed. The descriptions for payments which are disclosed are very vague and it is not completely clear what they are for.”

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Source: The Guardian, 20 April 2024

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Agency charging hospitals nearly £2,000 for specialist nurse shift

An agency providing last-minute freelance nurses to NHS hospitals is routinely charging up to £2,000 a shift, BBC News has discovered.

Glen Burley, chief executive of an NHS trust, said that Thornbury Nursing Services is targeting areas in England where nurses are in short supply. He says it is "profiteering" from an overstretched NHS, but Thornbury says it offers a valuable, flexible service.

The government says new measures will end the use of expensive agencies. However, Labour has said the high costs are a result of the "Conservatives' failure to train enough nurses over the past 14 years".

Under NHS rules, hospital managers are obliged to use staffing agencies that work within an agreed framework, with a limit or cap on how much should be paid. But when last-minute essential cover is needed, trusts may use off-framework agencies, such as Thornbury. These are not legally obliged to abide by pre-agreed pay scales.

Workload pressures in the NHS and a desire for more flexibility over shifts are thought to be driving more nurses to work for such agencies, which tend to pay the people on their books more while also taking a payment for themselves.

BBC News has discovered Thornbury charges almost £2,000 for a 12-hour bank holiday shift by a specialist paediatric nurse - an area of expertise where there are known staff shortages. Of that, BBC News calculates the nurse receives about £1,050 - meaning nearly £800 goes to the agency. 

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Source: BBC News, 8 May 2024

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New vaccine could protect against coronaviruses which have yet to emerge

A new vaccine could be effective against coronaviruses which have yet to emerge, with hopes it could be used to battle future pandemics, research suggests.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and Caltech in the US are developing a novel approach called “proactive vaccinology”, which aims to train the body’s immune system to recognise several different coronaviruses.

The vaccine used antigens – a substance that triggers an immune response in the body – found in eight different coronaviruses, including those circulating in bats. This trains the immune system to go after the parts of the antigens that are shared across the viruses and other similar ones, including those not included in the vaccine.

“Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic, and have it ready before the pandemic has even started,” said Rory Hills, a graduate researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Pharmacology and first author of the report.

He added: “We’ve created a vaccine that provides protection against a broad range of different coronaviruses – including ones we don’t even know about yet.”

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Source: Independent, 7 May 2024

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How Covid is pushing up waiting lists for cancer treatment

New figures have quantified what the pandemic has meant for cancer waiting lists—and the impact is stark. 

Official data show that 15,971 cancer patients in the UK have had to wait more than 124 days, or four months, after diagnosis for their treatment to start since 2020 as the pandemic sends waiting lists soaring. The statistics show that the number of untreated patients has more than doubled since Covid began, with one patient waiting for more than two years, according to data released following a freedom of information request from the Liberal Democrats. This is despite an NHS target for patients to receive cancer treatments within two months of an urgent referral.

Last year, 6,334 patients waited more than 124 days, compared to 2,922 in 2022, the figures show. Data was received from 69 out of 137 acute health trusts in the UK, meaning the true number of people waiting long periods for treatment is likely to be much higher. Over 1,100 cancer patients last year were left waiting more than six months to receive treatment, triple the NHS target time.

Liberal Democrat Leader, Ed Davey, said: “Every single one of these figures is a tragedy. Long delays for treatment can have a devastating impact on cancer patients and their families, and in certain cases can even cost lives."

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Source: inews, 22 April 2024

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Two in three UK doctors suffer ‘moral distress’ due to overstretched NHS, study finds

Two in three UK doctors are suffering “moral distress” caused by the enfeebled state of the NHS and the damage the cost of living crisis is inflicting on patients’ health, research has found.

Large numbers are ending up psychologically damaged by feeling they cannot give patients the best possible care because of problems they cannot overcome, such as long waits for treatment or lack of drugs or the fact that poverty or bad housing is making them ill.

