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As pressure on emergency departments continues, the Royal College of Physicians calls on the government to release long-promised data on corridor care.
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has called on the government to publish promised data on corridor care, as new NHS England performance figures show sustained pressure on urgent and emergency care services in England.
Source: Healthcare today, 23 February 2026
The chair of NHS England has told a patient safety event that the national body is “trying to avoid” telling every part of the country how to work.
Penny Dash said there was a “reluctance” to mandate, dictate and measure from within NHSE.
She said NHSE chief executive Sir Jim Mackey was “very, very antimandating” and that the term would “have many of her colleagues shaking”.
Dr Dash pointed to resistance that officials had experienced from local authorities, health and wellbeing boards, and local authority commissioning services, adding: “They absolutely do not want us to mandate.”
She was responding to a question about how NHSE could regulate effectively with a “mandate-averse philosophy”, while addressing the Public Policy Projects’ Patient Safety Forum on Wednesday.
She said: “We are a national health service, there is quite rightly an expectation that there is some consistency in care, there is quite rightly an expectation that all of these things matter and that us, as NHS England, we should be mandating, dictating and then measuring.
“I can completely see how we can get to that point, and yet, we then have a very, very, very strong view from many people, ‘no, no, no, devolve, devolve, devolve’, and it’s live, and it’s playing out an awful lot…”
She added: “It’s a really hard balance to strike, and we’re going to have to continue to work our way through it. We don’t want to be overly mandating – there are real negatives of mandating too much…”
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Source: HSJ, 27 February 2026
The imminent review of NHS performance by Lord Ara Darzi will highlight the need to invest more in NHS management and leadership, HSJ understands.
The former minister, eminent surgeon, and academic, was commissioned by the new government to carry out an independent review of NHS performance.
His report is due in the next fortnight and will seek to paint a hard-hitting picture of the severity and breadth of the service’s problems.
One trust CEO who had been briefed by the review team said it would “highlight low manager and leader numbers compared to other health services” – a message, they predicted, that the government “won’t want to hear”.
Another well-placed source said the review was likely to make clear that the NHS needed to invest more in good management, particularly in managers with the right skills and capabilities, and that it should not use reduced management costs as a barometer for success.
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Source: HSJ, 6 September 2024
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Even factoring in the many manifestations over recent years of the NHS’s deep crisis, some of Lord Ara Darzi’s findings in his verdict on the state of the service are arresting. A&E is in such “an awful state” that thousands of people die every year because they aren’t seen there fast enough.
“Starving” the service of vital capital funding has left “crumbling buildings, mental health patients being accommodated in Victorian-era cells infested with vermin with 17 men sharing two showers, and parts of the NHS operating in decrepit portable buildings”. Efforts to improve early diagnosis of cancer saw “no progress whatsoever made … between 2013 and 2021”, despite many lives depending on that.
But Darzi’s report is more than just another litany of NHS gloom. Like any good doctor, he has not just diagnosed what ails the patient but also set out his treatment plan to restore good health. Despite concluding that the NHS “is in critical condition”, he adds, reassuringly, “its vital signs are strong”. To prove his case, he cites the service’s “extraordinary depth of clinical talent”, staff’s “shared passion and determination to make the NHS better for our patients” and the fact that “the NHS has more resources than ever before”.
On waiting times, he is quite hopeful that things will – eventually – get better.
Wes Streeting asked Lord Darzi to make his report a roadmap for the 10-year plan, which is expected next spring. It includes the advice that, with so many staff now feeling so “disengaged” after Covid, the NHS workforce must be re-engaged and re-energised. That is vital for its own sake but also because without happier staff the NHS will not be able to solve its productivity puzzle, which is that, despite record staff numbers and its biggest ever budget, its productivity has fallen. Improved pay should help but better working conditions are needed too.
Source: The Guardian, 11 September 2024
A trade union has written to every politician representing the Scottish Borders to highlight "dangerous staffing levels" in local hospitals.
Unison claims serious breaches of safety guidelines are occurring daily due to a lack of nurses, auxiliaries and porters. The letter says staff are unable to take proper rest breaks or log serious incidents in the reporting system.
