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NHS data reveals A&E ‘Uber ambulance crisis’ in England, say Lib Dems

Growing numbers of patients are making their own way to A&E instead of taking ambulances with nearly 2.7 million people taking alternative transport to emergency departments last year.

The figure is a 14% increase from 2.36 million in 2019 and highlights the number of people losing faith in ambulance services, the Liberal Democrats have said, after gathering the data from NHS trusts.

“These figures lay bare an Uber ambulance crisis, where people do not think they can rely on ambulance services even in the most serious of circumstances. This could have deadly consequences if people have lost faith that ambulances will be there when they need them,” said Helen Morgan MP, the Liberal Democrat health and social care spokesperson.

The Lib Dems called on the government to invest £50m each year into an emergency fund to ensure community ambulance stations do not close and to recruit and train paramedics.

The numbers of people taking taxis or other forms of transport to a hospital did rely on the severity of their condition. Code 1 incidents – the most severe category for those needing immediate medical attention – saw a 24% drop in the number of people arriving without an ambulance compared to 2019.

There was a rise however of 54% in code 2 incidents, where patients require urgent attention.

The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives said there can be times when it was appropriate for patients to make their own way to hospital, so that those with the most severe conditions could be prioritised.

“Current data proves that NHS ambulance services have never been busier answering 999 calls and responding to more patients than ever before, something that is testament to our incredibly hard-working frontline staff, as well as those handling the calls and dispatching the most appropriate clinical response to patients in greatest need,” said Anna Parry, the managing director of the AACE.

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Source: The Guardian, 18 August 2025

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Maternity services isolated from trust boards, watchdog warns

The safety watchdog has raised fresh concerns about NHS maternity services in a new review, warning that harm has been normalised within units that are working “in parallel” to trusts. 

The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) published an exploratory review of maternity and neonatal services today, based on work it has now paused while a national investigation, ordered by health secretary Wes Streeting, takes place.

The HSSIB review – intended to scope out areas to look at in more depth – was based on discussions with stakeholders and 35 cases where safety concerns were raised.

It found the clinical risks in maternity services were not always identified and responded to, with harm being “normalised” and sometimes being reported in a way that minimised life-threatening situations. 

The harm caused was also compounded by the trusts’ action after the event, which was sometimes defensive and concerned about litigation and reputation management.

The safety watchdog was told maternity services have a “mini governance” and “work in parallel to report to the board”, resulting in less scrutiny. It also found they sometimes “feel like separate organisations”, and recommend this is explored in more detail nationally.

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Source: HSJ, 19 August 2025

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'Broken and burnt out': Nurse lifts lid on staffing at children's cancer unit

A whistleblower who resigned from the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children over staff shortages has said the system left her broken, disillusioned and burnt out.

Hannah Farrell, who left the Children's Cancer Unit in 2019, said the lack of support and management's failure to listen to her and other nurses led her to resign.

Parents of sick children and former staff members contacted BBC News NI after it was revealed more than half of the specialist nurse team at the cancer unit are currently off work, a problem that Ms Farrell said was not new.

In a statement, the Belfast Health Trust said there had been "significant investment" in the unit's service development in the last decade.

It added that this included "an increase across all nursing bands, and the development of specialist nursing roles".

The trust said it wanted to thank the "hard-working nurses" and wider staff at the unit for their work "particularly during times of pressure, to ensure the safe and timely care of our patients and the support they provide to families".

Ms Farrell said that for years maternity leave, long-term sickness and career breaks at the unit were not backfilled, meaning wards were insufficiently staffed.

She said that raised pressure on colleagues and had the potential to impact patients, but the issues were not addressed.

"When a ward goes into crisis like it did a few weeks ago, the trust takes nurses from other wards, which just puts a band aid on it," she said.

"It's a quick fix, all we've done is impact other wards negatively and we haven't fixed the problem."

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Source: BBC News, 18 August 2025

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RSNA AI challenge models can independently interpret mammograms

Algorithms submitted for an AI Challenge hosted by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) have shown excellent performance for detecting breast cancers on mammography images, increasing screening sensitivity while maintaining low recall rates, according to a study published today in Radiology, the premier journal of the RSNA.

