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£2bn cost of delayed discharges revealed for first time

The first official estimate of the financial impact of delayed hospital discharges on the NHS has suggested the monthly cost is around £200m. 

NHS England took the 390,960 bed days related to “delayed” patients in September and multiplied them by the estimated £562 “cost” of a bed day. This resulted in a total monthly cost of £200m.

The numbers of patients whose discharge was delayed seven days or more have remained at similar levels in NHS hospitals for many months, which indicates a cost of more than £200m a month is typical. If the level of delayed discharges remains broadly in line with the past 12 months, the annual cost could be around £2bn per year.

An average of 13,032 patients a day in September remained in hospital despite being fit for discharge – around 13% of available beds.

The biggest factor behind the delayed discharges was a shortage of out-of-hospital capacity, either in social care services, rehabilitation facilities, care or nursing homes. This amounted to £68m (31%) of the total September cost.

The next most costly factor was “interface processes”, which refers to NHS trusts and system partners spending too long in negotiating patients’ onward care packages. These issues cost £65m (30%).

Delayed discharges caused by “hospital processes” – such as waits for reviews of need for supported discharge, referral to care transfer hubs or formal decision to discharge – cost £44m (20%).

Issues relating to “care transfer hub processes” – most commonly waits for confirmation of immediate care needs and pathway – cost £30m in September (14%). The remaining £11m (5%) was down to wellbeing or safeguarding concerns.

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Source: HSJ, 15 September 2025

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Targeted prostate cancer screening could save countless lives, says Sunak

A targeted prostate cancer screening programme for men at the highest risk could "save countless lives", former prime minister Rishi Sunak has told the BBC.

Prostate Cancer Research, of which Sunak is a patron, has published a report on the costs and benefits of such an initiative. It would focus on black men and/or those with a family history of prostate cancer who are aged 45–69.

Sunak said he is "convinced of the urgency " of introducing such a programme, which he believes would be affordable and deliverable.

But some medical experts are sceptical about the value of screening, arguing there is a risk patients will be treated for the cancer unnecessarily.

Prostate Cancer Research estimates the screening programme, which would involve an MRI scan, a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test and a biopsy, would cost £25m a year - or about £18 per patient - similar to bowel and breast cancer screening.

It assumes 20% of eligible men - of which there are an estimated 1.3 million in the UK - would be invited annually, with a 72% uptake rate. Diagnostic activity (scans and biopsies) would need to rise by 23%, with only a modest increase in NHS staffing, the charity says.

The UK National Screening Committee is currently reconsidering its decision from five years ago not to recommend routine screening. Media reports suggest it may stick with its current stance.

Urologist Prof Noel Clarke, representing the British Association of Urological Surgeons, told the national audit that while it was encouraging more men were being diagnosed and treated earlier, "we must also tackle the inequalities revealed by the audit so that age or postcode never determine the quality of care men receive".

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Source: BBC News, 14 October 2025

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Faster MRI scans could help end dementia diagnosis ‘postcode lottery’

Faster MRI scans could help end the “postcode lottery” of dementia diagnosis by cutting costs and making the scans more widely available, a study has suggested.

Brain scans help diagnose dementia alongside memory tests and blood tests, but because MRI scans are expensive, very few patients are offered them.

Researchers at University College London (UCL) have developed a way of running the brain scans to achieve the same results in a third of the time - potentially doubling the number of dementia scans able to be done in a day and lowering the cost.

Richard Oakley, associate director of research and innovation at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “While MRIs aren’t the only way to diagnose dementia, very few people with concerns about their cognitive health are offered one as part of the diagnosis process, mainly because they are expensive and not widely available.

“These faster MRIs, which take less than half the time of standard scans, could help end this postcode lottery in dementia diagnosis, cut costs and potentially give more people access to them.”

Professor Nick Fox, at UCL’s Institute of Neurology, said: “As more treatments that can slow or change the course of dementia are being developed, it's important to make sure MRI scans are available to everyone. This is because people living with dementia often need an MRI scan as part of their diagnosis before they can access these treatments.

“To help make this possible, our team carried out the first study looking at how new imaging techniques - called parallel imaging - could speed up MRI scans in clinics. Their goal is to move closer to a future where every person with dementia can get a diagnosis through a scan.”

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Source: The Independent, 13 October 2025

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Concerns over monitoring system used by mental health trusts

The public inquiry into the deaths of at least 2,000 people under the care of mental health services heard "grave concerns" about the use of a digital patient monitoring system.