A new survey found that 65% of doctors overall, including nearly four in five (78%) GPs and more than half (56%) of hospital doctors, have experienced “moral distress” as a direct result of situations they have encountered working in the NHS.

Seeing patients with malnutrition or hypothermia, or stuck on trolleys in A&E corridors asking for help or forced to choose between heating their home or getting a prescription dispensed are among the events triggering their distress, medics said.

“There’s barely a doctor at work in the NHS today who doesn’t see or experience this distress on a daily basis,” said Prof Philip Banfield, the leader of the British Medical Association.

The NHS is “impossibly overstretched”, has thousands of vacancies for doctors and has a quarter fewer doctors a head of population than Germany, he added.

“In practice that means we can almost never give the standard of care we would want, only ever the care we can manage. That takes its toll, as we see here,” Banfield said.

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Source: The Guardian, 28 December 2023

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Can AI techniques help clinicians assess and treat patients with bone fractures?

Investigators have applied artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to gait analyses and medical records data to provide insights about individuals with leg fractures and aspects of their recovery.

The study, published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, uncovered a significant association between the rates of hospital readmission after fracture surgery and the presence of underlying medical conditions. Correlations were also found between underlying medical conditions and orthopedic complications, although these links were not significant.

It was also apparent that gait analyses in the early postinjury phase offer valuable insights into the injury’s impact on locomotion and recovery. For clinical professionals, these patterns were key to optimizing rehabilitation strategies.

"Our findings demonstrate the profound impact that integrating machine learning and gait analysis into orthopaedic practice can have, not only in improving the accuracy of post-injury complication predictions but also in tailoring rehabilitation strategies to individual patient needs," said corresponding author Mostafa Rezapour, PhD, of Wake Forest University School of Medicine. "This approach represents a pivotal shift towards more personalised, predictive, and ultimately more effective orthopaedic care."

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Source: Digital Health News, 12 April 2024

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Record 3.7m workers in England will have major illness by 2040, study finds

A record 3.7 million workers in England will have a major illness by 2040, according to research.

On current trends, 700,000 more working-age adults will be living with high healthcare needs or substantial risk of mortality by 2040 – up nearly 25% from 2019 levels, according to a report by the Health Foundation charity.

But the authors predicted no improvement in health inequalities for working-age adults by 2040, with 80% of the increase in major illness in more deprived areas.

Researchers at the Health Foundation’s research arm and the University of Liverpool examined 1.7m GP and hospital records, alongside mortality data, which was then linked to geographical data to estimate the difference in diagnosed illness by level of deprivation in England in 2019, the last year of health data before the pandemic.

They then projected how levels of ill health are predicted to change in England between 2019 and 2040 based on trends in risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use, obesity, diet and physical activity, as well as rates of illness, life expectancy and population changes.

Without action, the authors warn, people in the most deprived areas of England are likely to develop a major illness 10 years earlier than those in the least deprived areas and are also three times more likely to die by the age of 70.

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Source: The Guardian, 17 April 2024

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Insulin shortages ‘causing stress and anxiety’ for UK diabetes patients

People with type 1 diabetes are being forced to endure the “stress and anxiety” of insulin shortages, patients, pharmacists and health campaigners have warned.

The “distressing” drug scarcity, the latest to affect the UK, is sowing uncertainty for the 400,000 people with the condition, with some products not available again until next year amid global manufacturing shortages.

Britain is already contending with record numbers of medicines becoming hard or impossible to obtain, including those for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and epilepsy.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) said “a regular and reliable supply of insulin is essential for life” for people with type 1 diabetes. That is because their disease – an autoimmune condition unrelated to type 2 diabetes – means they cannot make insulin naturally and must inject it every day or receive it through a pump.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) confirmed there were “supply issues with a limited number of insulin products” that patients might find “distressing”.

One patient, an NHS doctor who puts vials of the drug into her insulin pump, said: “I spent the last two days trying to get hold of insulin to treat my type 1 diabetes. I was terrified when my usual, very reliable pharmacist told me he couldn’t get hold of my insulin. I had no idea that insulin could go out of stock. Type 1 diabetics fall ill and will die within a few days without insulin. I’m worried for fellow diabetics, not only to access the supply, to stay alive, but the stress and anxiety this causes.”

