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Mum fought in vain to save son while waiting for ambulance, but a terrible error had been made

A 35-year-old man from Cardiff died after collapsing at home despite his mother and brother trying to give him CPR. Martyn Wright collapsed at home, and it has since been found that there were errors in the way his family's calls to the ambulance service were handled.

Martyn's mum, Claire, claimed that calling 999 was a "lottery". In a statement to WalesOnline, she, said: "Through lived experience, we have learned our 999 emergency service cannot be relied upon even when there is clearly an immediate risk to life, it's now quite simply a lottery. An ambulance initially allocated to attend my son who collapsed at home suddenly in December, 2022, was stood down in error by a novice 999 call-handler, this caused a significant delay to him receiving vital treatment.

"Despite our younger son performing CPR on his unconscious brother, when they did arrive 45 minutes later as a result of a follow up call made by myself, Martyn was tragically beyond help." Martyn's case was referred to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, who has found there were errors in the handling of his case. 

On the day of his collapse, Martyn was at home with his mum and brother. Two 999 calls were made. The first call was incorrectly downgraded from a red priority to "green 2". The second call was also not handled appropriately, with incorrect information given to Mrs Wright about resuscitation. As a result, the ambulance arrived 32 minutes late.

Through it all, Mrs Wright and her son were, the report said, "attempting to deliver CPR without instruction or support". Mrs Wright complained about how the calls were handled, how the attending paramedics kept a record of events and whether the outcome for Martyn would have been different had the ambulance arrived earlier. The ombudsman found that the Welsh Ambulance Service trust did not properly manage the two 999 calls made after Martyn had collapsed.

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Source: Wales Online, 18 March 2025

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Texas charges midwife in first arrest under state’s abortion ban

A Houston-area midwife was arrested for providing illegal abortions, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said Monday, marking the first criminal charges under the state’s near-total abortion ban.

Maria Margarita Rojas, 49, was charged with the illegal performance of an abortion and practicing medicine without a license, Paxton’s office said in a news release.

Rojas owned and operated health clinics in Waller, Cypress and Spring, Paxton’s office said. Her facilities employed unlicensed people who presented themselves as medical professionals, officials alleged.

Performing an abortion in Texas is punishable by up to life in prison and up to $100,000 in civil penalties. Abortions are only permitted when a pregnant woman is at risk of death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

The law targets anyone who performs or helps set up an illegal abortion, including people who facilitate the distribution of abortion pills. Women seeking abortions can’t be charged under the state’s law.

“In Texas, life is sacred,” Paxton said in a statement Monday. “I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted. Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable.”

Marc Hearron, interim associate director of ligation at the Center for Reproductive Rights, an organization that aims to protect reproductive rights, condemned Paxton’s efforts to ban abortions.

“While details of this case remain unclear, we know that Texas officials have been trying every which way to terrify healthcare practitioners from providing care and to trap Texans,” Hearron said in a statement. “Their ultimate goal is to end abortion access for all Texans entirely — and they will throw people in jail to get there.”

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Source: Washington Post, 18 March 2025

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Children operated on by now-suspended surgeon 'are being let down again', lawyer warns

Children who underwent operations with a now-suspended surgeon at a Cambridge hospital are being let down again by a lack of information and transparency from the hospital's trust, according to a lawyer representing one of the families.

Last month, Addenbrooke's Hospital announced it had contacted the families of nine children whose complex hip surgeries "fell below" the expected standard, following an external review.

The orthopaedic surgeon, who has not been named, has since been suspended while a second external review is carried out.

But families are said to be "frustrated" by a lack of communication from Addenbrooke's, which is yet to release the findings of the first review.

A lawyer instructed by one of the families has accused Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust of failing to follow official guidance in their handling of the patients and their families.

Catherine Slattery, associate solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, told Sky News: "Families should feel they are being supported through this process, and that their child is the centre of this investigation.

The National Patient Recall Framework - for patients "recalled" by a healthcare provider after a problem has been identified - states that the patient's needs should "always be placed at the centre" of the process.