NHS Borders said patient and staff safety was its number one priority.
Unison said working conditions in the area were regularly in breach of regulations.
Greig Kelbie, the union's regional officer in the Borders, said: "We are getting regular messages from our members to tell us about the pressure they are under - and that they can't cope.
"The care system was under pressure before Covid, but the pandemic has exasperated the situation, particularly at NHS Borders.
"The NHS has been stretched to its limits and it is now at the stage where it is dangerous for patients and staff - we're often told about serious breaches of health and safety, particularly at Borders General Hospital where there are issues with flooring and staff falling.
"We work collaboratively with NHS Borders to do what we can, but we also wanted to make politicians aware of how bad things have become.
"We need our politicians to step up and implement change - we want them to make sure the Health and Care Act is brought to the fore and that it protects our members."
Source: BBC News, 13 May 2022
Dangerous roofs that could collapse at any time at hospitals across England will not be fixed until 2035, NHS bosses have admitted.
The disclosure came in NHS England’s response to a freedom of information request from the Liberal Democrats about hospitals that have roofs at risk of falling down on to staff, patients and equipment.
One of the hospitals used by Liz Truss’s constituents, the Queen Elizabeth in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, is at joint highest risk, with four dangerous roofs.
The roofs are built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), a lightweight, cheaper form of material that one hospital boss has called “a ticking timebomb”.
Some hospital managers are so worried that their RAAC roofs could crash down without warning that they have had to install hundreds of steel props to hold them up.
Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, a hospitals group, said: “The prime minister acknowledged during the leadership contest that her own local hospital is falling apart and is being held up by stilts. Yet her government has not yet signalled any intention to give the NHS the urgent capital investment it needs to update its buildings and estates.
The Department of Health and Social Care said it was “committed to urgently addressing any risks to patient and staff safety”.
Source: The Guardian, 28 September 2022
As demand for GLP-1 medications continues to skyrocket for weight loss and diabetes, more Americans are skipping pharmacies and turning to unregulated sellers as a way to avoid high prices, insurance barriers and recurring shortages.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned that so-called "gray-market" GLP-1s (such as semaglutide or tirzepatide) are not evaluated for safety, quality or efficacy.
As they fall outside the legal drug supply chain, these unapproved drugs may be counterfeit, contaminated or improperly compounded, the agency states.
Some are marketed online as "compounded semaglutide" or "research-use only," shipped directly to consumers with little oversight.
Recent research published in JAMA Health Forum also warned that some compounded products use unverified chemical forms of semaglutide that differ from FDA-approved versions.
Fox News Digital spoke with Frank Dumont, M.D., medical director at Virta Health in Colorado, who said the rise of gray-market GLP-1s reflects growing desperation to access these medications outside regulated medical channels.
"Gray-market medications are versions of prescription medications that are obtained outside of the usual prescription process," Dumont said.
"The usual safety precautions have been bypassed, in one way or another, and this increases the medical risk of using such a product."
Source: Fox News, 7 October 2025
NHS leaders have issued a warning over surging flu cases as the number of patients in hospital with the bug soared by more than 50% in a week.
An average of 234 people were in hospital with flu each day last week – up 53% on the previous seven days. Figures from NHS England also showed a rise in norovirus cases in hospitals last week with an average of 406 cases per day, up from 351 the previous week and a 28% rise from last year.
The latest data comes after public health officials sent a warning over whooping cough levels, with 719 suspected cases reported between July and November, up from 217 last year.
This week several NHS hospitals have sent out alerts to the public warning of “extremely busy” A&Es.
Dr Tim Cooksley, former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, warned: “Pressures are being exacerbated by increasing rates of sickness among colleagues, as well as pressures on precious resources such as isolation areas and side rooms, adding to the strain on already overstretched services...
“Undoubtedly we will see more older patients enduring prolonged degrading periods of corridor care and many people experiencing difficult symptoms whilst they sit on elective waiting lists.
“Most hospitals are already experiencing chaotic and dangerous scenarios.”