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Source: Guardian, 28 April 2024

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Medicine shortages in England ‘beyond critical’, pharmacists warn

Drug shortages in England are now at such critical levels that patients are at risk of immediate harm and even death, pharmacists have warned.

The situation is so serious that pharmacists increasingly have to issue “owings” to patients – telling someone that only part of their prescription can be dispensed and asking them to come back for the rest of it later, once the pharmacist has sourced the remainder.

Hundreds of different drugs have become hard or impossible to obtain, according to Community Pharmacy England (CPE), which published the report. Widespread and often long-lasting shortages posed “immediate risks to patient health and wellbeing” and caused distress, it said.

“The medicine supply challenges being faced by community pharmacies and their patients are beyond critical,” said Janet Morrison, CPE’s chief executive. “Patients with a wide range of clinical and therapeutic needs are being affected on a daily basis and this is going far beyond inconvenience, leading to frustration, anxiety and affecting their health.

CPE, which represents England’s 10,500 community pharmacies, based its findings on a survey of the views of owners of 6,100 pharmacy premises and 2,000 of their staff. It found:

  • 79% of pharmacy staff said that medicine shortages were putting patient health at risk.
  • 91% of pharmacy owners had seen a “significant increase” in the problem since last year.
  • 99% of pharmacy workers found a drug was unavailable at least weekly, and 72% encountered that several times a day.

Pharmacists are finding themselves on the receiving end of abuse and hostility from patients who are frustrated and angered by not being able to get the drugs they have been prescribed.

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Source: Guardian, 9 May 2024

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New equipment to help patients with hard-to-find veins at Ysbyty Gwynedd

A piece of equipment known as a vein finder is being used for inpatients at Ysbyty Gwynedd in order to improve the experience for patients with hard-to-find veins.

Anyone who has difficult veins will know the discomfort when there are failed attempts to locate a vein, such as when having bloods taken.

Having noticed the need to improve the experience for patients with difficult veins, Junior Doctor Lois Williams secured a £3,000 grant from Health Education and Improvement Wales and around £600 from Menter Môn to purchase the equipment through the Trainees Transforming Training initiative.

Dr Williams said: “We’ve been very lucky to obtain a grant to purchase a vein finder and we hope this will empower nurses, phlebotomists, medical students and junior doctors to take blood and cannulate from patients who are difficult to obtain access. It works by infrared, which can bounce back and show us visibility of the vein which you cannot do with the naked eye. It also helps to reduce the time we need to attempt cannulating patients and how often we might need to cannulate them because of failed attempts, which can be quite distressing for some patients. Our hope is that this will improve the quality of patient care in the future.”

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Source: NHS Wales, 30 April 2024

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NHS whistleblowers: We lost jobs after reporting patient deaths

More than 50 NHS whistleblowers claim to have lost their jobs—with some driven to the brink of suicide—after standing up to protect patients’ lives as bosses bury their concerns.

The group of doctors and nurses said that they had been targeted after raising concerns about more than 170 patient deaths and nearly 700 cases of poor care.

One consultant said that it was the “biggest scandal within our country” and claimed the true number of avoidable deaths was “astronomical”. Instead of addressing the problems, the whistleblowers claim that NHS bosses are spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on hiring law firms and private investigators to investigate them instead.

Last year Rob Behrens, the health ombudsman, warned The Times Health Commission that patient safety was at risk due to “toxic” and hierarchical behaviour among NHS doctors. Professor Phil Banfield, the chairman of the council of the British Medical Association, which represents doctors, wrote in The Daily Telegraph that whistleblowing “is not welcomed by NHS management… NHS trusts and senior managers are more concerned with protecting personal and organisational reputations than they are with protecting patients.”

