Jump to content
  • articles
    9,841
  • comments
    83
  • views
    12,462,196

Contributors to this article

About this News

Articles in the news

USA: Cerner’s VA software rollout report cites 150 “cases of harm”

A serious revelation may derail the Cerner Millenium rollout. A draft report by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) states that a flaw in Cerner’s software caused the system to lose 11,000 orders for specialty care, lab work, and other services – without alerting healthcare providers the orders (also known as referrals) had been lost. This created ‘cases of harm’ to at least 150 veterans in care. 

The VA patient safety team classified dozens of cases of “moderate harm” and one case of “major harm.” The major harm cited affected a homeless veteran, aged in his 60s, who was identified as at risk for suicide and had seen a psychiatrist at Mann-Grandstaff in December 2020, after the implementation. After prescribing medication to treat depression, the psychiatrist ordered a follow-up appointment one month later. That order disappeared in the electronic health record and was not scheduled. The consequences were that the veteran, weeks after the unscheduled appointment date, called the Veterans Crisis Line. He was going to kill himself with a razor. Fortunately, he was found in time by local first responders, taken to a non-VA mental health unit, and hospitalized.

The draft report implies that the ‘unknown queue’ problem has not been fixed and continues to put veterans at risk in the VA system.

There may be as many as 60 other safety problems. Other incidents cited in the draft report include one of “catastrophic harm” and another case the VA told the OIG may be reclassified as catastrophic. Catastrophic harm is defined by the VA as “death or permanent loss of function.”

Read full story

Source: Telehealth and Telecare Aware, 21 June 2022

Read more

CCG lead condemns ‘heartbreaking’ visiting rule at local hospitals

A GP commissioning leader has publicly criticised hospital visiting rules at local hospitals, after hearing that a stroke patient was denied seeing family or friends for six weeks.

Philip Stevens, a locality chair at Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), described the situation reported to him by one of his patients as “heartbreaking”, and has challenged visiting policies at Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital trusts. 

During a CCG governing body meeting, Dr Stevens called for explanation from the county’s director of public health, Lucy Wightman, who said trusts could choose their own rules.

Dr Stevens, who is also a GP at Brackley Medical Centre, argued that visitors were permitted in neighbouring counties, where he claimed there were similar covid case rates to Northamptonshire, which remains in tier 1 restrictions under the government’s framework.

He said: “I’ve been dealing this week with a family who, the wife’s husband, has been in Northampton General for six weeks now and has had no visitors at all during that time. He’s had a profound stroke and when he comes home he’ll need considerable community support which ordinarily the family would have been trained in but discharge is planned without any of that training.”

Mr Stevens said in an “adjacent county” hospital policy was that each patient would have ”one hour, one visitor each day” with 30-minutes in between visiting slots. While not named, trusts in neighbouring Cambridge and Lincolnshire both have policies that permit pre-booked visitors.

He added: “When I heard this story it seemed heartbreaking to me for this woman and her husband and I just wonder whether that this is a situation we should be challenging, particularly since it appears that the public health advice in an adjacent county may be different to that which is being offered within Northamptonshire.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 27 October 2020

Read more

Covid: Woman left blind after treatment delayed in pandemic

A woman has become blind after her monthly eye injections were delayed for four months during lockdown.

Helen Jeremy, 73, said everything she enjoyed doing has "gone out of the window" after losing her eyesight. She has glaucoma and was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration four years ago.

Monthly injections controlled the condition and meant she could still drive and play the piano. However, her appointments were cancelled when the pandemic struck and her eyesight deteriorated.

"I was panicking. It was terrifying. Because I'm a widow I'm on my own and it was awful," she said.

"Suddenly my eyesight was basically gone. By the time of my next appointment I was told there was no point in going on with these injections because the damage had been done to the back of my eye."

Thousands more people in Wales are at risk of "irreversible sight loss" because of treatment delays, RNIB Cymru warns.

