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I sat through an inquest into my toddler’s avoidable death

My son had a tummy ache. The next day he died after being discharged from a London hospital

One morning last July, my son, Finlay, had a tummy ache. We took him to the GP who suggested A&E if things didn’t improve. Later that afternoon we took him to the Whittington Hospital in north London where, over nine gruelling hours, we ticked off the increasingly familiar list of deathly NHS misery and systemic failure.

Paediatric A&E was described as “exceptionally” busy by staff. At that time the Whittington’s internal policies judged their staffing levels “unsafe”, though this wasn’t communicated to the A&E department. The conditions were filthy, we spent most of our time in the corridors where Finlay was repeatedly examined on my knee. Throughout the nine hours, no complete set of observations was ever taken, which no one seemed to notice. We asked to move to Great Ormond Street Hospital on a number of occasions but were rebuffed.

Key diagnostic resources — an ultrasound and an in-house surgical consultation — were not available. The few tests they managed were botched: an X-ray was misread, and a wildly anomalous blood test remained unexplained.

Still with no observations and no clue as to the blood test, we were discharged around 1am. When we woke up at 8am, Finny wasn’t breathing. I tried and failed to resuscitate him on his play mat. A dozen ambulance crew and police came and similarly failed. He was then taken back to the Whittington where he died.

In the face of this life-deranging calamity, the Whittington’s response was awful: cold, confused and incompetent. We had to beg for a referral for grief support. We repeatedly insisted that the Whittington could not investigate itself. This was just one piece of the wider NHS approach: sloppy correspondence with spelling mistakes and incorrect details, including our name.

Ultimately, the coroner wrote a “narrative” verdict. After putting the boot into the Whittington’s ineptitude, she concluded: “However, it is unclear whether, if all care had been delivered as it should have been, Finlay’s life would have been saved. He would have had a chance.”

At the time of writing, the coroner is still considering whether to issue another PFD notice.

Systems should be defined by what they do, not what they are supposed to achieve. The PFD system, it seems to me, exists more to document repetitive disaster than prevent it. And so, tomorrow, or next month, or next year, another family will learn that their child died in reasonably preventable circumstances, from causes already flagged by coroners, through institutional failures long documented in previous PFD reports. They will sit through the same ceremonial farrago, learning that their devastating loss was neither inevitable nor unforeseen, but recorded, bureaucratically forgotten, and condemned to repeat.

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Source: The Times, 22 June 2025

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Top medics issue warning over heart drug - AstraZeneca accused of 'misreporting' data

Millions of patients at high risk of a fatal heart attack could be taking a drug that may not even be effective, top doctors have warned. 

Anti-clotting pill ticagrelor was approved for use on the NHS in 2011 after trials claimed it could prevent one in five deaths after a heart attack.

The twice-daily pill, sold as Brilinta, is given to people with acute coronary syndrome —a sudden reduction of blood to the heart—reducing the risk of deadly clots and strokes.

Now, experts have discovered 'evidence of serious misreporting' in two clinical trials, pivotal to getting the drug approved in the UK and US, 'raising doubts over its approval'. 

The BMJ investigation claimed the 'primary endpoint' results—the key measure to determine whether a treatment is effective—for both trials were inaccurately reported in leading cardiology journal Circulation. 

It also said around a quarter of the readings from machines used in the trials were not included in the data sets, the US medicine's regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used to approve the drug. 

Dr Victor Serebruany, an expert in cardiovascular pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, who has been critical of the drug for over a decade said: 'It's been obvious for years that there is something wrong with the data. 

"That the FDA's leadership could look past all these problems—on top of the many problems their own reviewers identified and are now being discovered by The BMJ—is unconscionable. 

"We all need to know how and why that happened.

"If doctors had known what happened in these trials, they would never have started using ticagrelor."

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Source: Mail Online, 20 June 2025  

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We have seen the government’s 10-Year Health Plan: it is a mess

The draft of the government’s 10-Year Health Plan circulated this weekend, which HSJ has seen, is a highly ambitious document. Unfortunately, this is not meant as a compliment

The 150-page document contains many good ideas. However, they are set in a framework that would challenge the logic of the most credulous of policy radicals.