The guidance adds: "There should be appropriate and compassionate engagement with patients to ensure that the process remains patient focused."

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Source: Sky News, 19 March 2025

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NHS robots and scanners ‘must be used more intensively’

Expensive scanners and surgical robots are underused and “lying fallow” at NHS hospitals, a report has said.

Analysis shows a tenfold difference in how often NHS trusts use surgical robots — cutting-edge machines used for minimally invasive surgery that cost about £1.5 million each.

There are also huge regional variations in the use of CT and MRI scanners, which help to diagnose illnesses including cancer and cost about £1 million each.

Experts urged the NHS to ensure that each machine was used to the utmost to boost productivity and tackle hospital waiting lists of 7.4 million people.

The report also warned that hospitals are failing to make full use of surgical robots, which can blitz through waiting lists by speeding up recovery times. In 2022 Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust used its surgical robot less than once a week while other NHS hospitals used theirs nine times a week.

Jonathan Eida, a researcher at the TPA, said: “Our analysis of high-value machines in the NHS further adds to the body of evidence that the health service is not in a healthy state.

“It is absolutely absurd for such expensive equipment to lie fallow, particularly given the swollen waiting lists. If Labour wants to deliver the efficient and productive health service that taxpayers are paying for, maximising the use of these machines has to be a priority.”

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Source: The Times, 16 March 2025

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Former directors call for Letby inquiry to be paused

Lawyers acting for four former executive directors at the Countess of Chester Hospital have called for the Thirlwall inquiry to be paused while the criminal charges against Lucy Letby are reviewed.

Acting for the former hospital leaders - chief executive Tony Chambers, medical director Ian Harvey, director of nursing Alison Kelly and HR director Sue Hodkinson - Kate Blackwell KC asked inquiry chair Lady Thirlwall to consider halting all or part of the proceedings until the Criminal Case Review Commission had made a decision about allowing another appeal or retrial.

She stated there was a risk the real causes of the infants’ deaths could be missed. 

Letby was convicted in 2023 of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more. She was later found guilty of another attempted murder charge at a second trial. The offences happened in 2015 and 2016. The Court of Appeal upheld her convictions last year.

But a new legal team for Letby has referred her convictions to the CCRC, raising concerns about the disclosure of evidence and citing new evidence from senior clinical experts that contradicts what the juries heard.

However, families of the jailed nurse’s victims said the senior managers were attempting to evade responsibility for their “many failures”.

“The applications to stop the inquiry are, on Letby’s part, an attempt to control the narrative, and on the part of the executives to avoid criticism,” said Richard Baker KC, representing the parents of 12 of the babies.

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Source: HSJ, 18 March 2025

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Precautions could have stopped baby deaths

"Reasonable precautions" could have prevented the deaths of three newborn babies, a fatal accident inquiry has found.

Leo Lamont, Ellie McCormick and Mira-Belle Bosch all died within hours of their births in two Lanarkshire hospitals, in 2019 and 2021.

The report found all three deaths could "realistically" have been avoided had different advice been given by midwives or procedures followed.

The McCormick family said they could "never have imagined" the amount of failures that led to their daughter's death and called it a "catalogue of errors".

The inquiry ruled "defects" within the system contributed to each death, including that there was a "lack of an effective means" to highlight risks in one of the pregnancies and that midwives had no guidance to assess preterm labour symptoms.

Sheriff Principal Aisha Anwar KC made 11 recommendations for the future, including creating a "trigger list" to identify and assess early labour symptoms.

Among these are reviewing electronic patient information records to improve alerts for at risk mothers, and having a direct telephone line to each maternity unit in Scotland for ambulance crews.

In a statement, the McCormick family said: "The family could simply never have imagined the scale of both the individual and systems failures that came to light during the inquiry.

"What seemed to be flaws with the electronic system of record keeping actually turned out to be a catalogue of errors with numerous opportunities to avoid the tragic outcome that followed."

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Source: BBC News, 18 March 2025

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Teen died from asthma attack after she was wrongly discharged from hospital

A coroner has voiced serious concerns over a recurring "lack of observations" at London's Royal Free Hospital following the death of a teenager.

