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Children’s NHS mental health referrals double in pandemic

Record numbers of children and young people are seeking access to NHS mental health services, figures show, as the devastating toll of the pandemic is revealed in a new analysis.

In just three months, nearly 200,000 young people have been referred to mental health services – almost double pre-pandemic levels, according to the report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Experts say the figures show the true scale of the impact of the last 18 months on children and young people across the country.

“These alarming figures reflect what I and many other frontline psychiatrists are seeing in our clinics on a daily basis,” said Dr Elaine Lockhart, the college’s child and adolescent faculty chair. “The pandemic has had a devastating effect on the nation’s mental health, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that children and young people are suffering terribly.”

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Source: The Guardian, 23 September 2021

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Endometriosis: 'I thought I would die from period blood loss'

A woman with stage 4 endometriosis said she was told she needed to "be more positive" before her diagnosis - despite heavy blood loss and pain.

Anna Cooper, from Newbridge, Wrexham, started her periods at 11 and by the time she turned 14, her mother was pushing for a referral.

Since then she has had 13 surgeries, with a 14th due in the coming months.

She said: "It is not taken seriously enough. It seems to be that we are just not being heard at the minute."

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Source: BBC News, 9 September 2021

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‘Devastated’ doctors warn trust CEO of ‘extremely unsafe situation’

Consultants at a major tertiary centre have written to their chief executive, warning services are in ‘an extremely unsafe situation’ and calling for elective work to be diverted elsewhere.

Surgeons and anaesthetists at the former Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust — now part of University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust — said: “We are devastated to report that the care we aspire to is not being provided at UHS… we are forced to contemplate that it is not safe to be open as a trauma tertiary centre and we feel elective activity must be proactively diverted elsewhere.”

The letter from BSUH’s anaesthetist and surgical consultant body is dated yesterday and was sent to UHSussex chief executive Dame Marianne Griffiths. The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton — part of the trust — is the major trauma centre for the South East coast, from Chichester to parts of Kent.

In the letter, seen by HSJ, the consultants claimed a shortage of theatre staff is leading to “clinical safety issues, gross operational inefficiencies and burnout within our remaining depleted staff groups”. 

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Source: HSJ, 21 September 2021

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Blood inquiry: Former cabinet minister says AIDS advice was "regrettable"

It was "regrettable" that the government said there was "no conclusive proof" AIDS could be transmitted by blood products in 1983, a public inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence, former secretary of state Lord Fowler said it would have been better to add that it was likely NHS treatment could be contaminated. But he said he didn't think the change would have made a crucial difference.

Survivors have accused ministers of playing down the risks at the time.

It's thought around 3,000 haemophiliacs died of AIDS and hepatitis C after being treated with a blood-clotting product called Factor VIII in the 1970s and 1980s.

Groups representing families of those affected by the scandal claim the use of the phase "no conclusive proof" minimised the danger from blood products at the time.

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Source: BBC News, 22 September 2021

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Damning report published into death of baby born to teenager in prison cell

A catalogue of failures among prison and health professionals has been highlighted in an investigation report into the death of a teenager’s baby after she gave birth alone in her cell at the largest women’s prison in Europe.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman published the devastating report into the events in September 2019 at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Middlesex on Wednesday. The case was first revealed by the Guardian and the baby’s death triggered 11 separate inquiries.

The report details a disturbing series of events that culminated with the young woman, who cannot be named, being in “constant pain” on the night of 26 September and eventually passing out while giving birth.

According to the report the teenager "appeared to have been regarded as difficult and having a ‘bad attitude’ rather than as a vulnerable 18-year-old, frightened that her baby would be taken away”. Failings included:

  • There was confusion among different health professionals about her due date.
  • The day before her baby was born she told a prison nurse she would kill herself or someone else if the baby was taken away from her, but this information was not adequately shared.
  • On 26 September she was put on extended observation, meaning she should have been regularly checked but this did not happen. She rang the bell twice at 8.07pm and 8.32pm that day. A call was connected then immediately disconnected at 8.45pm. She did not press the bell again. Checks by prison officers at 9.27pm and 4.19am revealed “nothing untoward”.
  • It was left to two prisoners to alert staff to the fact that there was blood in her cell at 8.21am on 27 September.