He added that there was “a lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation” from new health secretary Victoria Atkins.
Source: The Independent, 7 December 2023
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:
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.
Source: The Guardian, 22 September 2021
A damning report has highlighted failures in how NHS Tayside oversaw a surgeon who harmed patients for years.
Prof Eljamel, the former head of neurosurgery at NHS Tayside in Dundee, harmed dozens of patients before he was suspended in 2013.
The internal Scottish government report into Prof Sam Eljamel, which has been leaked to the BBC, said the health board repeatedly let patients down. It outlined failures in the way Prof Eljamel was supervised and the board's communication with patients.
The report was commissioned last year over unanswered questions and concerns from patients Jules Rose and Pat Kelly.
Mr Kelly has been left housebound and Ms Rose has PTSD after the neurosurgeon removed the wrong part of her body.
After her operation in 2013, Ms Rose discovered that Prof Eljamel had taken out the wrong part of her body. He removed her tear gland instead of a tumour on her brain.
She still has not been told exactly when health bosses knew he was a risk to patients.
The latest Scottish government report said she should receive an apology.
The written apology she received from the board last month said it was sorry she "feels" there has been a breakdown in trust.
"I actually rejected the apology," she said.
Ms Rose said she wanted the chairwoman of the health board to explain why it will not offer a "whole-hearted apology" for its failures.
Scottish Conservative MSP Liz Smith called for a public inquiry, saying there had been a lack of accountability and the investigation had still not got to the truth.
Source: BBC News, 3 November 2022
Staffing shortages and a "culture of mistrust" led to delays and patients being harmed at one of the busiest maternity units in the UK, a review has found.
An inspection of maternity care at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh said some women waiting for labour to be induced had experienced delays of more than 24 hours.
It also said staff were reluctant to submit safety reports and had raised concerns about being overwhelmed and unsupported.
The damning findings echo those of NHS Lothian's own review into the troubled maternity unit last year - but the health board insisted it was making progress in improving and investing in its women's services.
The review of Edinburgh's maternity unit follows a BBC Disclosure investigation which heard calls for urgent action to improve maternity safety across Scotland.
The investigation heard from a number of families who had experienced poor and sometimes deadly care.
It concluded that mothers and newborn babies had come to harm because of staffing shortages and a "toxic" workplace culture.
Health Secretary Neil Gray said the Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) report was "deeply, deeply concerning".
Gray, who said he had experienced loss in his own family, told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland he had directed NHS Lothian to deliver its recommendations "immediately".
Source: BBC News, 29 October 2025
An ambulance service could be put in special measures after a damning report criticised poor leadership for fostering bullying and not acting decisively on allegations of predatory sexual behaviour towards patients.
East of England Ambulance Service Trust failed to protect patients and staff from sexual abuse, inappropriate behaviour and harassment, the Care Quality Commission said.
It failed to support the mental health and wellbeing of staff, with high levels of bullying and harassment. Staff who raised concerns were not treated with respect and some senior leaders adopted a “combative and defensive approach” which stopped staff speaking out.
“The leadership, governance and culture still did not support delivery of high-quality care,” the CQC said.
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Source: HSJ, 30 September 2020
Young and previously healthy people with ongoing symptoms of COVID-19 are showing signs of damage to multiple organs four months after the initial infection, a study suggests.
The findings are a step towards unpicking the physical underpinnings and developing treatments for some of the strange and extensive symptoms experienced by people with “long Covid”, which is thought to affect more than 60,000 people in the UK. Fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and pain are among the most frequently reported effects.
On Sunday, the NHS announced it would launch a network of more than 40 long Covid specialist clinics where doctors, nurses and therapists will assess patients’ physical and psychological symptoms.
The Coverscan study aims to assess the long-term impact of COVID-19 on organ health in around 500 “low-risk” individuals – those who are relatively young and without any major underlying health complaints – with ongoing Covid symptoms, through a combination of MRI scans, blood tests, physical measurements and online questionnaires.
