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‘No one ever tried to contact me’: Former police chief’s anger over ‘do not resuscitate’ order for his sister

Across the country there have been reports of “do not resuscitate” (DNR) orders being imposed on patients with no consultation, as is their legal right, or after a few minutes on the phone as part of a blanket process.

Laurence Carr, a former detective chief superintendent for Merseyside Police, is still angry over the actions of doctors at Warrington Hospital who imposed an unlawful “do not resuscitate” order on his sister, Maria, aged 64.

She has mental health problems and lacks the capacity to be consulted or make decisions and has been living in a care home for 20 years. As her main relative, Mr Carr found out about the notice on her records only when she was discharged to a different hospital a week later.

Maria had been admitted for a urinary tract infection at the end of March. Although she has diabetes and an infection on her leg her condition was not life threatening.

Mr Carr said: “My sister has no capacity to effectively be consulted due to her mental illness and would not understand if they did try to explain, so I was furious that I had not been consulted."

He later learnt that the reason given by the hospital for imposing the DNR was "multiple comorbitidies".

In a statement, Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust said it was fully aware of the law, which was reflected in its policies and regular training.

It said: “We did not follow our own policy in this case and have the requisite discussions with the family. The template form which was completed in this case indicates that discussion with the family was ‘awaiting’. Regretfully due to human error this did not occur."

Mr Carr and his sister are not alone. National charity Turning Point said it had learnt of 19 inappropriate DNARs from families, while Learning Disability England said almost one-fifth of its members had reported DNARs placed in people’s medical records without consultation during March and April.

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Source: The Independent, 14 July 2020

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‘No doubt’ there will be further Covid waves in autumn, says UK’s chief statistician

Professor Sir Ian Diamond, head of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has said there will “no doubt” be another wave of coronavirus infections in the autumn.

Speaking on Sunday, Sir Ian acknowledged the impact of the “wonderful” vaccine rollout though cautioned “we need to recognise that this is a virus that isn’t going to go away.”

"And I have no doubt that in the autumn there will be a further wave of infections," he told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.

The UK’s national statistician pointed toward regional variations in terms of how many people have antibodies. “There is a lot of regional variation, so we find 30 per cent of London have antibodies whereas only 16 per cent in the South West, so we need to recognise that as well,” he told the programme.

This comes after Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said he would “strongly advise” against any rapid easing of coronavirus restrictions.

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Source: The Independent, 14 March 2021

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‘No doctor in the country will touch you’: how the NHS is failing FGM survivors

At least 137,000 women in the UK live with the painful and traumatic consequences of cutting, but there is no provision for reconstructive surgery.

In May 2023, Shamsa Araweelo was in the A&E department of a London hospital in excruciating pain. It wasn’t the first time she had sought urgent treatment for the gynaecological damage caused by the female genital mutilation (FGM), or cutting, forced on her as a six-year-old. In fact, this was one of many such visits to emergency departments that Araweelo had made in her desperate attempt to find a surgeon who could help undo the damage done to her as a child and which has caused her so much pain and trauma as an adult.

Araweelo says that in A&E she was told that she had severe nerve damage and that it could be reversed through reconstructive surgery. But not in the UK.

“No doctor in the country will touch you, because you are an FGM survivor,” Araweelo says she was told. “I felt no compassion, no respect. Only in London did they tell me they wished they had the appropriate training to help me, and it breaks my heart. We are not valued in the UK.”

Current NHS rules state that if a health practitioner suspects a patient has been cut, they must report the case to the police and complete a safeguarding risk assessment to determine whether a social care referral is required. Guidance for GPs also recommends referrals for mental health issues related to FGM or referrals to uro-gynaecological specialist clinics.

Araweelo says that in all the years she has sought help she has never been offered any kind of support from medical professionals.

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Source: The Guardian, 21 December 2023

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‘No care left in the system’: patients on use of locum psychiatrists in Scotland

Scotland’s health boards have paid up to £837 an hour for locum psychiatrists to help cope with a deepening staff shortage crisis in mental health services.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists and NHS executives said mental health services in Scotland were now at breaking point because of severe staff shortages, which was damaging patient care and causing experienced consultants to quit.