Prisons and Probation ombudsman Sue McAllister said: “Ms A gave birth alone in her cell overnight without medical assistance. This should never have happened. Overall, the healthcare offered to Ms A in Bronzefield was not equivalent to that she could have expected in the community.”

The publication of the report has triggered multiple calls for an end to the imprisonment of pregnant women from the Royal College of Midwives, NGOs and academics in the field. 

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Source: The Guardian, 22 September 2021

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Leaked national survey reveals steep fall in support for staff wellbeing

Leaked results from a national survey of NHS staff has revealed a sharp drop in those who believe their health and wellbeing is being supported by their employer.

The People Pulse is a national, monthly survey launched in 2020. It enables provider and commissioner organisations to monitor the NHS workforce’s health and wellbeing.

According to a snapshot of the results recorded between May and August seen by HSJ, there was a drop of 9.6 percentage points in “perceptions of wellbeing support”, with “positivity” sitting at 57.3%.

Almost a quarter of the survey respondents reported a “negative” experience of health and wellbeing support.

The survey results also revealed almost a third of respondents said they wanted to speak up about a specific issue during the pandemic, especially on issues of staff safety, health and wellbeing, but they did not because they feared repercussions or believed nothing would happen.

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Source: HSJ, 21 September 2021

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Overprescribing of medicines must stop, says government

Many patients are being prescribed unnecessary and even harmful treatments, a new report warns.

The review, in England, suggests one-tenth of items dispensed by primary care are inappropriate or could be changed. Around 15% of people take five or more medicines a day - some are to deal with the side-effects of the others.

The government is appointing a prescribing tsar to help with the issue and stop waste.

Overprescribing can happen when:

  • a better alternative is available but not given
  • the medicine is appropriate for a condition but not the individual patient
  • a condition changes and the medicine is no longer appropriate
  • the patient no longer needs the medicine but continues to be prescribed it.

Chief pharmaceutical officer for England, Dr Keith Ridge, said: "Medicines do people a lot of good and this report is absolutely not about taking treatment or services away from people where they are effective. But medicines can also cause harm and can be wasted."

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Source: BBC News, 22 September 2021

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Troubled maternity wards still jeopardising patients, watchdog warns

Babies and mothers are at risk of injury and death because too many maternity units have not improved care despite a string of childbirth scandals, a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report has warned.

In a highly critical report published on Tuesday, the CQC voiced serious concern that lessons are not being learned and that many incidents involving patients’ safety are still not being recorded.

Some hospitals have been “too slow” to take the steps needed to make labour and birth safer, despite multiple inquiries, reports and recommendations to do so, it said.

The CQC also found other persistent weaknesses in maternity care, including tension and difficulties between obstetric doctors and midwives and poor oversight of risks to patients during an in-depth inspection of maternity care at nine hospitals in England. The NHS has been criticised for major maternity scandals involving poor care, which sometimes persisted for many years, at trusts such as Morecambe Bay, East Kent and Shrewsbury and Telford.

The government, NHS leaders and patients have pressed the NHS in England to overhaul maternity safety to reduce the number of babies being left brain-damaged or dead and mothers injured or dead as a result of poor care during childbirth.

The watchdog also criticised hospitals for doing too little to seek the views from black, minority ethnic and poorer communities about how to improve their experience of giving birth. Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, and Asian women twice as likely.

“We know that many maternity services are providing good care, but we remain concerned that there has not been enough learning from good and outstanding services,” said Ted Baker, the regulator’s chief inspector of hospitals.

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Source: The Guardian, 21 September 2021

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Winners of HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2021 revealed

Last night’s HSJ Patient Safety Awards celebrated the innovative work of frontline NHS teams in a year when the challenge and necessity of keeping the public safe had never been greater.

Patient Safety Team of the Year was St Luke’s Cancer Centre and the pharmacy team from Royal Surrey Foundation Trust, who achieved ambitious change to reduce the risk of covid infections of cancer patients.

This year saw the introduction of the Improving Care for Children and Young People Initiative of the Year which was won by Humber Teaching FT and Hull CCG for their Humber Sensory Processing Hub. Website

The Patient Safety Awards celebrate the teams at the frontline pushing the boundaries of patient safety and driving cultural change to minimise risk, enhance quality of care and ultimately save lives.

