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Woman secretly filmed her mum being abused in care home

A woman secretly filmed her mother's mistreatment in a care home after concerns she raised about her care were ignored.

Nicola Hughes, who is a registered nurse, hid a covert camera in a radio in her mother's bedroom at Barrogil House in Fife.

The footage revealed staff roughly handling Janette Ritchie and shouting at her. One carer was filmed holding bedclothes over her head and saying "Rest in Peace".

Five people were dismissed last year after the care home was made aware of the footage.

However, the family continued to have concerns about standards, which they raised with the Care Inspectorate – and it has now upheld four complaints against the home.

"Making a decision to put cameras into someone's room is nerve-wracking because you're frightened - frightened of consequences for me, for my mum. You're frightened about what you're going to find on these cameras," Nicola said.

"What I discovered was absolutely heartbreaking.

"My mum was getting left overnight without any welfare checks being completed. Unfortunately, my mum's incontinent so she was left lying in her own urine.

"Staff verbally abusing her, emotionally abusing her - telling her that she's stinking, telling her that she's stupid. Using my name against her."

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Source: BBC News, 4 March 2025

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‘I was devastated’: MP hopes her story will help improve maternity care for disabled women

When doctors tried to work out whether Marie Tidball would need a specially designed birth plan, one asked her to lie fully clothed on the bed and spread her legs in the air so they could see how far they could open.

The incident was one of several occasions when Tidball, now a Labour MP, felt neglected during her pregnancy and early motherhood because of the NHS’s failure to adapt on account of her physical disabilities. Tidball has physical impairments affecting all four of her limbs and had major surgeries on both her hips and legs as a child.

She is speaking publicly about her experiences for the first time to highlight a report showing that disabled mothers and their children have significantly worse neonatal and postnatal NHS care than others.

Speaking about the doctor’s request to open her legs, Tidball told the Guardian: “I was shocked, really, that that was their approach, rather than actually looking properly at some of my medical history and the notes around my hips.

“They didn’t think about how that orthopaedic surgery might interact with birth, but also [about] carrying the baby and the way the baby was lying in uterus. They just hadn’t really thought those intersections through.”

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Source: The Guardian, 5 March 2025

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NHSE names critical care doctor as interim national director of patient safety

An interim national director of patient safety has been appointed, after the permanent postholder was seconded to the Care Quality Commission.

Professor Ramani Moonesinghe will replace Aidan Fowler, who is to be the CQC’s interim chief inspector of healthcare. His secondment is expected to last six months and will be full time.

Professor Moonesinghe has been NHSE’s clinical director for critical and perioperative care since 2020. She played a key part in the pandemic, leading on the NHS’s critical care response.

She works as a consultant in anaesthetics, perioperative and critical care medicine at University College Hospitals London Foundation Trust and is a professor of perioperative medicine at University College London, where she leads on a patient safety research collaborative. She is also head of the Centre for Perioperative Medicine and the Research Department for Targeted Interventions at UCL.

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Source: HSJ, 6 March 2025

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Social care delays take 6% off A&E performance, NHSE estimates

NHS England has for the first time put a figure on the potential impact on A&E performance of eliminating discharge delays for patients going into adult social care packages.

Amanda Pritchard told MPs NHSE’s analysis suggested eliminating discharge delays for patients who receive adult social care (ASC) packages when they leave hospital could “theoretically” improve the A&E four-hour target by 6 per cent points.

She said the figures suggest “around two-thirds of bed days lost to delayed discharges are associated with individuals accessing adult social care, community care and/or care home services on discharge. A third of these delays – around a fifth overall - are for individuals accessing adult social care packages on discharge.”

The outgoing NHSE CEO added: “Eliminating the lost bed days for just the third of delays for individuals accessing adult social care packages on discharge… if all other things were equal, including the rate of admissions and rate of flow through hospitals, theoretically… could potentially improve performance by up to 6 per cent.”

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Source: HSJ, 5 March 2025

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Mental health complainants fear reprisals

Mental health patients subjected to abuse on wards do not formally complain as they "do not want to expose themselves to any risk of revenge" from staff, academics say.