The Welsh Government said health boards are working to increase services.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 27 November 2020

Read more
 

Mid Staffs scandal: 10 years on, inquiry chair worries NHS staff too scared to speak up

Ten years on from the Mid Staffordshire NHS trust scandal, the man who led the inquiry into one of the worst care disasters in the service’s history has said he remains worried about the safety of patients and a culture that leaves staff too frightened to speak up.

Sir Robert Francis QC said some safety risks highlighted a decade ago remain unresolved and he threw his weight behind calls for senior managers in the NHS to be regulated.

The barrister said he believed the NHS was safer now than a decade ago but added he worried whether actions taken since the disaster had made a real difference.

“What keeps me awake at night is not so much has anyone implemented recommendation 189 or not, but more whether the collectivity of what has happened since has actually resulted in things being better for patients and staff,” he told The Independent.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 15 January 202

Read more
 

'Not fit for purpose': UK medics condemn Covid-19 protection

Frontline NHS staff are at risk of dying from Covid-19 after the protective gear requirements for health workers treating those infected were downgraded last week, doctors and nurses have warned.

Hospital staff caring for the growing number of those seriously ill with the disease also fear that they could pass the infection on to other patients after catching it at work because of poor protection.

Doctors who are dealing most closely with Covid-19 patients – A&E medics, anaesthetists and specialists in acute medicine and intensive care – are most worried.

A doctor in an infectious diseases ward of a major UK hospital, who is treating patients with Covid-19, said: “I am terrified. I am seriously considering whether I can keep working as a doctor.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2020

Read more

People who suffer from ‘significant’ allergic reactions should not take Covid vaccine, UK regulators warn

The UK’s drug regulator has warned that people with have a history of “significant” allergic reactions should not receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued the warning after two NHS staff members who were administered with doses on Tuesday both suffered an allergic reaction.

NHS England said all trusts involved with the vaccination programme have been informed.

Dr June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA, said the regulatory body was examining the cases.

“We know from the very extensive clinical trials this wasn’t a feature," she told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday. 

"But if we need to strengthen our advice now that we’ve had this experience in the vulnerable populations - the groups that have been selected as a priority - we get that advice to the field immediately.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 8 December 2020

Read more

End ‘natural birth’ bias in midwife job ads, hospitals told

NHS bosses have written to hospitals telling them to stop using language that implies a bias against caesarean sections when advertising jobs in maternity services.

A recent report into an NHS maternity scandal found that a focus on “normal birth” had played a key role in babies dying or being born disabled. Women at the Shrewsbury and Telford trust were forced to undergo traumatic natural births when they should have been offered surgical intervention. 

However, even since its publication, trusts have published job adverts looking for a member of staff “to help us promote normality” or saying that they are “proud of our commitment to normal birth”.

In a letter sent, Dr Matthew Jolly, NHS clinical director for maternity, and Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, chief midwifery officer, ask maternity services “to review the language that they are using about their services, in job adverts, and any other information designed to support decision-making on pregnancy and birth choices”.

The letter continues: “There have been a number of concerns raised about the language used in some NHS trust maternity service job adverts and materials — phrases that suggest bias toward one mode of birth.

“The NHS has a duty to provide safe and personalised care to women and families according to best practice guidance informed by evidence and the changes that are taking place in society, midwifery, maternity, and neonatal care services.

“It is a fundamental requirement of a maternity multidisciplinary team to inform and listen to every woman, respect their views and help them to try and achieve the type of birth they aspire to.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times, 15 April 2022

Read more

All neighbourhoods need “single, urgent care teams” offering same day access, says review

Proposals for primary care networks to evolve into more collaborative “integrated neighbourhood teams” to improve access to care have been broadly welcomed.

A “stocktake” report commissioned by NHS England, published on 26 May, called for urgent same day appointments to be dealt with by “single, urgent care teams” for every neighbourhood with greater use of a range of health and social care professionals. 

The report, written by Claire Fuller, a general practitioner and chief executive of Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care System, undertaken by Dr Claire Fuller, Chief Executive-designate Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care System and GP on integrated primary care, looks at what is working well, why it’s working well and how we can accelerate the implementation of integrated primary care (incorporating the current 4 pillars of general practice, community pharmacy, dentistry and optometry) across systems.

