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Cancer screening reporting errors led to mum's death

The family of a mother who died from cervical cancer after twice being wrongly told she had negative results have been awarded undisclosed damages.

The misreporting of Louise Gleadell's cervical screening results was admitted by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust following her death aged 38 in March 2018.

An internal review in 2017 found the samples, taken four years apart, were not good enough to produce reliable results but neither Ms Gleadell - a mum to three boys - nor her relatives were told about the "inadequate" samples while she was still alive.

Her family have now been given an undisclosed payout, with the trust apologising for its mistakes that had "devastating consequences".

Ms Gleadell, from Cossington in Leicestershire, was diagnosed with cervical cancer two years prior to her death. It was, by that stage, too late to have surgery.

Two cervical screening tests, carried out in 2008 and 2012, were misreported to her as negative.

It meant that over a four-year period, she had been given false reassurance about her health when she was developing cervical cancer, and the opportunity to treat pre-cancerous cells passed.

Ms Gleadell's sisters, Laura and Clare Gleadell, say their grief has been compounded by knowing that their sister's death was avoidable.

Laura, 43, said: "Her death was preventable and that for us is ultimately really hard.

"It would not have developed into cancer had she been recalled in either 2008 or 2012.

"If she had had treatment for cell abnormalities before it even developed into cancer, she would not have died."

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Source: BBC News, 6 April 2025

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Who's to blame when AI makes a medical error? (26 March 2025)

Assistive artificial intelligence technologies hold significant promise for transforming health care by aiding physicians in diagnosing, managing, and treating patients. However, the current trend of assistive AI implementation could actually worsen challenges related to error prevention and physician burnout, according to a new brief published in JAMA Health Forum.

The brief, written by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, explains that there is an increasing expectation of physicians to rely on AI to minimize medical errors. However, proper laws and regulations are not yet in place to support physicians as they make AI-guided decisions, despite the fierce adoption of these technologies among healthcare organisations.

The researchers predict that medical liability will depend on whom society considers at fault when the technology fails or makes a mistake, subjecting physicians to an unrealistic expectation of knowing when to override or trust AI. The authors warn that such an expectation could increase the risk of burnout and even errors among physicians.

"AI was meant to ease the burden, but instead, it’s shifting liability onto physicians - forcing them to flawlessly interpret technology even its creators can’t fully explain," said Shefali Patil, visiting associate professor at the Carey Business School and associate professor at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business. "This unrealistic expectation creates hesitation and poses a direct threat to patient care."

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Source: Digital Health News, 26 March 2025

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Second child dies of measles as Texas outbreak worsens

A second child has died from measles as an outbreak of the highly contagious virus continues to grow in western Texas.

The school-aged child was not vaccinated, had no underlying health conditions and was in hospital suffering complications from measles, Aaron Davis, the vice-president of UMC Health System, told the BBC.

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has faced a backlash over his handling of the outbreak, visited Texas on Sunday in the wake of the death, which is the third overall in recent weeks.

The southern US state has reported more than 480 cases of measles so far this year as of Friday, a jump from 420 earlier in the week. The outbreak has extended to neighbouring states.

Across the whole of the US, more than 600 cases of measles have been recorded so far this year, more than double the 285 cases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded last year.

In 2019, there were a total of 1,274 measles cases recorded across the US, but prior to that there had not been a larger outbreak than this year's since the early 1990s, according to the CDC.

Many of this year's cases - nearly all in unvaccinated people - are related to the outbreak that began in western Texas.

"This unfortunate event underscores the importance of vaccination," Mr Davis said in a statement. "Measles is a highly contagious disease that can lead to serious complications, particularly for those who are unvaccinated."

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Read full story: BBC News, 6 April 2025

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'The NHS can't tell me where my job will be'

Jayne Evans has completed four years at medical school in London - but says she is still being left in the dark about where her first permanent NHS position will be.

"I was told that I don't have a job set aside for me," she said.