Vox Scotland surveyed patients after hearing of repeated cases of poor experiences with locums, the agency psychiatrists on whom Scotland’s mental health services increasingly depend.

The complaints about locum psychiatrists have a clear pattern. Patients say they routinely experience inconsistent care or get contradictory advice. Some describe an indifference that borders on box-ticking.

“I had 14 locums [and] they all had different views and opinions on my care,” said one respondent to a survey of 469 patients by the advocacy group Vox Scotland. “The last locum did not bother to call me back. That was four months ago. I’ve had no contact from my mental health team since then.”

For some, the anger is palpable. “There is no care left in people or the system and it’s criminal what they have been allowed to do, especially over these last few years taking everything online,” one respondent said. “Online appointments are not accessible to many neurodivergent people like me. Suicidal? Nothing says care like a five-minute Zoom and a prescription 20 miles away with nobody to collect it.”

Nearly a third said all or most of their care came from locums, of whom half were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the overall quality of care. A fifth of those polled said they did not know whether they were seen by locums or NHS psychiatrists.

“Every new locum has new ideas, medication changes, but are never here long enough to see the medication work or not. Then the cycle begins with the new one,” another said.

“Each time you see someone different you have to pour your heart and soul out,” said another. “There is no rapport or relationship with locum psychiatrists for vulnerable people – it is impossible to do from receiving notes from the last person.”

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Source: The Guardian, 7 October 2024

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‘No capacity anywhere’ to deal with unprecedented surge in children’s mental health demand

There is ‘no capacity anywhere’ to deal with an unprecedented surge in admissions of children with mental health problems, a senior clinician has told HSJ.

Last week, multiple children with eating disorders were understood to have been left on children’s wards in general acute hospitals, due to specialist mental health units across England being full.

This appears to be a deterioration from the situation last month, when several areas of the country were reporting an extreme shortage of specialist beds.

Rory Conn, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ children and adolescent mental health division, told HSJ that specialist inpatient beds were full nationally.

He added: “We are seeing a greater number of children restricting [their food and drink] intake for a variety of reasons, often to extreme degrees.

“Some are stopping eating and drinking entirely, in a clinical pattern that we haven’t traditionally seen. For example, they might not have an identified eating disorder like anorexia, but their restriction seems to be a response to their uncertain social environment during the pandemic.

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Source: HSJ, 23 March 2021

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‘Nightmare’ fuel shortages hit care of vulnerable patients

Community and mental health service providers have warned the ongoing fuel crisis and other traffic disruption is starting to impact the care of vulnerable patients.

Warnings about a HGV drivers shortage have prompted the panic-buying of fuel, with many petrol stations running out or heavily congested.

Julia Winkless, a senior social worker and approved mental health professional in Suffolk, told HSJ clinical visits had to be cancelled as people were unable to get to work. 

Ms Winkless said: “We work over a very rural area, none of these petrol stations where [staff] live have got any fuel and we don’t know when there is going to be deliveries. Today, there were four mental capacity assessments cancelled.”

There is also disruption to patient transport. A senior source at a West Midlands patient transport provider which often conveys people to mental health services told HSJ: “It’s been a bit of a nightmare in all honesty. We turned down a request this morning for a patient going to London because of the fuel and because of the [climate protesters disrupting motorways]… ultimately those patients are either at home and distressed carrying a big risk in the community or [accident and emergency] departments which [are not] the right settings.”

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Source: HSJ, 28 September 2021

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‘NHS mental health services failed my inspiring daughter – I don’t want other patients to suffer the same fate’

A mother whose daughter was found to have been neglected by a hospital before taking her own life has blamed the “failures of the system” for her daughter’s death and has demanded improved care for future patients.

Court documents show Iona Imogen Lee’s suicide is one of at least five deaths that failures at Derbyshire’s mental health units caused or contributed to in the past decade. The health and social care regulator is currently reviewing information over three deaths at the units.

Morag Lee opened up about her “inspiring, friendly, loved” daughter Iona’s heartbreaking final hours on the Hartington Unit at the Chesterfield Royal Hospital in Chesterfield, before the 24-year-old was transferred to the ICU where she died on 18 September 2023.