A study by Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, and the University of Hertfordshire, involving 21 patients and two carers, uncovered more than 750 incidents of violence and coercion by staff, few of which were reported.

The researchers suggested social workers should be present on wards, with staff also required to wear body cameras to protect patients.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said staff committing acts of violence should be removed and prosecuted.

Claims of violence and coercion allegedly committed by staff included patients being physically restrained, verbally abused, being moved with force and being deliberately ignored.

Eight patients told researchers that one or two staff were responsible for abuse against them, while 18 said acts were witnessed by other patients or staff.

Only four official complaints were made, according to researchers, with just one upheld.

Mr Munt said: "The preoccupation for many patients is that they do not want to expose themselves to any risk of revenge."

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Source: BBC News, 6 March 2025

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Most areas cut eating-disorder help for under-18s

Most areas in England are planning cuts to specialist eating-disorder services for children and young people this year, an analysis shows.

Of the nation's 42 NHS integrated care boards, 24 are due to reduce spending for under-18s in 2024-25, once inflation is taken into account.

Overall spending is due to go up by 2.9%, with budgets rising in the other areas, but the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), which carried out the analysis, said this was too little to cope with increased in demand.

NHS England said improving care was "vital" and more action was being taken in the community to support young people before their condition became a crisis.

Spending had been increasing for a number of years but "more work needs to be done", an official added.

Veronika, 20, has been struggling with an eating disorder for five years.

"Shrugged off" by services in the past, she says cuts could be "catastrophic" for people like her.

"It will have a knock-on impact and people won't want to seek help even from their GP, even for physical-health monitoring," Veronika says.

"It will just spiral on and on.

"It is horrible living day in and day out with it.

"And if you are not seen quick enough, I know myself how quickly things can spiral in a matter of weeks or days.

"It is going to be tragic for some and just long and horrible for others".

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Source: BBC News, 5 March 2025

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Boots recalls paracetamol over labelling error

The UK High Street pharmacy chain Boots is asking customers to return packs of 500-milligram paracetamol tablets because a labelling error incorrectly states they are a different painkiller, aspirin.

More than 110,000 packs, with the batch number 241005 and expiry date "12/2029" on the bottom, are affected.

Customers can receive a full refund without a receipt.

Boots and the supplier, Aspar Pharmaceuticals Limited, have begun a full investigation.

The outer cardboard packaging is correctly labelled: "Paracetamol 500mg Tablets" but the inner foil blister pack of pills instead reads: "Aspirin 300mg Dispersable Tablets".

The affected packs should not be used or kept, even if the error is known, as this could lead to an incorrect dose.

Dr Stephanie Millican, from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said: "Patient safety is always our priority.

"It is vitally important that you check the packaging of your Boots Paracetamol 500mg Tablets 16s - and if the batch number is 241005, you should stop using the product and return it to a Boots store for a full refund.

"If you are unsure which pack you have purchased or have taken Boots Paracetamol 500mg Tablets and experienced any side effects, seek advice from a healthcare professional.

"Please report any suspected adverse reactions via the MHRA's Yellow Card scheme.

"If you have any questions or require further advice, please seek advice from your pharmacist or other relevant healthcare professional."

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Source: BBC News, 4 March 2025

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Warning over rapid at-home prostate tests

t-home tests for men worried about prostate cancer can give inconsistent and inaccurate results, BBC News has found.

The tests, which resemble a Covid lateral flow strip, turn positive if a high level of a protein called PSA is detected in a drop of blood.

Of five rapid tests analysed by the BBC, one did not work, three were negative or all-clear, but one returned a false positive result - all from the same blood sample.

Prostate Cancer UK said it had significant concerns about the sale of the tests given their "questionable accuracy" and the absence of a doctor to interpret the results.

There is no national prostate cancer screening programme in the UK, unlike for breast, bowel and cervical cancer.

Instead, the onus is on men to request a blood test from their GP once they are over 50 years old, external, or from 45 for higher risk groups.