The technology, called Oxevision, was used by half of England's mental health trusts and uses infrared sensors and cameras to monitor patients alone in their rooms, sending alerts to staff when it detects signs of distress or abnormal activity.

The Lampard Inquiry was told campaigners were concerned the technology had been overly relied upon by staff, and many patients' experiences of the technology were "intrusive, undignified, dehumanising and traumatising".

Oxevsion's manufacturer said the system played a critical role in preventing harm, but agreed filming a patient 24 hours a day could possibly "constitute a very significant invasion of privacy".

Counsel for the Lampard Inquiry, Nicolas Griffin KC, said Oxevision had proved controversial and had featured in a number of recent inquests.

These included patients Michael Nolan and Morgan Rose-Hart, who died in 2022, along with Elise Sebastian, who died in April 2021.

Elise was found unresponsive in her bedroom at the St Aubyn Centre in Colchester.

The 16-year-old was supposed to receive one-to-one care, but an inquest was told the Oxevision alert system, linked with her bedroom, was muted and she was left alone for 28 minutes.

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Source: BBC News, 14 October 2025

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NHS announces new test to be offered for all newborn babies

Newborn babies in England will now be routinely screened for a rare genetic condition, NHS England has announced.

Hereditary tyrosinaemia type 1 (HT1) affects around seven UK babies annually, causing long-term health problems if left untreated.

The condition prevents the normal breakdown of protein, leading to a toxic build-up in the blood. This vital screening will be incorporated into the standard blood spot test, taken from a baby's heel five days after birth.

Symptoms can include jaundice, fever, abdominal swelling, bleeding, bruising and failing to gain weight.

If untreated, the condition can lead to severe complications such as organ damage and liver failure.

Dr Harrison Carter, NHS director of vaccination and screening, said: “Being able to screen for tyrosinaemia will help give hundreds of thousands of families extra reassurance and peace of mind – and while rare genetic conditions will be ruled out in most cases, for those families affected it means treatment and care can begin straight away, to improve their baby’s chances of leading a healthy life.

Once screened by the NHS, babies with HT1 can be given medication called Nitisinone, which helps to prevent high levels of tyrosine in the blood.

They will also have a diet of regulated formula or breast milk along with a special milk low in tyrosine.

This combination can stop the long-term complications of HT1 from developing.

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Source: The Independent, 14 October 2025

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AI could make it harder to establish blame for medical failings, experts say

The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare could create a legally complex blame game when it comes to establishing liability for medical failings, experts have warned.

The development of AI for clinical use has boomed, with researchers creating a host of tools, from algorithms to help interpret scans to systems that can aid with diagnoses. AI is also being developed to help manage hospitals, from optimising bed capacity to tackling supply chains.

But while experts say the technology could bring myriad benefits for healthcare, they say there is also cause for concern, from a lack of testing of the effectiveness of AI tools to questions over who is responsible should a patient have a negative outcome.

Prof Derek Angus, of the University of Pittsburgh, said: “There’s definitely going to be instances where there’s the perception that something went wrong and people will look around to blame someone.”

The Jama summit on Artificial Intelligence, hosted last year by the Journal of the American Medical Association, brought together a panoply of experts including clinicians, technology companies, regulatory bodies, insurers, ethicists, lawyers and economists.

The resulting report, of which Angus is first author, not only looks at the nature of AI tools and the areas of healthcare where they are being used, but also examines the challenges they present, including legal concerns.

Prof Glenn Cohen from Harvard law school, a co-author of the report, said patients could face difficulties showing fault in the use or design of an artificial intelligence product. There could be barriers to gaining information about its inner workings, while it could also be challenging to propose a reasonable alternative design for the product or prove a poor outcome was caused by the AI system.

He said: “The interplay between the parties may also present challenges for bringing a lawsuit – they may point to one another as the party at fault, and they may have existing agreement contractually reallocating liability or have indemnification lawsuits.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 October 2025

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Cyber attack damage can be more public, says NHSE boss

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

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High youth death rates are an ‘emerging crisis’, global health study warns

The world faces “an emerging crisis” of higher death rates among teenagers and young adults, according to a major study on the causes of death and disability worldwide.

The reasons vary from drug and alcohol use, and suicide in North America, to infectious diseases and injuries in sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers said, but warned that their data should serve as “a wake-up call”.

The study also found that chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes now accounted for two-thirds of all ill health and that mental health problems were surging.

Half of the world’s disease burden was preventable, researchers calculated, driven by risks that could be reduced, such as high blood pressure, air pollution, smoking and obesity.

