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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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‘We’re losing decades of our life to this illness’: Long Covid patients on the fear of being forgotten

On 20 March 2020, Rowan Brown started to feel a tickle at the back of her throat. Over the next few days, new symptoms began to emerge: difficulty breathing, some tiredness. By the following week, the UK had been put under lockdown in a last-minute attempt to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, or Covid-19. 

Brown didn’t know then she was at the beginning of a condition that did not yet have a name, but which has since become known as Long Covid. After two weeks, she had a Zoom with a friend, and at the end of the conversation it was as if all life force had drained out of her body. Her doctor advised her to stay in bed for two weeks. Those two weeks turned into three and a half months of extended Covid symptoms: nausea, fevers, night sweats, intense muscle and joint pain, allodynia (a heightened sensitivity to pain), hallucinations, visual disturbances. By the end of the three months, she had noted 32 different symptoms. “I didn’t recognise the way my body felt at all: my skin, my hair,” she remembers now. “It was like being taken over by a weird alien virus, which I guess is what happened.”

Brown, 48, is one of 2 million people in the UK thought to be experiencing long Covid symptoms; according to a study published last summer, roughly 400 million people worldwide have been affected. Often, long Covid patients experience mild primary infections, are never admitted to hospital and only realise there is a problem later, when the symptoms persist well beyond the usual two weeks. Some make a full recovery, some see improvements over time; others, like Brown, have seen little progress since being infected five years ago.

One of the main challenges in diagnosing and treating long Covid is its unpredictability: research studies have linked it to more than 200 symptoms affecting every part of the body. Many patients go on to develop complications such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disorder; 59% of patients show signs of organ damage. 

The unwillingness to discuss chronic illness is especially concerning when combined with the scepticism faced by Long Covid patients, who have to advocate for themselves so that medical professionals, employers and loved ones understand the gravity of their illness.

All of this conspires to make Long Covid patients feel invisible, voiceless and forgotten. 

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Source: The Guardian, 2 March 2025

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One in three NHS doctors so tired their ability to treat patients is affected, survey finds

One in three doctors in the NHS are so tired that their ability to treat patients is impaired, according to a report that reveals medics are more sleep deprived now than during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Longer hours, staff shortages and soaring demand for care on top of the backlog that worsened during the Covid crisis are causing extreme tiredness among doctors, leading to memory blanks, problems concentrating and patient harm.

More than one-third (35%) of doctors said they were so tired that their ability to treat patients was impaired, according to the survey conducted by the Medical Defence Union (MDU), which provides legal support to about 200,000 doctors, nurses, dentists and other healthcare workers across the UK.

A further third (34%) said their ability to practise medicine may have been impaired. Of the 69% who said extreme tiredness had or may have impaired their ability to treat patients, one in four (26%) said one of their patients had been harmed or a near miss had occurred as a result.

When doctors last answered confidential questions about tiredness in February 2022, nearly one in 10 (9%) said they felt sleep deprived at work on a daily basis. Three years on, the proportion affected had more than doubled to one in five (22%).

The proportion of medics saying extreme tiredness had impaired their ability to treat patients was 26% in 2022 and 35% in 2025.

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Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2025

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Payment plan could make accessing care ‘as hard as getting an Oasis ticket’

Patients’ right to choose the provider of mental health services where waits can stretch into years could soon become an “illusion”, companies and patient groups have warned.

NHS England has proposed a new payment scheme for 2025-26 which states integrated care boards can specify a maximum amount that would be paid to any provider during one year. This could be low as £100,000. 

Last week HSJ reported warnings from private providers of physical healthcare services about the proposal. They feared it will result in funding not being available to treat NHS patients who had chosen a private provider.

Similar concerns have now emerged from private providers of ADHD and autism assessments, where waiting lists are much longer. Some people are waiting as long as 11 years in some areas for ADHD assessments.

The Right to Choose policy was enshrined in the 2018 Mental Heath Act, and allows patients to select from a range of NHS and private services via a GP referral

The impact assessment for the payment scheme insists the new rules will not damage patient choice, but it admits payment limits “could possibly impact the length of waits for a treatment option offered by that provider. This may in turn impact how patients exercise their right to choose”.

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Source: HSJ, 28 February 2025

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GP contract strips out key cancer and mental health targets

Targets designed to improve mental health and cancer outcomes in primary care have been removed from the new GP contract agreed between the profession and government.

The 2025-26 general medical services contract sees core funding increased by £889m. GP leaders accepted the deal in principle following two months of intense negotiations.

However, the deal is contingent on the government confirming in writing by the middle of next month that it will negotiate a completely new contract within the current parliamentary term. 

The contract’s Quality and Outcomes Framework, which seeks to incentivise GPs to provide care in priority areas, has been radically reformed. 32 indicators which carried a total value of £298m have been removed. £198m of the total will be ”redistributed proportionately across nine CVD prevention indicators”. The remaining £101m will be reinvested into the global contract sum and in paying GPs to carry out routine childhood vaccinations instead.