Sixteen-year-old Billie Wicks died after suffering her first ever asthma attack. Her parents rushed her to the Hampstead hospital on 17 September last year, but a new report reveals the A&E department was "understaffed" that night.

The coroner's concerns highlight a potential systemic issue at the hospital regarding patient monitoring.

Senior coroner for Inner North London, Mary Hassell, said that Billie should have had routine checks, or observations, taken every hour.

If she had these observations, then medics would have recognised the severity of Billie’s illness, Ms Hassell said.

“Billie was inappropriately discharged at approximately 3.30am without adequate repeat observations or senior clinical review, and so her asthma was not diagnosed or treated. If it had been, she probably would have survived,” she wrote in a prevention of future deaths report.

“Billie should have had observations every hour. If she had had these observations, the emergency registrar who discharged her would have recognised that she was not as well as he thought, and would have sought senior medical review.

“That senior medical review would have changed the course of her management and saved her life.”

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Source: The Independent, 18 March 2025

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Health secretary admits 'risk of disruption' in NHS overhaul

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said there is a "risk of disruption" in the NHS as he attempts to overhaul the service and reduce waste, but has promised long-term improvements.

On Thursday, Streeting announced NHS England, a public administrative body, would be scrapped to save money and give ministers more control of health services.

The Labour government expects the move will take two years and save hundreds of millions of pounds that can be spent on frontline NHS services.

Appearing on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Streeting defended the reforms but admitted there would be challenges.

When asked about the impact on patient care, he said: "Of course there are always up-front costs. And yes there is always a risk of disruption."

Streeting said former health secretaries had "not been prepared to take on those sorts of challenges" and argued NHS England "was set up to shield politicians like me from responsibility".

He said: "I've seen waste, inefficiency and duplication. So of course we should go after that."

When asked for a second time if patient care would be disrupted by the government's reorganisation of the NHS, Streeting promised to deliver improvements and said waiting lists for treatment had already been falling.

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Source: BBC News, 16 March 2025

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Number of asthma sufferers visiting A&E at least five times a year surges, analysis shows

The number of people going to hospital emergency departments five times a year or more for breathing issues like asthma has risen by almost a quarter in the last year.

Analysis of NHS England figures by Asthma + Lung UK found there were just over 42,000 visits to A&E in 2023/24 for breathing issues where the patient had gone to emergency five or more times within a year, a 22.9% rise on the previous 12 months.

Nearly half (45%) of people who sought emergency treatment for asthma and 58% of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had repeat admissions.

Despite the rise, nearly half (49%) of the 3,428 patients polled by the foundation said they were not offered follow-up appointments for their condition, and 55% said better access to their GP would have helped them avoid A&E.

Dr Sharada Gudur, a consultant respiratory physician in Lancashire, said: “Lung health in this country is in a critical state, and if urgent action isn’t taken, it will need resuscitation.

“The challenges are deep-rooted, but they simply cannot be ignored.”

Asthma + Lung UK pointed out new guidelines stated that if someone had gone to emergency they needed a follow-up appointment with an asthma expert, and have their treatment reviewed once a year.

The foundation said if those guidelines were followed, there would be a drop in A&E presentations as well as asthma deaths, which have increased by 25% in the last decade.

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Source: The Independent, 18 March 2025

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Cost containment, reorganised budgets: How WHO is adapting to US funding cuts

At a press conference on Monday, WHO officials laid out the many ways countries around the world are being impacted in real-time by the US withdrawal of crucial humanitarian aid funds.

The impacts are being felt on the heels of the Trump administration’s rapid dismantling of USAID, a key agency that oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in some 120 countries. Global health experts say that USAID has practiced a form of soft power around the world.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus would not comment on Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the WHO. Instead, he focused on the “serious disruptions” being caused by cuts through USAID. “In many countries, the abrupt loss of U.S. funding threatens to reverse progress,” Tedros  said, on many issues from immunisations to maternal health to emergency preparedness.