The 57-year-old mother, from Derby, spoke to The Independent after a coroner ruled in January that her child had died by “suicide contributed to by neglect” on the ward where she had been detained under the Mental Health Act on 15 September 2023.

It was found at the inquest into Iona’s death in January that “there were a series of errors in the planning, management and implementation of Iona's observations after admission” and that “instruction, information and supervision were all inadequate, as was the primary induction”.

The jury concluded that Iona’s observation level should have been raised to being kept within staff’s eyesight, but due to staff shortages on the ward, she was only being checked intermittently. Even then, this should have been at least every 15 minutes, but the 24-year-old was not found until 43 minutes after she was last seen.

MS Lee raised “serious concerns” about the management of the Hartington Unit and believes blame also lies with this and previous governments in their role overseeing a crippled NHS.

Inquests over the last 10 years identified failures by the Hartington and Radbourne Units that caused or contributed to at least five deaths, including over incorrect decisions around patients being granted leave or discharged from the wards, wrongful prescription of medications, and inadequate risk assessment. In a report, coroner issued a warning to the Trust asking for policy change for fear of risking future deaths.

Calling for change for future patients, Ms Lee said: “In the past year, the hospital have changed their policies, but guidance was in place two years ago that wasn’t followed and led to my daughter’s death – so how do we know that what’s in place now will continue being implemented? What reassurances does the public have?”

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Source: The Independent, 13 April 2025

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‘NHS left my daughter alone in A&E for seven hours having seizures’

Asenior midwife has said she is “disgusted” at the NHS care her daughter received and that she was forced to step in and tend to other patients herself during recent visits to an A&E department.

Donna Ockenden, who has led government-commissioned reviews into patient safety, said Phoebe, her 20-year-old daughter who has epilepsy, was “failed” by A&E staff at one department.

She said her daughter, who has learning disabilities, was left in a waiting room by staff for seven hours while still having seizures after she was transferred to hospital in an ambulance.

She said: “It was Phoebe’s third attendance in A&E in the last weeks. During the first two [visits] I was with her and I was her advocate. It was still pretty rubbish … but for the third I was in Dubai on holiday and woke up to messages about Phoebe being in A&E.

“Despite her learning disabilities and being known to the service she was dropped off in the waiting room on her own. She is 20 but she is really vulnerable, and was left in a chair for seven hours, still having some seizures.

“Initially she was left in the waiting area on her own. It’s just unspeakable, it’s absolutely disgusting and disgraceful.”

Ockenden, who led inquiries into NHS maternity scandals at Shrewsbury and Nottingham hospital trusts, said her daughter was only “just about kept safe” during her first two A&E visits because she was with her.

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Source: The Times, 31 October 2024

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‘NHS is letting sickle cell patients down’ say parents of 22-year-old who died after hospital failings

Life will never be the same for Leila and Errol after the death of their 22-year-old son Darnell, who lived with disabilities including sickle cell disease.

Darnell Smith died on 23 November 2022 after medics took his vital signs just once in 12 hours instead of the prescribed hourly checks.

Earlier this year, a coroner called on health bosses at Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield to take action to prevent future deaths.

Darnell, from Sheffield, received regular treatment for cerebral palsy and sickle cell disease, which is an inherited, long-term and potentially life-threatening condition, most common among Black people. It affects about 15,000 in England.

As the UK observes Sickle Cell Awareness month in September, Leila and Errol say they do not feel the inquest’s ruling went far enough.

“What we would like is more accountability from the NHS and the members of staff who were working that day,” Errol said.

They say his case reflects the failures of care experienced by patients with sickle cell.

“I feel like there’s still a lot of injustice still being done, not just because of what happened to Darnell but also to other sickle cell patients within hospital settings all over England. It’s not just in Sheffield,” Leila said.

“There’s a lot of systematic racism, a lot of discrimination, whether it’s blatant, it’s there. We felt it, we saw it and I said that in the inquest.”

A 2021 all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on sickle cell and thalassaemia inquiry into sickle cell care found “serious care failings” in acute services and evidence of attitudes underpinned by racism.

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Source: The Independent, 28 September 2024

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‘NHS factors’ lead to more than a third of delayed discharges

More than a third of delayed discharges for long-stay patients are being caused by factors generally associated with the NHS, according to new data obtained by HSJ.