Doctors’ leaders welcomed many of the report’s recommendations but emphasised that they could only work if the government resourced primary care practices better and tackled workforce shortages.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: BMJ, 27 May 2022

Read more
 

Former trust CEO and medical director cleared over surgery scandal

A major trust’s former chief executive and medical director have been cleared, after being accused of failing to protect breast patients from a rogue surgeon.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service has ruled neither Mark Goldman nor Ian Cunliffe’s fitness to practise was impaired, in a case brought by the General Medical Council. 

Mr Goldman was chief executive of the Heart of England Foundation Trust from 2001 until 2010, while Dr Cunliffe served as HEFT medical director between 2006 and 2010. Both held roles at HEFT while Ian Paterson was there.

Mr Paterson was jailed for 20 years in 2017 after being convicted of 17 offences of wounding with intent while being employed at HEFT, while a later inquiry concluded he may have conducted up to 1,000 botched and unnecessary operations over a 14-year period.

Mr Goldman and Dr Cunliffe are now pursuing the GMC for the costs of the case, which is expected to be heard over five days in January 2023.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 18 October 2022

Read more
 

Nearly 35,000 patients overdue follow-ups at single trust

Nearly 35,000 patients are overdue a follow-up appointment at North Lincolnshire and Goole Foundation Trust, HSJ has learned.

Almost 20% of the 34,938 follow-up appointments are in ophthalmology. A paper from the trust’s November board meeting said the “backlog of follow-up appointments… clearly remains a risk”.

The report also said the service was failing some of the quality guidelines set out by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

The trust told HSJ it had introduced a clinical harm review process last year to address the backlog. It has reviewed “more than 5,000 patients”, out of the 34,938 cases to date, according to Chief Operating Officer Shaun Stacey.

He said the trust had initially identified 83 patients who could have come to “potential harm”.

Read full story

Source: HSJ, 28 January 2020

Read more
 

Inquest finds neglect contributed to woman’s hospital death

The death of a young disabled woman following a routine eye operation was partly caused by malnutrition as a result of neglect, a coroner has ruled.

Laura Booth, 21, was admitted to the Royal Hallamshire hospital in Sheffield in September 2016 for a routine eye operation. She died the next month, on 19 October.

Booth had a number of learning difficulties and life-limiting complications, having been diagnosed with partial trisomy 13, a rare genetic disorder, shortly after she was born.

Her mother, Patricia Booth, told the inquest that her daughter stopped eating shortly after she was admitted to hospital, and that doctors ignored Laura’s attempts to communicate with them.

She said her daughter consumed only rice milk and blackcurrant juice in hospital, and she kept telling doctors: “This isn’t right, she can’t survive on no food.”

The coroner, Abigail Combes, concluded that Laura Booth became unwell while a patient at the hospital and, among other illnesses, “developed malnutrition due to inadequate management for her nutritional needs”. Combes said that Booth’s death “was contributed to by neglect”.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 26 April 2021

Read more
 

Top oncologist says Tayside cancer crisis was 'avoidable tragedy'

A crisis in cancer care at NHS Tayside could have been averted if the health board had publicly supported doctors who were criticised by an official report, according to a top oncologist.

The last remaining breast radiotherapy specialist left at the end of January, with the board unable to replace him. Patients must now travel to Aberdeen, Glasgow or Edinburgh for radiotherapy.

The situation has emerged three years after an investigation into chemotherapy treatment at Ninewells Hospital.

NHS Tayside apologised to patients in 2019 after an investigation found doctors deviated from national standards on chemotherapy dosages given to breast cancer patients after surgery.

A subsequent review found that the lower dosages were highly unlikely to have led to the deaths of any patients.

Last year the doctors involved were cleared of any wrongdoing by the General Medical Council (GMC), who also found no fault with the treatment patients received.

Some clinicians close to those involved told BBC Scotland the cancer doctors felt they had no choice but to leave because they did not have the backing of the board.

Colleagues who support the oncologists say none of this needed to happen.