"They've guaranteed we will only be offered jobs other people decline and there's just no sort of timeline that they can give us."

Ms Evans has been given a rough idea of where she will be working - the Trent area, which spans almost all of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire - but no further clues.

She is one of hundreds of newly-qualified medical students who have not been found a specific job by the NHS yet.

Instead they have a so-called "placeholder job", meaning they have only been told the rough part of the country they will be in.

Without knowing where they will be living, they say they are not able to start preparations for moving.

Ms Evans said it had overshadowed her achievement in qualifying.

"I was expecting around this time to feel excited or even nervous, but now mostly I just feel angry and disrespected," she said.

"I went into medicine and was told we needed doctors and the NHS needs help but I've been told there is no job for me."

Dr Hassan Nassar was one of more than 1,000 medical students in the same position last year.

The BMA, the union that represents doctors and medical students in the UK, has accused the government of failing to plan for an increase in resident doctors - formerly known as junior doctors - after increasing the number of medical school places.

"The government has increased the number of medical school places - but not the number of foundation jobs," Callum Williams, the union's deputy chair of education, said.

"The government needs to increase that funding - and these jobs should go to UK-trained doctors first."

Mr Williams said there was a danger students would move abroad.

"It's your first job with the NHS, it is supposed to be exciting and instead it leaves a sour taste in your mouth," he said.

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Source: BBC News, 7 April 2025

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Missed and delayed medication putting A&E patients at risk, new report reveals

Patients in A&E are being put in potentially life-threatening situations due to missed doses of prescription medicines, according to a new report.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) found people in A&E were not getting their medications on time and were missing doses needed to manage their illnesses – putting them at risk of getting worse.

Insulin for diabetes, Parkinson's drugs, epilepsy medicines and tablets for preventing blood clots are all time critical medicines (TCM).

If these drugs are delayed or missed, the patient can deteriorate and is at greater risk of complications or death.

While patients are advised to remember to bring their medications to A&E and to take them, there is also a responsibility on NHS staff to make sure this happens.

Despite the recognised risk of harm, the delivery of TCM is not consistent across emergency departments with long waiting times often contributing to this.

The study, which was part of the College's clinical Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) which aims to improve the care of A&E patients, found more than half of these patients were not identified as being on TCM within 30 minutes of their arrival in an emergency department.

In addition, 68% of doses were not administered within 30 minutes of the expected time.

"The findings contained in this report should serve as a call to action for both emergency medicine staff, as well as patients reliant on time critical medications, to ensure no dose is ever missed in A&E," said Dr Jonny Acheson, an emergency medicine consultant in Leicester who has Parkinson's, led the study.

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Source: The Independent, 7 April 2025

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'Fit and well' surgery waitlist details to be revealed in Wales

More details on plans to only add people who are "fit and well" to surgery waiting lists and crack down on missed appointments are expected to be revealed on Monday.

Health Secretary Jeremy Miles will give a speech to health leaders on the Welsh government's bid to cut waiting lists by around one quarter by March 2026.

Hospital volunteer John Timmons, 70, said he saw "a ridiculous number" of patients not turning up for appointments and would support the plans.

But health equality charity, Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales (FTWW), said "fear of weight stigma" could delay some people from seeking help.

The proposed changes are part of a number of Welsh government ideas being discussed to improve the NHS, which has recently seen small reductions in record waiting lists.

These include:

  • Patients who miss hospital appointments twice or more being referred back to their GP, in effect placing them at the back of the queue.
  • An improved Welsh NHS app, allowing patients to track their progress through the system and make or amend appointments.
  • Increased levels of intervention to get patients fit for surgery, such as people being asked to lose weight or exercise more before they are placed on a waiting list.

The Welsh government said patients who were fit and well before surgery were more likely to recover quickly and support would be given to get them "in the best possible shape" for treatment.