The Global Burden of Disease study was carried out by a network of 16,500 scientists using more than 300,000 data sources. It is published in the Lancet and was presented at the World Health Summit in Berlin on Sunday.

In North America and parts of Latin America, the rises were driven by suicide and consumption of drugs and alcohol.

“Very marked increases” among teenagers and young adults “certainly got our attention when we were looking at the data”, said Dr Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s school of medicine.

Rising deaths in younger adults, particularly in North America, he said, were “very tied up with the rise of anxiety and depression in young people, particularly women”. While the rise of mental health disorders had received much attention, he said, there was still a lot of debate around the causes.

“Is this social media? Is this [electronic] devices? Is this broader social trends on parenting? We know it was made worse by Covid. So there’s a lot of controversy, I’d say, in the psychiatric epidemiology and general social commentary about the causes around mental health. And so that’s a problem for coming up with solutions.”

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Source: The Guardian, 12 October 2025

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Watchdog vows Botox crackdown after BBC exposé

The pharmacists' watchdog has promised to investigate and "take action" after the BBC exposed illegal and potentially harmful practices in the aesthetic Botox industry.

Under UK law, Botox can only be supplied under prescription by a qualified medic following a face-to-face consultation with the patient, to check it is safe for them.

But undercover BBC researchers caught several pharmacists trying to prescribe the medicine to beauticians to use on people who had not been clinically assessed.

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) said it was continuing to review the BBC's evidence for its own investigation.

Its chief enforcement officer Dionne Spence said: "We will take enforcement action against pharmacies, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians when required to protect patient safety."

Under UK law, only a doctor, prescribing nurse or pharmacist, or dentist is legally allowed to prescribe botulinum toxin - commonly known as Botox – after an appropriate face-to-face clinical assessment.

East London pharmacist Cornelius Agoye from Rainham was filmed selling vials of Botox to an undercover BBC reporter who was posing as a beautician intending to inject a customers

Mr Agoye asked the reporter to complete paperwork that would create a false record of a patient consultation taking place.

He also told the BBC he was willing to illegally supply additional Botox under the same prescription to use on other patients - which constitutes fraud.

When approached by the BBC, Mr Agoye apologised and admitted his conduct had fallen below professional standards.

Other pharmacists filmed or spoken to by BBC undercover researchers posing as beauticians described taking similar shortcuts.

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Source: BBC News, 13 October 2025

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NHSE’s improvement teams axed

NHS England’s elective, emergency care and mental health improvement support teams are being axed – and their staff and functions merged into the Getting it Right First Time programme, HSJ has learned.

An internal email from national urgent care director Sarah-Jane Marsh last week said that as part of the NHSE restructure, the improvement functions “will be moving to a single structure and brand under the clinical leadership of Tim Briggs, founder of the GIRFT Programme”.

HSJ understands around 70 people work across the improvement support teams, most of whom are in the emergency care improvement support team (ECIST). NHSE did not confirm a figure, but it said the merger would not result in redundancies.

The move follows what was previously described as a “culture battle” between ECIST’s alleged “performance management”-style approach and GIRFT, which is seen as more collaborative.

Senior emergency care figures told HSJ they hoped the move would see the end of “clipboard performance management”.

Professor Matthew Cooke, a former national clinical director of urgent and emergency care, said: “I can see positives in having one organisation… In my experience, the places that improve are the places that work with you, not beaten up by you. If the clipboard performance management disappeared it would be a great step forward.”

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Source: HSJ, 13 October 2025

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‘Endometriosis almost killed me – but it still took years for me to get the diagnosis I needed’

At just 12 years old, a terrified Zaynah Ahmed lost so much blood during her period that she was left in a life-threatening condition and needed an urgent blood transfusion.

Doctors and nurses rushed around her, using words like the pill and haemoglobin levels – all things that, as a child, she could not understand.

One medic even joked, “imagine you'd been shot in your leg and you just like bled out” in a bid to explain how serious her blood loss had been.

“The doctor... basically said that if you hadn't come within that week, it would have had a life-threatening impact on my life,” Ms Ahmed, now aged 19, told The Independent.

Years later, in 2023, she was finally diagnosed with endometriosis, which affects millions of women in the UK.

Figures from the charity Endometriosis UK show that it takes an average of eight years to get a diagnosis.

After her frightening admission at age 12, Ms Ahmed’s severe symptoms resurfaced again when she was in Year 11 at school.

She suffered periods so painful and frequent that they would leave her crying in her teacher’s office, and she was forced to miss school weekly.

