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A&E queues mean Wales' ambulances 'can't take 999 calls'

A new BBC report has found ambulance crews are unable to respond to calls quickly due to the pressure on hospitals to find free beds. Some paramedics are even spending most of their 12 hour shift waiting in the back of their ambulance, waiting to be called. 

"We know there are people in the community that are screaming out for an ambulance, but as you can see, a lot of ambulances are waiting here. It never ever used to be like this. We used to bring poorly patients in, and we were out on the road again in 15 minutes. We could do 10 jobs a shift, today we've done two. It's so demoralising" Paramedic Osian Roberts has said. 

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Source: BBC News, 11 August 2021

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A&E pressure causes 'critical incident' in Nottingham

A hospital trust has declared a "critical incident" because of the "exceptional" pressure on A&E.

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) runs the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) and City Hospital and has been on OPEL 4 – previously known as black alert – since Monday morning. On Wednesday it raised the level further.

Some routine operations have been cancelled as the trust prioritises those who need emergency care. Health bosses do not want to operate on patients who cannot be guaranteed a bed in which to recover.

Lisa Kelly, NUH Chief Operating Officer, said: "This is following a number of days seeing exceptional pressure across the system, with high numbers of very poorly patients arriving at our emergency department."

The trust has been on OPEL 4 at least once this year but this is the first time in 2019 the pressure in the emergency department has been escalated to a critical incident.

Ms Kelly added: "This is not unique to Nottingham, and hospitals across the country are also experiencing similar pressures."

In the East Midlands, University Hospitals of Leicester and Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust were both on OPEL 4 – which means patient safety could be compromised – earlier this week. They have since been scaled down to OPEL 3.

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Source: BBC News, 6 November 2019

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A&E performance recovery lauded by NHSE ‘may not be real’

The “substantial improvements” in a trust’s A&E performance praised by NHS England directors “may not be real” according to a paper prepared by its local health and care partnership.

In a report submitted to the NHSE board meeting last month,  national director of UEC and operations Sarah-Jane Marsh and financial reset and accountability director Glen Burley claimed: “Local clinical and operational teams across the NHS have demonstrated how significant improvements and leaps in performance can be achieved.”

They added: “The Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust have delivered substantial improvements in urgent and emergency care services for patients, and achieved a 23% improvement in 4-hour performance in December 2025, compared to the same month the previous year.”

The latest version of the NHSE provider league table ranks PAHT 13th out of 123 relevant providers for its quarter three performance on the A&E standard. It was placed 55th in Q2 and 94th in Q1. 

However, a performance analysis by the East and North Hertfordshire Health and Care Partnership submitted to the March board meeting of the neighbouring East and North Hertfordshire Teaching Trust questions the basis of the improvement in PAHT’s record.

It states: “There was a significant improvement in the ranking of PAH between July and September. This was primarily due to a recording change in relation to [same day emergency care] patients…However, there are some inconsistencies between the PAH ECDS data and its A&E sitrep data, which means that this improvement in A&E performance may not be real.

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Source: HSJ, 23 March 2026

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A&E patients waiting more than two days for a bed, warns leaked letter

A clinical director and several senior managers have written to a trust CEO warning that patients are routinely waiting more than 60 hours to be admitted to a ward from accident and emergency, leaving staff “crying with frustration and anger”.

In a letter to executives at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, seen by HSJ, the managers say they lack support from the rest of the trust, and claim the emergency department at Royal Preston Hospital has a “never-ending elasticity in the eyes of others”.

The letter, dated 30 March, is signed by clinical director Graham Ellis, two unit managers, the specialty business manager, and the matron.

It says: “Whilst we have documented our concerns previously the current situation is worse than it has ever been…Our situation is increasingly precarious…

“For the past few months we have on a regular basis had more than 50 patients waiting for a bed and that wait being in excess of 60 hours.

“This means that at most times there is limited or no space to accommodate newly acutely ill patients causing ambulance handover delays of over four hours and delay in treatment.”

Clinicians at Preston have been raising safety concerns about the ED for several years, but the letter is the first time concerns of senior managers have been made public.