For instance, the USA has been the largest contributor to the fight against malaria over the past two decades, Tedros said. If cuts continue, there could be an additional 15 million cases of malaria and 107,000 deaths in 2025. A similar story is happening with HIV, he said: suspension of U.S. funding could lead to an additional 10 million cases of HIV and 3 million unnecessary deaths.

Gains made in tuberculosis, immunisations and polio are similarly at risk. 

“It’s within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent, but the US also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it’s done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources if funding. We ask the US to reconsider its support for global health,” Tedros said. 

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Source: Fierce Healthcare, 17 March 2025

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The lonely death of Dr Jagdip Sidhu

Jagdip Sidhu was the platonic ideal of an NHS doctor. He took very little private work, despite it being common for consultants. His only exception was for those who needed urgent care that couldn’t get treated on the NHS. It was a point of ethics. “He said: I’m only going to do it for people who clinically cannot wait,” explains Amandip, Jagdip's brother. “I’m not going to sit and profit off people’s adverse health and misery.”

But the hospital was impossible to get away from. On days and nights off, he would get urgent messages from the managers at his NHS trust asking him to clear more beds on the ward or hit new performance targets. Gradually, he had less time for anything outside of work. He’d developed “tunnel vision”, as Amandip describes it.

By 2017, something had broken in him. “He had just suddenly aged,” recalls his brother, pausing for a moment before continuing. “It’s very hard to explain. But for someone who had a lot of vitality in life and charisma about him, it started to drain away.” His hair began to turn grey. He was constantly tired, surviving on just three or four hours of sleep each night and often working more than 14 hours a day. “He’d come and see mum and literally just pass out on the sofa,” recalls Amandip. He spoke less and less. Jagdip was also losing faith in the medical system whose values he once embodied, and confided to his brother that he thought the struggling NHS was “finished”. 

One day, Amandip got a call from his brother. “I saw his number flash up, and I knew something was wrong,” he recalls. Jagdip explained that he had been signed off work on medical leave after nurses he worked with noticed he was struggling to function. He was petrified. “He said: ‘I can’t ever go back to that hospital. They’ll crucify me. They’ll say ‘you made mistakes’, and I’ll be struck off’,” recalls Amandip. “Because he was signed off sick, he felt that he couldn’t be a doctor anymore. That was his identity as an adult human being forcibly stopped, outside of his control.”

One afternoon, Amandip received an email from Jagdip. It was a confusing list of instructions, including how to access his financial accounts, life insurance policies, when to get the car MOT’d. There was no explanation. It ended with a short sign-off — he had gone to Beachy Head, a beauty spot atop the cliffs of the South Coast, with the car.

As call after call went straight to voicemail, the panic started to set in. Jagdip called Jagdip’s wife — there was no sign of him at home. He had left without taking his wallet and house keys. Amandip raced across London to his brother’s house. When he arrived, it was already crawling with police. They had found the car by Beachy Head, but there was no sign of Jagdip.

An agonising two hours later, he heard the crackle of the officers’ radio as they walked into the room and started to speak. “I remember them saying ‘This is the part of the job I really hate’,” Amandip recalls. They had found his brother’s body, identified by the car keys that were still in his pocket. Jagdip was 47 years old.

There were a lot of questions in the blur of weeks and months afterwards. But above all, one thought haunts Amandip: did his brother’s job in the NHS play a role in his death?

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Source: The Londoner, 15 March 2025

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UK pharmacies could cut hours unless NHS provides ‘new and sufficient’ funding

Independent pharmacies in England have been advised to slash their opening hours in a row over funding.

The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) said it had “been left with little choice” but to recommend its 6,000 members take collective action for the first time in its history, unless the government provides “new and sufficient” funding to cover significant new costs.

About 90% of an average pharmacy’s work is funded via the NHS, including dispensing medication and vaccinations. But the NPA, which represents community pharmacies, says members have yet to receive any confirmation of funding for the 2024-25 or the 2025-26 financial years. Increases in employers’ national insurance rates, the national living wage and business rates from April, on top of these unresolved funding issues could “jeopardise patient safety”, it says.