“I had really bad pain. But it wasn't just when I was on my period; it was all the time now.

“I thought period cramps were normal, but when I was on my period. So if I was getting them all the time, then that wasn’t normal. It was hard to understand.”

While she had been referred to gynaecology services previously, she received no appointment, but she was finally referred again after a second A&E visit.

To help others in a similar situation, Ms Ahmed is now taking part in a research project that aims to improve care for young people living with period pain.

However, the long waiting list, worsened by delays caused by the Covid pandemic, meant it took four years for her to be seen by a specialist.

She is calling for more young people, aged 18 to 24, to join by signing up to Be Part of Research, as part of a national recruitment campaign from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

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Source: The Independent, 11 October 2025

“I think that a lot of young girls shouldn’t have to go through that on their own because, regardless of whether they have supportive parents or teachers, or friends around them, if you don’t know what they are dealing with, there’s not much that you can do.”

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Sharp global rise in antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals, WHO finds

Hospitals across the world have recorded an alarming rise in common infections that are resistant to antibiotics, with doctors saying the number of deaths driven by drug resistance will increase sharply in the years ahead.

One in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections were resistant to antibiotic treatments in 2023, with more than 40% of antibiotics losing potency against common blood, gut, urinary tract and sexually-transmitted infections between 2018 and 2023, records show.

The problem was most severe, and worsening, in low and middle-income countries and those with weaker healthcare systems, according to the World Health Organization’s Global Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance report, which gathered data on more than 23m bacterial infections from 104 countries.

“These findings are deeply concerning,” said Dr Yvan Hutin, the director of the WHO’s department of antimicrobial resistance. “As antibiotic resistance continues to rise, we are running out of treatment options and we are putting lives at risk, especially in countries where infection prevention and control is weak and access to diagnostics and effective medicine is already limited.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 October 2025

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Millions of over-50s have undiagnosed sight and hearing problems, UK study suggests

Millions of people aged 50 or over in the UK have undiagnosed sight or hearing problems, according to research, prompting calls for that age group to have checkups more regularly.

Doctors involved in the research said the findings were “deeply concerning” and warned that those affected were at risk of falls, mental ill-health and of leading socially restricted lives.

One in four people aged 50 and over – 6.7 million people – cannot see clearly out of one or both eyes, according to a pilot stage of the UK national eye health and hearing study.

And three in four older Britons – 20.3 million people – suffer from some form of hearing loss in one or both ears, according to the study, the first of its kind.

The research uncovered “widespread hidden sensory loss”, the sight and hearing experts involved in the study said, with many of those affected unaware of their condition.

Rupert Bourne, a professor of ophthalmology at Anglia Ruskin University and the study’s principal investigator, said: “These figures are deeply concerning. They show that sensory health is being overlooked, even among high-risk groups. We are missing critical opportunities to prevent avoidable sight and hearing loss.”

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Source: The Guardian, 10 October 2025

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National scheme to support families after baby deaths faces axe

An “overwhelmingly valued” pilot support scheme for families who have lost a child before or shortly after birth has been paused to new referrals and is being “brought to a close”, HSJ has learned.

The Maternity and Neonatal Independent Senior Advocate role was proposed as an “immediate and essential action” in the 2022 review of maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust by leading midwife Donna Ockenden.

Pilot schemes were put in place in 16 integrated care board areas in early 2024 to run until March 2026. As of an evaluation in May this year, there had been 20 MNISAs in place who had supported 253 families. The majority of cases were still ongoing at that point.

But NHS England has now said that the pilot phase will be “brought to a close” with learning from it feeding into the Amos independent investigation of maternity and neonatal care.

Baroness Amos is expected to produce an interim report by Christmas and a final report in the spring of next year – although that may slip. Even if that report supports the continuation of the scheme, it is likely there would be a gap before it could be re-established, HSJ understands.

In several parts of the country, the advocates are already no longer taking new referrals. NHSE said those currently supported by an advocate will be given a “personalised care plan”, including a named contact to go to if they have any concerns or need more support.

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Source: HSJ, 13 October 2025

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Health leaders urged to ‘fix situation’ as patients left in hospital corridors for ‘dangerously long periods’

Patients are being left in hospital corridors for “dangerously long periods” health leaders have warned. The long waits mean patients are missing timely access to specialist care.

New data shows fewer than one in five acutely unwell patients are receiving their first assessment in an acute medical unit (AMU), the The Society for Acute Medicine (SAM) said.