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Source: BBC News, 6 April 2025

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Health workers to go door-to-door under new NHS plans to tackle sickness rates across England

Health workers will be sent door-to-door under drastic new NHS plans to tackle sickness rates across England, according to reports.

A community health worker will be allocated 120 homes to visit every month to see if help is needed under plans set to be rolled out in June, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Health secretary Wes Streeting said trials of the scheme showed “encouraging signs” in slashing the number of heavy NHS users which he called “frequent flyers” of A&E departments.

A pilot scheme in Westminster, London, showed a dramatic 10% drop in hospital admissions over a year, The Daily Telegraph reports.

“We’re seeing some really encouraging signs about what can happen if you’ve got the right care in the right place at the right time,” Mr Streeting said.

The scheme, set to be rolled out in 25 parts of England, is part of Mr Streeting’s 10-year plan for the NHS, which could also see younger people directed to pharmacy care using the NHS app, leaving GPs to devote their time to sicker and older patients.

The health secretary said a modernised version of the health service’s phone app could mean the NHS could “do a much better and faster job of making sure patients get the right care at the right time in the right place”.

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Source: The Independent, 7 April 2025

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Aid cuts could have ‘pandemic-like effects’ on maternal deaths, WHO warns

More women risk dying in pregnancy and childbirth because of aid cuts by wealthy countries, which could have “pandemic-like effects”, UN agencies have warned.

Pregnant women in conflict zones are the most vulnerable, and face an “alarmingly high” risk that is already five times greater than elsewhere, according to a new UN report on trends in maternal mortality.

Deaths due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth declined 40% globally between 2000 and 2023, but progress is “fragile” and has slowed since 2016, the authors said. An estimated 260,000 women died in 2023 from pregnancy-related causes.

There is a “threat of major backsliding” amid “increasing headwinds”, the authors said. US funding cuts this year have meant clinics closing and health workers losing their jobs, and disrupted the supply chains that deliver life-saving medicines to treat leading causes of maternal death such as haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and malaria, World Health Organization experts warned.

The report – itself part-funded by the US – revealed that maternal deaths rose by 40,000 in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic, probably driven by complications from the virus itself and by the disruptions to healthcare.

Dr Bruce Aylward, an assistant director general at the WHO, said that rise could offer insights into the possible impact of current aid cuts.

“With Covid, we saw an acute shock to the system, and what’s happening with financing is an acute shock,” he said.

“Countries have not had time to put in place and plan for what other financing they’re going to use, what other workers they’re going to use, [and] what are the trade-offs they’re going to make in their systems to try to make sure the most essential services can continue.”

The shock to services, he said, would lead to “pandemic-like effects”, adding that funding cuts risked not only progress, “but you could have a shift backwards”.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2025

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England’s NHS crews ‘watching patients die in back of ambulances’ due to A&E delays

Paramedics across England are watching patients die in the back of ambulances because of delays outside emergency departments, according to a survey by Unison.

The gridlock of patients in some of the country’s hospitals has led to queues of up to 20 ambulances outside casualty departments in certain areas. In a number of cases, crews have been forced to wait more than 12 hours before handing over patients.

The survey of nearly 600 ambulance workers reveals the toll of the waits on patients and the crews looking after them. Unison warns that “car park care” is increasingly becoming the norm, with hospital medical staff tending to patients in the back of ambulances.

More than three-quarters (77%) of paramedics and emergency medical technicians said they have had to look after people in the back of ambulances in the past year while stuck outside emergency departments. Two-thirds (68%) have waited in hospital corridors, or in other locations, with one paramedic often caring for several patients to allow colleagues to respond to other calls.

More than two-thirds also reported patients’ health deteriorating during long waits, and one in 20 (5%) said people have died in their care because of long delays in being admitted.

Gavin Taylor, 58, a Unison representative and ambulance worker in the north-west of England, said it was now a regular occurrence to be waiting several hours to hand over a patient. He said: “It’s heartbreaking because we are here as a caring profession and the delays have an impact on the care and wellbeing of patients.”