Preliminary data from the first 200 patients to undergo screening suggests that almost 70% have impairments in one or more organs, including the heart, lungs, liver and pancreas, four months after their initial illness.
“The good news is that the impairment is mild, but even with a conservative lens, there is some impairment, and in 25% of people it affects two or more organs,” said Amitava Banerjee, a cardiologist and associate professor of clinical data science at University College London.
Source: The Guardian, 15 November 2020
A Dallas anaesthesiologist who injected dangerous drugs into patient IV bags, leading to one death and numerous cardiac emergencies, was sentenced today to 190 years in prison.
Raynaldo Riviera Ortiz Jr., 60, was charged by criminal complaint in September 2022 and indicted the following month on charges related to tampering with IV bags used at a local surgical centre.
In April, following an eight-day trial, a jury convicted him of four counts of tampering with consumer products resulting in serious bodily injury, one count of tampering with a consumer product and five counts of intentional adulteration of a drug. He was sentenced today by Chief U.S. District Judge David Godbey for the Northern District of Texas, who found that Dr. Ortiz caused the death of his colleague and called his other conduct “tantamount to attempted murder.”
“The defendant betrayed the trust of patients by tampering with critical medical supplies, and the result was serious bodily injury,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “Today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of these offenses and should make clear that the department will work tirelessly to investigate and prosecute anyone who endangers patients by tampering with drugs.”
“This disgraced doctor acted no better than an armed assailant spraying bullets indiscriminately into a crowd. Dr. Ortiz tampered with random IV bags, apparently unconcerned with who he hurt. But he wielded an invisible weapon, a cocktail of heart-stopping drugs, concealed inside an IV bag designed to help patients heal,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton for the Northern District of Texas. “On at least nine separate occasions, he essentially attacked unconscious patients lying on an operating table, and even killed a colleague. I am so proud of our office’s work in bringing Dr. Ortiz to justice and bringing a measure of solace to his victims and their families.”
Source: Office of Public Affairs, 20 November 2024
Adults with severe peanut allergies can be desensitised by daily exposure, according to the first clinical trial of its kind.
After being given steadily increasing doses of peanut flour over a period of months, two-thirds of the trial participants were able to eat the equivalent of five peanuts without reacting.
The findings suggest that the window of opportunity for treating allergies could extend into adulthood, raising the prospect of new treatments for those severely affected.
“Constant fear of life-threatening reactions place a huge burden on people with peanut allergy,” said Stephen Till, the professor who led the research at King’s College London. “The only way to manage a peanut allergy is strict avoidance and treatment of allergic reactions, including with adrenaline.
“Although peanut immunotherapy is known to be effective in children, this trial provides preliminary evidence that adults can also be desensitised and that this improves quality of life.”
Source: The Guardian, 24 April 2025
Further reading on the hub:
A Shropshire family has called for faster NHS test results, after a father waited three months for the outcome of a cancer scan which finally arrived five days before he died.
Pete Vagg was receiving chemotherapy at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, unaware his treatment wasn't working and that palliative care might have been an option.
His son Neil said his father "should have had a more dignified end of life, visiting his grandchildren abroad".
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) said: “Waiting times remain longer than we would want for our patients in some specialties".
Mr Vagg, 79, from Shrewsbury, had been living with cancer for a number of years, but it had spread to his bowel and liver.
He started chemotherapy and in July 2024 had a monitoring scan to check if the treatment was working.
His son said: "It was odd that every time his dad met the medical team there was still no scan result”. This meant no decisions could be made about his father's care, because nobody knew what was going on inside him, he added.
Julian Povey, who chairs the Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin GP Board, said it was a common situation with around a third of GP work now related to hospital outpatient appointments.
Dr Povey said people could wait eight weeks for an scan, and then another 12 weeks for the report.
Private companies are often tasked with interpreting scan results to take the pressure off hospitals, but Dr Povey said the trust "needs to look for alternatives to reduce waiting times".
Source: BBC News, 18 November 2024
An elderly man died after falling off a hospital trolley when he had been left alone despite needing one-to-one care.