That NHS test, which is processed in a laboratory, measures the level of PSA released by the prostate, a small gland involved in the production of semen.

A high PSA level does not mean you have cancer but is a warning sign which can then lead to further scans and tests to rule out the disease.

Dozens of companies now sell self-testing kits designed to measure PSA levels.

The UK medicines regulator, the MHRA, says in its guidance that over-the-counter PSA kits are "not a reliable indicator of prostate cancer" and must not "claim to detect cancer".

"As your experience shows, these rapid tests appear to have questionable accuracy," says Amy Rylance, assistant director of health improvement at Prostate Cancer UK.

"That's a big problem because they can falsely reassure people who really do have elevated levels of PSA and should seek further testing, or they can cause undue worry among people who are absolutely fine."

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Source: BBC News, 5 March 2025

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National Academies is altering pending reports to appease Trump administration, some members say

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine is scrubbing pending reports of words such as “health equity,” “marginalized populations,” and “restorative justice” and replacing them with vaguer terms in an effort to appease the Trump administration, according to a letter protesting the actions sent to the organisation’s leaders and obtained by STAT. 

The National Academies, or NASEM, are widely seen as the nation’s leading science organisation and to many, its conscience. The organisation has been responsible, over the past two decades, for creating and publishing some of the nation’s most seminal reports on health disparities, such as the 2003 report Unequal Treatment which unequivocally stated that racism within healthcare was one driver of the nation’s health disparities. 

The letter, signed by 100 of the academy’s members, said those signing the letter were “deeply disturbed” by the accommodations and said they understood the academy was “taking unilateral action to remove specific words or concepts from pending reports” and such “excessive anticipatory censoring” impacted the scientific rigor and integrity of the reports. Many NASEM reports are a year or more in the making and require the time and expertise of academy members, who are considered leaders in their fields. 

The letter specifically cited an upcoming report, “Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Behavioral Health Disorders” that was scheduled to be released in early February but has not been released and said that authors had learned that staff have been instructed to replace words in the report including the term “health equity.” That replacement of certain words, the letter states, appears “designed to appease the current administration.”

Removing the term equity was particularly upsetting to the letter’s authors. “Equity is a core part of NAM’s mission. Our understanding is that staff are being told that these terms are being deleted because equity is not a matter of science. Yet that term alludes to a core value to which we in medicine and public health are deeply committed,” the letter read. Stripping the term, the letter said, “goes against our values as members, the published principles of NAM/NASEM, and decades of scientific work on health inequities,” it continued. 

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Source: STAT, 20 February 2025

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RFK Jr praises unconventional treatments but not vaccines in Fox interview about Texas measles outbreak

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised unconventional treatments, but didn’t mention vaccines, in an interview on Fox News about the expanding measles outbreak in West Texas.

In the prerecorded interview, Kennedy said that the federal government was sending vitamin A to the epicenter of the outbreak in Gaines County. He added that the government was also helping to arrange ambulance rides.

While officials from the health department have previously said that they were sending doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine to the state, Kennedy, who has a history of vaccine-skeptic views, didn’t mention vaccination as an option during an interview.

Kennedy instead claimed that doctors in Texas had experienced “very, very, good results” by treating the disease using the steroid budesonide, the antibiotic clarithromycin, as well as cod liver oil, which the secretary said has high amounts of vitamins A and D.

The chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, Dr. Sean O’Leary noted when speaking to The New York Times that doctors sometimes use vitamins to treat children with measles, but added that cod liver oil is “by no means” a treatment based in evidence. He said he had never heard of a doctor using cod liver oil to treat the disease.

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Source: The Independent, 5 March 2025

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Nationwide roll out of AI tool that predicts falls and viruses

An AI tool is being rolled out across the NHS that can predict a patient’s risk of falling with 97% accuracy, preventing up to 2,000 falls and hospital admissions each day. 

The predictive tool, developed by Cera, is being used in more than two million patient home care visits a month, monitoring vital health signs such as blood pressure, heart rate and temperature, to predict signs of deterioration in advance so it can then alert healthcare staff.