Put crudely – and that is the right word for the plan’s swathe of hi-tech references – the government’s argument is this: the recovery and transformation of the NHS can be achieved by shifting care into the community, applying AI to almost everything and stepping up prevention work.

A new operating model proposed by the government’s 10-Year Health Plan will radically reform the role and governance of foundation trusts and integrated care boards.

HSJ has seen a recent draft of the plan, which states that the strongest foundation trusts will be allowed to become “integrated health organisations”. These will be given the responsibility of managing the budget for the health and care of a designated population.

Meanwhile, the plan says elected mayors will take over from local authority leaders on integrated care boards, and the new role of the boards will often involve shaping the provider market.

‘The draft plan says the Department of Health and Social Care will seek to approve the first “new FTs” in 2026.

The authorisation will be undertaken by a unit within the DHSC, whose work will be overseen by an independent group of experts. There will be no return for Monitor, the standalone FT regulator.

The plan reveals FTs will no longer be required to have governors. The public and staff representatives will be replaced by more “dynamic” ways of reflecting their views.

The highest performing new FTs will be able to manage the entire healthcare budget for a local population. These FTs will become “integrated health organisations” or “IHOs”.

This approach, the plan claims, will avoid the problem in which improving preventative care in one type of provider, such as GP practices, advantages another, for example, a hospital. It is a concept similar to “accountable care organisations” in the USA.

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Source: HSJ, 23 June 2025

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Four nurses investigated over death of boy, 5, at flagship children’s care home

Four nurses are facing a fitness to practice probe after the death of a five-year-old boy at a flagship care home for disabled children, The Independent can reveal.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the UK’s nursing watchdog, initially found there was no case to answer over the death of Connor Wellsted, who suffocated in his cot in 2017 while being cared for at the Children’s Trust facility in Tadworth, Surrey.

The nurses were referred to the NMC in May 2022, but the watchdog later closed the investigations. It reopened the probe in November 2023 and, this month, after a 19-month-long investigation, decided all four nurses should face fitness to practice tribunals.

No interim conditions have been placed on the nurses, meaning they can continue to work while awaiting the outcome. If the committee finds the nurses are unfit to practice, they could be struck off or suspended. However, the committee can also decide that the nurses’ fitness to practice is not impaired and give no sanction.

It comes after The Independent revealed that Surrey police had reopened a probe into the handling of Connor’s death following a litany of failings over the little boy’s care.

Connor died at Tadworth Children’s Trust (TCT), the UK’s largest brain injury rehabilitation centre for children, which can care for up to 66 young people, having suffocated when a cot bumper became lodged under his chin. He had been there for six weeks, receiving care for neuro-rehabilitation.

He was the first of three disabled children to die while in the care of TCT. Raihana Oluwadamilola Awolaja and Mia Gauci-Lamport died in June and September 2023, respectively.

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Source: The Independent, 22 June 2025

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Domestic abuse is ‘public health emergency’, experts say after critical NHS report

Domestic abuse is a public health emergency, experts have claimed, after a report concluded that the NHS is failing victims by not training staff to spot and respond to the signs of domestic violence.

About one in four people (21.6%) in England and Wales aged 16 years and over have experienced domestic abuse, affecting 12.6 million people, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.

Analysis shows that the NHS has more contact with victims and perpetrators than any other public service.

But new research by the charity Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse (Stada) claims the health service is missing vital opportunities to save lives. It examined all the official reviews of domestic abuse-related homicides and suicides published in 2024 and found that about 90% cited safeguarding failings by the NHS.

Lack of domestic abuse training was the most frequent criticism identified. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance advises mandatory training for frontline NHS staff in identifying and properly caring for domestic abuse victims. But Stada’s analysis found that such training was “sporadic and inconsistent”.

The report also highlights repeated failures by the NHS to record risks, share information and get victims help from other specialists such as alcohol and mental health services, and independent domestic violence advisers.

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Source: The Guardian, 22 June 2025

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Failing trusts will pay for new intervention regime

NHS England’s new “provider improvement programme” (PIP) is expected to cover about 15 trusts which will have to pay for NHSE’s interventions themselves, HSJ has learned.