Significant numbers of pharmacies have already ceased trading, with 1,300 pharmacies shutting since 2017.

Nick Kaye, chair of the NPA, said the move was necessary “to safeguard patient services for the long term”, adding: “It is better that we temporarily reduce access in the short term than let pharmacies collapse."

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Source: The Guardian, 18 March 2025

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Watchdog urges regular BMI checkups for millions across England and Wales

Millions of people in England and Wales with a long-term health condition should have their body mass index (BMI) checked regularly to prevent diabetes and heart disease, an NHS watchdog is recommending.

Anyone found to be overweight should talk to sensitive, non-judgmental doctors and nurses about how they can lead a healthier life and stop their excess pounds causing them problems.

The checks should lead to more people being referred to weight management services for help overhauling their diet and lifestyles or being prescribed weight loss drugs.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which advises the NHS on which treatments represent value for money, hopes its recommendations will help curb obesity.

People with conditions such as diabetes, lung problems and heart failure should have their BMI and waist-to-height ratio assessed and recorded at least once a year, Nice said on Tuesday in draft guidance which is set to be published as a final document in August.

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Source: The Guardian, 18 March 2025

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‘Centralise tech procurement’ says 10-Year Plan advisory group

Ministers have been told to “centralise” decisions on – and purchasing of – NHS technology by one of the groups drawing up the 10-Year Health Plan, HSJ  has learned.

A late draft report from the government’s data and technology working group, seen by HSJ, says that “rather than being totally devolved to local health and care systems”, technology and data should be “a more centralised service”.

It calls for local tech deployment to be guided by new “national frameworks linked with [a] technology blueprint”.

Currently, technology procurement is led by integrated care boards and trusts, which choose which digital systems and products they wish to deploy. 

But the data and technology working group said this was leading to misaligned strategy and disjointed local systems.

The report says: “The decentralised structure of the health and care system means that local organisations operate independently, decision-making authority is often contested, and various special interests have considerable influence.

“When procurement decisions are not aligned with overarching policies and standards, they contribute to infrastructure diversity and result in numerous legacy systems that lack interoperability. This significantly hinders the realisation of a unified vision for services.”

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Source: HSJ, 18 March 2025

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Hospital told it’s ‘undoubtedly causing harm’

A major emergency department described by a national team as “undoubtedly causing patient harm and distress to staff” told HSJ it believes it has started to crack some of its problems.

The review of the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton — a major trauma centre for much of the South East — found it had the lowest score in England for patient flow.

It was carried out by Getting It Right First Time, which is part of NHS England.

Only half of patients waited less than 12 hours from arrival — much worse than elsewhere in Sussex — and on average they spend more than 26 hours in the department before admission, the review said. It used data from May last year, and said there had been deterioration over the previous two years.

The review, dated July 2024 and obtained by HSJ under the Freedom of Information Act, paints a grim picture based on a visit by the GIRFT team. They saw the hospital ”stacking” patients in the ED, making “infection prevention control almost impossible”, and creating a potential fire risk.

It highlighted problems with mental health patients, who often are left in its care in short stay beds because of a shortage of mental health beds.

However, since the review was conducted last year, University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust says it has taken strides to improve flow. 

“We felt we needed to invest time and effort, paradoxically, outside the four walls of the hospital,” said Mae Sullivan, operational flow manager for the trust’s eastern medicines division.

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Source: HSJ, 17 March 2025

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Few may mourn NHS England's demise, but what comes next is uncertain

After Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's announcement this week that NHS England (NHSE) is to be disbanded, the BBC looks at whether the changes present a new opportunity to improve patient safety within the NHS.

A hospital chief executive once described NHSE as "the biggest kiss up, kick down, organisation in public life."

The comment came to mind when Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Thursday said the scrapping of NHSE would "end the infantilisation of frontline NHS leaders."

Time and again, NHS trusts have complained about the total control that NHSE, the body responsible for the day-to-day running of the health service in the country, exerted over their actions – the lack of freedom they had to either showcase their good work or respond to particular challenges.