It is in use across more than two-thirds of NHS integrated care systems and helps to provide care at home by flagging up to 5,000 high-risk alerts a day, reducing hospitalisations by up to 70%.

Dr Vin Diwakar, national director of transformation at NHS England, said: “This new tool now being used across the country shows how the NHS is harnessing the latest technology, including AI, to not only improve the care patients receive but also to boost efficiency across the NHS by cutting unnecessary admissions and freeing up beds ahead of next winter, helping hospitals to mitigate typical seasonal pressures.

“We know falls are the leading cause of hospital admissions in older people, causing untold suffering, affecting millions each year and costing the NHS around £2 billion, so this new software has the potential to be a real game-changer in the way we can predict, prevent and treat people in the community.

“This AI tool is a perfect example of how the NHS can use the latest tech to keep more patients safe at home and out of hospital, two cornerstones of the upcoming 10-year Health Plan that will see shifts from analogue to digital, and from hospital to community care.”

The software will also be used to detect the symptoms of winter illnesses like Covid, flu, RSV, and norovirus, allowing NHS and care teams to intervene before hospital care is needed.

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Source: Digital Health, 5 March 2025

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Weight-loss jab use rising among people with eating disorders, experts warn as NHS chief calls for crackdown

An NHS chief is calling for a crackdown on the online sale and prescription of popular weight-loss jabs like Ozempic and Mounjaro following warnings from charities about an increase in people with eating disorders accessing the drugs.

One clinician even warned that patients with low body mass index (BMI) or a history of anorexia are able to get an online prescription for the injections by filling out a simple patient questionnaire and lying about their body weight.

“I am seeing patients who have pushed themselves to rapid weight loss on these jabs, fasting and strenuous exercising,” said Dr Adarsh Dharendra, a consultant psychiatrist specialising in eating disorders at Priory Life Works in Surrey. “Yet patients can still access so many rogue pharmacy websites on mainstream as well as the dark web.”

NHS national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis urged online pharmacies and private providers to “act responsibly” and ensure that the drugs are only prescribed to people with a medical need for them, such as those with diabetes.

Last month, the pharmacy regulator tightened prescription rules to prevent weight-loss medications from being supplied “inappropriately”, after groups including the National Pharmacy Association warned some online suppliers were wrongly prescribing the drugs to people who had previously had eating disorders.

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Source: The Independent, 4 March 2025

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Patients told to soil themselves in understaffed A&E

The Care Quality Commission has reported on an emergency department with 55-hour A&E corridor waits, and some frail patients being told to soil themselves because there was no one to take them to the toilet, while another had to urinate into a bottle without privacy curtains.

The CQC received dozens of reports of “information of concern” from patients and staff about the A&E at Medway Maritime Hospital, run by Medway Foundation Trust, in the months before it visited in February last year.

When they did so, inspectors were told staff feared reprisals if they raised concerns and that band 7 nurses “lived in fear of punishment from senior leaders”. Less than half of ED staff felt safe about speaking up, according to analysis of NHS staff survey results.

The department was rated “requires improvement“ overall – previously it had been “good” – but was labelled “inadequate” in the area of safety, and for “kindness, compassion and dignity”. Under a new CQC scoring system, the department was rated 38 out of 100 for safety.

Inspectors found many patients had a poor experience, with inadequate staffing, overcrowding and medication delays.

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Source: HSJ, 5 March 2025

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Researchers refuse to alter patient safety papers to comply with Trump orders

Some researchers who have published on a government patient safety website are refusing to alter their reports to comply with Trump administration executive orders around language, leaving them offline.

Gordon Schiff, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, is the author of a 2022 case report and commentary on suicide risk assessment that includes a line noting several groups at high risk of suicide, including the LGBTQ community.

Rather than remove the line, the piece remains off the Patient Safety Network, which is part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

"I think as a matter of principle, it's not a good idea to give into this," Schiff told MedPage Today.