NHSE is also beginning a restructure to cut and overhaul its RSP team into a new PIP team, despite concerns from staff, according to internal documents.

They say the new, renamed regime is generally expected to cover about 15 trusts at a time. They will normally enter when they have the lowest level of performance under NHSE’s new performance regime, and are judged to have a “low” capability to improve. Those which have “suffered a catastrophic failure of governance, either [of] quality or finance” will also be likely to enter the PIP, according to documents seen by HSJ.

According to a document seen by HSJ, as of a month ago, NHSE expected 10 trusts to enter the PIP, but a list is still being finalised based on the overhauled national performance and assessment framework.

Alongside the changes, NHSE has launched a consultation on restructuring its RSP team ahead of other parts of the planned merger of NHSE and the Department of Health and Social Care. The RSP team is expected to see a 27.8 per cent cut in whole-time equivalent posts, from 51 to 37. 

HSJ understands members of the team have raised concerns that the speed of their changes will leave them disadvantaged in the reorganisation, or lead to further disruption.

One source said the changes would mean more cost from external temporary staff and consultancy. The PIP regime will use senior figures from outside NHSE, on a temporary basis, and management consultants, documents suggest.

One states: “A blended support model will be agreed, [with staff ] deployed from across: the NHSE team, including from the PIP team (depending on capacity and capability); from the wider NHS family, including temporary board appointments, buddying or other NHS organisations; and/or consultancy support under a national commissioned framework.”

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Source: HSJ, 23 June 2025

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NHS plans to DNA test all babies to assess disease risk

Every newborn baby in England will have their DNA mapped to assess their risk of hundreds of diseases, under NHS plans for the next 10 years.

The scheme, first reported by the Daily Telegraph, is part of a government drive towards predicting and preventing illness, which will also see £650m invested in DNA research for all patients by 2030.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said gene technology would enable the health service to "leapfrog disease, so we're in front of it rather than reacting to it".

It comes after a study analysing the genetic code of up to 100,000 babies was announced in October.

The government's 10-year plan for the NHS, which is set to be revealed over the coming few weeks, is aimed at easing pressure on services.

The Department for Health and Social Care said that genomics - the study of genes - and AI would be used to "revolutionise prevention" and provide faster diagnoses and an "early warning signal for disease".

Screening newborn babies for rare diseases will involve sequencing their complete DNA using blood samples from their umbilical cord, taken shortly after birth.

There are approximately 7,000 single-gene disorders. The NHS study which began in October only looked for gene disorders that develop in early childhood and for which there are effective treatments.

Currently, newborn babies are offered a heelprick blood test that checks for nine serious conditions, including cystic fibrosis.

The health secretary said in a statement: "With the power of this new technology, patients will be able to receive personalised healthcare to prevent ill-health before symptoms begin, reducing the pressure on NHS services and helping people live longer, healthier lives."

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Source: BBC News, 21 June 2025

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Strict rules as GPs start to prescribe weight loss jab Mounjaro

Prescriptions for Mounjaro jabs, to help people lose weight, will be available at GP surgeries in England from today - but only for those who meet very strict criteria.

NHS England says while the long-term plan is for the jabs to be more widely available, a staggered approach is needed to reach those most at need, manage GPs' workload and NHS resources.

The weekly injection makes you feel full so you eat less, and can help people lose 20% of their body weight.

GPs say they don't have enough doctors to deal with demand for the medicine and are urging people not to approach their local surgery unless they are eligible.

According to NHS England, the first group of patients who will be able to get the jab from their GP or a community clinic, will be those most in need.

This is people with:

  • a BMI of 40 or over (or 37.5 if from a minority ethnic background)
  • and four out of five of the following conditions: type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and vascular disease, high cholesterol and obstructive sleep apnoea.

People will also get "wrap-around" care - including regular check-ups, support with exercising and advice on eating healthily.

But prescriptions for the drug will not necessarily be available from all local GPs. In some cases, they will come from other primary care services.

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Source: BBC News, 23 June 2025

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Wes Streeting announces investigation into NHS maternity services

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced the launch of a national investigation into NHS maternity services.