"You won't find many who shed a tear over its demise," said one NHS official, "but there is concern as to what the re-organisation will mean for patient care."

But for many patients who have been failed by the NHS, there is a feeling that it was always more a part of the problem than the solution.

Protecting the reputation of the NHS brand often seemed to matter more than doing the right thing. Rarely has a major patient safety failure been uncovered and proactively admitted by NHSE.

Many of the patient safety scandals – the deaths of people with learning disabilities and mental health problems at Southern Health, maternity failures in Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent and Nottingham – were only revealed after the skilled and active campaigning of grieving and committed families, who felt compelled to turn to the media when other efforts had failed.

Helen Gittos, who lost her daughter Harriet in 2014 at East Kent, is glad that NHSE is being scrapped.

"When families met with Wes Streeting to talk about maternity safety in the autumn, one of our messages was that NHSE was part of the problem, not part of the solution.

"It has been incredibly frustrating to see NHSE's response to successive reviews of maternity services. It's almost as if they haven't read the reports", she said.

The Maternity Safety Improvement Programme, led by NHSE, has not brought the kind of improvements "women and families so desperately need", she added.

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Source: BBC News, 15 March 2025

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Nottingham attacks wouldn't have happened if authorities had listened, says family of man killed months earlier

The NHS trust that failed to stop the killer behind the Nottingham attacks in June 2023 has been accused of failing other victims. 

It was a sunny morning in June 2023 as news broke that a major incident had been declared in Nottingham. As the hours went by it emerged three people had been stabbed. 

Students Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley-Kumar had been walking home from a night out when they were fatally attacked. School caretaker Ian Coates was heading into work when he was killed.

When he heard the news, Delvin Marriott, says he knew instinctively that the killer of Barnaby, Grace, and Ian would turn out to be a mental health patient and blames the loss of his brother on the same system that allowed paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane to be out on the streets armed with a knife.

In August 2022, Delvin's brother, Rudi Marriott, stabbed his father 75 times in a frenzied attack at home in Nottingham.

The family says they had repeatedly called the police and mental health services about Rudi's violence but their warnings were ignored.

A recent NHS report found that in the four years before Calocane carried out his attacks there were 15 incidents of patients either under the current care of the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust or who had been discharged perpetrating serious violence towards members of the community. Most of the incidents involved stabbings and three cases resulted in fatalities.

Neil Hudgell, a lawyer representing the families, says the public inquiry due to begin into the deaths of the Nottingham attack victims needs to ensure the trust is held accountable for failings.

"I think we've seen tragic story after tragic story where patients, their families, and victims have been let down," he says.

"We need to get to the bottom of why that happened, who's responsible for that and to have some genuine change."

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Source: Sky News, 17 March 2025

 

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Huge fall in NHS Long Covid clinics, study finds

New research has revealed the number of NHS clinics for people living with Long Covid has more than halved, from a peak of 120 services in 2022 to 46 today.

Services for children and young people are also affected with 13 specialists hubs reduced to eight.

The BBC also discovered the NHS in England no longer monitored the status of Long Covid clinics and stopped doing so nearly a year ago.

Spokespeople for NHS England and the Department of Health confirmed they were no longer tracking how many Long Covid clinics were still operating.

Birmingham-based charity Long Covid Support used Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to ask hospitals about what clinics they have for patients.

Margaret O'Hara, from the group, said changes in the way clinics were funded inside the NHS had led to many services being merged or stopped altogether.

She told the BBC many parts of the NHS were "struggling to cope" and the picture for patients was one of "utter confusion".

After the initial infection with coronavirus, rather than getting better, patients are instead left dealing with any number of problems including fatigue, pain and breathing difficulties.

For many, getting any sort of diagnosis let alone treatment in a specialist NHS clinic is a long and sometimes fruitless journey, according to the support group.

In a survey of patients affected by the condition, a spokesperson for Long Covid Support said they found about half of those they talked to considered themselves disabled by the condition.

A similar number of adults surveyed also said they were not followed up by a healthcare professional and still had ongoing symptoms, despite when the NHS discharged them from treatment.