Delayed discharges from hospital are often blamed on issues around social care, but figures for the nine months to January, for patients who have been in hospital for at least 21 days, suggest a significant proportion are due to NHS-related delays.

The most common reason is waiting for rehabilitation beds in a community hospital or similar facility, which accounts for 23% of total delayed discharges, based on daily averages.

Other reasons generally associated with NHS-related issues included delays around medical decisions (4%), therapist decisions (4 per cent), transfers to another acute site (2%), and diagnostic tests (1%).

On top of this, a further 12% of the causes were at least partly associated with the NHS, such as delays relating to transfer of care hubs, which are generally jointly run with councils.

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Source: HSJ, 9 February 2023

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‘NHS doctors ignored my pleas for help after giving birth. Now I’m living with a colostomy bag’

When Rachel Cooper arrived at hospital to give birth to her son in April 2018, she had no idea she would be leaving days later with a life-changing injury.

But Ms Cooper, now 43, is one of the dozens of mothers and families who say they were harmed by poor maternity care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the largest trusts in the country.

The now 43-year-old was discharged from the hospital after her vaginal labour with an untreated third-degree tear that was missed by medics.

It eventually became infected and, despite doctors claiming her symptoms were “normal”, Ms Cooper was forced to undergo surgery when her baby was just eight days old. Eight years on, she is still living with the repercussions.

She told The Independent: “The dangerous medical practices and poor treatment by staff characterised every stage of my birth journey and has had a permanent effect on my mental health. I’m not the mother to my baby that I could have been.”

Ms Cooper told her story as the government announced on Tuesday that Donna Ockenden, who chaired the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital maternity inquiry and is currently chairing the Nottingham University Hospitals maternity inquiry, will now also chair the probe into the Leeds trust.

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Source: The Independent, 11 March 2026

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‘NHS bosses use dirty tricks to force out whistleblowing doctors’

Hundreds of senior doctors have been driven out of their jobs in the NHS after raising concerns about patient safety, a campaign group has claimed.

The senior consultants say managers of NHS trusts employ a playbook of “dirty tricks” to sack whistleblowers or force them to move trusts or take early retirement. Justice for Doctors (JFD), which represents 140 whistleblowing doctors, claims some have been forced to sell their homes to pay legal fees, had their careers destroyed and had been pushed to the brink of suicide.

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Source: The Times, 16 May 2024

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‘New nurses must not accept the current state of nursing as normal’

A year ago Jessica Vaughan stepped into the emergency department (ED) as a newly qualified nurse, with a first class degree and a Nursing Times ‘student nurse of the year’ award under her belt. She was brimming with enthusiasm, but now feels depleted and disillusioned

"As a previous student editor for the Nursing Times, I said I would write an article on my experiences. But words failed me. After my previous articles declaring hope, resilience, and the beauty of nursing, writing a litany of complaints felt shameful.

"But the truth is, I am not achieving what I set out to. Maybe I was simply too idealistic and naive. But there is something fundamentally wrong if eager new nurses are burning out so quickly.

"I do not know the answer but I do urge those of us on the frontline to keep using our voices to tell the truth about what is happening. We owe it to our patients but also ourselves."

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Source: Nursing Times, 25 February 2025

Further reading on the hub:

The crisis of corridor care in the NHS: patient safety concerns and incident reporting 

Patient Safety Learning's response to RCN report: on the frontline of the UK’s corridor care crisis

How corridor care in the NHS is affecting safety culture: A blog by Claire Cox

A nurse's response to the NHSE guidance on their principles for providing safe and good quality care in temporary escalation spaces

A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift

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‘Neighbourhood’ pioneers revealed

The first wave of 43 areas chosen to take part in the national neighbourhood health implementation programme can be revealed.

The places, which were selected from 141 applications, represent the first cohort of the programme, which invited bids in July.

Successful sites were told in a letter from the national programme leads: “We had an overwhelming response to the programme and received 141 applications (approximately 83 per cent of the number of places in England).

“It has been encouraging to see so many good examples of neighbourhood working across the country and commitment to go further, backed by senior leaders across health, care, the voluntary and community sector and their wider partners.”

The focus of the programme will initially be on improving services for management of people with multiple conditions and complex needs. 