The RSNA Screening Mammography Breast Cancer Detection AI Challenge was a crowdsourced competition that took place in 2023, with more than 1,500 teams participating. The Radiology article details an analysis of the algorithms’ performance, led by Yan Chen, Ph.D., a professor in cancer screening at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

"We were overwhelmed by the volume of contestants and the number of AI algorithms that were submitted as part of the Challenge," Prof. Chen said. "It’s one of the most participated-in RSNA AI Challenges. We were also impressed by the performance of the algorithms given the relatively short window allowed for algorithm development and the requirement to source training data from open-sourced locations."

The goal of the Challenge was to source AI models that improve the automation of cancer detection in screening mammograms, helping radiologists work more efficiently, improving the quality and safety of patient care, and potentially reducing costs and unnecessary medical procedures.

RSNA invited participation from teams across the globe. Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and BreastScreen Victoria in Australia provided a training dataset of around 11,000 breast screening images, and Challenge participants could also source publicly available training data for their algorithms.

Prof. Chen’s research team evaluated 1,537 working algorithms submitted to the Challenge, testing them on a set of 10,830 single-breast exams - completely separate from the training dataset - that were confirmed by pathology results as positive or negative for cancer.

Altogether, the algorithms yielded median rates of 98.7% specificity for confirming no cancer was present on mammography images, 27.6% sensitivity for positively identifying cancer, and a recall rate - the percentage of the cases that AI judged positive - of 1.7%. When the researchers combined the top 3 and top 10 performing algorithms, it boosted sensitivity to 60.7% and 67.8%, respectively.

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Source: Digital Health News, 14 August 2025

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Deadly ‘sloth virus’ detected in UK for first time as health watchdog issues urgent warning

A deadly malaria-like “sloth virus” has been detected in Britain for the first time, triggering a warning from the UK’s health watchdog to those with symptoms to seek urgent medical help.

UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data has revealed there were three cases of Oropouche virus reported in Britain between January and June this year.

The tropical disease is usually found in South America and can cause fevers, headaches, pain behind the eyes, and in rare instances lead to meningitis and death, the watchdog warned.

“If a person becomes unwell with symptoms such as high fever, chills, headache, joint pain and muscle aches following travel to affected areas, they should seek urgent medical advice,” the UKHSA warned.

All three cases were people who had returned to the UK after travelling abroad to Brazil after a surge of virus infections across the region.

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Source: The Independent, 18 August 2025

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Millions of people ‘could be denied weight-loss jabs due to flawed NHS guidance’

Millions of people could be denied access to treatments such as weight-loss jabs because of flawed NHS guidance, a major think tank has warned.

King’s Fund senior analyst Danielle Jefferies said Body Mass Index (BMI) measures, which are used to determine obesity levels, are primarily based on research for white European or American people.

That means they do not account for the inherited ethnic differences of people from Black, Asian, brown, dual heritage or indigenous ethnicities – differences that can mean some groups are more likely to develop some health conditions.

The 2021 census for England and Wales showed 1.3 million people listed themselves as “other” for their ethnic group, while 1.7 million people listed themselves in “mixed or multiple” categories.

Ms Jefferies said that meant the current BMI thresholds “potentially do not fully work for up to 3 million people in the UK”, meaning they could miss out on treatments because they have a lower BMI than is required for some treatments.

The warning comes as the NHS prepares to roll out access to weight-loss jab Mounjaro, to 250,000 patients a year over the next 12 years.

Access to Mounjaro is based on strict measures, including the stipulation that a person has a BMI of over 40. Other NHS treatments, such as IVF, bariatric surgery, and joint replacement surgery, are also managed based on a person’s BMI.

Currently, BMI guidelines for people from black, Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds are lowered to account for health risks that occur at a lower BMI than for white people. But it is not clear if the same is not done for those in these mixed heritage groups.

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Source: The Independent, 18 August 2025

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NHS to use AI technology to help free up hospital beds

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is being piloted to help free up NHS hospital beds being used by people who are fit to be sent home, officials have said.

A new platform, currently being trialled by Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust, uses AI to help fill out the documents needed to discharge a patient - potentially saving hours of delays.

The tool extracts information such as diagnoses and test results from medical records, helping staff to draft discharge summaries, which must be completed before a person is sent home from the hospital.

The document is then reviewed by healthcare professionals responsible for the patient and used to send them home or refer them to other services.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said the technology will allow doctors to spend less time on paperwork and more time on patient care, cutting waiting times in the process.

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Source: Sky News, 16 August 2025

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Disabled by a drug, ignored by ministers, these children are abandoned

Catherine McNamara had to carry her son, Sebastian, in her arms for years. He was born with a curved spine and deformed limbs, making each step difficult. His disabilities were caused by sodium valproate, an anti-epilepsy drug she took while pregnant. It also left him with numerous learning difficulties.