The letter references research which suggests patients die as a “direct result from long waits in ED”, and says there has been an increase in clinical incidents, pressure sores, detrimental outcomes, and occasions where patients “die without the dignity of privacy”.

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Source: HSJ, 4 April 2022

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A&E patients left in the dark and on broken beds for 24 hours – NHS corridor care laid bare in damning new report

A person died while waiting on a trolley in a hospital corridor, while diabetic patients were left for hours without food, a damning review into NHS corridor care has revealed.

Other sick patients were left on broken beds in pitch-black corridors for 24 hours with no privacy, according to a review of patient care in emergency departments in December by the group Healthwatch England.

They made up just some of the more than 2.3 million A&E visits, with about 400,000 people admitted to hospital, in December, when 19,000 resident doctors went on strike for five days, putting hospitals under even greater pressure than usual.

One in four people (137,763) in December waited for more than four hours between admission and staff finding them a bed, while one in 10 (50,775) waited more than 12 hours. That’s almost 50,000 more patients than the NHS target for a maximum of 22% of people waiting over four hours.

Among those who said they had waited – on chairs, trolleys, or even the floor in non-clinical areas when no beds were available – was a patient from Essex with a chronic lung condition. They said they had a 24-hour wait in A&E for a bed on a ward, but were given a “broken bed in a pitch-black corridor”.

Another patient, in a wheelchair with osteoporosis, said they had “no buzzer” and discharged themselves at 5am following the “traumatising” experience.

An elderly patient, from Havering, told Healthwatch that the person next to them died while they were waiting for 40 hours on a trolley in a corridor, adding that they had “no dignity” and found it “very scary”.

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Source: The Independent, 11 February 2026

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A&E patients being discharged before they are admitted, warns senior medic

A growing number of patients deemed to require a hospital admission are waiting so long in A&E that they end up being discharged before being admitted to a ward, HSJ has been told.

A senior emergency clinician, who has delivered improvement support to multiple emergency departments across the NHS, said such cases have become a regular occurrence – describing it as a “terrible experience” for some patients.

The clinician, who asked not to be named, said: “I suspect every ED in the country are having patients who are spending 24 to 48 hours in ED under the care of a specialist, that in a better time they would have gone onto a ward. That’s happening every day in every department.

“If you have been seen by the ED crew and referred to the medics who say ‘you need to be admitted to hospital’, the chances are that they are sick enough that they really do need that bed.

“It’s a terrible experience [for the patients]. EDs are busy, noisy and crowded. This is not the place where, if you were feeling ill, to get better in a calm, relaxing area. This idea that somehow it’s OK because these people are not that sick, it’s pretty poor.

“It feels very much like battlefield medicine – slap a patch on and try and get them back into battle as quickly as possible. It shouldn’t be the way with civilian healthcare.”

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Source: HSJ, 23 January 2023

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A&E overcrowding in UK ‘killing thousands a year’, say doctors

Thousands of patients a year are dying because of overcrowding in A&E units in Britain, and more fatalities will follow this winter, emergency care doctors claim.

An estimated 4,519 people in England died in 2020-21 as a direct result of people receiving less than ideal care while delayed in A&E waiting to start treatment in the hospital.

“To say this figure is shocking is an understatement. Quite simply, crowding kills,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, a vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM).

There have also been 709 deaths in Wales and 303 in Scotland so far this year for the same reason, according to a report by the college. Another 566 excess deaths caused by overcrowding occurred in Northern Ireland in 2020-21. The 4,519 in England “may be an underestimate”, it adds.

The four figures taken together mean the college has identified at least 6,097 deaths across the four home nations that it believes occurred because overcrowding hampered the person’s treatment.

“There’s a lot of human misery behind these figures. It’s uncomfortable and unbearable that people are being put through this. It’s impossible not to feel upset and angry about this,” Boyle said.

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Source: The Guardian, 18 November 2021

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A&E nurse: Most challenging I've seen in 30 years

There are 10 patients in the corridor and the nurses are about to go out to assess two more waiting in an ambulance outside.