The new rapid investigation is intended to provide truth to families suffering harm.

It is also intended to drive urgent improvements to care and safety.

The announcement on Monday came after Mr Streeting met with families who had lost babies and amid the ongoing investigations into poor maternity care at some NHS trusts.

In a statement, the health secretary said: “For the past year, I have been meeting bereaved families from across the country who have lost babies or suffered serious harm during what should have been the most joyful time in their lives.

“What they have experienced is devastating – deeply painful stories of trauma, loss, and a lack of basic compassion – caused by failures in NHS maternity care that should never have happened. Their bravery in speaking out has made it clear: we must act – and we must act now.

“I know nobody wants better for women and babies than the thousands of NHS midwives, obstetricians, maternity and neonatal staff, and that the vast majority of births are safe and without incident, but it’s clear something is going wrong.

“That’s why I’ve ordered a rapid national investigation to make sure these families get the truth and the accountability they deserve, and ensure no parent or baby is ever let down again. I want staff to come with us on this, to improve things for everyone.

“We’re also taking immediate steps to hold failing services to account and give staff the tools they need to deliver the kind, safe, respectful care every family deserves.

“Maternity care should be the litmus test by which this government is judged on patient safety, and I will do everything in my power to ensure no family has to suffer like this again.”

Mr Streeting said the Government was also “taking immediate steps to hold failing services to account”.

“Maternity care should be the litmus test by which this Government is judged on patient safety, and I will do everything in my power to ensure no family has to suffer like this again.”

Officials said that the investigation would examine the entire maternity system, including an urgent review into the worst-performing services.

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Source: The Independent, 23 June 2025

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Hospital wanted rid of us, Steve James says after daughter’s sepsis death

Five years after her daughter died from an avoidable heart attack at Cardiff’s University Hospital Wales, Jane James was sat in the same chaotic emergency department last month with her elderly mother and saw nothing had changed.

“I sat in that same area, just looking around, thinking, ‘This is not a professional setup’,” she said. “Apart from the horrific feeling of sitting there again and being in that environment, I thought, ‘This has got to change, surely. It is broken’.”

This week a coroner concluded that Bethan James, 21, a promising journalism student, died from sepsis and pneumonia because of multiple failures by paramedics and doctors at University Hospital Wales (UHW) to spot the signs of life-threatening sepsis and follow standard procedures to save her life.

Patricia Morgan, the coroner for South Wales, found Bethan would not have suffered her fatal cardiac arrest if “early recognition and prompt action had occurred”. The inquest heard that Bethan and her concerned parents felt “dismissed” by medics in the two weeks before her death as her health deteriorated.

On the day she died, several paramedics failed to spot the signs of sepsis and did not alert the emergency department about her serious ill health. Once in hospital, nurses and doctors did not identify her life-threatening condition for about an hour, by which time her chance of survival was gone and she suffered a fatal heart attack.

Her father, Steve James, 57, a cricket and rugby writer for The Times, and mother Jane, 59, a physiotherapist for Sport Wales, sat together in Pontypridd coroners’ court this week to hear the vindication of five years of fighting tooth and nail to get an inquest into their daughter’s sudden death.

“They’ve been an absolute disgrace from start to finish and I think it’s a culture of cover-up,” Mr James, a former England and Glamorgan cricketer, said. “From the start, it’s just been covering up and not admitting anything. There’s no culture of trying to get better.”

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Source: The Times, 19 June 2025

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Simple blood test could provide first reliable diagnosis for ME

Scientists have found biological signatures in the blood of people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a breakthrough that could lead to the first reliable test for the debilitating condition.

ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), affects an estimated 400,000 people in the UK. Symptoms can include pain, brain fog and extremely low energy levels that do not improve with rest. These often become dramatically worse after even minor physical effort, a phenomenon known as post-exertional malaise. There is no cure and the cause is unknown.

A diagnosis is typically made by ­ruling out other illnesses, a process that can take years. The new study, led by ­researchers from Edinburgh University, may mark a turning point.

Professor Chris Ponting, of the university’s Institute of Genetics and Cancer, said: “For so long people with ME/CFS have been told it’s all in their head. It’s not. We see [it] in their blood.