Harry Dickinson was taken to Chorley and South Ribble District Hospital on December 18 last year. Harry, a retired farmer, was on blood thinning medication and was bleeding from his mouth which led to staff at Springfield Nursing Home arranging for him to go to A&E.
The following morning, while Harry was unattended, he became increasingly agitated and fell off his trolley. The 90-year-old suffered a traumatic intracranial haemorrhage and died on December 20.
Source: LancsLive, 11 November 2025
The government has failed to meet most of its own deadlines for commitments to improve how the NHS uses data, including developing a cybersecurity strategy, HSJ can reveal.
The delays include work to store and analyse patient data more securely, building public trust in the NHS’ use of patient data, and agreeing national strategies on cybersecurity and cloud technology.
The strategy and its commitments were published following the Goldacre Review, which called for an overhaul of how NHS patient data is collected, stored and used.
It came after the government was forced to indefinitely halt a controversial plan to collect all GP-held patient data in 2021, which resembled the fate of a similar data scheme in 2016.
Several data projects have also come under scrutiny from doctors and campaigners in recent years, such as NHS England’s procurement of a new Federated Data Platform and a much-criticised trust’s data-sharing scheme with a credit rating company.
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Source: HSJ, 28 February 2023
A cyber attack that has caused a major outage of NHS IT systems is expected to last for more than three weeks, leaving doctors unable to see patients’ notes, The Independent has learned.
Mental health trusts across the country will be left unable to access patient notes for weeks, and possibly months.
Oxford Health Foundation Trust has declared a critical incident over the outage, which is believed to affect dozens of trusts, and has told staff it is putting emergency plans in place.
One NHS trust chief said the situation could possibly last for “months” with several mental health trusts, and there was concern among leaders that the problem is not being prioritised.
In an email to staff, Oxford Health Foundation Trust chief executive Nick Broughton, said: “The cyber attack targeted systems used to refer patients for care, including ambulances being dispatched, out-of-hours appointment bookings, triage, out-of-hours care, emergency prescriptions and safety alerts. It also targeted the finance system used by the Trust."
The NHS director said: “The whole thing is down. It’s really alarming…we’re carrying a lot of risk as a result of it because you can’t get records and details of assessments, prescribing, key observations, medical mental health act observations. You can’t see any of it…Staff are going to have to write everything down and input it later.”
They added: “There is increased risk to patients. We’re finding hard to discharge people, for example to housing providers, because we can’t access records.”
Source: The Independent, 11 August 2022
Many NHS 111 services are without a crucial IT system for several days, after a cyber attack on a software supplier.
Providers had to move to pen-and-paper yesterday, and have been unable to access patient records.
Adastra – which is used by 85% of NHS 111 providers – went offline at 7am on Thursday. It was still affected as of Sunday, and staff were told it may not be online for several days.
Advanced, which supplies Adastra, confirmed on Friday evening the incident was caused by a cyberattck, but says it managed to limit the damage to a small number of its servers. It was reported on Saturday that the attack is thought to have been by a criminal group trying to extort money — so-called ransomware — rather than an attack by a group linked to a state/government.
As well as NHS 111, the system is used by some GP out-of-hours services and has also been marketed to urgent care providers.
NHS 111 services have had to use lists of protocols when answering calls and write details down, rather than the software automatically implementing the protocols.
One briefing note from commissioners in London, seen by HSJ, described the issue as a “total system outage” for NHS 111, and said “likely delays for patients… will continue throughout the weekend and potentially over next week”.
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Source: HSJ, 8 August 2022
Two ambulance trusts have been left without a working electronic patient care record system for a week after a cyber attack affecting its Swedish-based supplier.
Staff at South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust and South Central Ambulance Service FT have been working on paper since the MobiMed system – supplied by the firm Ortivus – went down last Tuesday. More than 1,700 ambulances and clinical workstations use the system, according to the company.
One employee told HSJ some staff were struggling with a paper-based system which meant they had less information on patients.
”We can’t do summary care record searches or see previous call information,” the staff member said. SWASFT sent a message to staff on Friday saying the system was likely to be down “for a prolonged period”.