The senior sister, Susan Beswick, who has worked in the hectic and often stressful world of NHS accident and emergency for 30 years, says she has never seen anything like it.

"The last six to 12 months have been more challenging than I have ever known," she says.

"We have been exceptionally busy for quite a number of weeks now. We're running two to three times above our capacity continually and often more than that."

Susan's whole nursing career has been at Royal Bolton Hospital, which, like many in the country, is facing overwhelming demand from a growing as well as ageing population and has out-of-date buildings that are not fit for purpose.

A policy of cohorting, adopted by many hospitals, has been agreed between emergency-department staff and paramedics. One member of an ambulance team will be left to look after two or three patients in a corridor, allowing others to get back on the road more quickly.

The problem is space. There are simply too many patients coming in to be accommodated, even with all the streaming initiatives.

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Source: BBC News, 13 January 2023

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A&E in England has busiest summer ever with 4.6m visits in two months

The NHS in England has had its busiest summer ever in A&E with 4.6m attendances over the past two months, while 1.5m hospital appointments were rescheduled because of the junior doctors’ strikes, according to the latest figures.

The three busiest months for A&E staff in history have been in 2024, with 77,945 attendances a day in May, 76,469 in June and 74,459 in March.

The surge in demand came at a time when the NHS was hampered by industrial action. Junior doctors were on strike between 27 June and 2 July, which led to 61,989 acute appointments needing to be rescheduled. As a result, nearly 1.5m appointments have been affected since the start of the dispute.

Meanwhile, the overall hospital waiting list for elective care, which refers to non-urgent services such as hospital scans and diagnostics, rose again in June to 7.62m – an increase of 19,100 compared with the previous month.

Prof Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director, said: “A&E staff are under significant pressure and the NHS is in the middle of what could be its busiest summer ever, with a total of 4.6m attendances in the last two months alone and 2024 now having seen the three busiest months for A&E on record.

“While we have seen improvements in the number of patients seen and treated within four hours in A&E, slightly faster ambulance response times and more than three-quarters of cancer patients receiving an all-clear or diagnosis in four weeks, it is clear that waits for patients across a range of services remain unacceptable and there is much more to do to deliver more timely care for those who need it."

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Source: The Guardian, 8 August 2024

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A&E handover delays ‘still getting worse at some hospitals’

Ambulance chiefs say handover delays have got worse at some trusts in recent months, despite the picture improving nationally since last winter.

A report from the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives says there are continuing concerns about handover delays at emergency departments.

Jason Killens, the body’s lead chief executive for operations, told HSJ: “There’s been some improvement [at some sites] since February, but what we’ve also seen is a commensurate or bigger decay in other sites across that same period.”

Mr Killens said “it’s difficult to be precise” about why some trusts have struggled more than others but that challenged hospitals are often affected by “pathway issues” including delayed discharges.

“And then maybe there are challenges around stable leadership or the visibility of the leadership, the culture there about managing that risk dynamically, and so on,” he added.

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Source: HSJ, 14 September 2023

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A&E bookings via 111 fall ‘far short of aspiration’

NHS England’s plan to make the 111 service a ‘primary route’ into emergency departments has fallen ‘far short of aspiration’, with only a small fraction of attendances being booked through it.

NHSE began recording the numbers of ED appointments booked via 111 in August 2020, as it aimed to reduce unnecessary attendances and demand on emergency services, via the programme known as “111 First”.

Planning guidance for 2021-22 told local systems to “promote the use of NHS 111 as a primary route into all urgent care services”. It added that at least 70% of patients referred to ED by 111 services should receive a booked time slot to attend. 

Pilots experimented with making it harder for people who had not called 111 to attend A&E, although proposals to direct those people away were rejected.

Data published by NHSE shows the number of ED attendances that were booked through 111, but not those referred to ED without a booking.

Jacob Lant, head of policy and research at Healthwatch England, said: “Sadly, it’s clear from these figures that implementation across the country is lagging behind where we would have hoped.