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Source: HSJ, 9 September 2025

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‘National tragedy’: figures show large rise in people dying while on NHS waiting list

More than 120,000 people in England died last year while on the NHS waiting list for hospital treatment, figures obtained by Labour appear to show.

That would be a record high number of such deaths, and is double the 60,000 patients who died in 2017/18.

For example, the Royal Free hospital in London said it had had 3,615 such deaths, while there were 2,888 at the Morecambe Bay trust in Cumbria and 2,039 at Leeds teaching hospitals trust.

Hospital bosses said the deaths highlighted the dangers of patients having to endure long waits for care and reflected a “decade of underinvestment” that had left the NHS with too few staff and beds.

Healthwatch England, a patient advocacy group that scrutinises NHS performance, said the number of people dying while waiting for care was “a national tragedy”.

Louise Ansari, the chief executive, said: “We know that delays to care have significant impacts on people’s lives, putting many in danger.”

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Source: The Guardian, 31 August 2023

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‘National scandal’ declared after 2,800 children sent to A&E over severe tooth decay last year

Almost three thousand children had tooth decay so severe they attended A&E last year, new data reveals.

MPs have called for an end to the “national scandal” facing NHS dental care, as new figures reveal that in some areas of the country, A&E attendances for tooth decay have risen 40-fold since 2019.

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrat Party under the Freedom of Information Act reveal 2,800 children attended A&E due to tooth decay issues last year – up by a fifth since 2019 but slightly down on 2023.

Overall, there were 16,100 A&E attendances over tooth decay in 2024, with areas such as Northwest Anglia NHS Trust seeing cases increase from just 6 in 2019 to 238. 

The figures come after a report this month from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the national dental plan set out by the former government had “comprehensively failed”.

The PAC’s report said the current national contract for dentists “remains unfit for purpose”, with current arrangements only sufficient for about half of England’s population to see an NHS dentist over two years.

The Liberal Democrats’ health and social care spokesperson Helen Morgan said: "It is a national scandal that children are ending up in A&E in agony because they can’t get a dentist appointment.

“Parents are being forced to watch their little ones cry through the night, all because the NHS dental system has been left to rot. We’re now seeing vast swathes of the country being turned into dental deserts, with no sign of things getting better.

“This almost medieval situation of people pulling their own teeth out with pliers as they can’t get an appointment must end. That must start with a complete overhaul of the dental contract to boost the numbers of dentists and appointments and finally rid this country of dental deserts.”

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Source: The Independent, 14 April 2025

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‘National improvement board’ to be set up by NHS England

NHS England has launched a new framework for quality improvement and delivery, including a national board that will pick a “small number of shared national priorities”.

The new document says NHSE will “establish a national improvement board, to agree the small number of shared national priorities on which NHS England, with providers and systems, will focus our improvement-led delivery work”.

The review says NHSE will, among other actions: 

  • Create a “national improvement board” to “agree a small number of shared national priorities and oversee the development and quality assure the impact of the NHS improvement approach”.
  • Set an expectation that all NHS providers, working in partnership with integrated care boards, will embed a quality improvement method aligned with the NHS improvement approach”.
  • Incentivise a universal focus on embedding and sustaining improvement practice”, including with “regulatory incentives alongside clearer and more timely offers of support.
  • Work with the [Care Quality Commission] to align the revised CQC well-led [inspection method] with the improvement approach.

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Source: HSJ, 21 April 2023

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‘My son is falling through the cracks of the child mental health system’

A six-year wait for ADHD treatment on the NHS highlights a growing crisis. One mother tells of her frustrations:

I wasn’t surprised by the children’s commissioner report out today, calling for urgent action to tackle waiting lists in mental health care for children.

Ten years ago, I received a call from my son's reception teacher. They asked me to come in and said he was showing some developmental delays, and autistic traits. Within six months my son, who is now 15, was diagnosed with autism and ADD (attention deficit disorder) and medicated.

Fast forward to his younger brother, and he has been languishing on a waiting list for six years.

The school referred him to CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health services) to be assessed for ADHD in November 2021. The school could see how much I was struggling and sent CAMHS an email each week asking where he was on the waiting list. Despite this, it took until October 2024 for him to be diagnosed with ADHD. By then he was in secondary school.