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Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2025

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Rise in autistic children going to A&E putting pressure on NHS

Positive Support Group said one child spent more than 120 days in hospital with ‘no medical need’ and warned that funding cuts were driving the surge

Becky, a 46-year-old charity worker. said her 14-year-old daughter Sofia first called the emergency services because she has autism and was in extreme distress during a crisis

“At the time, I had no support,” said Becky, a 46-year-old charity worker. “In a way, Sofia calling in the ambulance was a saving grace for us.”

Her called the emergency services when she was 13, not because she was in physical danger, but because she has autism and was in extreme distress during a crisis. According to her mother, Sofia has required emergency care to cope with multiple crises over the years.

NHS data analysed by the Positive Support Group (PSG) found that there were more than 20,000 episodes where children with autism were admitted to and discharged from emergency hospital care on the same day in 2023-24 — a 86% increase since 2019-20, according to the behavioural health group.

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Source: The Times, 2 April 2025

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Plan to increase access to NHS dentists in England ‘a complete failure’, MPs say

The official plan to increase access to NHS dental services in England has been a “complete failure”, and some of the government’s initiatives have worsened the crisis, a damning report warns.

Millions of patients continue to be denied dental care, forcing them to pay for private treatment, build up mountains of credit card debt, or even worse perform dangerous DIY dentistry on their own teeth, the research by MPs found.

Without immediate and significant changes to fix the “broken” system, there would be no future for population-wide access to NHS dentistry, the report by the public accounts committee (PAC) said.

“This country is now years deep in an avalanche of harrowing stories of the impact of dentistry’s system failure,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the committee. “It is utterly disgraceful that, in the 21st century, some Britons have been forced to remove their own teeth.”

He added: “Last year’s dental recovery plan was supposed to address these problems, something our report has found it has signally failed to do. Almost unbelievably, the government’s initiatives appear to have actually resulted in worsening the picture, with fewer new patients seen since the plan’s introduction.”

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Source: The Guardian, 4 April 2025

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What’s lost: Trump whacks tiny agency that works to make the nation’s healthcare safer

Sue Sheridan’s baby boy, Cal, suffered brain damage from undetected jaundice in 1995. Helen Haskell’s 15-year-old son, Lewis, died after surgery in 2000 because weekend hospital staffers didn’t realize he was in shock. The episodes turned both women into advocates for patients and spurred research that made American healthcare safer.

On 1 April, the Trump administration slashed the organisation that supported that research—the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ—and fired roughly half of its remaining employees as part of a perplexing reorganisation of the federal Health and Human Services Department.

Haskell, of Columbia, South Carolina, has done research and helped write AHRQ-published surveys and guidebooks on patient engagement for hospitals. The dissolution of AHRQ is dislodging scores of experienced patient-safety experts, a brain drain that will be impossible to rectify, she said.

Survey data gathered by AHRQ provides much of what is known about hospitalisations for motor accidents, measles, methamphetamine, and thousands of other medical issues.

“Nobody does these things except AHRQ,” she said. “They’re all we’ve got. And now the barn door’s closed.”

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on the social platform X on 1 April that layoffs at HHS, aimed at reducing the department’s workforce by about 20,000 employees, were the result of alleged inefficacy. “What we’ve been doing isn’t working,” he said. “Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year.”

But neither Kennedy nor President Donald Trump has explained why individual agencies such as AHRQ were targeted for cuts or indicated whether any of their work would continue.

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Source: Fierce Healthcare, 3 April 2025

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USA: More Black babies are dying than white infants

Although the disparity in the number of overall deaths reported between Black and white Americans has narrowed over the course of the last 75 years, researchers say that the same does not hold true for infants.

Black infants are dying at twice the rate of white infants – and it’s largely thanks to healthcare inequality.

“This is like a red alarm,” Harvard University associated professor Dr. Soroush Saghafian explained.