Prof Alastair Munro, emeritus professor of radiation oncology at Dundee University, who previously worked as a cancer doctor in the department, said: "It's a totally avoidable tragedy, this should not have happened.

"The first thing the health board need to do is to come clean, and say we got it wrong, we put our hands up, we want to start again with a clean slate and we want to attract good people to come to Tayside to deliver breast cancer services to the patients whose needs we serve."

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 9 February 2022

Read more

Covid inquiry ‘marginalising’ bereaved on first day of hearing

Bereaved families fear their experiences will be “diluted” in the UK Covid-19 Inquiry after it was confirmed their evidence would be submitted to a third-party company.

Instead of the usual “pen portraits” heard in the inquiry, families will submit their evidence to a private research company as part of a parallel listening exercise that will analyse the responses and feed back the findings to the inquiry chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett.

Matt Fowler, co-founder of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign, said while families believe the start of the inquiry is a step in the right direction after campaigning for two years, they fear being excluded from the inquiry because of the listening exercise.

“All bereaved families want from the inquiry is the same outcome that anyone should, for lessons to be learnt from our loss that can stop the monumental scale of death that took place from happening again,” Matt said following the preliminary hearing. “As Baroness Hallett herself has acknowledged, for that to happen the experiences of the bereaved must be learnt from, so why is she leaving us out in the cold instead of working with us?”

A&E doctor Saleyah Ahsan, from east London, worked in intensive care units during the pandemic. She said she remembers holding hands with people and telling them they needed to be incubated as they desperately called their families – some died in intensive care.

“It is very important that stories jump off the page and are real because they are real,” 

She added: “If we really want to make sure we get this right there is only this inquiry, it has to be right. I am a medic, I see the numbers are rising, it’s autumn. Thankfully we’ve got a booster but hospitals are getting busy – I’m worried.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 4 October 2022

Read more

Failure to act on coroners’ advice blamed for thousands of deaths

One woman who tracks preventable deaths says the failure to take action when inquests identify threats to life is ‘mind-blowing’.

Thousands of deaths could be prevented every year if public bodies took action over concerns highlighted at inquests. Almost 82,000 deaths in 2022 were recorded by the Office for National Statistics in England and Wales as “preventable”, meaning they could have been avoided “through effective public health and primary prevention interventions”.

Analysis by the Preventable Deaths Tracker project at King’s College London revealed that 1,495 Prevention of Future Deaths reports (28 per cent of the total) have not received any responses and another 741 (14 per cent) received only partial responses. Once reports are issued there is no official monitoring of responses or whether any action follows. Coroners have no powers to ask further questions or request progress reports on reforms.

The founder of the Preventable Deaths Tracker, the epidemiologist Dr Georgia Richards, said it was “mind-blowing” there was no system to disseminate learning from inquests. “Across 5,000 reports over the last 12 years, it is impossible to know anything about what action that might or might not have been taken following a coroner’s report,” Richards said. "People think there must be a system that’s protecting us. We assume that if you were in government that you would want to know what’s happening in these death investigations. But the system doesn’t work, it’s a waste of time. There are very few PFDs that have led to meaningful change and often it’s not the PFD that triggered it. Change comes from additional factors like change in leadership of the organisation, huge media scrutiny or dedicated families.”

Peter Thornton KC, chief coroner from 2012-16, said: “First, there are not enough coroners writing these reports. Secondly, they can’t force a response. Thirdly, they can’t follow up a response. Fourthly, they can’t force action — they can only suggest that an area of action is considered. And last, there’s no national follow-up, there’s no co-ordination.” Thornton urged reform through the creation of a national coroner service. The inquest system is jointly managed by the judiciary, local councils and the police. It is poorly funded and has big backlogs: 1,685 bereaved families are waiting longer than two years for hearings.

Read full story

Source: The Times, 14 January 2025 (paywalled)

Related reading

Read more

England set to open specialist surgical mesh removal centres in April

A network of specialist surgical mesh removal centres is to be set up around England, with a launch planned for April 2021.