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Source: HSJ, 21 September 2021

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‘Worrying failings’ in the administration of the NHS maternity charging programme

Maternity Action’s new research has found worrying failings in the administration of the NHS charging programme, leaving vulnerable women anxious and fearful about debts they cannot pay and deterring them from attending for care.

Maternity Action’s new report Breach of Trust: a review of the implementation of the NHS charging programme in maternity services in England details how the implementation of the government’s NHS charging ‘overseas visitors’ programme within NHS Trusts poses a significant risk to migrant women’s health and wellbeing.

The government insists that women who are vulnerable are adequately protected because the regulations make certain vulnerable groups exempt from NHS charging, such as refugees, asylum seekers, women who have been victims of modern slavery. The government have also stated that all maternity care should be deemed ‘immediately necessary’ and not refused due to an inability to repay.

However the report has found that these legal safeguards are simply not working upon implementation in Trust settings. Many migrant women living in the UK are put at risk because they are deterred from accessing essential maternity care.

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Source: Maternity Action, 16 September 2021

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Failure to update Covid symptom list ‘is killing people’, leading researcher warns

The Government’s out-of-date advice on Covid symptoms that should trigger a PCR test could be causing around 20,000 cases a day and needs to be changed urgently, a leading researcher has warned.

Speaking with Pulse, Professor Tim Spector, who heads the ZOE Covid study at King’s College London said the picture is ‘now fairly clear’ that the most common symptoms among those now testing positive are nothing like when the pandemic began.

‘It’s the wrong message and it’s not a joke, it’s killing people,’ he told Pulse.

The ZOE Covid study was first launched in March 2020 and tracks infections using an app with millions of users.

According to the app, the traditional symptoms of cough, shortness of breath, and fever rank way down the list in vaccinated adults and unvaccinated children.

Instead the virus is presenting more like a regular cold with runny nose, headache, sneezing and sore throat leading the way. ‘One in two people with a positive PCR test across the country lack any of the three government approved symptoms,’ he said. ‘We’re missing lots of cases.’

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Source: Pulse, 17 September 2021

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Scottish Hospitals Inquiry to begin to investigate problems at flagship hospitals

An inquiry will begin hearing evidence on Monday into problems at two flagship Scottish hospitals that contributed to the death of two children.

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry is investigating the construction of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) campus in Glasgow and the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and Department of Clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh.

The inquiry was ordered after patients at the Glasgow site died from infections linked to pigeon droppings and the water supply, and the opening of the Edinburgh site was delayed due to concerns over the ventilation system.

Earlier this year, an independent review found the death of two children at the QEUH were at least in part the result of infections linked to the hospital environment.

The review investigated 118 episodes of serious bacterial infection in 84 children and young people who received treatment for blood disease, cancer or related conditions at the Royal Hospital for Children at the campus. It found a third of these infections were “most likely” to have been linked to the hospital environment.

The inquiry will aim to determine how issues at the two hospitals relating to ventilation, water contamination and other matters impacted on patient safety and care and whether this could have been prevented.

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Source: The Herald, 20 September 2021

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Mental health hospital in Suffolk closed after 'unacceptable' care

A mental health hospital in Suffolk has been closed after inspectors found it was failing to protect patients from harm and abuse.

St John's House in Palgrave, near Diss, was previously rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). A further inspection of the 49-bed hospital found the care was "unacceptable" and "insufficient progress had been made regarding patient safety".

The company that runs the hospital, Partnerships in Care, part of the Priory Group, has now decided to close the site.

Stuart Dunn, CQC head of inspection for mental health and community services, said: "Our latest inspection of St John's House found an unacceptable service where insufficient improvements had been made to protect patients from harm and abuse and the number of safety incidents remained high."

"Staff weren't responding appropriately to patients who were self-harming, with one patient not being sent to hospital quickly enough after swallowing a foreign object, despite complaining of abdominal pain.

"We reviewed CCTV footage and found staff were sometimes asleep when they should have been observing patients to make sure they were safe. This was all the more concerning as we identified this as a concern during the previous two inspections of this service, demonstrating a lack of improvement to keep patients safe.

"Incidents of restraint remained high and not all staff had the right training to carry it out safely. In addition, staff were not following hospital policy when using soft handcuffs with patients during safety incidents."