“Obviously this has to be seen in the context of the massive pressures on A&E departments at the moment as a result of the pandemic, but there is also a need for the NHS to really step up efforts to tell people about this new way of accessing care.”

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Source: 25 February 2022

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A&E appointments should be introduced in response to coronavirus, says Royal College head

Appointments to be seen in A&E could be introduced permanently in response to coronavirus, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has said. 

Dr Katherine Henderson said it would cause "enormous harm" to patients if Britain returned to crowded casualty units with "elastic walls".

Instead, she said patients should be given a "contact point" such as the NHS 111 line to book a slot in an emergency department, or to be seen directly by a specialist or diverted to the care they need. 

"The old way of doing things involved emergency departments having elastic walls," Dr Henderson told MPs. "We were able to have an infinite number of patients. We were never able to say: 'We're full, we're at capacity.' We now need to recognise that we can't do that."

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Source: The Telegraph, 16 June 2020

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A women left in ‘hell’ for nine years after poor postnatal care

It has been nine years living “like a prisoner” in “excruciating” pain and Kate is still facing a wait for surgery to tackle the horrifying mistakes in her postnatal care.

Despite a difficult birth at Leeds General Hospital, Kate described the atmosphere at the trust’s labour ward as “lovely”.

However, her experience quickly deteriorated into “hell” after she was told she had third-degree tears and was admitted to a postnatal ward, describing the care she received as “awful”.

A few days following her discharge, which occurred before she’d had a bowel movement, Kate said she was left “screaming in pain” at home, “bleeding a lot from the back passage” and “incontinent”.

Despite reporting these symptoms to the maternity department, Kate was told it was a “normal” experience.

“I felt like nobody was listening to me,” Kate said.

After six months, living in “intense pain”, with “flooding diarrhoea” and not able to leave the house, she was told by the NHS her symptoms were down to postnatal depression.

She was referred to a colorectal surgeon, who found her anal sphincter was “fully open almost as if it wasn’t ever stitched”.

Following an operation in 2015 to fix the issue, Kate developed sepsis, nearly losing her life and meaning it took 18 weeks for her wound to heal.

However, her ordeal did not stop there. She had developed nerve damage, chronic pelvic pain, incontinence, coxalgia and a prolapse as a result of her problems being neglected for so long.

By 2022, nine years later, she is now waiting for a colostomy bag operation – the only option to address her pain.

Kate told The Independent: “Everywhere I go I have to plan the full day. I need to know where the toilets are. I don’t go out of the house. I’ve felt like a prisoner in my own home for nine years.

“It makes me so emotional thinking about everything they have put me through. It hasn’t just affected my life, it’s also affected my partner and family. I have lost so much time that I’ll never get back. I couldn’t enjoy life and do the things that all mothers do with their babies.

“There was no care, no sympathy, nothing. Nobody cared for me apart from my surgeon at Sheffield. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to feel normal. I can’t remember life without pain."

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Source: The Independent, 13 March 2022

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A woman dies every two minutes due to failures in maternal care, shocking new figures reveal

A woman dies every two minutes due to failures in maternal healthcare, according to shocking global data that has prompted stark warnings about the impact of cuts to aid funding by the US and the UK.

A new report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed that there were 260,000 maternal deaths in 2023, equating to 712 women a day or 30 per hour – with the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa.

The WHO has warned that the global target for all UN member states to reduce maternal deaths – down to 71 per 100,000 by 2030 – will be missed by more than twice this amount as “the pace of progress has slowed to a near standstill”.

Leading health organisations including the WHO have warned that recent sweeping cuts to international aid by the US government, which amount to more than £595m ($770m) for maternal health and family planning, will risk “a shift backwards” in the progress made on cutting maternal deaths – defined as any death related to or aggravated by pregnancy, or within six weeks of the end of a pregnancy.

Speaking at a press conference, Dr Bruce Aylward, assistant director general of universal health coverage for the WHO, said: “The funding cuts risk not only that progress, but we could have a shift backwards.” He said that cuts were already “affecting access to lifesaving supplies and medicines, and especially treatments for some of the leading causes of maternal death”.