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Source: BBC News, 17 March 2025

Further reading on the hub:

 

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NHS England names new executive team to lead transition

NHS England has announced the incoming team who will help lead the organisation’s transition into the Department of Health and Social Care.

The team – called the NHS Transformation Executive Team – will replace the current NHS England Executive Group and will support ongoing business priorities, statutory functions and day to day delivery.

Except for the deputy chief executive officer, all colleagues will be in post on 1 April 2025 to support this critical work.

The new team – drawn from the existing executive and the wider NHS on secondment – has been appointed following discussion with the Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care senior officials, incoming chair Dr Penny Dash and NHS England’s Board. All appointments are subject to the approval of the Board. Permanent recruitment and appointments will be made when the future form and structure is more clear.

The roles of chief operating officer and chief delivery officer will no longer exist in the transformation structure, and under the new team there will be two co-medical directors, alongside new posts – a financial reset and accountability director and elective care, cancer and diagnostics director.

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Source: NHS England, 17 March 2025

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USA: The fallout from David Weldon’s withdrawn CDC nomination

The abrupt withdrawal of Dr David Weldon’s nomination to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlights the ongoing political and financial entanglements that shape public health policy.

Weldon, a former congressman and internist, was informed just twelve hours before his scheduled Senate confirmation hearing on 13 March that his nomination was being pulled due to insufficient support.

The decision, reportedly made by the White House after realising they lacked the votes, raises critical questions about the rigidity of political gatekeeping in public health leadership.

Weldon’s nomination was doomed by concerns over his past inquiries into vaccine safety. As he explained in his statement, he was repeatedly accused of being ‘anti-vax,’ despite never claiming that vaccines cause autism.

In today’s political climate, however, even a small, measured scepticism about certain vaccines is enough to disqualify someone from holding public office.

The issue of whether vaccines cause autism is considered settled by the medical establishment. As Senator Bill Cassidy stated during Jay Bhattacharya’s confirmation hearing, conducting further studies on the matter would be “wasting” resources on research that already confirms what we know.

While this argument has some merit (since research funding is finite and often squandered), Bhattacharya countered with a crucial point: vaccines are a public health intervention, and the public must have confidence in them.

If people do not trust the data, then the government has a responsibility to present more evidence to convince them. Refusing to engage in further study only fuels scepticism and deepens public distrust.

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Source: Maryanne Demasi, 14 March 2025

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USA: At little-known health agency, DOGE ends dream ‘to make a difference’

Heather Sherman is one of the thousands of federal employees dismissed by a weekend email telling them they were “not fit for future employment.”

The trauma of that abrupt ending in mid-February — giving her just a few hours before all access was shut off — still lingers. “This was my dream job,” Sherman said.

If Sherman were an air traffic controller or nuclear materials expert, her work keeping the public safe would be obvious. But as a mid-level employee with a technical role at a little-known agency in the mammoth Department of Health and Human Services, her curt dismissal and that of an undisclosed number of AHRQ colleagues prompted not even a ripple of news coverage.

Yet what a New York Times editorial decried as a “haphazard demolition campaign” by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, one that is undermining “the safety and welfare of the American people,” applies to agencies like AHRQ and low-profile jobs like Sherman’s just as much as to more high-profile positions.

In complex systems, of which healthcare is surely one, carelessness has consequences.

A 2023 report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology declared patient safety “an urgent national public health issue.” In truth, the urgency is embraced mostly by a small number of individuals determined to drastically reduce the estimated 160,000 Americans perishing each year from preventable medical errors in hospitals.

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Source: Forbes, 13 March 2025

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Hospital did not disclose DNACPR order until after grandfather’s death

The family of a man who died in hospital only discovered after his death that a Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) order had been put in place.

An investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman (PHSO) found that Barts Health NHS Trust failed in its duty to tell Ali Asghar and his family about the order. 

A DNACPR order means that, if someone’s heart or breathing stops, doctors will not attempt resuscitation. The decision is made by a doctor and does not require patient consent but a patient must be informed if they have capacity. If they do not have capacity their next of kin must be informed.