"We could find alternate ways of publishing it, I guess," he said. "And I think we don't want to legitimize this process of what's happened. I think it would be a mistake. It would be a disservice, actually, to cave in. I think people do need to stand up and say, this is not okay."

Patrick Romano, MD, MPH, of the University of California Davis and co-editor-in-chief of the Patient Safety Network, told MedPage Today that five full-length, peer-reviewed cases and commentaries, at least one perspective interview, and about 15 short summaries of other published papers, remain offline. (However, they can still be accessed via the Internet Archive.)

Removal of these resources occurred in the wake of a Trump administration Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memorandum, "Initial Guidance Regarding President Trump's Executive Order Defending Women."

Each of the removed resources had a term, such as "transgender," "gender identity," "non-gender-conforming," "LGBTQ," or "LGBTQIA," that violated OPM guidance, according to Romano.

Though Romano told MedPage Today that the authors of the resources have been given the opportunity to revise their work to have it republished on the site, all of them have declined to accept the required changes.

Ultimately, concern has extended beyond the recently removed resources. There has been "some worry," with regard to the word "equity," Romano said.

For instance, "when we talk about equity on [the Patient Safety Network site] we're talking about treating patients equitably," he said. "We're talking about making sure that patients get diagnosed in an equitable manner, and that, for example, people who live in rural communities don't suffer because of the lack of accessibility to sub-specialty providers."

So, "it's different from talking about equity in the occupational context, or in the context of recruitment or admission to elite universities, and so forth," he said, adding that, "as these words are targeted, I think a lot of us are concerned about all the different ways in which those words are used, and the importance of the underlying concept that is really essential as we try to take better care of patients and communities."

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Source: MedPage Today, 20 February 2025

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Swab test could help UK women avoid invasive checks for womb cancer

A new swab test could help hundreds of thousands of women a year in the UK who may have womb cancer avoid having an often painful invasive procedure to detect the disease.

About 800,000 women annually go to see a GP because they are suffering from abnormal bleeding from their uterus and then undergo uncomfortable and stressful investigations to identify the cause.

Most postmenopausal women who are bleeding a lot will have a transvaginal ultrasound scan, in which a scanner probe is inserted into their vagina to measure the thickness of their womb lining, as that is where most cases of womb cancer start. Many then go on to have an invasive further test called a hysteroscopy and a biopsy.

However, the new test is as accurate as an ultrasound scan in detecting the disease – the fourth commonest cancer in UK women – and cuts the number of false positives by 87%. 

Called the WID-easy test, it has been invented by Martin Widschwendter, a professor of women’s cancer at University College London’s EGA Institute for Women’s Health and the University of Innsbruck.

“The WID-easy test is the first test of its kind in the UK, using a simple swab method to detect womb cancer,” he said.

The test involves a woman over 45 who visits her doctor because of uterine bleeding having a swab taken from her vagina and then analysed using polymerase chain reaction testing. It looks at “tags” on the top of the woman’s DNA, which is known as DNA methylation.

UCL explained: “DNA from cancer cells has a particular pattern of DNA methylation, like a unique barcode, that can be specifically ‘scanned’ by the WID-easy test, and indicates if womb cancer is present or not.”

If the NHS adopts the new test it could lead to women having womb cancer diagnosed, or ruled out, faster than at present, according to the Eve Appeal, which funded the research behind the test. Athena Lamnisos, the gynaecological cancer charity’s chief executive, said the swab test would be much easier for patients to undergo because “currently in the UK, the tests to investigate abnormal bleeding and check for womb cancer can cause stress and discomfort”.

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Source: The Guardian, 4 March 2025

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US gynaecologist charged with sexual abuse and performing unnecessary procedures

A gynecologist who is accused of sexually abusing four women in Memphis, Tennessee, and reused unsanitary medical devices in unnecessary procedures was arrested on Friday.

Sanjeev Kumar, 44, was charged with sexual abuse, medical fraud and illicitly reusing unsanitary medical devices after he enticed four women to travel across state lines to his clinic, where he subjected them to sexual abuse under the guise of medical procedures.