Gone from the contract is the requirement for practices to hold dedicated registers of patients with cancer, chronic kidney disease, dementia, diabetes, learning disabilities, schizophrenia, asthma and COPD, as well as those receiving patient palliative care. The contract requires practices to keep accurate patient records, but no longer maintain dedicated registries.

Other abolished targets include tracking cancer care reviews, and the review of patients with depression and schizophrenia. 

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Source: HSJ, 28 February 2025

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Midwifery boss admits not telling Ida Lock's parents the truth amid 'grave failings'

A midwifery boss has admitted that she repeatedly failed to inform the health watchdog about issues which contributed to a newborn baby's death.

Ida Lock was born at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI) on the morning of November 9 in 2019 in a "poor condition" and with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

Ida's mum Sarah Robinson, from Morecambe, had gone to the hospital's central delivery suite at 7.30am after her waters broke the previous day. Sarah, who was 40+1 weeks pregnant, had previously attended the hospital after noticing reduced foetal movements.

Despite midwife Lisa McGrow noticing that the baby's heartrate had dropped to 100bpm, below the acceptable range of 110-160bpm, Sarah was allowed to enter the birthing pool.

Less than 20 minutes later, after Ms McGrow and a more senior midwife, Amanda Sailor, called for assistance, a doctor arrived and immediately said "we need to get this baby out now".

However, after Ida was delivered, not breathing, there was a period of three and-a-half minutes when Mrs Sailor and delivery suite coordinator Celia Sykes were carrying out "ineffective" CPR. When Dr Matthew Phillips came into the room he ensured that Ida was properly resuscitated.

Ida was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit at the Royal Preston Hospital. Her parents were informed that she had suffered a severe brain injury, due to a lack of oxygen, and she sadly died seven days later.

The inquest started earlier this month and on the 25 February heard from Carol Carlile who, in 2019, was the head of midwifery at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) which runs the RLI.

Ms Carlile explained that she had been appointed by the trust to oversee the implementation of the 18 recommendations made following the publication of the Kirkup Report in 2015. Dr Bill Kirkup CBE had overseen a public inquiry into maternity services at UHMBT after the deaths of 11 babies and one mother.

The inquest heard that Ms Carlile had "signed off" a Root Cause Analysis into Ida's death, carried out by the trust contrary to Care Quality Commission guidance. The report published following that analysis, and 'signed off' by Ms Carlile, concluded that "everything went well" with Ida's birth.

Just a few weeks later the independent Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) published its own findings which highlighted several failings which it found contributed to Ida's death.

Ms Carlile had no explanation as to why, despite there being six separate 'codes' which would have required her to report Ida's case to the Care Quality Commission, she had failed to do so and said: "I can't recall why I didn't do that. I should have done."

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Source: Lancs Live, 26 February 2025

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NHS Fife changing room tribunal: what we know so far

A nurse is taking legal action against a Scottish health board after she was suspended for complaining about sharing a changing room with a transgender colleague.

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at NHS Fife, has claimed she was subjected to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act 2010 by being made to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton, who is a transgender woman.

At the time of the incidents, Ms Peggie, a nurse, and Dr Upton, a medic, were both employed at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy and worked in the A&E department.

According to Ms Peggie, in late August 2023, she entered a changing room in the A&E department and saw Dr Upton getting dressed, which made her feel embarrassed to get changed and led her to leave the room.

Then, in late October or early November 2023, Ms Peggie was getting changed in the changing room, dressed in her bra and trousers, when Dr Upton came in.

Again, the nurse said she felt embarrassed at changing in front of Dr Upton, so replaced her top and left the room.

Ms Peggie said she then entered the changing room on 24 December 2023 to take care of a personal hygiene need and ended up being left alone with Dr Upton after two members of staff left.

Following the third incident, Dr Upton refused to leave the changing room and later made a complaint of bullying against Ms Peggie.

On 30 December 2023, NHS Fife placed Ms Peggie on special leave and then, on 4 January 2024, the health board suspended her.

At the time the incident took place, it was NHS policy to allow transgender people to use the changing rooms that align with their gender identity.

This is not the first time nurses have threatened legal action in an NHS changing room row.

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Source: Nursing Times, 20 February 2025

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Trump administration cancels meeting on flu shots, fueling anti-vax concerns

The Trump administration has cancelled a meeting of scientific experts called to discuss next winter’s flu shots in a move that has underscored fears of emerging anti-vaccine polices under the new health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which Kennedy oversees, notified members of its vaccines and related biological products advisory committee on Thursday that the next meeting scheduled for 13 March was cancelled without providing an explanation.

No new date was set for a meeting and scientists warned that the cancellation risked undermining the development of flu vaccines for next year.

The committee was due to discuss the development of appropriate vaccine for combatting expected prevalent influenza strains next year, using data provided by the World Health Organization, from which the US recently withdrew, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Committee members were given no advance notice that the meeting, which is held in late February or late March every year, was to be called off.