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Source: HSJ, 25 July 2023
A major health system’s pathology IT has been hit by a cyber attack, HSJ understands.
A letter sent by Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust chief executive last night said his £2.5bn-turnover trust was unable to connect to the servers of Synnovis.
The problem is ongoing, and several senior sources told HSJ the system had been the victim of a ransomware attack. One said gaining access to pathology results could take “weeks, not days”.
As well as GSTT – the NHS’s largest provider – neighbouring King’s College Hospital FT, which runs several hospitals in the system, and is thought to be affected. Synnovis also provides pathology services for primary care across all six of south east London’s boroughs.
The news would make it one of the largest critical NHS systems brought down by a cyber attack.
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Source: HSJ, 4 June 2024
The NHS’s head of cyber security has said the service can be more transparent about attacks that affect the service.
NHS England director of national cyber security operations Mike Fell told a conference last week that NHS cyber security teams felt they were in an “echo chamber” and that the issue was not taken seriously enough by clinicians.
Speaking at the Healthcare Excellence Through Technology event last week, Mr Fell said he was surprised by the lack of buy-in to the issue from clinicians.
He said the risk posed to patient safety should be “a really easy sell to professionals who have taken the Hippocratic oath”, and that specialist cyber teams had “hard questions to ask ourselves” about why this hadn’t happened.
Last year, a patient at King’s College Hospital died after a cyber attack on the trust’s pathology provider Synnovis meant their blood test results were slow to be processed. Hospital trusts in the North West reported a £3m cost after an attack in 2024 and a medical devices company supplying half of England’s local authorities tipped into insolvency after a cyber attack. A Scottish health board also had its data compromised last year.
Mr Fell added: “We don’t have enough ownership of doctors and business owners seeing it as part of their world.”
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Source: HSJ, 13 October 2025
Parents affected by serious failings in maternity units at a Welsh health board will be told of the findings of an independent investigation this autumn. Ten more cases at units run by Cwm Taf Morgannwg in the south Wales valleys have been found by a review, bringing the total number to 160.
Maternity services at hospitals in Merthyr Tydfil and Llantrisant were placed in special measures last year. Failings at the maternity units were discovered after an investigation by two Royal Colleges, which found mothers faced "distressing experiences and poor care" between 2016 and 2018.
The services at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant and Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil were also found to be "extremely dysfunctional" and under extreme pressure.
A number of recommendations were set to make the service safe for pregnant women and those giving birth at the hospitals.
The Welsh Government then appointed the Independent Maternity Services Oversight Panel (IMSOP) to look back at cases, including neonatal deaths.
Mick Giannasi, the chairman of IMSOP, said: "In the early autumn, we will start writing to mothers to say we have reviewed your care and this is what we found.
"That will be quite distressing for the women because they will have to revisit all those things again.
"But it's going to be a difficult period for staff as well because we know that the Royal Colleges review was very difficult for staff - some of the messages that they had to hear were very challenging and those things may be played out again."
Source: BBC News, 28 September 2020
Two-thirds of women at the heart of a review into maternity services at a Welsh health board could have had very different outcomes if they had received better care, a report has found.
The Independent Maternity Services Oversight Panel (Imsop) focused on the experiences of pregnant women at Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board.
Its maternity services have been in special measures since "serious failings" were found two years ago.
Concerns emerged in late 2018 that women and babies may have come to harm because of staff shortages and failures to report serious incidents. This sparked a major independent review, which gave a damning verdict on maternity services in Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board.
Published on Monday, the Imsop report focuses on the care of mothers between January 2016 and September 2018. It found that 19 reviews of maternal care (68%) revealed at least one factor where "different management would reasonably have been expected to alter the outcome".
The panel's chairman, Mick Giannasi, said: "These findings will be concerning and potentially distressing for the women and families involved, and it will be difficult for staff."
"Of the 28 episodes of care, we concluded that in 27 of them, our independent teams who reviewed the care would have done something differently. Put simply, what went wrong, might not have gone wrong if things had been done differently."
Source: BBC News, 25 January 2021
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