Kumar’s arrest adds to a spate of cases in the US involving medical physicians being at least accused of violating patients in their most vulnerable moments.

Between 2019 and 2024, Kumar allegedly performed unnecessary gynecologic procedures using medical devices that were kept in unsanitary conditions and improperly reused, with some designated for single use or requiring sterilization.

According to the indictment authorities obtained against him, the 44-year-old Kumar did not inform patients about this practice before inserting the devices during procedures. Kumar, who worked at the Poplar Avenue Clinic, then billed the federal Medicare and Medicaid insurance programs for hysteroscopy biopsy services as if the treatments were medically necessary – and as if he had used new or properly sterilised equipment.

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Source: The Guardian, 2 March 2025

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RFK Jr. says US measles outbreak 'top priority' at HHS following first death in 10 years

Last Wednesday, during President Donald Trump's first Cabinet meeting, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the head of the nation's largest federal health agency, downplayed a measles outbreak that has infected more than 150 people and killed a child in Texas.

"We're following the measles epidemic every day," Kennedy said with reporters in the room during the Cabinet meeting. "Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. ... So it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”

Two days later, Kennedy, a long time critic of well-established vaccines, seemed to backtrack from that stance and said he recognizes the serious impact of the outbreak in west Texas.

The U.S. government, through the Department of Health and Human Services, is providing resources, including protective vaccines, Kennedy said in a post on X Friday.

HHS is sending Texas 2,000 doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), as well as laboratory support to better track the virus,

HHS also is communicating with public health officials "every day in all affected areas to support their response and ensure they have the resources they need," Kennedy posted on X. 

"We will continue to fund Texas’ immunization program. Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team at HHS," Kennedy wrote.

In the past, Kennedy has opposed vaccine mandates for COVID-19 and promoted the disproven claim that childhood immunizations can cause autism.

As of February 27, 2025, a total of 164 measles cases were reported by 9 jurisdictions: Alaska, California, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, Rhode Island, and Texas, according to CDC data updated on Thursday.

Of those 164 cases, 95% of the individuals are unvaccinated, the CDC reports. So far, 20% of those cases, or 32 out of 164, have been hospitalised.

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Source: Fierce Healthcare, 1 March 2025

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More than half of adults worldwide will be overweight or obese by 2050

More than half of adults and a third of children and young people worldwide will be overweight or obese by 2050, posing an “unparalleled threat” of early death, disease and enormous strain on healthcare systems, a report warns.

Global failures in the response to the growing obesity crisis over the past three decades have led to a staggering increase in the numbers affected, according to the analysis published in the Lancet.

There are now 2.11 billion adults aged 25 or above and 493 million children and young people aged five to 24 who are overweight or obese, the study shows. That is up from 731 million and 198 million respectively in 1990.

Without urgent policy reform and action, the report says, more than half of those aged 25 or above worldwide (3.8 billion) and about a third of all children and young people (746 million) are forecast to be affected by 2050.

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Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2025

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Autistic woman wrongly locked up in mental health hospital for 45 years

An autistic woman with a learning disability was wrongly locked up in a mental health hospital for 45 years, starting when she was just seven years old, the BBC has learned.

The woman, who is believed to be originally from Sierra Leone, and who was given the name Kasibba by the local authority to protect her identity, was also held on her own in long-term segregation for 25 years.

Kasibba is non-verbal and had no family to speak up for her. A clinical psychologist told File on 4 Investigates how she had begun a nine-year battle to release her.

The Department of Health and Social Care told the BBC it was unacceptable that so many disabled people were still being held in mental health hospitals and said it hoped reforms to the Mental Health Act would prevent inappropriate detention.

More than 2,000 autistic people and people with learning disabilities are still detained, external in mental health hospitals in England - including about 200 children. For years, the government has pledged to move many of them into community care, because they do not have any mental illness.

But all key targets in England have been missed. In the past few weeks, in its plan for 2025-26, external, NHS England said it aimed to reduce the reliance on mental health inpatient care for people with a learning disability and autistic people, delivering a minimum 10% reduction.