In one case, the NHS spent more than £4 million on legal action against a single whistleblower, which included £3.2 million in compensation. Among the clinicians interviewed, 40 said that their employer took “no positive action” to address patient safety concerns; 36 said that patients remained at risk at their place of work; 19 said that NHS trusts covered up the problems, and ten said that their employers had denied there was a problem.

Whistleblowers’ representatives are urging the government to require independent medical assessments for claims and to ban the suspension or exclusion of doctors for speaking out about patient safety.

Dr Naru Narayanan, president of the hospital doctors’ union, has called for an independent national whistleblowing body outside of the NHS to register protected disclosures and protect individuals against recriminations. The Times Health Commission recommended that a no-blame compensation scheme should be introduced for medical errors, with settlements determined according to need. Backed by Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, the scheme would help end the deadly cycle of NHS scandals and cover-ups and ensure families receive timely support.

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Source: The Times, 15 May 2024

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£500m cut to local integration funds revealed

Integrated care boards and local authorities are cutting their voluntary contributions to the better care fund by more than £500m compared to a high point in 2021-22.

It appears to be caused by the funding squeeze in both the NHS and local government; extra pressure on ICBs to focus on hospital admissions and discharge; a shift away from pooled budgets as a method of integration; and restructure, with ICBs taking over from clinical commissioning groups in 2022.

Local BCF pooled budgets are made up of mandatory “minimum” funds from ICBs and local government – the largest share, which the government has generally ordered to grow steadily each year – and from the “additional” voluntary contributions.

In the past government has said it wants the sum pooled across the NHS and councils to grow and to ultimately account for most NHS and adult social care spending, to help join up services and decision making.

But figures published on Tuesday by NHS England show the voluntary income going backwards. At its high point in 2021-22, ICBs and councils planned a discretionary ”additional” contribution of £3bn, and the actual spend turned out to be £3.2bn – £2bn from the NHS and £1.2bn from councils.

The newly published figures show the total was planned to fall to £2.8bn in 2023-24 and £2.7bn in 2024-25 – £500m less than the 2021-22 peak spend.

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Source: HSJ, 8 May 2024

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‘Strained’ estate threatens national workforce plan, NHSE leak reveals

NHS England has found that one in five GP surgeries – and more than two-fifths in some regions – were built more than 75 years ago, and is concerned a lack of space will stop it meeting targets to train more GPs, HSJ has learned. 

An internal NHSE document seen by HSJ reveals a major audit it commissioned in 2019 – but has not made public – found 20 per cent of 8,900 buildings examined were built before 1948. The figure rises to more than 40 per cent of practices in London, HSJ understands.

These practices are likely to be in converted houses, normally owned by GP partners, with very limited space and little scope for expansion.

The NHSE slides which include the figure warn the “limited [GP] estate” means there is “strain on existing capacity and meeting current training needs is challenging”.

HSJ understands officials are concerned poor estates and lack of space will restrict the big expansion of GP training planned under the NHS long-term workforce plan. Other fears relate to poor tech and the shortage of experienced staff to supervise trainees.

NHSE said in a statement: “NHS England has asked every ICS to review their infrastructure  to assess which buildings they need to expand and reconfigure to manage additional workforce over the next 10 years.”

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Source: HSJ, 9 May 2024

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‘Patients are choosing palliative care over cancer treatment’ due to lack of local services, CEO warns

Patients in part of the East of England are choosing to begin palliative care over cancer treatment because of prohibitive travel times and costs to get to the nearest specialist centre, a local system leader has warned.

The Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board CEO said delays to a proposed £400m project, which includes creating “satellite” treatment centres on its patch, was therefore putting lives at risk and widening inequalities.

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Source: HSJ, 13 May 2024

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More than 2,000 NHS buildings in England older than NHS, figures show

Millions of patients are being put at risk in crumbling hospitals that are unfit for purpose, MPs have said, as figures reveal more than 2,000 NHS buildings are older than the health service itself.