“Our findings are saying: Look, we could have saved five million Black Americans if they had the same things as white Americans have,” he told The Harvard Gazette.

The authors analysed mortality data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calculating life expectancy, mortality rates, and years of potential life lost for both white and Black Americas. 

Their analysis found that there was a 20.4 percent increase in life expectancy for Black Americans and a 13 percent rise for white Americans, although Black adults still have an 18 percent higher mortality rate.

The American healthcare system has long been under scrutiny for its astronomical costs and hurdles to patient care. A new study released Wednesday from the West Health Institute has found that the inability to pay for healthcare in the U.S. has reached a new high.

More than a third of Americans – or an estimated 91 million people – report that they could not access quality healthcare if they needed it, according to the latest West Health-Gallup Healthcare Affordability Index.

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Source: The Independent, 2 April 2025

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USA: NIH sued over ‘ideological purge’ of DEI, Covid and vaccine research

A group of public health experts and major labor organizations are suing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over what they call an “ongoing ideological purge” of scientific research.

In a legal complaint filed on Wednesday, the American Public Health Association; the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW); and other health experts say the NIH has abruptly canceled hundreds of grants since February 2025.

The complaint says the cuts have targeted research tied to topics like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, vaccine hesitancy and even work involving collaborators in other countries. These cancellations, they argue, provide a “window into the devastation to medical and scientific research playing out across the nation right now”.

The lawsuit claims that NIH broke from its usual science-based review process and started shutting down projects based on “vague” new priorities. It alleges that the organization often justified cancellations by saying the research “no longer effectuates agency priorities”.

Researchers affected by the cuts include those studying Alzheimer’s disease, pregnancy health disparities and HIV prevention.

“Ending these NIH grants wastes taxpayer money and years of hard work to answer the world’s most pressing biomedical questions. This is an attack on scientific progress itself,” Brittany Charlton, a plaintiff and associate professor at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement.

“Important discoveries and treatments will be delayed, putting lives at risk. Health issues in one community affect everyone, so this concerns us all,” Charlton added.

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Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2025

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Healthcare-related harm affects 1 in 10 NHS patients

Almost one in 10 people reported experiencing harm from NHS care in the past 3 years, according to a survey led by the University of Oxford. 

The study, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, found that 9.7% of respondents reported harm, with 6.2% attributing it to the treatment or care received and 3.5% citing lack of access to services.

Researchers noted that these findings exceed those of two previous British surveys which reported harm rates of 4.8% in 2001 and 2.5% in 2013. While acknowledging that the pandemic’s impact on healthcare access may have contributed to the higher figures, they said that the study highlights issues that “may be hidden from official data on patient safety.” 

As well as the withdrawal of medical care attributed to the pandemic, the increase could also be explained by using a broader definition of harm to include psychological as well as physical harm, the study authors suggested.

Lead author of the new study, Dr Michele Peters, medical sociologist at the University of Oxford, told Medscape News UK : “In the past, harm has usually been measured using clinical rather than patient perspectives.” She explained that this emphasis tended to highlight harm associated with clinical errors rather than harm related to system issues, such as long waits for treatment. 

The latest study is one of the first to explicitly assess actions taken following harm due to lack of access to care. Around half of those awaiting treatment experienced physical or psychological consequences, with longer waits more common in deprived areas.

“Current waiting list management approaches do recognise that some people are particularly vulnerable to deterioration during the waiting period,” Peters said. This means they may end up in poor condition when called for treatment. She noted that some interventions, such as weight management or smoking cessation support, aim to maintain patients’ health while they wait for procedures like hip replacements.

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Source: Medscape, 2 April 2025

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Doctors urge government to fight poverty after rise in patients with Victorian diseases

Doctors have reported a rise in the number of patients with Victorian diseases such as scabies, as the Royal College of Physicians urged the government to do more to fight poverty.

The survey of 882 doctors found 89% were concerned about the impact of health inequalities on their patients, while 72% had seen more patients in the past three months with illnesses related to poor-quality housing, air pollution and access to transport.

