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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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Hospitals’ ‘long-term poor culture’ called out by CQC

A major acute trust has been warned by the Care Quality Commission about a “long-term history of poor culture” in one of its departments.

Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust has received a warning notice from the Care Quality Commission over its children and young people’s services, following an inspection last November.

Chief executive Matthew Hopkins told the trust board in June that several concerns were raised by the CQC, including over “actions to improve the long-term history of poor culture and ineffective multidisciplinary team working”.

The CQC told HSJ its inspectors also identified concerns about culture, management and oversight of safety risks and a lack of learning from incidents. It said it carried out the inspection after concerns were identified through its ongoing monitoring.

A Section 29A warning notice means the CQC believes significant improvements in the quality of healthcare are required.

Nicki Abbott, the managing director for women and children, said an action plan was being developed in light of the warning notice. She said: “The issues relating to culture are known and were already being addressed”.

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Source: HSJ, 17 June 2025

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Government warned against 10-Year Plan ‘restructure’

One of the central ideas in the 10-Year Health Plan is “not novel” and could be damaging if it imposes a “one size fits all” model, a community health leader has told HSJ.

Steph Lawrence was, until last year chief nurse at Leeds Community Healthcare Trust, which has been celebrated by Labour leaders for its development of integrated care and out-of-hospital working.

Next month, she becomes chief executive of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing, representing staff who will need to be central to a “neighbourhood health service” – a proposal due to feature heavily in the government’s 10-Year Health Plan. 

She spoke to HSJ before taking up the post. Asked about neighbourhood health (NH), she warned: “I don’t think this is a new idea. I don’t think this is anything novel. In Leeds, we have had integrated neighbourhood teams since about 2012 or 2013…

“It’s the right thing to do. But [what] worries me is that every neighbourhood will be different, and therefore one size is never going to fit all…

“Sometimes we get this impression that if we put teams together in one place, they’ll naturally get on and work together. That isn’t how it works. It works by developing relationships and making sure you focus on the person, not what the service needs”.

The nurse leader’s comments come amid fears the plan, expected next month, may encourage a takeover of community and other services by acute providers.

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Source: HSJ, 17 June 2025

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‘Extremely disturbing and unethical’: new rules allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans

Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.

The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.

Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment. But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law.

Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.

Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show. The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.

In making the changes, VA officials cite the president’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.

Medical experts said the implications of rule changes uncovered by the Guardian could be far-reaching.

They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration. He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2025

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NHS call handlers quitting over stress amid ‘relentless exposure to trauma’

NHS call handlers are quitting amid burnout at dealing with 999 calls about suicides, stabbings and shootings and the long delays before ambulances reach patients.

The pressure is so intense that 27% of control room staff in ambulance services across Britain have left their jobs over the last three years, NHS figures show.

Many feel overwhelmed by the demands of their roles, unsupported by their employers and powerless to help patients who are facing life-or-death emergencies, according to a report by Unison, with some resigning within a year of starting the role.

Call handlers get so stressed that they took an average of 33 sick days a year each between 2021/22 and 2024/25, data obtained by the union also showed. That is far higher than the average four days taken off sick by workers in the UK overall.

A report by Unison found that call handlers’ jobs have become increasingly challenging in recent years as the demand for care, which rose during Covid, has remained consistently high since, while ambulance handover delays outside hospitals have worsened.

“These findings paint a bleak picture of the conditions faced by 999 control room staff. TV programmes about ambulance services don’t show things as they really are,” said Christina McAnea, the Unison general secretary.

Unison’s report said: “Relentless exposure to traumatic and increasingly complex incidents, verbal abuse, long shifts and low pay are contributing to stress, burnout and fatigue.

One call handler told Unison: “Some shifts are overwhelmingly traumatic, with 90% of the calls of a distressing nature. One shift, I handled three road traffic accidents and two cardiac arrests.”

“There’s a persistent pressure to remain on the phone, no matter how emotionally drained we are.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 June 2025

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'My baby died after I was ignored' - families call for NHS maternity inquiry

When Tassie Weaver went into labour at full term, she thought she was hours away from holding her first child. But by the time she was giving birth, she knew her son had died.

Doctors had previously told Tassie to call her local maternity unit immediately, she says, as she was considered high risk and needed monitoring, due to high blood pressure and concerns about the baby's growth. But a midwife told her to stay at home.

Three hours later she called again, worried because now she couldn't feel her baby moving. Again, she was told to stay at home, the same midwife saying that this was normal because women can be too distracted by their contractions to feel anything else.

"I was treated as just a kind of hysterical woman in pain who doesn't know what's going on because it's their first pregnancy," the 39-year-old tells us.

When she called a third time, a different midwife told her to come to hospital, but when she arrived it was too late. His heart had stopped beating.

Tassie and her husband John believe Baxter's stillbirth at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI), four years ago, could have been prevented - and a review by the trust identified care issues "likely to have made a difference to the outcome".

The couple are among 47 new families who have contacted the BBC with concerns about inadequate maternity care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals (LTH) NHS Trust between 2017 and 2024.

As well as the new families, three new whistleblowers - two who still work for the trust - have shared concerns about the standard of care at its two maternity units - at the LGI and St James' University Hospital. This is in addition to the two we spoke to in the initial BBC investigation.

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Source: BBC News, 17 June 2025

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NHS staff unsettled by patients filming care and posting videos on social media

NHS staff have voiced concern about the growing numbers of patients who are filming themselves undergoing medical treatment and uploading it to TikTok and Instagram.