Health bosses have repeatedly warned ministers of the urgent need to plough cash into replacing rundown buildings in order to protect the safety of patients and staff. The maintenance backlog has risen to £11.6bn in England.

Now analysis of NHS Digital data has found that at 34 out of 211 NHS trusts in England at least one in four buildings have been standing since before 1948, the year the NHS was founded.

Sewage leaking from sinks on to wards are among the issues affecting more than 2,000 buildings that predate the health service. Last month it was reported that the ceiling of an intensive care ward collapsed on to a patient on life support and a falling lift broke a doctor’s leg. One hospital is said to have been using its intensive care unit as a storeroom because it deemed it unsafe for patients.

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Source: The Guardian, 15 April 2024

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Letby to seek permission for conviction appeal

Lucy Letby is to apply for permission to appeal against her convictions for the murder and attempted murder of babies in her care.

A panel of three judges at the Court of Appeal in London is due to consider the former nurse’s case later.

The 34-year-old was handed 14 whole life terms last year.

She was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder a further six at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.

Second stage

Shortly after her trial ended in August, Letby applied for leave to appeal against her convictions.

She lost the first stage of the process, in which a single judge reviewed her arguments as a paper exercise.

Letby, originally of Hereford, now has the right to a second stage, which involves renewing her application before a panel of judges at a hearing at the Court of Appeal.

Separately to the appeal, Letby is due to be re-tried on one charge of attempted murder, which the jury at her trial was unable to decide on.

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Source: BBC News, 2 April 2024

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NHSE targeting 50% cut to waiting list

NHS England is floating proposals to cut the elective waiting list by nearly 50 per cent to under 4 million over the next five years.

HSJ understands this scenario is being discussed among system leaders as they brace themselves for the next government, whoever wins the general election, demanding a radical reduction in the waiting list. The list stood at 7.5 million as of the last official figures.

The figure of just under 4 million is in part being targeted because this is the level NHS bosses estimate the list would need to be reduced to if the service is to return to meeting the standard that 92 per cent of patients referred are treated within 18 weeks, which has not been met since February 2016.

Waiting list expert Rob Findlay estimated the required level would need to be closer to 3.5 million if the 92 per cent target is to be met. He told HSJ the list “would need to shrink to around 3.6 million before the statutory 18-week target became achievable again”.

HSJ understands NHSE’s leadership believes a target of under 4 million could be credible—albeit likely dependent on targeted extra capacity, technology, resolution of strikes and on which other targets are set, especially around emergency waiting times.

Progress could be accelerated by, for example, major outpatient reform to remove many appointments deemed unnecessary and use of technology to overhaul some pathways, officials believe. These could have a similar impact to the likes of faecal immunochemical testing, known as FIT, which is said to be playing a big role in reducing the cancer backlog.

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Source: HSJ, 26 April 2024

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Birth trauma report finds care is postcode lottery

An inquiry into traumatic childbirths has called for an overhaul of the UK's maternity and postnatal care after hearing "harrowing" stories from parents.

The Birth Trauma Inquiry heard evidence from more than 1,300 women - some said they were left in blood-soaked sheets while others said their children had suffered life-changing injuries due to medical negligence.

A new maternity commissioner who would report directly to the prime minister is a key recommendation in the group's report, along with ensuring safe levels of staffing.

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Source: BBC News, 13 May 2024

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Sajid Javid: patients with ME are being ‘dismissed’ by doctors

Sajid Javid has revealed details of his young relative’s “brave battle” against myalgic encephalomyelitis, warning that patients with the condition are being “dismissed entirely” by doctors.

During a debate held in Westminster Hall on Wednesday, the former health secretary spoke of the distressing experience of his cousin’s “amazing” daughter who developed the debilitating illness seven years ago, aged 13.

ME is a complex neurological disorder that affects about 250,000 people in the UK and leads to symptoms including exhaustion and pain. Severe cases can be fatal, with patients bedridden and unable to eat or drink, and care held back by a lack of specialist NHS services.

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Source: The Times, 2 May 2024

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