However, Dan Scorer, head of policy and public affairs at the charity Mencap, is not impressed. "Hundreds of people are still languishing, detained, who should have been freed and should be supported in the community, because we haven't seen the progress that was promised," he said.

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Source: BBC News, 4 March 2025

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New NHSE chair seeks ‘clear accountability and responsibility’

The author of a major report into quality and governance in the NHS has stressed the responsibility of local boards – and hinted at a rebalancing from regulators to providers.

Penny Dash – who on Monday was confirmed as the new chair of NHS England – told a patient safety conference that accountability and responsibility for delivery were much clearer in many other industries.

“It is not like this in other industries,” she said. “They have very clear lines of accountability and responsibility, particularly through boards. It is usually much clearer who is responsible for delivering and who is responsible for regulating. That does not just stop at the board but throughout the organisation. It’s very clear what people’s jobs are.”

Dr Dash completed a review of the Care Quality Commission last year, and a second review covering wider quality and safety oversight is expected within the next three weeks.

Dr Dash told the HSJ podcast last month that her review would emphasise the role of boards, and that quality should encompass productivity and efficiency as well as safety and effectiveness, messages she also addressed at the Patient Safety Forum conference, organised by Public Policy Projects with Patient Safety Learning.

She said: “We know that well-managed services lead to more efficient use of resources – that in itself is a big quality opportunity. We can actually do things for less that frees up money for more care.”

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Source: HSJ, 4 March 2025

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Fall in A&Es with proper crisis support

The share of acute hospitals which have proper mental health crisis support has fallen to less than two-thirds, according to new findings for NHS England, seen by HSJ.

The Liaison Psychiatry Survey of England tracks whether hospitals with type 1 (major) emergency departments are meeting requirements for crisis mental healthcare. In 2019-20 NHS England set a target for the “Core 24” standards — including being properly staffed — to be met by 2023-24.

But the latest findings show only 62% were meeting the requirements, which is a 5 percentage-point reduction from the previous year – the first time there has been a fall.

This is amid huge concern about mental health patients in accident and emergency departments, where they can experience waits of days for appropriate care.

The latest survey, which is commissioned by NHSE and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, but not published, suggests the national standards — set pre-covid — also likely fall well short of what is now needed in acute hospitals.

The authors warn: “Pre-pandemic assumptions about prevalence, need, and requirements to address the mental health treatment gap now appear to be outdated, and despite the extra resourcing in place, services describe struggling to keep pace with increasing demands.”

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Source: HSJ, 3 March 2025

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‘After my baby died, NHS colleagues mocked me’

Jack Hawkins used to love his job as a doctor at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. It was where he met his wife, Sarah, a senior physiotherapist. It was where, seven years later, the couple planned she would give birth to their first child, a daughter they would call Harriet. They trusted their colleagues to take care of them.

Their colleagues failed, horrifically. Harriet was stillborn after a catalogue of errors by midwives and doctors in 2016.

After a lengthy legal battle, the couple received £2.8 million in compensation in 2021 and have since been at the forefront of efforts to expose the NHS’s largest maternity scandal. Some 2,500 cases are now being examined.

Almost nine years after Harriet’s death, her parents continue to learn new and horrific details about what happened to her.

It can now be revealed that the hospital allowed her body to decompose so badly in the months after her death that she had to be “triple-bagged” when placed into a coffin for her funeral. Her parents only discovered the horrific failure last summer after forcing the trust to release a cache of internal emails.

A few months later they learnt that staff recorded a 2017 phone call made by Jack, a former medical consultant at the trust, without his consent, and played it at a meeting of senior midwives months later. In this meeting they allegedly “mocked” the grieving father.

Jack said the revelations made him feel sick. “It is an abuse,” he said. “This encapsulates the failures in values, behaviours and quality of care that has caused so much harm and death in Nottingham.”

Sarah added: “They couldn’t even look after Harriet when she was dead. How much more can they put us through? It’s never ending.”