The Royal College of Physicians found 46% of respondents said that at least half of their workload involved illnesses linked to social factors.

One doctor said that they had seen patients with two Victorian skin diseases, erysipelas and scabies, over the past three months. Another said they were seeing more people “with poor nutritional status due to poverty”, eventually leading to “prolonged and impaired recovery from acute illnesses”.

Several patients had contracted hypothermia. One doctor said it was due to the patient not being able to afford heating at home.

The Royal College of Physicians has called on the government to set out how its health mission will address these illnesses.

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Source: The Guardian, 3 April 2025

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Trump officials to cut Planned Parenthood family planning funds

The reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood said the Trump administration would cut federal family planning funding as of Tuesday, affecting birth control, cancer screenings and other services for low-income people.

Planned Parenthood said that nine of its affiliates received notice that funding would be withheld under a programme known as Title X, which has supported healthcare services for the poor since 1970.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week the US Department of Health and Human Services planned an immediate freeze of $27.5m in family planning grants for groups including Planned Parenthood.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, predicted that cancers would go undetected, access to birth control would be severely reduced, and sexually transmitted infections would increase as a result.

“President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” McGill Johnson said in a statement.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2025

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States sue HHS over $12B in cancelled health funds

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit against HHS over the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of billions in public health grants to state health departments. 

The suit, filed April 1 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, alleges HHS’ discontinuation of more than $11 billion in funding to state health departments violates federal law and jeopardises public health. The eliminated funds supported efforts to track infectious diseases, improve pandemic preparedness, expand mental health services and modernize outdated systems. If funding is not restored, states allege key public health programs will be disbanded and thousands of employees could lose their jobs. 

State health departments began receiving notices late March 25 that $11.4 billion in grants from the CDC and roughly $1 billion in funds from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were being rescinded immediately. 

“Slashing this funding now will reverse our progress on the opioid crisis, throw our mental health systems into chaos, and leave hospitals struggling to care for patients,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a news release, adding that the state is set to lose nearly $400 million as part of the cuts. 

The plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately prevent the funds from being rescinded, as well longer-term injunctions. 

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Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 1 April 2025

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Almost 1.7 million hernia mesh implanted in NHS in 20 years

Almost 1.7 million people have had hernia mesh surgery in the NHS since 2004, figures released by the NHS have revealed.

The statistics do not include people who’ve had hernia mesh in private hospitals.

Nobody can say how many are now suffering complications – because patients are not tracked for their lifetime.

Yet campaigners and academics globally say it can take many years for mesh to cause problems- so the scale of suffering falls into a black hole of missing data.

Moreover, support groups show that patients are being implanted with hernia mesh in their thousands ever year – but nobody is being given fully informed consent of the potential risks such as pain, loss of mobility, loss of sex life and losing the ability to have children. Also autoimmune diseases and allergies caused by the plastic mesh material.

The figures came to light thanks to a Written Parliamentary Question asked by MP Sharon Hodgson, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for First Do No Harm.

In its response, The Department of Health say: “Clinicians are expected to inform patients about risks associated with recommended treatments, including reasonable alternatives, to enable informed consent and a balanced patient decision.”

But campaign group Sling The Mesh says that the majority of people are told hernia mesh is ‘not the mesh in the media’, or it is a new mesh, or that this is a gold standard treatment and that mesh receives undeserved negative attention.

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Source: Sling the Mesh, 25 March 2025

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NHS trust apologises as man’s tumour death investigated for manslaughter

A troubled NHS trust has apologised to the family of a man who died after a series of potentially fatal delays to treat a tumour, in a case that is being investigated by police as possible corporate manslaughter.

Richard Harris, 71, died last July after a series of errors in the neurosurgery department at the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton, which is part of University Hospitals Sussex NHS foundation trust (UHSussex).