The move implements a recommendation of the review, chaired by the Conservative peer and former health minister Julia Cumberlege, into three treatments which caused avoidable harm. These included the use of transvaginal tape and pelvic mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence.

The review, which published its report in July, heard “harrowing” stories about women left with serious complications. The mesh is hard to remove and only a few surgeons in the UK are able to carry out the procedure.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: BMJ, 25 November 2020

Read more
 

Hospital watchdog chief calls for honesty over Covid pandemic’s impact on patient care

The chief inspector of hospitals has called for honesty about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on patients warning poor care could become normalised.

Professor Ted Baker told The Independent it was vital staff continued to report incidents and revealed the Care Quality Commission had seen a 60% rise in whistleblowing concerns during the last national lockdown in November.

He said staff must report incidents and be free to speak up about any concerns as well as being transparent with families where things have gone wrong.

He emphasised that where a patient was unable to get the care they clinically needed because of the demand on services, this would amount to a notifiable patient safety incident.

Professor Baker’s comments follow multiple anonymous leaks from NHS staff to The Independent in recent weeks, showing how bad the situation has become in some hospitals. Many staff have only spoken out on condition of anonymity.

Many hospitals have declared major incidents, cancelled operations and been forced to stretch staffing ratios to unsafe levels to cope with the increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 7 January 2021

Read more
 

Covid: Six of 10 inspected hospitals ‘non-compliant’ with infection-control procedures (Republic of Ireland)

According to the state's health watchdog Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), six out of 10 hospitals inspected last year were non-compliant with aspects of infection-control procedures against Covid-19. 

Recurring issues such as poor physical infrastructure, capacity issues and workforce challenges were found to hinder efforts to cope with the pandemic, and despite investments, issues around infrastructure and capacity have been worsened by the pandemic.  

“In most instances, we found an effective approach to adapt to this unprecedented crisis in hospitals. However, hospitals’ efforts were made more difficult due to underlying historic problems with infrastructure, limited bed capacity and unequal or limited access to specialist workforce input and advice – problems that Hiqa’s prior monitoring work against national standards has consistently highlighted.”  said Hiqa’s director of regulation, Mary Dunnion.

Read full story.

Source: Irish Times, 10 August 2021

Read more
 

NHS England denies claim eligible patients can’t use its Covid jab booster booking service

NHS England has said that there is no ‘widespread issue’ with the national booking system for Covid vaccinations, despite eligible patients claiming they have been unable to book their booster jabs.

It comes as Sajid Javid yesterday urged people to ‘come forward’ for their Covid vaccines if they are eligible and have not had an invite six months after their second jab, and the Government launched a new campaign to promote boosters and flu vaccines.

Daisy Cooper, liberal democrat MP for St Albans, said yesterday in the House of Commons: ‘Many of my constituents are desperate to get their third jabs and their boosters. The Minister said that if their invitation has not arrived, they can book on the national booking service or 119, but that is simply not working. 

‘When they get on to the national booking service, it says they are not eligible if they have not received an invitation letter. If they call 119, it is telling them it cannot override the system.’

Vaccines minister Maggie Throup assured Ms Cooper: ‘I will definitely look into that. If there is a problem in the system, we will get it fixed.’

But NHS England told Pulse: ‘There isn’t a widespread issue with the system not recognising people who are eligible.’

The NHS website currently says: ‘If you haven’t received an invite by 6 months and 1 week, you can try to book your appointment online without an invite.’

Patients have also taken to Twitter to complain about not being able to book Covid boosters, despite receiving invitations to do so.

Read full article here
Original source: Pulse Today

Read more

Babies at risk’ as NHS faces losing nearly one in 10 midwives over mandatory jabs

The NHS could be forced to dismiss almost 2,000 midwives by the government’s mandatory vaccination policy, amid warnings from a former chief nurse of England that mothers and babies will be put at risk.

Well-placed senior sources have told HSJ around 1,700 midwives remain unvaccinated nationally, according to the latest data from trusts.