“We’re all left trying to understand what is going on. Why was this meeting cancelled? It’s an important meeting. What’s the plan for flu vaccines this year,” Paul Offit, a committee member and director of the vaccine education centre at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CBS.

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Source: The Guardian, 27 February 2025

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Cancer patients 'may starve' without vital drug

Cancer patients and others with debilitating conditions have highlighted shortages of a vital drug they say have had a "devastating" impact on their lives.

Creon, a pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (Pert), helps digestion, but has been hard to obtain for the last year and shortages are predicted to last until 2026.

It is thought more than 61,000 patients in the UK need it, including those with pancreatic cancer, cystic fibrosis and chronic pancreatitis.

Some patients said through Your Voice, Your BBC News that they have had to cover long distances to find a pharmacist with supplies.

The Department of Health and Social care says it is working closely with the NHS, manufacturers and others in the supply chain to try to resolve the issues.

Without the drug, patients lose weight and strength, which means their ability to cope with treatment such as chemotherapy is reduced.

Diana Gibb, who is 74, and her husband Mick, 78, live in Tonbridge, Kent.

Mick had a major operation to treat pancreatic cancer in 2023. Diana wrote to BBC News explaining that it is impossible for Mick to digest food without creon. She says he was prescribed a high dose to enable him to regain weight after losing four stone in hospital, but it became increasingly difficult to get hold of the medicine.

"We started to have trouble getting them in the higher dosage, involving me traipsing round pharmacies to find one who could get them. Pharmacies cannot get hold of that dosage. He now has to take a lower dose doubling up on the number of tablets taken, one box now lasts less than a week.

"Pharmacies cannot get hold of lower dosage either and there is no alternative medication. I was worried that my husband would starve to death without them."

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Source: BBC News, 28 February 2025

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GPs strike deal to help end '8am scramble' for appointments

Patients will be able to book more appointments online and request to see their usual doctor under a new contract agreed with England's GPs, the government has said.

The deal gives an extra £889m a year to general practices, as well as a reduction in red tape and targets that ministers hope will mean doctors are freed up to see more patients.

The Labour government made manifesto promises to bring back "family" doctors and end the early morning phone "scramble" for appointments.

The doctors' union, the BMA, says the deal is an important first step in restoring general practices.

However, doctors also want the government to commit to talks about a completely new national contract for GPs within this Parliament.

GP surgeries are seen as the front door to the NHS, but for years now, doctors have been warning about the pressure their service is under.

Patients have felt it too, with some people facing long waits for appointments.

Now it is hoped extra money agreed in the new contract for GP surgeries will kick-start improvements.

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Source: BBC News, 28 February 2025

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Consultants express no confidence in trust chair and board

Consultants at a prestigious teaching hospital have written a letter of no confidence in its chair and board, and have made a string of serious allegations against members of the trust’s leadership team.

The senior medics at Moorfields Eye Hospital Foundation Trust sent the letter, obtained by HSJ, to the organisation’s governors on 26 February.

Allegations in the letter include: there was a bullying culture at the organisation, including “coercive behaviour” by the trust’s chair; the trust’s reputation as a research institution was being damaged; and there was “a lack of corporate integrity”.

The letter, from consultants’ committee chair Hari Jayaram, said more than half of the senior doctors — more than 80 consultants — at the trust had contacted him to “voice a lack of confidence in the organisation by the current chair and board”.

It also said morale among these senior doctors was “at a significant nadir, which most colleagues do not ever recall experiencing in their consultant careers” and that senior staff have lost confidence in the trust’s Freedom to Speak Up process.

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Source: HSJ, 27 February 2025

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Coroner warns about NHS physician associates after misdiagnosis and death of woman

A coroner has issued a warning about the role of physician associates in NHS hospitals after a woman with severe abdominal problems was wrongly diagnosed as having a nosebleed and died four days later.

The family of Pamela Marking, 77, were under the mistaken impression she had been seen by a doctor when she was examined in an emergency department, rather than a physician associate (PA) with far less training.

Surrey assistant coroner Karen Henderson has written to 12 health leaders or bodies including the UK health secretary, Wes Streeting, and NHS England expressing concerns about the “limited training” PAs have and the lack of public understanding about their roles.

In a prevention of future deaths report, Henderson said Marking was taken to East Surrey hospital in Redhill on 16 February last year after she vomited blood-stained fluid and had a tender abdomen.

The coroner said the PA who saw her had “a lack of understanding of the significance of abdominal pain” and sent her home the same day. Marking deteriorated, returning to the hospital two days later. She underwent surgery for complications arising from a femoral hernia but died on 20 February 2024.

Henderson said the PA had acted independently in the diagnosis, treatment, management and discharge of Marking without independent oversight by a medical practitioner.

The coroner said: “Given their limited training and in the absence of any national or local recognised hospital training for physician associates once appointed, this gives rise to a concern they are working outside of their capabilities.”

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Source: The Guardian, 27 February 2025

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