The trust admitted that Harris was “lost to follow-up” when the hospital repeatedly failed to monitor a tumour in his nervous system, or operate on it, as doctors recommended.

An internal review of Harris’s care found that doctors failed to arrange a routine MRI scan for him when he was first urgently referred to neurosurgery in 2017. Harris, who was fit and a regular swimmer, only received a scan when he contacted the department again in 2019.

The scan picked up a benign schwannoma tumour, which a multidisciplinary team concluded would require regular monitoring, every six months. They also said “surgical intervention should be advised”, the review found.

But no surgery was arranged. And the required follow-up scans were postponed and cancelled at a time when internal whistleblowers expressed alarm about high cancellation rates, and repeated and allegedly dangerous failures to follow up patients under the trust’s care.

Eventually Harris was referred to neurosurgery early last year suffering with acute pain. He had to wait weeks to be seen, despite repeatedly pleading with his consultant in emails complaining of “red-hot poker pain” that was “scaring me to death”. There were yet further delays in arranging MRI scans, the review found.

Months later, the tumour was assessed to be cancerous and inoperable. Harris was discharged to hospice care and died a few weeks later.

Sussex police have confirmed to Harris’s family that his death is being investigated as possible corporate manslaughter, as part of its expanding Operation Bramber investigation.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2025

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Patient satisfaction with NHS has hit record low of 21%, survey finds

Public satisfaction with the NHS is at a record low and dissatisfaction is at its highest, with the deepest discontent about A&E, GP and dental care.

Just 21% of adults in Britain are satisfied with how the health service runs, down from 24% a year before, while 59% are dissatisfied, up from 52%, the latest annual survey of patients found.

Satisfaction has fallen dramatically from the 70% recorded in 2010, the year the last Labour government left office, and the 60% found in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, which analysed the data alongside the King’s Fund, said the years since 2019 have seen “a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction.

“It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey.”

A&E is the NHS service the public is least happy about. Satisfaction fell from 31% in 2023 to just 19% last year – the lowest proportion in the 41 years the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey of the views of patients in England, Scotland and Wales has been carried out.

Satisfaction with NHS dentistry has collapsed, too, from 60% as recently as 2019 to just 20% last year. More people (55%) are dissatisfied with dental care than with any other service.

Similarly, fewer than a third (31%) of adults are satisfied with GP services.

“The latest results lay bare the extent of the problems faced by the NHS and the size of the challenge for the government”, said Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund. “For too many people, the NHS has become too difficult to access. How can you be satisfied with a service you can’t get into?”

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Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2025

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CQC tells trust to move care of sick babies

A trust has moved the care of some sick babies out of one of its neonatal units at the Care Quality Commission’s request.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust said babies requiring more than 24 hours of neonatal intensive or high dependency care would now be moved from St James’ University Hospital to the Leeds General Infirmary, which has a neonatal intensive care unit, or alternative hospitals.

The trust confirmed this followed a request from the Care Quality Commission, which carried out unannounced inspections of its maternity and neonatal services in December and January.

Previously St James’ had been providing “less complex elements of intensive care and high dependency care”, despite only having a “special care baby unit” (SCBU), which typically provides care for less seriously ill babies than a NICU.

This unusual position had been agreed with the Yorkshire and Humber neonatal operational delivery unit. The trust said its neonatal doctors and nurses worked across the units in both hospitals, and were qualified and trained to treat babies requiring the highest level of care.

The trust’s maternity services have recently been criticised by a group of parents, and HSJ last week highlighted how they have been rated “red” for high perinatal mortality in the national maternity services audit four times in the past seven years.

Chief nurse Rabina Tindale said: “Individuals are still able to give birth at St James’ Hospital and babies will receive the appropriate level of care in our SCBU, but this [change] does mean that if babies need more than 24 hours of intensive care or high dependency care, they must be transferred to Leeds General Infirmary or another unit.”