Something Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, said really stuck out to me. She said: “The numbers in this report are staggering — but these are not numbers, these are real children.”

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Source: The Times, 19 May 2025

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‘My GP suggested it’: Britons explain why they went private for surgery

Private hospitals are caring for a record number of patients paying through their own savings or private medical insurance, according to figures from the Private Healthcare Information Network. 

Helen, a semi-retired frontline worker in south-east England, spent nearly £50,000 of her retirement savings on major spinal surgery to get her life back after two years of debilitating pain.

Helen, 56, began experiencing extreme lower back pain and leg pain in September 2021, triggered by a dog colliding with her leg in the park. Though it was not caused by the trigger, she was diagnosed by the NHS with spondylosis in November 2021, and then a pars defect (a condition affecting the lower spine), and offered scans and physiotherapy. She said six months of physiotherapy, beginning in early 2022, resulted in no improvement, and she was offered pain management and a steroid epidural, which she said also did not help.

“I rarely ventured out in these two years … due to the extreme pain I was in when sitting, standing or walking. Life effectively stopped in 2021,” she said. Desperate, she booked a consultation in May 2023 with a neurosurgeon and was told she needed an operation.

Helen asked whether it would be possible for the neurosurgeon, who also works within the NHS, to do it on the NHS rather than privately. A referral could be made, she was told – but the surgery was likely to involve a waiting time of 18 months to two years. “My husband and I discussed it, and he said: you’ve already had no life for the last two years, do you really want to wait another two?”

She had the spinal surgery in August 2023 and is now managing her pain with over-the-counter medication, rather than the stronger painkillers she was on before. It cost her a staggering £48,345.

The financial hit has been huge. “I was absolutely gutted to have to go private. This has knocked us both; we didn’t see us in our lives having to pay for something like this. We’ve managed our finances carefully and always saved where we can. But that lump sum [that we] can access when we retire … That lump sum has just gone now.”

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Source: The Guardian, 8 March 2024

 

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‘My child was drowning’: life and death on an English maternity ward

 

Norah Bassett was hours old when she died in 2019, after multiple failings in her care. What can be learned from her heartbreaking loss?

The maternity unit at the Royal Hampshire county hospital in Winchester was busy the evening when Charlotte Bassett gave birth. When the night shift came on duty, a midwife introduced.

“She was very brusque,” Charlotte, 37, a data manager, remembers. “She said, ‘We’ve got too many people here. I’ve got this and this to do.’” Charlotte tried to breastfeed Norah, but she wasn’t latching. The midwife told Charlotte to cup feed her with formula. She didn’t stay to watch. Charlotte poured milk from a cup into Norah’s rosebud mouth. Blood came out. It was staining the muslin. The midwife didn’t seem concerned.

“I was drowning my child, who was drowning in her own blood. And there was no one there to say: this isn’t normal,” Charlotte says.

The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (now HSSIB but at the time known as HSIB), which investigates patient safety in English hospitals, produced a report into Norah’s care in 2020. One sentence leaped out to Charlotte and her husband James. “An upper airway event (such as occlusion of the baby’s airway during skin-to-skin) may have contributed to the baby’s collapse.” In other words, it was possible that Charlotte might have smothered her daughter.

“So Charlotte spent four years in agony,” says James, “thinking it was her.”

Dr Martyn Pitman remembers the night Norah died, because it was unusual. A crash call, for a baby born to a low-risk mother. It played on his mind, because eight days earlier, on 4 April 2019, Pitman, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, had presented proposals for enhanced foetal monitoring to a meeting of the maternity unit’s doctors and senior midwives. Pitman, 57, who is an expert in foetal monitoring, felt the proposals would prevent more babies suffering brain injuries at birth. “We’re not that good at detecting the high-risk baby, in the low-risk mum,” he says.

Another doctor would later characterise the meeting as “hideous … hands down the worst meeting I’ve ever been to. Martyn … was being set upon.” A midwife felt the animosity in the room was “personal towards Martyn”, and was “appalled” by the “unprofessionalism that I saw from my midwifery colleagues”.

James and Charlotte join an unhappy club: a community of parents whose children died young, after receiving poor care, and were told their deaths were unavoidable, or felt blamed for them.