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Source: ITV News, 17 September 2021

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Entire Covid shielding programme quietly axed for good on day of Cabinet reshuffle

The entire Covid shielding programme has been “closed” for good in an announcement slipped out at night during a Cabinet reshuffle.

Clinically extremely vulnerable people will “not be advised to shield again” in future despite fears of a huge winter wave, said the statement uploaded to the government website last week.

Furious charities today raised fears disabled and immunosuppressed people will be “cast adrift” - while others will feel “yet again forgotten by the government”.

Some 3.8million vulnerable people were advised to shield during England’s third lockdown, going outside only for exercise or health appointments. That guidance was paused on 1 April and on July 19 people were told they could follow the same rules as the rest of the population.

But the ‘Shielded Patient List’ was retained for future use and ex-shielders were given special tips, such as only meeting vaccinated people.

Last night, however, the government announced there will no longer be “centralised guidance” for clinically extremely vulnerable people.

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Source: Mirror, 16 September 2021

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Unsafe maternity care has cost the NHS £8.2bn in 15 years

Negligent maternity care in the NHS has cost taxpayers an “eye-watering” £8.2bn over the past 15 years, The Independent reveals.

Ministers face calls to urgently increase spending to ensure maternity units are safe for women and babies by providing adequate staffing levels, training and equipment.

New data, obtained by The Independent from NHS Resolution, which handles clinical negligence costs for the service, reveals that total payments made following settled cases and legal costs rose from £271m in 2006-07 to an estimated £920m in 2020-21.

The number of maternity claims being made by families has almost doubled in the past decade, rising from 391 in 2009-10 to 765 in 2019-20.

Recent maternity scandals at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, East Kent Hospitals University Trust and at hospitals in Nottingham have all had common themes around poor culture, a lack of honesty and not enough staff or equipment.

The Department of Health and Social Care is exploring how it can make changes to the UK clinical negligence system to reduce the costs to the taxpayer. Health minister Nadine Dorries told MPs on the Commons health committee in February that the reforms would look “across the NHS… not just maternity, at how issues of no-blame, no-fault compensation and clinical negligence are treated”.

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Source: The Independent, 20 September 2021

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Service rated ‘good’ despite ‘weaknesses in culture’

A trust’s maternity services were rated ‘good’ despite an independent report finding ‘weaknesses in the culture’ and ‘defensive and fractious’ behaviours, HSJ has learned.

As previously reported, former staff at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust had raised concerns with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) over what they described as a “toxic management culture” and “unsafe” staffing levels in the trusts maternity service. Particular concerns were raised around community midwifery services.

This prompted an unannounced inspection by the CQC in May, which found “low morale and negative culture” in the services. However, the CQC ultimately concluded the trust was taking positive steps to address the problems and rated its maternity services “good” overall, as well as for leadership and safety.

Some frontline staff in the service have questioned those findings, however, and pointed to an independent review which was conducted in the early months of 2021.

This review, carried out by independent consultant Debbie Graham and seen by HSJ, concluded there was “evidence of weaknesses in the culture; evidenced in the behaviours of some staff which appears to go unaddressed; a lack of strong, visible leadership; a lack of a shared vision; the finding that some staff have a fear of ‘speaking up’; and poor communication systems.”

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Source: HSJ, 20 September 2021

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Folic acid to be added to UK flour to help prevent birth defects

Folic acid is to be added to UK flour to help prevent spinal birth defects in babies, the government will announce.

Women are advised to take the B vitamin - which can guard against spina bifida in unborn babies - before and during pregnancy, but many do not. It is thought that adding folic acid to flour could prevent up to 200 birth defects a year.

Mandatory fortification - which the government ran a public consultation on in 2019 - would see everybody who ate foods such as bread getting more folic acid in their diets.

Neural tube defects, such as spina bifida (abnormal development of the spine) and anencephaly, a life-limiting condition which affects the brain, affect about 1,000 pregnancies per year in the UK. Many babies diagnosed with spina bifida survive into adulthood, but will experience life-long impairment.

Kate Steele, chief executive of Shine, a charity providing specialist support for people affected by spina bifida and hydrocephalus and which has campaigned for mandatory fortification of flour for more than 30 years, said she was "delighted" by the decision.