Radiographers, who take X-rays and scans, fear the trend could compromise the privacy of other patients being treated nearby and lead to staff having their work discussed online.

The Society of Radiographers (SoR) has gone public with its unease after a spate of incidents in which patients, or someone with them in the hospital, began filming their care.

On one occasion a radiology department assistant from the south coast was inserting a cannula into a patient who had cancer when their 19-year-old daughter began filming.

“She wanted to record the cannulation because she thought it would be entertaining on social media. But she didn’t ask permission,” the staff member said.

“I spent the weekend afterwards worrying: did I do my job properly? I know I did, but no one’s perfect all the time and this was recorded. I don’t think I slept for the whole weekend.”

They were also concerned that a patient in the next bay was giving consent for a colonoscopy – an invasive diagnostic test – at the same time as the daughter was filming her mother close by. “That could all have been recorded on the film, including names and dates of birth,” they said.

Ashley d’Aquino, a therapeutic radiographer in London, said a colleague had agreed to take photographs for a patient, “but when the patient handed over her phone the member of staff saw that the patient had also been covertly recording her, to publish on her cancer blog.

“As NHS staff we wear name badges, so our names will be visible in any video. It makes people feel very uncomfortable and anxious.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 June 2025

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Trusts penalised for exaggerating safety standards

Dozens of trusts have been hit with financial penalties after regulators questioned their claims to be compliant with maternity safety standards.

The maternity incentive scheme, run by NHS Resolution, gives trusts “refunds” on their payments to its clinical negligence scheme if they meet 10 safety-related criteria, which trust boards must declare against each year.

The 10 requirements include appropriate staffing, reviewing deaths using a national tool, and board oversight of maternity services.

However, NHS Resolution can investigate if concerns are raised — for example in a Care Quality Commission inspection — and these conflict with the trust’s submission. The payments to trusts can then be withdrawn, or withheld if they have not already been paid.

HSJ analysis of data shared by NHS Resolution found 24 trusts had to make one or more repayments in the first four years of the scheme, which started in 2018 and was relaunched after the pandemic.

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Source: HSJ, 17 June 2025

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Thousands of NHS patients ‘to be denied breakthrough Alzheimer’s drugs’

Breakthrough drugs that slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease will reportedly be refused for use on the NHS this week in a blow to thousands of patients.

The two drugs, Lecanemab and donanemab, slow down the decline in Alzheimer’s patients' ability to carry out daily activities.

The drugs’ success in halting the progression of Alzheimer’s was heralded as a “new era” by campaigners and researchers.

However, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) is expected to refuse to recommend them on the NHS, according to The Sunday Times.

The regulator has already issued two decisions, one in October last year and another in March, saying they would not recommend the drugs for use on the NHS. A final decision will be published on Thursday.

The regulator will reportedly turn down both drugs on the grounds of cost-effectiveness, with one insider telling The Sunday Times: “It is the end of the road for these drugs on the NHS”.

Hilary Evans-Newton, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the decision to turn down the drugs would be “deeply disappointing”.

She added: “These treatments are not perfect, and we recognise the challenges they pose around cost, delivery and safety. But scientific progress is incremental, and these drugs represent a vital foundation to build on.”

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Source: The Independent, 15 June 2025

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‘Milestone’ treatment could reshape future leukaemia care

A UK trial has found that a chemotherapy-free approach to treatment may lead to better outcomes for some leukaemia patients, in what scientists are calling a "milestone".

The groundbreaking UK-wide trial could reshape the way the most common form of leukaemia in adults is treated.

Researchers from Leeds assessed whether two targeted cancer drugs could perform better than standard chemotherapy among patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).

The Flair trial, which took place at 96 cancer centres across the UK, saw 786 people with previously untreated CLL randomly assigned to receive standard chemotherapy; a single targeted drug, ibrutinib, or two targeted drugs taken together, ibrutinib and venetoclax, with treatment guided by personalised blood tests.

Researchers found that after five years, 94% of patients who received ibrutinib plus venetoclax were alive with no disease progression.

This compares with 79% for those on ibrutinib alone and 58 per cent for those on standard chemotherapy, according to the study, which has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented to the European Haematology Association congress in Milan, Italy.

Dr Talha Munir, consultant haematologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, who led the study, said the Flair trial is a “milestone”.

“We have shown that a chemotherapy-free approach can be not only more effective but also more tolerable for patients,” she said.

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Source: The Independent, 16 June 2025

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Senior health figure accuses NHS of racism over care given to dying mother

A senior figure in the health service has criticised it for deep-seated racism after his mother “got a black service, not an NHS service” before she died.

Victor Adebowale, the chair of the NHS Confederation, claimed his mother Grace’s lung cancer went undiagnosed because black people get “disproportionately poor” health service care.

The NHS’s failure to detect her cancer while she was alive shows that patients experience “two different services”, based on the colour of their skin, Adebowale said.

His mother, Grace Amoke Owuren Adebowale, a former NHS nurse, died in January aged 92. He highlighted her care and death during his speech this week at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference as an example of “persistent racial inequalities in NHS services”.

His remarks prompted fresh concern about the stark differences between the care received by those from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds and white people.

“My mum, who worked for many years as a nurse, died earlier this year at the age of 92. It was difficult. It was not the dignified death that we would have wanted for her,” Adebowale told an audience of NHS bosses.

“It wasn’t the death she deserved. So it makes me clear about the need to address the inequity. I think she got a black service, not an NHS service.”

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Source: The Guardian, 14 June 2025

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