“I’ve spoken to so many families,” says Donna Ockenden, who authored a 2022 report into Shrewsbury’s maternity services, “who have been blamed for the eventual poor outcome in their cases. This has included being blamed for their babies’ death.” She has also met the families of women blamed for their own deaths. “This never fails to shock me,” she says.

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Source: The Guardian, 26 March 2024

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‘My catatonic wife repeatedly told she wasn’t a priority’ says husband battling the NHS mental health system

A man who has battled the NHS for decades to get his wife mental health support has been told by A&E staff she was not a priority despite being so unwell she was catatonic.

Steve, a 63-year-old from Hertfordshire, has been supporting his wife, who has schizophrenia, for 30 years and has recalled the “horrific” lack of care she has experienced when at her most ill.

Despite getting to a state of catatonia and becoming a danger to herself, he has been told on multiple occasions his wife was not a priority in A&E and there were no psychiatric beds available.

His story comes as a poll of more than 600 people by the charity Rethink Mental Illness revealed two-fifths of mental health patients reported being told they weren’t sick enough to access NHS care.

The charity, which supports people who suffer from severe mental illness, also found 35% of people reported their condition was considered too severe to be helped.

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Source: The Independent, 25 June 2024

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‘My cancer patients took priority’ says doctor suspended for working while Covid positive

A Harley Street doctor suspended for working while testing positive for Covid at the height of the pandemic has said that his patient’s cancer treatment took priority.

Dr Andrew Gaya was found to have “blatantly disregarded” the rules by going to work at a centre for patients with brain tumours after he tested positive for the disease.

The “highly regarded” consultant oncologist “dishonestly” misled colleagues that he was safe to work by keeping his positive test secret, a tribunal found.

Dr Gaya, whose work is at the forefront of tumour care and has been described as “world class”, said he defied Covid-19 rules because he believed “the risk of harm to his patient” in delaying treatment was “greater than the risk he posed”.

Now, the doctor of 27 years has been suspended for three months at a Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal.

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Source: The Times, 20 Ocotober 2022

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‘Muddle, frustration and distrust’ at ‘most mature’ ICS

Multiple problems have been highlighted with the leadership and governance of a much-vaunted integrated care system, including a lack of trust between organisations which often hide information that could weaken their position.

HSJ has seen an executive summary of the review of Greater Manchester ICS, which cited widespread concerns around the allocation of resources, confusion about the role of commissioning, and “muddled” governance, including:

a lack of transparency and trust between partners, with some only sharing a “partial overview” of performance and finances which drives choices likely to “bias” some organisations;

complex architecture of system boards, committees and forums, with “muddled” governance, unclear paths for critical decisions to be made, and unclear delegations to localities;

frustration at the quantum of meetings that take place at system, locality and provider level.

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Source: HSJ, 2 June 2023

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‘Mothers will never be the priority’: Postnatal mental health support cut despite surge in women seeking help

Postnatal mental health services are closing across the country due to a lack of funding despite record numbers of women seeking help, The Independent can reveal.

One in five of the 600,000 women a year who give birth in the UK experience a mental health condition, NHS figures show – and a quarter have a negative birth experience.

Mental health conditions are the leading cause of maternal death between six weeks and a year after birth – accounting for one in three deaths, according to the Oxford University-led group MBBRACE-UK, which records all maternal and baby deaths in the UK.

Postnatal suicide rates rose by more than 50 per cent during the pandemic and have remained high ever since. Between 2017 and 2019, the rate of suicide was 0.46 for every 100,000 mothers who gave birth in that period, but between 2021 and 2023 - the latest figures available - the rate was 0.70 per 100,000 mothers.

But in January, the Government announced it was scrapping funding for the nationwide rollout of Women’s Health Hubs, which aimed to improve access to services such as perinatal mental health support.

“This is a completely neglected mental health crisis, on an extremely large scale,” Danny Chambers MP, the Lib Dem spokesperson on mental health, warned Parliament in February.

"And now several charities which plug the gaps in NHS support, by helping parents unable to access NHS help or who are stuck on waiting lists, have been forced to close or suspend services because of funding cuts."

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Source: The Independent,  8 April 2025

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