The Ombudsman is urging all healthcare providers to make sure their teams are trained to have these crucial conversations about end-of-life care in a timely and sensitive manner.

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Source: PHSO, 11 March 2025

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Letby: manslaughter probe into Countess of Chester ‘widened’

The hospital where Lucy Letby murdered babies is now being investigated for gross negligence manslaughter as well as corporate manslaughter, police have announced.

Cheshire Constabulary has released a statement saying that its corporate manslaughter investigation into the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been “widened”.

“We will not be confirming the number of people involved or their identity"

The scope of the investigation now includes gross negligence manslaughter, which is where a death is caused by an otherwise lawful but grossly negligent “act or omission” by an individual or individuals.

The corporate manslaughter investigation, which is looking into the actions of senior leaders at the hospital trust in relation to deaths at the neonatal unit, was launched in October 2023.

This happened a few months after the conviction of 35-year-old Letby for the murder of seven babies and attempted murder of six others while working as a neonatal nurse at the trust in 2015 and 2016.

Letby was later found guilty of attempting to murder a seventh baby.

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Source: Nursing Times, 14 March 2025

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Measles highest in 25 years in Europe, WHO says

The number of measles cases in the European region doubled last year to reach the highest level in 25 years, health officials say.

A joint report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN children's fund, Unicef, said children under the age of five accounted for more than 40% of the cases reported in Europe and central Asia.

"Measles is back, and it's a wake-up call," Hans Henri Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said. "Without high vaccination rates, there is no health security."

The MMR vaccine - which immunises people against measles, mumps and rubella - is 97% effective in fighting off the dangerous virus.

Measles is a highly contagious disease which is spread by coughs and sneezes.

The measles virus can lead to pneumonia, brain swelling and death.

The WHO/Unicef joint analysis covering 53 countries said there had been 127,350 measles cases reported in the European region in 2024 - the highest since 1997.

A total of 38 deaths had been reported up to 6 March 2025.

Measles cases, they added, had been declining since 1997, but the trend reversed in 2018-19 and cases rose significantly in 2023-24 "following a backsliding in immunisation coverage during the Covid-19 pandemic".

"Vaccination rates in many countries are yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, increasing the risk of outbreaks," they warned.

The WHO/Unicef statement concluded that measles remained "a significant global threat" and urged governments where cases were occurring to take quick action - and those where the virus had not arrived to be prepared to act.

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Source: BBC News, 13 March 2025

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Two more directors exit trust where ‘poor behaviour was tolerated’

Two non-executive directors have left the board of a mental health trust just a few months after the early departure of its chair.

HSJ understands Janet Bailey, a non-executive director appointed in January 2022 and also a senior nurse and academic, was suspended by the trust and her three-year term was not renewed.

Another NED, Alison Geeson, who is a senior lecturer in mental health nursing at Wolverhampton University, resigned last week. This was described as “unexpected” by sources within the trust.

Ms Geeson has been an NED since 2020 and was Freedom to Speak Up Lead and Wellbeing Lead for the board.

In an internal email seen by HSJ, interim chair Philip Gayle announced her resignation to staff and wrote that it was with a “heavy heart” he informed staff of Ms Geeson’s decision to step down, which she felt was “the best decision for her at this time”.

The 2024 staff survey results, published on Thursday, also saw a decline at BCHFT across numerous key measures. The proportion of staff recommending the trust as a place to work fell from 58 per cent to 52 per cent, far below the 65 per cent national average. 

The trust also reported the lowest in England for staff agreeing that colleagues “are understanding and kind to one another”, with 69 per cent agreeing. 

In an internal email to staff as scores were published, BCHFT CEO Marsha Foster said: “The overall picture indicates that we still have a lot of work to do to address the challenges we face.

”We understand for some of you, your experience of working here is positive, but we also know that for others there are significant areas where things are not working as well as they should.” Ms Foster told staff the trust was “committed to making improvements”.

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Source: HSJ, 14 March 2025

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