In 2022, McNamara told The Sunday Times how every day was a struggle: “I’m not able to invest in myself, a career. I can’t buy a house. Just to meet everyday expenses is difficult because I can’t go out and get a job.”

Like thousands of mothers with valproate-affected children she wanted help for hers and to know they would get the care they needed throughout their life.

Three years on there has been silence from the government over whether it will compensate families harmed by valproate, a drug given to women for decades despite known risks that it could damage their unborn babies.

England’s patient safety commissioner, Dr Henrietta Hughes, submitted a detailed report to ministers on how a compensation scheme could work 18 months ago. It, too, has been met with silence.

Hughes has demanded action on her report. “It should not take the government this long to respond. Every day’s delay intensifies the harm caused to these patients who have been harmed by the healthcare system,” she said.

Calls for compensation have also been backed by MPs from across the Commons. More than 100 parliamentary questions have been submitted on the topic since Hughes’s report.

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Source: The Times, 17 August 2025

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Patients in England given more access to crucial health checks out of hours

Patients in England now have greater access to important tests such as MRI scans and endoscopies in the evenings and weekends, the government has said, after increasing the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) offering out of hours services.

There are 170 CDCs operating in England, which are often in shopping centres, football stadiums and on university campuses. Patients can access them through a referral from their GP or clinical teams at hospitals.

The government has revealed that 100 CDCs are open 12 hours a day, seven days a week – an increase of 37 CDCs with such opening hours compared with July 2024 – with the hope that the service will allow patients greater and speedier access to diagnosis.

The move to provide more convenient care is part of the government’s plan for change which, it says, aims to transform healthcare and make the NHS fit for the future, with an expansion of community-based services a key part of the approach.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said: “This government is determined to offer healthcare that fits around working people’s lives and not the other way around.

“From early morning MRI scans to late evening blood tests, we’re meeting patients where they need it most by extending the operating hours for community diagnostic centres and putting patients first.”

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Source: The Guardian, 18 August 2025

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Campaigners against care failings at three trusts will help scope national investigation

Three large teaching trusts are highly likely to be included in a government-commissioned “investigation” of NHS maternity and neonatal care after those campaigning for improvements at the organisations were included in the group establishing its terms of reference.    

The government announced on Thursday that Baroness Valerie Amos will lead the previously announced “independent” probe into 10 services across the country.

The announcement said: “The 10 maternity and neonatal units will be decided by Baroness Amos and her team, alongside the terms of reference of the investigation.”

It added that these were “being developed with the families who have experiences of maternity and neonatal care, including those in Leeds, Sussex, Nottingham and more”.

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, and University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust have all been involved in recent maternity and neonatal scandals.

The Department of Health and Social Care said Baroness Amos was selected after bereaved families said they wanted someone with distance from the NHS to lead the probe. The investigation will make recommendations to improve care and safety by looking into systemic problems dating back over 15 years.

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Source: HSJ, 15 August 2025

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US health department reinstates task force on safer childhood vaccines

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Thursday it is reinstating a federal task force for safer childhood vaccines after 27 years.

The original task force was created by Congress under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 to improve the safety, quality and oversight of vaccines administered to American children. It was disbanded in 1998 and has been inactive ever since.

HHS said the task force will be led by Jay Bhattacharya, the National Institutes of Health director, and represented by senior leaders of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Source: Reuters, 14 August 2025

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Board director ‘talent pipeline’ needs ‘refreshing’, claims NHS England

NHS England is launching a recruitment campaign to attract trust and integrated care board non-executive directors (NEDs) in the face of an increasing number of retirements and resignations.

A tender notice published by NHS England says the service has “experienced difficulty in recruiting NEDs” and therefore needs to “refresh” its “talent pipeline”.

It adds this is particularly important as “a large number of NEDs are coming to the end of their terms of office”, while others are “stepping down” for other reasons.

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Source: Health Service Journal, 15 August 2025

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AI designs antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA superbugs

Artificial intelligence has invented two new potential antibiotics that could kill drug-resistant gonorrhoea and MRSA, researchers have revealed.

The drugs were designed atom-by-atom by the AI and killed the superbugs in laboratory and animal tests. The two compounds still need years of refinement and clinical trials before they could be prescribed.