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Source: The Independent, 10 April 2025

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A WHO official weighs in on Covid, vaccines, and mistakes that were made

The Covid-19 pandemic has entered its third year, with no end in sight, and the world is fed up to the gills. A new and even more highly transmissible variant, Omicron, has been scorching through holiday gatherings over the past couple of weeks. People who are thrice vaccinated are among the infected.

STAT asks Mike Ryan, head of the health emergencies programme at the World Health Organization, if he expected the pandemic to last as long as it has, who should make the call on whether to update Covid vaccines, and what he thinks are the main mistakes the world has made.

“What’s shocked me most in this pandemic has been that absence or loss of trust,” he said of people’s unwillingness to follow the advice of public health leaders and the containment policies set out by governments," says Ryan.

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Source: STAT, 3 January 2022

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A warning from Wales for Wes Streeting

As the English government sets about reorganising the NHS, Robert Royce discusses the lessons it can learn from devolved healthcare in Wales 

Since 2009, NHS Wales has operated without a purchaser-provider split, the internal market or payment by results (PbR). In its stead, seven integrated health boards were created, funded by block allocations. NHS Wales was explicitly to be a plan-led health system based on “co-operation, collaboration and partnership working”.

The Welsh Government also believed that the creation of health boards would facilitate a shift in the balance of care. That has not transpired, as can be illustrated by the proportion of total spend going to primary care.

In 2013-14, health boards were spending about 25% of their total budget on primary care. In 2022-23 (last nationally available figure) it was down to around 19 per cent. The January 2025 Hywel Dda University Health Board meeting stated that between 2015-16 and 2024-25 its proportion of total expenditure on primary care had dropped by 6 per cent. The picture across the rest of Wales is probably the same, because in Wales overall the number of qualified GPs is essentially unchanged between 2021 and 2024, whilst hospital consultant whole time equivalents had gone up by 13.1%.

This has taken place despite an organisational structure and funding system supposedly designed to do the opposite. The same can be said for achieving financial balance. There was an expectation that health boards would provide (and then deliver) plans that would ensure they would operate within their allocations – something that has failed to transpire.

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Source: HSJ, 16 April 2025

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A walk-in fishermen's clinic saved Tom from sepsis - and could transform the NHS

Tom Parker was working alone three miles (4.8km) off the Devon coast when his fishing boat hit a wave and lurched to one side.

He didn't know it at the time, but Tom, 37, had broken his fibula and badly damaged his ankle ligaments. He somehow hauled in his fishing gear and made it to hospital to get patched up, but months after the accident his wound just wouldn't heal properly.

It was only after he turned up at an innovative clinic on the quayside in Brixham that he was put on strong antibiotics and told he needed a second operation.

"Without that service, I would have probably ended up with my leg turning septic and I'm not too sure what would have happened after that," he says.

Under the 10 Year Health Plan, published last month, health officials said the NHS in England needed to undergo a radical shift, away from hospitals to community care, and away from treating sickness to preventing it in the first place.

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Source: BBC News, 8 August 2025

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A toxic staffing row is splitting the NHS

Julia’s first four years as a physician associate were everything she hoped they would be. After working in the NHS for the best part of a decade in a non-patient facing role, she was delighted to be on the wards supporting doctors and the wider healthcare teams.

“I loved the contact I had with patients, assessing them and playing a part in their care. I felt supported and part of a team.”

That all changed about a year ago.

“Suddenly we came under attack. Doctors in the radiology department started refusing to talk to me about scans and others have been saying we don’t deserve to get paid what we do.

“The atmosphere has totally changed. We’ve even stopped going into the canteen as we were being made to feel uncomfortable.”

Julia is far from alone. United Medical Associate Professionals (UMAPs), a body which represents physician (PAs) and anaesthesia associate (AAs), says there are countless examples like this with staff facing bullying and being sidelined.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents senior doctors in the NHS, has warned the whole situation has become so “destructive” that it is damaging teamwork across hospitals and GP surgeries where PAs and AAs work.