"In its simplest terms, the step will reduce the numbers of families who face the devastating news that their baby has anencephaly and will not survive," she said. "It will also prevent some babies being affected by spina bifida, which can result in complex physical impairments and poor health."

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Source: BBC News, 20 September 2021

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Life expectancy in England falls to lowest level in a decade

Life expectancy in England has fallen to its lowest level since 2011, a Public Health England (PHE) report has said. Deaths were 1.4 times higher than expected between 21 March 2020 and 2 July 2021, according to the report’s findings.

The increase, largely driven by the pandemic the report said, resulted in a life expectancy decrease of 1.3 years in males, to 78.7, and a 0.9 year decrease in females, to 82.7 years - the lowest life expectancy since 2011.

Life expectancy inequality is also widening between people in the most and least deprived areas. The gap in male life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas in England is 10.3 years in 2020, which is a year higher than the 2019 level. Similarly for females, this same gap was 8.3 years in 2020, 0.6 years greater than in 2019.

The PHE report said the inequality gap reached its highest since it began recording data on deprivation linked life expectancy over two decades ago.

Its report stated: “This demonstrates that the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities in life expectancy by deprivation.

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Source: The Independent, 16 September 2021

 

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Military to be called in to help Scottish ambulance crews

The Scottish government has asked the MoD for military assistance for the country's ambulance service.

Nicola Sturgeon said health services were dealing with the most challenging combination of circumstances in their history due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Opposition politicians have highlighted a series of serious ambulance delays, including one where a man died after a 40-hour wait. They said this should not be happening in Scotland in 2021.

Ms Sturgeon said her government was looking at a range of plans to deal with the significant challenges facing the health services, with the detail of a request for military assistance being considered.

Investigations are ongoing into several cases reported in the media on Thursday, including one where a Glasgow pensioner died after a 40-hour wait for an ambulance.

The Herald newspaper reported that the family of 65-year-old Gerard Brown were told that he could have survived had help arrived sooner.

Mr Brown's GP - who is said to have repeatedly warned 999 call handlers that the patient's status was critical - was quoted as describing the crisis engulfing the Scottish Ambulance Service as being like "third world medicine".

The Scottish Ambulance Service is investigating the circumstances of the case, and said it will be "in contact with Mr Brown's family directly to apologise for the delay".

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Source: BBC News, 16 September 2021

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Long Covid less common than feared - ONS study

One in 40 people with coronavirus has symptoms lasting at least three months, Office for National Statistics figures suggest.

In April, an ONS report put the proportion at about one in every 10. The latest, large and comprehensive analysis suggests long Covid may be less common than previously thought.

But the condition is not fully understood and still has no universally agreed definition, leading to different studies producing different figures.

However, like many other reports, the analysis suggests women, 50- to 69-year-olds and people with other long-term health conditions are the most likely to have symptoms of long Covid 12 weeks after a Covid infection.

People with high levels of virus in their body when testing positive are also more likely to have long Covid, the analysis suggests.

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Source: BBC News, 17 September 2021

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Three deaths and ‘severe harm’ at trust with treatment delays

At least three people died and more came to ‘severe harm’ after treatment delays across three specialties at one hospital trust, new reports have revealed.

King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust commissioned harm reviews due to problems with a lack of capacity and poor management of waiting lists in endoscopy, dermatology and ophthalmology pre-pandemic. Most of the problems relate to the trust’s southern site, Princess Royal University Hospital, and took place before the current executive team took over.

The most recent board papers revealed a review of 614 cases at the PRUH’s endoscopy service found seven cases of “serious harm”. This category includes death and the document revealed three patients had died. 

The review also “highlighted delays in endoscopy leading to delayed diagnoses of cancer” in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Investigators also found a dermatology patient came to “severe harm” after being lost to follow-up twice by the trust.

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Source: HSJ, 17 September 2021

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Major survey reveals ‘best and worst’ A&Es for patient satisfaction

A survey of almost 50,000 patients by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found people’s experiences of emergency departments improved in 2020, compared to the last time the poll was conducted in 2018.

On a scale of one to 10, the regulator found 33% of patients scored their overall experience as 10, compared to 29% in 2018. Eighty-eight per cent of patients scored their care at six or higher, compared to 85% three years ago.

However, overall satisfaction levels declined at around 20 providers. 