“Evidence of a large number of replicated and diverse blood biomarkers that differentiate between ME/CFS cases and controls should dispel any lingering perception it is caused by deconditioning and exercise intolerance.”

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Source: The Times, 20 June 2025

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Overseas-trained doctors ‘put off UK due to cost of living and low salaries’

Doctors are choosing not to come and work in the UK because they are put off by low salaries, the high cost of living and poor quality of life.

Research by the General Medical Council (GMC) shows that doctors who shun the UK are opting to move instead to the United States, Australia and Canada to earn more and have a better life.

Overall, 84% of doctors trained abroad surveyed by the GMC said that other countries were better than Britain at paying good salaries and only 5% felt the opposite was true.

The UK was also seen as being very poor for the cost of living and quality of life, attracting scores of minus 44 and minus 43.

Among doctors considering where to further their careers, the UK scored worse than competitor countries on 14 of the 15 issues the GMC asked them about.

It also recorded negative ratings for being an advanced healthcare system (minus 26), doctors being treated with respect by patients and the public (minus 20), quality of patient care (minus 17) and having enough appropriately qualified staff (minus 17).

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Source: The Guardian, 20 June 2025

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NHSE orders trusts to halt ‘safety risk’ AI projects

NHS England has been forced to warn trusts and GPs against adopting “non-compliant” AI technology which “risks clinical safety, data protection breaches [and] financial exposure”.

A letter from the national chief clinical information officer, seen by HSJ, ordered NHS bodies to immediately “pause, reject or stop engagement” with suppliers offering audio transcription software, if they did not comply with its standards (see box below).

“Ambient voice technology” software aims to save clinicians time they would otherwise spend writing up consultation notes and inputting them into medical records. Government is poised to accelerate the rollout of the systems in its 10-Year Health Plan.

But in the letter last week, Alec Price-Forbes told tech leaders: “Proceeding with non-compliant solutions risks clinical safety, data protection breaches, financial exposure, and fragmentation of broader NHS digital strategy.”

NHS England warned: “Liability for the use of non-compliant AVT solutions will be held by the local NHS trust, primary care practice or individual clinicians.”

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Source: HSJ, 19 June 2025

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Two Leeds hospitals’ maternity services rated inadequate over safety risks

The care of women and babies at two Leeds hospitals presents a significant risk to their safety, the NHS regulator has said, after the preventable deaths of dozens of newborns.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) demanded urgent improvements to maternity services at Leeds general infirmary and St James’s hospital as it downgraded them to “inadequate”.

A BBC investigation this year found that the deaths of at least 56 babies and two mothers may have been preventable at the two hospitals between January 2019 and July 2024.

The hospitals, run by Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust, are the latest to be engulfed by a maternity scandal that has revealed catastrophic failings in Nottingham, Shrewsbury and Telford, Morecambe Bay, east Kent and others.

The downgrading of maternity and neonatal services in Leeds follows unannounced inspections by the CQC in December and January.

Ann Ford, a director of operations at the CQC, said it had received concerns from staff, patients and families about safety and staffing levels at the two hospitals.

She said: “During the inspection the concerns were substantiated, and this posed a significant risk to the safety of women, people using these services, and their babies as the staff shortages impacted on the timeliness of the care and support they received.”

Inspectors found dirty areas on the maternity wards of both hospitals, unsafe storage of medicines, a “blame culture” that left staff unwilling to raise concerns, and short-staffed units.

On the neonatal wards, which care for the most vulnerable newborns, the CQC found they were understaffed and infants needing special care were being transported unsafely from one hospital to another.

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Source: The Guardian, 20 June 2025

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Hackers took down high-secure hospital’s security system

A cyber attack disabled alarm systems used by staff at a high-security psychiatric hospital, HSJ can reveal.

West London Trust, which runs Broadmoor hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, is still trying to fix the system after an attack which it says took place in January.

The facility was forced to use extra alarms, radios and staff “in order to respond to incidents in a timely fashion”, a trust board report from April said.

High-secure hospitals are used for patients who have been detained under mental health legislation or present an immediate risk of harm to others, and have the same security arrangements as category B prisons.