AMUs are short stay assessment and admission units for patients who need specialist assessment and/or opinion. Patients are referred to AMUs by emergency department (A&E) doctors, other hospital departments, or directly by a GP.

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Source: The Independent, 10 October 2025

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More than 153,000 people harmed in Canada's hospitals last year, study finds

One in 17 hospitalizations in 2024-2025 — representing more than 153,000 people — resulted in someone experiencing a potentially preventable harm such as a drug error, hospital-acquired infection, a “patient accident” like a fall or radiation burn or some other incident serious enough to require treatment or a prolonged stay, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

In a quarter of those cases, people experienced two or more harmful “events” during their stay. The data are based on 2.6 million hospital stays. 

The overall rate of harm has remained at six per cent for the fifth year in a row, higher than pre-COVID years. 

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Source: National Post, 9 October 2025

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NHS waiting list rises for third month in row

The hospital waiting list in England has risen for the third month in a row with experts warning the government's key NHS priority - tackling the backlog - is at risk.

At the end of August the waiting list for routine treatments hit 7.41 million – in May it was 7.36 million. The proportion waiting longer than the target time of 18 weeks has also risen.

Experts said the government was facing a significant challenge reducing waits, but ministers said its investment in the NHS would pay off. The government has promised that by the end of this parliament it will hit the 18-week waiting time target – something that has not been done for a decade.

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Source: BBC News, 9 October 2025

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Patient Safety Commissioner pushes government on valproate redress almost two years after report

In a statement made to The Pharmaceutical Journal, Henrietta Hughes has urged the government to provide a full response to recommendations made in her February 2024 report.

The Hughes Report, published in February 2024, called on the government to set up a two-stage redress scheme, including a possible £100,000 for each patient harmed as a result of valproate use, followed by a main scheme payout, based on the individual needs of each patient.

Hughes’ exclusive statement to The Pharmaceutical Journal follows a letter written by campaigners from the Independent Fetal Anti-Convulsant Trust and Fetal Anti-Convulsant Syndrome Association to the government calling for compensation and clarity.

The letter, addressed to Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, and Rachel Reeves, chancellor of the exchequer was written by Janet Williams and Emma Murphy, both of whom are mothers of children with foetal valproate syndrome.

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Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal, 9 October 2025

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GPs face unsafe workload and fear neighbourhoods will make it worse, RCGP warns

A total of 73% of GPs say patient safety is compromised by the workload pressure they face, the survey of more than 2,300 GPs found.

Around three in five GPs (58%) reported a lack of time to adequately assess and treat patients during consultations and 57% said they did not have enough time to build relationships with patients that are key to high-quality care, according to findings published ahead of the 2025 RCGP annual conference, in Newport, Wales.

The polling also exposes deep concern over the impact of NHS neighbourhoods, with 68% of respondents voicing fears that there are not enough GPs to deliver the model proposed in the government's 10-year health plan and that it will deepen the workload crisis in general practice.

In her final speech as college chair, Professor Kamila Hawthorne told the conference that she has met GPs across the country who are 'pushing themselves, day after day, to look after their patients in the face of ever-growing demand and an unsustainable lack of capacity'.

She said: 'In our recent survey, 73% of members told us that patient safety is being compromised by workload pressures. Fewer than 30% said they had enough time during consultations to provide high quality patient care. And more than half reported that their own mental health had declined in the last year. It’s hard to find a GP who doesn’t feel they have to cut corners.'

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Source: GP Online, 9 October 2025

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Dangerous 'gray-market' weight-loss drugs flooding US as experts warn of risks

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."

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Source: Fox News, 7 October 2025

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Death toll from toxic cough syrup in India rises to 20 children as WHO demands answers

The World Health Organization (WHO) has asked India for urgent reassurances after at least 20 children died from contaminated cough syrup.

The deaths have all taken place in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, and were confirmed by the deputy chief minister Rajendra Shukla on Tuesday after he visited a hospital treating the children. “Two of them died in the past 24 hours,” he said.

This is only the latest incident of child deaths from Indian cough syrup. Toxins found in Indian-made syrups have killed at least 141 children in Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon since 2022, and another 12 children in an incident in India in 2019, damaging the country’s image as one of the world’s biggest producers of pharmaceuticals.

The latest victims had reportedly been suffering from fever and cold before taking a cough syrup called Coldrif, after which they experienced vomiting and difficulty urinating. The first death was reported on 2 September.

The syrup was produced by Sresan Pharmaceuticals, based in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu, in southern India.

Authorities have since banned the formulation in eight Indian states and territories – Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry.