Researchers have previously used AI to trawl through thousands of known chemicals in an attempt to identify ones with potential to become new antibiotics. Now, the MIT team have gone one step further by using generative AI to design antibiotics in the first place for the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea and for potentially-deadly MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

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Source: BBC News, 14 August 2025

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Government works with TikTok to help safety for treatments abroad

Patients who use social media to help plan cosmetic procedures will now be able to access more reliable trustworthy information thanks to a landmark new initiative between the government and TikTok. 

More people are using social media apps like TikTok to research potentially risky operations - like hair transplants and dental work - abroad as they are often cheaper or more readily available than in the UK but are often presented with slick marketing campaigns that do not highlight the dangers of the surgery.  

To help keep these patients informed, TikTok and the government have partnered with medical influencers, like Midwife Marley and Doc Tally to create content to show the risks, help carry out thorough research and provides advice on how to make trips as safe as possible.

The Foreign Office will also provide more detailed travel advice for those seeking to travel abroad for ‘tweakments.’

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Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 15 August 2025

Related reading: Crackdown on unsafe cosmetic procedures to protect the public

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Girl left unwatched by agency worker at psychiatric unit was unlawfully killed, inquest finds

A vulnerable 14-year-old girl was unlawfully killed when an agency support worker failed to keep her under observation at a secure psychiatric unit, an inquest jury has concluded.

The worker, who used a false identity, left Ruth Szymankiewicz alone even though she had complex mental health issues and was judged to need constant watching because she was a suicide risk.

Ruth was able to slip back to her room and harmed herself at the privately run Huntercombe hospital near Maidenhead on 12 February 2022. She died two days later.

During the inquest it emerged that the worker, who went under the stolen identity Ebo Acheampong, had never worked at any hospital before the day he was put in charge of observing Ruth and did not receive an induction before his shift.

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Source: The Guardian, 14 August 2025

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Families fear maternity review 'doomed' to fail as chair named

The former diplomat Baroness Valerie Amos has been chosen to lead a rapid review into maternity care in England.

Announcing her appointment, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that she had "an outstanding record of leadership and driving change" and would "uncover the truth".

But a leading group of families say the investigation is "doomed before it has started" due to the behaviour of NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. They're urging Mr Streeting to "get a grip".

There has been no announcement of which NHS Trusts will have their maternity services investigated as part of the review. The Health Secretary said up to 10 areas could be examined.

Mr Streeting announced his intention to conduct a review of maternity care in June and had hoped the work would be underway by now and completed by the end of December.

The health secretary said more work was needed on appointing the panel of experts who will support Baroness Amos, as well as on the terms of reference of the review.

Some families have contacted Mr Streeting in recent weeks expressing huge reservations about the people the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had proposed to chair the review and sit on the expert panel.

"Wes Streeting instigated this investigation with all good intentions, but DHSC and NHS England have turned it into the same old, same old," said Emily Barley from the Maternity Safety Alliance, a group of parents whose children died due to poor maternity care.

"We now believe it will have the same effects as previous such national reviews and achieve nothing but further delay. Meanwhile, babies continue to be killed by NHS failings.

"We are also upset and angry at the way we have been treated as bereaved parents. We were promised that this investigation would be co-produced [with families], but instead we have been ignored, bulldozed and at times re-traumatised.

"While we do not criticise Baroness Amos personally, we believe this investigation is doomed before it has started. It is time for Mr Streeting to get a grip of his department.

"The only way to truly fix maternity care is through a statutory public inquiry and we hope that Mr Streeting will get on and order one now."

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Source: BBC News, 14 August 2025

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The three trusts failing in every aspect of care

NHS England has named the three trusts that it believes are in need of national intervention on all four major clinical performance areas.

NHSE has issued two lists of trusts that will receive national or regional performance management. One covers urgent and emergency care, and the other covers electives, cancer and diagnostics (ECD). Trusts on the second list can be included for poor performance in any one – or more – of these categories.

The 10 trusts to appear on both lists include three each from the North West and East of England regions. They are, respectively, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, Countess of Chester Hospital FT and Mid Cheshire Hospitals FT; and James Paget University Hospitals FT, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals FT, and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn Foundation Trust. The last three are members of the same hospital group led by Norfolk and Norwich CEO Lesley Dwyer.

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Source: HSJ, 14 August 2025

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USA: ‘Distracting the public’: group of health professionals call for RFK Jr to be removed

A grassroots organization of health professionals has released a report outlining major health challenges in the US and calling for the removal of Robert F Kennedy Jr from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The report from Defend Public Health, a new organization of about 3,000 health professionals and allies, is an attempt to get ahead of misinformation and lack of information from health officials.