Based on official headcount data that would amount to between 6.5-8% of the workforce, depending on whether it counts full time equivalent or total staff numbers.

However, they are mostly in London, with the latest estimate in the city said to be about 680 (representing between 12 and 14% of the workforce), several well placed sources told HSJ, meaning its maternity services could be seriously destabilised.

A former chief nurse of England, Sarah Mullally, who now sits in the House of Lords as the Bishop of London, said she believed about 12.5% of London’s midwives were unvaccinated, and called on the government to delay the mandatory health worker vaccination policy.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday, she warned mothers and babies would be put at risk, “in order to implement a policy that has been superseded by the evolution of the virus”.

She added: “I would strongly encourage everyone, including NHS staff and health care workers, to get fully vaccinated. However, having heard from midwives myself this week, I can see the anxiety that the requirement for mandatory vaccination is causing, as well as the potential risks to the heath service and its patients.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 21 January 2022

Read more

‘This tiny piece of tape is ruining my life’: Women left in agony by vaginal mesh still struggling to get help

At 34 years old, Dawn Jaxson had two young daughters. Since going through childbirth she had been experiencing a prolapsed bladder and urinary incontinence. Her doctors recommended she have a vaginal mesh fitted to treat the problem, and she didn’t question their advice.

But more than 15 years later, she wishes she had. “As soon as I’d actually had it fitted, I felt discomfort,” says Jaxson, now 50. “Then the pain just didn’t go.” After years of almost constant pelvic pain and “countless” medical appointments, Jaxson says: “This little tiny piece of tape is still ruining my life.”

“I can literally be sat down and then out of nowhere, it will be like somebody is shoving a red-hot poker through my bladder,” she tells iNews. “Being intimate with somebody is just impossible. Sex is no joy. Imagine your worst period pain you could possibly have, and that’s what it’s like on a daily basis.”

NHS Digital records show that between April 2008 and March 2017, 100,516 patients had a tape insertion procedure for stress urinary incontinence. A further 27,016 patients had a mesh procedure for pelvic organ prolapse. But the surgery was suspended in Scotland in 2014 and across the rest of the UK by 2018 following complaints about complications – and a review ordered.

The review panel, overseen by Baroness Julia Cumberlege, spoke to more than 700 affected individuals and concluded that pelvic mesh procedures had caused “anguish, suffering, and many ruined lives”.

In 2020, the panel set out nine recommendations to help the thousands of women affected, including the creation of specialist centres, so patients could have their mesh removed or receive further treatment. But two years on from that landmark report, women say they are still suffering debilitating symptoms and struggling to access the help they so desperately need.

Kath Sansom, the founder of the campaigning group Sling the Mesh, has heard many similar stories from among the group’s 9,700 members. 

“The lack of action on financial redress is the biggest disappointment for women,” she says. “Pelvic mesh caused lifelong damage, and worse, the majority of us were not given any information on the risks. It’s not our fault this happened to us."

“Some women have been left disabled in wheelchairs or walking with sticks. Others have had organs removed where mesh has turned brittle and sliced into them. Seven in 10 have lost their sex life. Everyone suffers chronic pain in varying degrees. Women have lost jobs, marriages, homes, and their quality of life.”

Read full story

Source: iNews, 18 August 2022

Read more

GMC to investigate ‘stalker’ doctor who shared patient’s records

The UK medical regulator has launched an investigation into a “stalker” doctor who accessed intimate details of the health history of a woman who had begun dating the doctor’s ex-boyfriend.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is investigating whether the doctor – a consultant at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge – breached their professional, ethical and legal duties to protect the woman’s personal information.

The victim has given the watchdog a statement detailing the consultant’s repeated violations of her medical records and documentation that shows what she did.

The GMC declined to comment because it has not yet decided to open a formal disciplinary case against the consultant, who could face serious sanctions including a ban on working as a doctor. One of the GMC’s investigative officers is examining the victim’s claims and collecting evidence.