The WHO told Reuters it was seeking clarification from the Indian government on whether the cough syrup involved in the deaths has been exported to other countries.

The UN’s health agency, which advises against the use of all cold syrups for young children, suggested it could issue a global warning over Coldrif depending on the Indian government’s response.

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Source: The Independent, 8 October 2025

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Children harmed by decision to redeploy health visitors, Covid inquiry hears

A decision by the NHS to redeploy health visitors during the pandemic was "fundamentally flawed" and "children were harmed" as a result, the head of a health visiting charity has told the Covid inquiry.

Many health visitors were sent to work in other parts of the NHS at the beginning of the pandemic.

Alison Morton, CEO of the Institute of Health Visiting, told the inquiry it was "inappropriate" as they "were needed most on their own front line".

NHS England's Chief Nursing Officer Duncan Burton told the inquiry its response to safeguarding did not stop throughout the pandemic despite staff being diverted to critical services.

Health visitors in almost two thirds of trusts in England were redeployed in March 2020, according to research by University College London.

The intention was that they would go to work in hospitals to support acutely ill patients but some were sent to do administration, to deliver parcels and to answer telephones, the inquiry heard.

Some health visitors who remained in post were left with case loads of 750 children or more, way above the recommended 250, evidence provided by Prof Catherine Davies, of Leeds University, to the inquiry showed.

"We let families down", Ms Morton told the inquiry, saying protection was not afforded to babies and that "some children paid the highest price".

The inquiry was shown research by the child safeguarding review practice panel which identified Covid adaptions, such as virtual visits as opposed to home visits by health visitors, as factors in the deaths and serious incidents of some children.

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Source: BBC News, 8 October 2025

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Trump pressure to hike UK drug prices could cost NHS billions, experts warn

Pressure from Donald Trump to hike UK drug prices could wipe billions from the NHS budget, causing suffering to the “vast majority of NHS patients”, experts have warned.

Health think tank, the Nuffield Trust, urged the government not to give in to the demands of pharmaceutical companies to raise prices, warning that the threshold for spending on new drugs is already too high.

It says a new deal will only trigger further increased price demands and make healthcare in the UK more expensive.

The warning comes as Sir Keir Starmer looks set to bow to President Trump’s demands to pay pharmaceutical companies more money, including increasing the threshold the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) sets for spending on new drugs by 25%.

The move is believed to be an attempt by the government to avoid a wave of new US tariffs over what President Trump believes to be anti-competitive practices by the UK.

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Source: The Independent, 8 October 2025

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Researchers warn doctors could be ‘overtesting’ for prostate cancer

Doctors are “overtesting” men for prostate cancer and not targeting “those most likely to benefit,” researchers have warned.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK, affecting 55,300 men a year, but prostate-specific antigen testing (PSA) is only routinely recommended for men with certain symptoms.

This type of testing remains controversial because it has led to an increased number of healthy men being diagnosed and treated unnecessarily for harmless tumours, which can lead to erectile dysfunction or incontinence, according to Prostate Cancer UK.

Researchers at the University of Oxford, in a study of more than 10 million men in England, aimed to find out how PSA tests are used.

The study, published by the BMJ, highlights that there is a lack of consistent guidance and many patients are tested more frequently than recommended, even patients without recorded symptoms.

The major concern raised in this study “is that unregulated PSA testing will result in large costs and harms and increase the incidence of prostate cancer likely to remain undetected, while doing little to identify prostate cancer most likely to cause symptoms and death”.

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Source: The Independent, 8 October 2025

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Top 10 trust served warning notice as quality ‘declines significantly’

A trust ranked in the top 10 of the government’s new provider league table for the mental health and community sector has been served with a warning notice after a Care Quality Commission inspection found multiple breaches of regulations. 

Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust has been told to make urgent improvements, after the CQC rated safety in one of its key services as “inadequate”.

The trust sits within segment one of the four-tier league table and is ranked ninth out of the service’s 61 mental health and community trusts. It achieved the third-highest score for a dedicated mental health trust.

K&M was given an “above average” score for patient safety, one of the five domains that make up the overall league table ranking. This rating was given despite one of the two indicators used to calculate the domain rating – the proportion of staff “raising concerns” – placing the trust 52nd out of 61 mental health and community trusts.

K&M was ranked as “high performing” in the “effectiveness and experience of care” domain.

The CQC inspection of the trust’s community mental health services for working age adults raised concerns over the lack of up-to-date risk assessments, long waiting times and insufficient staffing levels.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 9 October 2025

 
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