Staff have access to alarms for their safety and that of their patients.

In a board report last week, West London Trust said clinical and operational services continued to operate with “minimal” disruption to patients. It said the organisation’s “cyber posture” would be enhanced to “limit the impact of future incidents”.

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Source: HSJ, 19 June 2025

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Trust accused of ‘highly inappropriate’ physician associates policy

A union has criticised a hospital trust for “jeopardising patient safety” by issuing “highly inappropriate” instructions for resident doctors to approve prescription requests from physician associates.

The British Medical Association has written to University Hospitals Plymouth Trust to raise “serious concerns about the apparent unsafe and unprofessional working arrangements” between resident doctors and physician associates at the trust.

The letter comes after a leak on social media appeared to show resident doctors at one of UHP’s departments being instructed to set up a rota to sign off requests for prescriptions and imaging investigations made by a physician associate. The BMA has called for these instructions to be “urgently rescinded”.

Guidance from the General Medical Council states that physician associates cannot prescribe medication, even if they held prescribing rights in a previous role.

The letter to UHP’s interim chief executive Mark Hackett, from BMA council chair Phil Banfield, said the instructions “contain highly inappropriate directions to resident doctors which, if acted upon, would cause them to breach professional standards set by their regulator, risk their professional indemnity, and jeopardise patient safety.

“The rules on prescribing are clear, physician associates are not qualified or legally entitled to prescribe. This is not ‘due to a number of issues’ (as claimed in the instructions) that can somehow be circumvented by the trust – it is a necessary legal restriction put in place to protect patient safety.

“Our guidance (and that of the GMC) is clear that no resident doctor should automatically prescribe medications or request ionising radiation on behalf of another practitioner…. That resident doctors have been asked to organise a rota implementing such unsafe practices speaks volumes about the way they are viewed by their employer”.

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Source: HSJ, 19 June 2025

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Under-fire NHS trust recorded patient ate breakfast three days after he died

An NHS mental health trust, recently found guilty of serious failings in the care of a young patient who took her own life, has had serious concerns raised over the deaths of 20 other patients over the last 10 years, the BBC has found.

Coroners have repeatedly highlighted issues about the North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), including about the quality of risk assessments and record-keeping.

In two cases patient notes were found to have been falsified. Including one man who was recorded as eating breakfast three days after he had died.

An Old Bailey jury last week found the trust guilty of health and safety breaches in the care of 22-year-old Alice Figueiredo who was an inpatient at NELFT's Goodmayes hospital.

The BBC can now reveal in the decade since Alice's death, NELFT has been repeatedly criticised by coroners for failures in patient care.

In the last decade, nearly 30 prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports from coroners have mentioned NELFT. Of these, the BBC has analysed 20 which raise the most serious concerns.

In two cases where patients took their own lives inquests concluded records had been altered after their deaths.

The most common criticism found the assessment of the risk patients posed to themselves was poor or incomplete.

Cases also highlighted poor record-keeping, a lack of communication between teams, staff shortages and high caseloads.

Two patients who died of overdoses were said to have been on short-term medication for 18 years and 20 years, with no record of that having been reviewed.

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Source: BBC News, 18 June 2025

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Police maternity investigation to interview staff

A police investigation into maternity services at two hospitals has started interviewing current and former members of staff.

West Mercia Police began the inquiry in June 2020, while a review by senior midwife Donna Ockenden was ongoing - Ockenden would eventually find there had been catastrophic failings at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust.

The police investigation was set up to explore whether there was evidence to support a criminal case against the trust or any individuals involved.

The hospital trust said it recognised it was important people get "the answers they have waited for" and that it was fully cooperating with police.

The Ockenden inquiry examined maternity practices at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust over a period of 20 years.

Initially set up to examine 23 cases, it was widened to include almost 1,600 cases where there were concerns over maternity care.

It found the failures may have led to the deaths of more than 200 babies, nine mothers and left other infants with life-changing injuries.

Hundreds of the cases have been examined by police officers involved in Operation Lincoln.

The senior officer in the police investigation, Supt Carl Moore, said the start of staff interviews represented a new phase.