Dr Emma Runswick, of the British Medical Association, is worried about patient safety. She says: “We’re seeing PAs doing things, such as ordering scans they are not qualified to order and prescribing drugs that they aren't qualified to prescribe.

"And when they see patients it’s not always clear to the patient that they are not being seen by a doctor. It’s dangerous and has got to stop.”

But UMAPs chief Stephen Nash says: “It’s not about patient safety, but about protecting their interests. They want us to be subservient.”

He says the deaths like those reported are “absolute tragedies”, but he has concerns about how they are being used to attack a whole profession.

“There is meant to be a no-blame approach to learning the lessons from failures.”

He says when mistakes are made there are often multiple factors at play, but the campaign against PAs and AAs has meant their role has been singled out. “It misleads the public," he adds.

In the end it will be up to the independent review, which is being led by Royal Society of Medicine president Prof Gillian Leng, to establish the truth on this.

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Source: BBC News, 23 November 2024

Read our recent interview on the hub: Physician associates: What are the patient safety issues? An interview with Asif Qasim

 

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A third of women hide menopause symptoms at work

A third of women who have suffered symptoms of the menopause say they hid them at work, and many think there remains a stigma around talking about the subject, according to a survey of workers in five countries.

More than 5,000 women in the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and South Africa were interviewed about their experiences of the menopause and work in research for the mobile phone provider Vodafone.

In all of the countries except Italy, about a third said they had hidden symptoms, while in Spain more than half felt a stigma around the subject in the workplace.

South African women seemed most comfortable discussing the subject with colleagues, with 37% saying they thought there was a stigma, while in Italy the proportion who said they had hidden symptoms was lowest at 28%.

The survey found those who experienced symptoms before they were 45 were most likely to say that they were too embarrassed to ask for support in the workplace. Of those in the UK, 63% of adults under the age of 44 said they had shied away from asking for help, while across all ages the figure was 43%. The figures were similar in the four other countries.

In recent years, businesses have begun to introduce policies to help women who are suffering from menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes, anxiety and fatigue. However, there are concerns that many women are still leaving the workforce because they struggle with some of the effects, and feel they are not supported by their employers. 

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Source: The Guardian, 8 March 2021

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A third of stillbirths in Cwm Taf maternity units 'could have been prevented', review finds

A third of stillbirths at two south Wales hospitals could have been prevented with better care or treatment, an investigation has concluded.

It emerged two years ago that more than 60 women suffered the heartbreak of a stillbirth at at the Royal Glamorgan, Llantrisant, and Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil, and that many of these were never reported or investigated.

An independent panel set up by the Welsh Government to oversee improvements in these maternity units has now concluded that many of these babies could have been saved.

It looked at whether the care provided to women and their babies between January 2016 and September 2018 fell below the standards expected. The failures were split into different levels of severity, known in the report as "modifiable factors".

Their investigation looked at 63 stillbirths between January 1, 2016, and September 30, 2018, and discovered that 21 (33%) of them had at least one "major modifiable factor", meaning the stillbirth could potentially have been avoided.

More than half (59%) of the 63 had at least one "minor modifiable factor" while in three-quarters (76%) of them "wider learning" was required. In only four of the 63 stillbirths the panel found no modifiable factors.

The panel also discovered that "areas for learning" were identified in 59 of the 63 episodes of care reviewed.

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Source: Wales Online, 5 October 2021

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A third of NHS staff in two hospital units were infected with coronavirus without showing symptoms, study finds

A new study has highlighted the number of NHS staff who can be infected with coronavirus but be completely unaware they are a risk to their colleagues and patients.

The research by doctors at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) found a third of staff working in two maternity departments at UCLH and St George’s Hospital tested positive for the virus but had no symptoms.

Overall, one in six staff who had not previously been diagnosed with the virus were tested for COVID-19 antibodies and were found to be positive for infection.

Prof Keith Neal, emeritus professor of epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham, who was not involved in the research, said: “Asymptomatic healthcare workers with COVID-19 pose a risk of spreading the virus depending on the personal protective equipment in use. We know many cases were acquired in hospital.