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Source: HSJ, 1 April 2025

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Departing NHSE boss ‘calls out’ A&E variation

NHS England’s outgoing chief operating officer has claimed there is too much unwarranted variation in the service’s emergency care performance.

Dame Emily Lawson made the comment at last week’s NHSE board meeting ahead of her departure from the organisation yesterday.

She told the board that she “wanted to call out variability” in the spread of 12-hour A&E waits across the county.

Dame Emily said: “If we look at the last six months of data, 17.6 per cent of trusts have deteriorated in 12-hour breaches, 25.8 per cent have improved, and the rest have sustained their 12-hour performance.

“When we look at headline numbers, we often miss both the improvement that’s going on, but also some of the tensions that are happening and needing to be managed locally.”

Dame Emily added that emergency care “still has some opportunity” to improve its productivity, adding that long A&E waits for people in mental health crisis “remain too common”.

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Source: HSJ, 1 April 2025

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India trains thousands of medics to promote vaccine in huge push to end cervical cancer

Tens of thousands of doctors across India are being trained to promote the HPV vaccine, in a push to eliminate cervical cancer in the country.

They will check with mothers attending medical appointments that they intend to vaccinate their daughters, and visit schools and community centres armed with facts and slideshows to counter vaccine disinformation.

One in five cervical cancer cases worldwide occur in India – and the overwhelming majority of those are caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV.

HPV vaccination has become routine practice in many countries and has been available in India privately since 2008, but with low take-up.

Sutapa Biswas, co-founder of the Cancer Foundation of India, said imported vaccines were expensive and people were reluctant to spend money on prevention. Misinformation surrounding deaths during, but unrelated to, an HPV vaccine trial in the country had left it with “baggage”, she said.

However, India has recently started manufacturing its own cervical cancer vaccine, and the government is expected to make it part of the national vaccination programme later this year or early next year.

Last year about 11,000 members of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (Fogsi) underwent virtual training. About 100 of those trainees have now become the National HPV Faculty and will each train 500 general physicians from the Indian Medical Association over the next six months.

The idea, Biswas said, “is to build confidence”. Training includes practical information on dosages, details of the World Health Organization’s push to eliminate cervical cancer, and advice on how to answer common questions.

The implementation of India’s cervical screening programme had been sluggish, she said. Most cancers are diagnosed late, and most people’s experiences of the disease relate to death.

Many non-specialist doctors “didn’t even know that a cancer could be eliminated and vaccination could be such a gamechanger”, Biswas said.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2025

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Trump makes sweeping HIV research and grant cuts: ‘Setting us back decades’

The federal government has cancelled dozens of grants to study how to prevent new HIV infections and expand access to care, decimating progress toward eliminating the epidemic in the United States, scientists say.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated at least 145 grants related to researching advancements in HIV care that had been awarded nearly $450m in federal funds. The cuts have been made in phases over the last month.

“The loss of this research could very well result in a resurgence of HIV that becomes more generalized in this country,” said Julia Marcus, a professor at Harvard Medical School who recently had two of her grants cancelled. “These drastic cuts are rapidly destroying the infrastructure of scientific research in this country and we are going to lose a generation of scientists.”

In 2012, the FDA approved pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), an antiviral drug taken once a day that is highly successful at preventing new HIV infections. While the drug has been a powerful tool to contain the virus, inequities remain in accessing those drugs and sustaining a daily treatment. Despite major progress, there are still 30,000 new infections each year in the US.

Many of the terminated HIV-related studies focused on improving access to drugs like PrEP in communities that have higher rates of infections – including trans women and Black men. One of Marcus’s projects was examining whether making PrEP available over the counter would increase the use of the drug in vulnerable communities.

“The research has to focus on the populations that are most affected in order to have an impact and be relevant,” said Marcus.

Yet, this may be the justification for defunding so many HIV-related studies. A termination letter reviewed by the Guardian dated 20 March cited that “so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) studies are often used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race and other protected characteristics, which harms the health of Americans.”

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Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2025

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