In an effort to keep making progress in public health, Defend Public Health’s report was slated to coincide with that of the anticipated second US report to “make America healthy again” (Maha). The first Maha report was released in May, and a second report was expected this week – but amid turmoil at the health agencies, it has reportedly been delayed for several weeks.

“The Maha report is essentially a distraction from the real causes of poor health,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, professor emerita at the University of Arizona and a founding member of Defend Public Health.

“This administration does not want to address things like poverty and education and access to healthcare. Instead, they’re distracting the public with information on solutions to problems that don’t actually exist. When the foundation of your policy is not evidence-based, it will collapse.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 August 2025

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NHSE admits service not on course to hit 2025-26 waiting list targets

NHS England’s elective chief has admitted the service is not on course to hit the main 2025-26 elective care targets and has “more to do” to bring performance “back in line”.

Mark Cubbon said progress to ensure 65% of elective patients are treated within 18 weeks and to reduce 52-week waiters to 1% of the overall waiting list had slowed in recent months. 

Speaking to HSJ exclusively ahead of today’s release of the official monthly statistics, he said: “We saw a very positive start to the year for RTT [referral to treatment pathway]. But while we are seeing encouraging progress in some providers with long waits, there is more to do to bring this position back in line.”

Mr Cubbon’s warning comes the day after two of the country’s leading think tanks accused ministers of using misleading indicators to suggest the NHS was recovering more strongly than it is. 

Mr Cubbon’s warning that the service was on course to miss the 2025-26 waiting list targets follows the news that four trusts have been moved into NHSE’s most challenged category for elective performance in an “exceptional” move outside the normal schedule, due to concerns among national leaders about their long waits, as revealed by HSJ  earlier in August.

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Source: HSJ, 14 August 2025

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AI could soon detect early voice box cancer from the sound of your voice

AI could soon be able to tell whether patients have cancer of the voice box using just a voice note, according to new research.

Scientists recorded the voices of men with and without abormalities in their vocal folds - which can be an early sign of laryngeal cancer - and found differences in vocal qualities including pitch, volume, and clarity. They now say AI could be used to detect these “vocal biomarkers”, leading to earlier, less invasive diagnosis.

Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University believe voice notes could now be used to train an AI tool that recognises vocal fold lesions.

Using 12,523 voice recordings from 306 participants across North America, they found distinctive vocal differences in men suffering from laryngeal cancer, men with vocal fold lesions, and men with healthy vocal folds. However, researchers said similar hallmark differences were not detected in women.

They are now hoping to collect more recordings of people with and without the distinctive vocal fold lesions to create a bigger dataset for tools to work from.

It comes after research from US-based Klick Labs, which created an AI model capable of distinguishing whether a person has Type 2 diabetes from six to 10 seconds of voice audio. The study involved analysing 18,000 recordings in order to identify acoustic features that differentiated non diabetics from diabetics and reported an 89 per cent accuracy rating for women and 86 per cent for men.

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Source: The Independent, 13 August 2025

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Ministers using ‘misleading indicator’ to champion waiting list reduction

The recent reduction in the waiting list repeatedly cited by ministers as evidence of the NHS’s recovery has given a “misleading” impression to the public about the service’s underlying performance, two leading think tanks have warned.

The warning follows health and social care secretary Wes Streeting announcing last month that the reduction in the elective waiting list by “more than 260,000 since we took office” was “not a coincidence”, but was because this government had got “our NHS moving in the right direction”.

However, a new report shared exclusively with HSJ  concludes recent waiting list reductions were mainly due to “unreported removals”. These removals are not explicitly reported in published data, so researchers have had to calculate them manually.

They include removals following list validation exercises, but also a range of other factors, such as the design of the data reporting methods and the nature of software management processes.

And when factoring in these removals, the report from Quality Watch, a joint funded-project between The Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust, concludes the majority of the waiting list reduction was therefore not produced by increased clinical activity.

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Source: HSJ, 13 August 2025

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ADHD drugs have wider life benefits, study suggests

Drug treatment can help people newly diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to reduce their risk of substance misuse, suicidal behaviour, transport accidents and criminality, a study suggests.

These issues are linked to common ADHD symptoms such as acting impulsively and becoming easily distracted.

Some 5% of children and 2.5% of adults worldwide are thought to be affected by the disorder - and growing numbers are being diagnosed.