Ted Baker, CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, said: “This year’s survey shows some encouraging improvements with trust and confidence in clinicians, perceptions of cleanliness and overall experience all performing better than in previous years…

“However, the scope for further improvement remains. Access to emotional support, help with pain relief and information provided at discharge were all areas where some people surveyed were less positive.”

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Source: HSJ, 16 September 2021

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1 in 500 Americans have died of COVID-19

At a certain point, it was no longer a matter of if the United States would reach the gruesome milestone of 1 in 500 people dying of COVID-19, but a matter of when. A year? Maybe 15 months? The answer: 19 months.

The burden of death in the prime of life has been disproportionately borne by Black, Latino, and American Indian and Alaska Native people in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

“So often when we think about the majority of the country who have lost people to covid-19, we think about the elders that have been lost, not necessarily younger people,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, executive vice president at the Seattle Indian Health Board and director of the Urban Indian Health Institute. “Unfortunately, this is not my reality nor that of the Native community. I lost cousins and fathers and tribal leaders."

The pandemic has brought into stark relief centuries of entwining social, environmental, economic and political factors that erode the health and shorten the lives of people of colour, putting them at higher risk of the chronic conditions that leave immune systems vulnerable to the coronavirus. Many of those same factors fuel the misinformation, mistrust and fear that leave too many unprotected.

Many people don’t have a physician they see regularly due in part to significant provider shortages in communities of colour. If they do have a doctor, it can cost too much money for a visit even if insured. There are language barriers for those who don’t speak English fluently and fear of deportation among undocumented immigrants.

“Some of the issues at hand are structural issues, things that are built into the fabric of society,” says Enrique W. Neblett Jr., a University of Michigan professor who studies racism and health.

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Source: The Washington Post, 15 September 2021

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Increase in number of patients accidentally exposed to ionising radiation in Irish hospitals last year

76 people were unintentionally exposed to ionising radiation in Irish hospitals in 2020, according to the Health and Information Quality Authority (HIQA). This figure represents an 11% increase on the total reported in 2019.

HIQA today published an overview report on the 'increase in accidental and unintended exposure to ionising radiation events notified to HIQA in 2020.

Under the European Union (Basic Safety Standards for Protection against dangers arising from Medical Exposure to Ionising Radiation) Regulations 2018 and 2019, HIQA is the competent authority for patient protection in relation to medical exposure to ionising radiation in Ireland.

In its 2019 report — its first such publication — HIQA expressed hope that the areas of improvement it identified "would help reduce the likelihood of such events and drive quality improvements in safety mechanisms for medical exposures in Ireland."

Despite this, eight more accidental exposure incidents were recorded in 2020 than in the previous year.

Human error was identified as the main cause of accidental exposure in 58% of the incidents, however, HIQA determined that other factors likely contributed to these.

Some 34% of the incidents involved the wrong patient being exposed to ionising radiation. HIQA said these exposures occurred at varying points along the medical exposure pathway.

It stressed that the number of unintended exposure to ionising radiation incidents last year was small compared with the total number of procedures carried out, estimated to be in the region of three million.

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Source: Irish Examiner, 15 September 2021

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Call for investigation of menstrual changes after Covid jabs

Changes to periods and unexpected vaginal bleeding after having a Covid vaccine should be investigated to reassure women, says a leading immunologist specialising in fertility.

Writing in the BMJ, Dr Victoria Male, from Imperial College London, said the body's immune response was the likely cause, not something in the vaccines. There is no evidence they have any impact on pregnancy or fertility.

The UK's regulator has received more than 30,000 reports of period problems. These include heavier than usual periods, delayed periods and unexpected bleeding after all three Covid vaccines, out of more than 47 million doses given to women in the UK to date.

After reviewing the reports, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) says it "does not support a link" between Covid vaccines and the symptoms.

However, writing in an opinion piece in the BMJ, Dr Male says "robust research" into reports of period problems would help to counter misinformation around the vaccines.

"Vaccine hesitancy among young women is largely driven by false claims that COVID-19 vaccines could harm their chances of future pregnancy. Failing to thoroughly investigate reports of menstrual changes after vaccination is likely to fuel these fears."

"If a link between vaccination and menstrual changes is confirmed, this information will allow people to plan for potentially altered cycles," she said.

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Source: BBC News, 16 September 2021

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