Anthony May, a former chief executive at Nottingham county council, who was appointed to lead the trust and its response to the maternity scandal in 2022, said: “There are many examples of where we have compounded the harm experienced by Jack and Sarah through the way in which we have communicated with them and dealt with their inquiries and concerns. I am committed to improving the way in which we engage with Jack and Sarah, and the wider group of affected families.”

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Source: The Times, 2 March 2025

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Reproductive health in developing countries in ‘chaos’ after Trump aid freeze

Donald Trump’s 90-day freeze on foreign aid has caused “absolute chaos” on the ground in developing countries, with vital reproductive health services being forced to halt treatment, charities have warned.

Immediately after his inauguration in January, US President Donald Trump announced an immediate 90-day freeze on all USAID including family planning, which, amounts annually to over $600 million, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a leading reproductive health policy organisation.

That will mean an estimated 11.7 million women and girls losing access to contraception, resulting in 4.2 million unintended pregnancies and, 8,340 maternal deaths, as well as a surge in unsafe abortions, according to Marie Stopes International, a non-governmental organisation providing contraception and safe abortion services in 37 countries around the world.

Speaking during a panel event at the London premiere of The A-Word, The Independent’s documentary about reproductive rights in America, Sarah Shaw, MSI associate director of advocacy, said in some developing countries USAID funding accounts for almost 70% of the health budget.

For every week without USAID, nearly one million women and girls worldwide are denied contraceptive care, according to analysis from the Guttmacher Institute.

Shaw describes how right now, $150 million worth of sexual and reproductive health essential medicines are sitting in warehouses in countries with extremely high needs.

“There is literally no way of getting that stock from the warehouse into the clinics because the distribution systems have all ground to a halt because the US government didn’t just fund services, it funded the health infrastructure,” she added.

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Source: The Independent. 28 February 2025

 

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NHS urged to rollout QR 'trauma cards' after trial

The NHS should introduce pocket-sized cards listing patients' traumas to help "empower" survivors when they seek health care, a patient champion group said.

Healthwatch England said the cards, with a QR code on them, could discreetly alert health workers that they were caring for someone who has experienced trauma, and detail how to effectively look after them.

A trial in Essex found the cards were a "helpful tool" for patients, Healthwatch said, as it called for a national pilot.

Chief executive Louise Ansari said the experiences of vulnerable patients could be improved by a national rollout of the scheme.

The cards were designed to be handed to a healthcare professional when a holder was in a "triggering" situation.

They had a QR code that, when scanned, provided more information to the healthcare professional about what the individual was experiencing and how best to help.

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Source: BBC News, 3 March 2025

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Woman, 87, ‘traumatised’ after enduring 12-hour wait in A&E three times

An 87-year-old woman who waited around 12 hours at A&E on three separate occasions has been left “traumatised” by her experience of the NHS, her daughter has said.

Ann Traynor, 61, from East Lothian, said her mother Winifred Bolland found the ordeal “frightening and degrading”.

Ms Bolland, a former teacher, was taken to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh last September after fracturing her hip.

She was later discharged but in October was readmitted after struggling to stand on one of her legs. She waited nine hours before an ambulance arrived and was looked after by ambulance staff in a corridor, her daughter, who is a nurse, said. 

Ms Bolland was again then forced to wait in A&E for around 12 hours.

In January, Ms Bolland, who is visually impaired, fell and fractured her other hip at home. Ms Traynor said she and her mother, who was in pain, had to wait around another 12 hours in “freezing” conditions.

She said her mother was discharged from the hospital and told she did not meet the criteria for rehabilitation, but was later given access to it.

She told how she had to take nearly a month off of work to ensure her mother was safe at home.

“She doesn’t ever want to go back to the Royal Infirmary,” Ms Traynor said.

“She was traumatised there, particularly the second time. There was no dignity in that admission.

“I think she felt like a burden. It’s really sad. I think her generation is very stoic but I think she was badly let down.

“She wouldn’t survive another admission like that.

“Although she was booted out, and I think it’s appalling that she was, I think she was safer at home.”

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Source: The Scotsman, 3 March 2025

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