The findings, published in the BMJ, confirm the wider potential benefits of drug treatment and could help patients decide whether to start medication, the researchers say.

"Oftentimes there is no information on what the risks are if you don't treat ADHD," said Prof Samuele Cortese, study author and professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at University of Southampton.

"Now we have evidence they [drugs] can reduce these risks."

This could be explained by medication reducing impulsive behaviour and lack of concentration, which might reduce the risk of accidents while driving and reduce aggressive behaviour which could lead to criminality.

Accessing the right medication for ADHD in many countries is not easy, with some drugs in short supply. In the UK waiting times to see specialists after diagnosis in order to access drugs can be several years.

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Source: BBC News, 14 August 2025

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USA: Hospitals among top targets in $34M crypto ransomware spree

A ransomware group known as Embargo has extorted millions of dollars from victims in the USA, including hospitals, according to research from blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.

Embargo, which operates under a ransomware-as-a-service model, emerged in April 2024 and has since been tied to an estimated $34.2 million in cryptocurrency transactions. 

Most victims are in the healthcare, business services and manufacturing sectors, with some ransom demands reaching $1.3 million.

Notable US victims include American Associated Pharmacies, Memorial Hospital and Manor in Bainbridge, Ga., and Weiser Memorial Hospital in Weiser, Idaho. The group disproportionately targets US organisations, TRM Labs said, likely because they are seen as more able to pay large ransoms.

Healthcare organisations are particularly attractive targets because operational disruptions can affect patient care, according to TRM Labs.

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Source: Becker's Health IT, 11 August 2025

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Hackers breach cancer screening data of almost 500,000 women

Personal health data from more than 485,000 women has been stolen after hackers accessed the IT systems of a cervical cancer screening programme in the Netherlands. 

The incident occurred between 3 July and 6 July 2025 at the Eurofins Clinical Diagnostics NMDL laboratory in Rijswijk, which tests cervical smears and self-tests for the Dutch Population Survey (BDO).

Cyber criminals are believed to have accessed sensitive patient information including names, addresses, dates of birth, citizen service numbers, test results, and participants’ healthcare providers, according to a press release from the BDO.

Elza den Hertog, chair of the board of directors of BDO, said: “We are deeply shocked by this data breach, and we understand that participants who participated in population screening through us are also very shocked.”

She added: “Participating in the cervical cancer screening programme is already a stressful experience for many participants and now you’re being told that your personal data may have been leaked as well. 

“At BDO, we set high standards for due diligence and data security for participants in the screening programmes, and we always make agreements about this with the laboratories that perform the tests. 

“We deeply regret that this has now gone so wrong at one of the laboratories we work with.”

Commenting on the breach, Rik Ferguson, vice president of security intelligence at Forescout, said: “This breach is a clear example of a systemic blind spot. 

“Almost half a million highly sensitive medical records were exposed because they passed through a subcontracted lab where attackers found a way in. 

“The result is not just another breach statistic; it’s a demonstration of how quickly a single weak link can compromise an entire security chain.

“What happened here fits a much broader pattern. Healthcare has become a prime target because the data is priceless, the networks are complex, and the sector is under constant pressure to deliver more with less.”

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Source: Digital Health, 13 August 2025

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Thousands of men with prostate cancer facing unnecessary overtreatment, experts warn

Up to 5,000 men every year could be facing unnecessary overtreatment for prostate cancer due to ‘outdated’ guidelines, a charity has warned.

Overtreatment of the disease can lead to side effects such as erectile dysfunction or incontinence, according to Prostate Cancer UK.

Patients whose cancer is unlikely to progress may only need close monitoring. But experts say out-of-date guidance from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has created a "wild west" of what is implemented in the NHS.

NICE guidance currently only advises active surveillance as the preferred approach for men who have the lowest-risk cancer. But these guidelines have not been updated since 2021, and the Prostate Cancer UK argues they do not take into account advances in testing and diagnosis.

Professor Vincent Gnanapragasam, professor of urology at the University of Cambridge, said: “Active surveillance is the best treatment option for men whose cancer is unlikely to progress or cause them problems in their lifetime.

“But NICE’s outdated guidelines have created a deeply concerning wild west on how surveillance is implemented by different health care teams. This inconsistency is resulting in a lack of confidence from patients in surveillance, who may instead opt to have treatment they may not have ever needed, risking harmful side effects.”

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Source: The Independent, 12 August 2025

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