The Guardian revealed how the doctor had looked at the victim’s hospital and GP records seven times last August and September, in the early stages of the woman’s relationship with a man the consultant had been involved with for several years.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 15 May 2023

Read more
 

NHSE reorganisation plans delayed

The first draft of a “high-level plan” for merging NHS England into the Department of Health and Social Care has been delayed, officials have acknowledged.

NHSE’s new leaders Sir Jim Mackey and Penny Dash told staff a month ago they wanted the restructure to move quickly.

They had hoped to deliver an initial picture of “what the new organisation might look like by the end of April”, but “this is taking slightly longer than we’d hoped”, according to a note to staff today.

The internal message said: “We expect to run an all staff briefing for NHS England and DHSC later in May [with an update].” 

HSJ understands NHSE and DHSC have also so far failed to recruit a national transition director to oversee the merger. They had hoped to quickly bring in a senior and experienced manager, but discussions with at least one potential recruit have fallen through.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 1 May 2025

Read more
 

Lack of transparency on patient complaints risks confidence in the NHS

Public confidence in the health service is being undermined by a lack of transparency from hospitals about patient complaints, the man who led the investigation into one of the NHS’s worst care disasters has warned.

Sir Robert Francis QC, who chaired the public inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, has called for a new national organisation with powers to set standards on the handling of patient complaints after research found seven in eight hospital trusts do not follow existing rules.

The prominent barrister is now chair of Healthwatch England, a statutory body, which analysed 149 hospitals’ handling of complaints. Under current legislation every hospital is required to collect and report on the number of complaints they receive, what they were about and what action has been taken. Healthwatch England found just 12% of NHS trusts were compliant with all the rules. Only 16% published the required complaints reports while just 38% reported any details about learning or actions taken after a grievance.

Speaking to The Independent, Sir Roberts said better reporting, including the outcome and changes made after a complaint, would create a “collaborative” environment to improving the system with patients and staff alike seeing complaints as a valuable resource.

One persistent problem remained the gap, he said, between hospitals and the national Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Sir Robert argued commissioners of NHS services should be more involved.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 15 January 2020

Read more

Life expectancy gap in England ‘a growing chasm’ exacerbated by Covid

England’s richest people are living for a decade longer than the poorest, and the life expectancy gap between them has widened to “a growing chasm”, research has revealed.

The difference in expected lifespan between some of the wealthiest and poorest areas has more than doubled since the early 2000s, an analysis of official data by the King’s Fund shows.

“There is a growing chasm in health inequalities revealed by the data,” said Veena Raleigh, a fellow at the thinktank who specialises in the stark differentials in rich and poor people’s health.

“Our analysis shows that life expectancy has continued to increase in wealthier areas but has virtually stagnated in deprived areas in the north with the result that the gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest parts of the country has grown by almost two-and-a-half years over the last two decades.”

The analysis underlines the scale of the challenge facing the health secretary, Sajid Javid, who in a recent keynote speech in Blackpool on “levelling-up” in health, pledged to tackle “the disease of disparity” – dramatic differences in outcomes based on geography, ethnicity and income.R

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 10 October 2021

Read more
 

NHSE tells trusts to ‘immediately stop all ambulance handover delays’

  • ·        Trusts told to identify actions to “immediately stop all delays”
  • ·        Letter calls for issue to be discussed at every board meeting
  • ·        It follows concern over harm to patients from delays

Trusts and integrated care systems are being told by NHS England and Improvement to take urgent action to ”immediately stop all delays” to ambulance handovers, which will require “difficult choices”.

A letter yesterday from NHS England’s medical director, director for emergency and elective care, and its regional directors was sent to all local chief executives and chairs yesterday.

It also says they should discuss the issue of ambulance handovers at every board meeting they hold, warns that “corridor care” is “unacceptable as a solution”, and says ambulances should not be used as “additional ED cubicles”.

The move comes amid signs of large numbers of very long handover delays, and concern about the risk to patients from this and the knock-on damage to ambulance response times.

Read the full article here (paywalled)
Original source: Health Service Journal

Read more

© 2026 Patient Safety Learning. All rights reserved.

Patient Safety Learning is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission Registration number 1180689.

×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.