“Regular testing of healthcare workers is clearly warranted.”

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Source: The Independent, 12 August 2020

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A third of new mothers worldwide ‘have lasting health issues after childbirth’

More than 40 million women a year experience lasting health issues after childbirth, a global review has found, prompting calls for greater recognition of common postnatal problems.

The sweeping analysis of maternal health worldwide shows a very high burden of long-term conditions that last for months and even years after giving birth. One in three new mothers worldwide are affected.

The findings emerged from a series published in the Lancet Global Health and eClinicalMedicine, backed by the UN’s Special Programme on Human Reproduction, the World Health Organization and the US Agency for International Development.

Prof Pascale Allotey, the director of sexual and reproductive health and research at the WHO, said: “Many postpartum conditions cause considerable suffering in women’s daily life long after birth, both emotionally and physically, and yet they are largely underappreciated, underrecognised, and underreported.

“Throughout their lives, and beyond motherhood, women need access to a range of services from healthcare providers who listen to their concerns and meet their needs – so they not only survive childbirth but can enjoy good health and quality of life.”

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Source: The Guardian, 6 December 2023

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A third of maternity doctors 'burnt out' and at risk of losing empathy for women in their care

More than a third of maternity doctors are “burnt out,” and at risk of lacking empathy for the women in their care, researchers have warned.

The study of more than 3,000 obstetricians and gynaecologists found high levels of long-term stress and overwork, especially among trainee medics. 

Researchers said the findings – from the largest UK study on the topic – were “very worrying,” with serious implications for patients. 

Overall, 36% of those surveyed met the criteria for “burnout,” which is associated with emotional exhaustion, lack of empathy and connection with others, researchers said. 

Medics who met the criteria for burnout were three times as likely to report anxiety, irritability and anger. They were also four times more likely than colleagues to practice “defensively”- meaning they tried to avoid difficult cases, or else carried out more interventions than necessary, for fear of error. 

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Source: The Telegraph, 26 November 2019

 

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A third of GP practices may take year or longer to return to pre-Covid capacity

A third of GPs believe it will take up to a year or longer for their practice to return to pre-Covid levels of capacity, even with ‘no future spikes’ of the virus.

The data comes from the BMA’s latest COVID-19 tracker survey, which polled almost 2,000 GPs in England and Wales.

GPs have previously warned that they are battling a backlog of referrals and patients who have been ‘overlooked’ during the coronavirus crisis.

Around 26% of the 1,770 GP respondents said consultations would take between three and 12 months to return to normal when asked how quickly their practice will ‘return to full pre-Covid levels of capacity... assuming there are no future Covid spikes’.

And a further 7% of GPs believed it could take ‘longer’ than a year or that consultations would ‘never’ return to pre-Covid levels.

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Source: Pulse, 23 July 2020

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A third of Covid patients put on ventilator report PTSD symptoms

One in three Covid patients put on a ventilator experience extensive symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to research, which adds to mounting evidence of the virus’s impact on mental health.

The study of 13,049 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus, by Imperial College London and the University of Southampton, found that one in five who were admitted to hospital but did not require a ventilator also experienced extensive symptoms of PTSD.

The most common PTSD symptom experienced by COVID-19 patients was intrusive images, sometimes known as flashbacks. Examples of these could be images of the intensive care unit (ICU) environment, ICU doctors wearing full personal protective equipment or other patients in the ICU.

The study, published in the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ BJPsych Open, on Tuesday, found lower levels of extensive symptoms of PTSD for patients given medical help at home (approximately one in six) and patients who required no help at home but experienced breathing problems (one in ten).

Dr Adam Hampshire, from Imperial College London, said: “We can see that the pandemic is likely to be having an acute and lasting impact, including for a significant proportion of patients who remained at home with respiratory problems and received no medical help. This evidence could be important for informing future therapy and reducing the long-term health burden of this disease.”

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Source: The Guardian, 9 February 2021

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