"We are committed to ensuring that the families involved are fully informed at each stage of our enquiries," he said.

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Source: BBC News, 19 June 2025

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Scandal-hit nursing regulator wrongly approved hundreds of nurses to work in UK, damning report reveals

A scandal-hit regulator wrongly approved more than 350 “fraudulent” or “underqualified” nurses to work in the UK, amid a “dysfunctional” culture exposed by The Independent.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates more than 800,000 nurses and midwives, is also failing to spot workers who could pose a serious risk to patient safety and to prioritise investigating them.

These are just two of a series of failings uncovered in a review by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), which regulates the NMC. That was prompted by The Independent’s exposé, which revealed that the organisation’s “toxic” culture had allowed nurses to work unchecked after whistleblower concerns were ignored.

The PSA’s report found that the NMC is failing to meet 7 of 18 national standards, and warned that:

  • There are “serious” cultural and operational issues within the NMC.
  • It is taking too long to deal with fitness-to-practice cases against nurses.
  • A small number of safeguarding failings could amount to a serious risk to the public.
  • Hundreds of fraudulent and underqualified nurses were placed on the register in error.
  • It had significant concerns about the NMC’s ability to manage the quality of education provided by university training courses.
  • It has consistently failed for years to investigate cases against nurses fairly.

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Source: The Independent, 19 June 2025

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UK sickle cell patients ‘get worse care than sufferers of similar disorders’

People living with sickle cell disease face substandard care as its treatment significantly lags behind advances relating to other genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis, a report has found.

The study, commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory and carried out by researchers at Imperial College London, analysed various measures of care for sickle cell disease between 2010 and 2024, including clinical trials, approved drugs and reviews of existing studies.

The findings indicated that sickle cell care across the UK does not have parity with other genetic disorders, such as cystic fibrosis, with there being only 0.5 specialist nurses per 100 patients for sickle cell, compared with 2 per 100 for cystic fibrosis.

The report also found that there is 2.5 times more research funding for cystic fibrosis than for sickle cell, meaning the former has more treatment options and breakthrough drugs than the latter.

Evidence of substandard care for people with sickle cell was also found, with 20% of babies with the condition not being seen by a specialist by three months of age, despite the NHS screening programme guidelines that 90% of babies should be seen by this milestone.

Prof Habib Naqvi, the chief executive of the observatory, said sickle cell care “significantly lags behind” that for other rare genetic conditions.

He added: “These inequalities are stark and, despite being a common genetic disorder, sickle cell has endured years of inadequate attention and investment that has resulted in the experiences we then see play out for people living with the condition.

“We do highlight the stark inequalities that exist for people with sickle cell in comparison with other rare conditions, but we also offer evidence-based solutions for meaningful change.”

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Source: The Guardian, 19 June 2025

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UK air pollution killing more than 500 people a week, doctors say

Air pollution in the UK is costing more than £500m a week in ill health, NHS care and productivity losses, with 99% of the population breathing in “toxic air”, doctors have said.

Dirty air is killing more than 500 people a week, with health harm to almost every organ of the body caused by air pollution, even at low concentrations, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said.

With an impact on mortality and healthy life expectancy, the effects on individuals, society, the economy and the NHS were huge and the threat air pollution posed to public health was greater than previously understood, a landmark report by the college concluded.

The RCP report also highlighted studies providing new information about the significant health dangers of toxic air, including foetal development and risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, mental health conditions and dementia.

Air pollution in the UK now kills 30,000 people and costs £27bn a year, according to the research, which also said there was no safe level of air pollutants. The figure could even be significantly higher – up to £50bn – if wider impacts such as dementia were taken into account.

Exposure to air pollution can shorten people’s lives by 1.8 years, “just behind some of the leading causes of death and disease worldwide”, including cancer and smoking, the report added.

The college called for action from the government to tackle the crisis, as it urged ministers to “recognise air pollution as a key public health issue”.

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Source: The Guardian, 9 June 2025

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USA: Judge rules hundreds of NIH grant cuts are ‘void and illegal’

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) must restore hundreds of recently cancelled research grants focused on race, gender and sexual orientation, a federal judge ordered 16 June. 

The federal government announced in February it would terminate NIH grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Since then, 2,282 grants worth $3.8 billion have been cut, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. 

Nearly 1,200 of those grants were tied to hospitals and medical schools, including research focused on HIV/AIDS, mental and behavioural health conditions, cancer, substance use disorders and chronic diseases, according to the AAMC.

On 16 June, U.S. District Court Judge William Young directed the NIH to restore much of these grant funds, ruling the cuts are “void and illegal” and accusing the government of racial discrimination and prejudice against the LGBTQ community. 

A spokesperson for HHS, which oversees the NIH, told The Hill that the agency plans to appeal or halt the ruling. 

The NIH faces significant funding cuts for 2026 as President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, published 2 May, would trim the NIH’s funding from around $48 billion to $27 billion. The proposal is undergoing the congressional appropriations process.

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Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 17 June 2025

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Warning over filler injections in public toilets

Cosmetic procedures such as fillers, Botox and Brazilian butt lifts are taking place in public toilets, hotel rooms and other "shocking locations" in Britain, officials have warned.

People's lives "are being put at risk every single day" by the lack of regulation in the industry, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) says, as it called for urgent action to set up a licensing scheme.

It has also uncovered unsafe fillers and fat-dissolving injections being sold online.

The Department for Health and Social Care says the government is looking into new regulations to protect people.

Kerry Nicol, external affairs manager at the CTSI, said she was "genuinely shocked by the scale of potential harm facing the public due to the alarming lack of regulation in the aesthetic industry".

She added that "action is urgently needed" to crack down on "bad players operating in this sector" and a cross-government approach was required.

The priority is giving the public a clear indication of who is qualified to carry out these procedures, Ms Nicol said.

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Source: BBC News, 18 June 2025

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Nearly 200 patients harmed in major cyber attack

The NHS has confirmed nearly 200 patients were harmed as a result of a major cyber attack last year.

One year on from the ransomware attack that shut down the IT systems used by south east London’s pathology provider Synnovis, managers confirmed nearly 600 incidents, of which 170 involved patient care suffering.

This includes one case of “severe” harm, which has prompted a patient safety incident investigation at King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust, 14 examples that were classed as “moderate”, and another 155 defined as “low harm”.

The attack in June 2024 left GPs across six boroughs unable to order blood tests, and more than 1,000 inpatient procedures were cancelled at two large hospital trusts.

The attack meant the pathology IT systems depended on by two of England’s biggest provider trusts – Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital foundation trusts – and 192 GP practices were largely inoperable. Large quantities of tests in primary care were deferred or cancelled; and those carried out had to be sent to the pathology networks in north central and south west London.

The hospitals were unable to carry out some procedures involving blood transfusion, including surgery, with many diverted to other providers. Some cancer treatments were also delayed or diverted, as well as some transplants and specialist maternity work.

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Source: HSJ, 18 June 2025

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Bullying and discrimination threaten to shape another NHS restructure

NHS restructures are exposing deep-rooted inequalities, as valued staff face exclusion, intimidation, and unfair treatment under the name of change says Roger Kline and Joy Warmington in an HSJ article.

“The need to do things in a hurry”, we are told, is the system’s way of getting around normal recruitment processes, such as senior appointments in NHS England, trusts and elsewhere – especially the “temporary” ones that become permanent.

Across the NHS, we have heard of a significant number of perfectly competent and high-performing staff (especially senior staff) suddenly finding themselves criticised just ahead of the announcement of a restructure. Suspicious? Extremely, especially ahead of restructures where a favoured candidate is earmarked for the role.

A significant number of these staff are threatened with being performance managed and subjected to investigations whose only purpose seems to be to demoralise and make voluntary redundancy seem attractive. Nepotism is hardly a stranger to senior NHS appointments, but the scale of planned redundancies and restructure appears to have acted to normalise this poor practice.

For example, Alice is a very senior manager with impeccable credentials and appraisals, but finds herself in a restructure in which a close friend of her manager is in direct competition when two jobs become one.

Suddenly, she found herself accused of poor performance and is micromanaged and marginalised. She collapsed at work and is off sick.

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Source: HSJ, 16 June 2025

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