Jump to content
  • articles
    6,944
  • comments
    73
  • views
    5,177,225

Contributors to this article

About this News

Articles in the news

Whistleblowing Bill launched in Parliament to widespread support

The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) has expressed its support for the Whistleblowing Bill launched in Parliament last week, with its first reading in the House of Commons by Mary Robinson MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Whistleblowing.

DAUK urged people to tweet their MP to show their support for the Bill.

DAUK Chair Dr Jenny Vaughan said: "Healthcare staff need to be able raise patient safety issues all of the time. We’re trained to do that, expect it, point this out as best we can. But sometimes poor safety arises because of the way we are told to work. Then, it can be just as hard for staff to speak up as it is for anyone else, because we can also be threatened, sanctioned, isolated, ignored and bullied.

"Blowing the whistle for us means saving lives, in the end. But we stand to lose as much as anyone. DAUK has supported many doctors who have been made to suffer because they spoke out, and there are many more who feel they should but are afraid to.  That is why this Bill is so important. For all staff within healthcare. And most of all, for patients  - the public. Stopping the greater harm for the greater good.”

The most important changes in the private members bill, led by Baroness Kramer would:

  • Require disclosures to be acted upon and whistleblowers protected.
  • Provide criminal and civil penalties for organisations and individuals failing to do so.
  • Establish a fully independent parliamentary body on whistleblowing, and provide easy access to redress.

Read full story

Source: Medscape UK, 26 April 2022

Read more
 

Whistleblowing ‘cost Hampshire doctor dearly’ after he loses tribunal

Dr Martyn Pitman claimed retaliatory victimisation after raising morale concerns but tribunal says it was his manner that cost him his job.

A doctor has said raising whistleblowing concerns about maternity care at his hospital “cost me very dearly” after he lost his employment tribunal.

Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Martyn Pitman was dismissed earlier this year from his job at the Royal Hampshire county hospital (RHCH) in Winchester, where he had worked for 20 years.

He told the Southampton tribunal, which concluded earlier this month, that he had been “subjected to brutal retaliatory victimisation” after exercising his rights under the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

A tribunal judgment released on Friday said there had been “unanimous” agreement that the arguments behind the whistleblowing claim “fail and are dismissed”.

Read full story

Source: Guardian, 29 October 2023

Read more
 

Whistleblowers’ lawyers “fear retaliation” over NDA

 

Lawyers acting for whistleblowers have told MPs and peers that they can feel intimidated to raise concerns over non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) because of the threat of retaliation.

Whistleblowers themselves have also accused employers’ law firms of using underhand tactics in employment tribunal cases, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Whistleblowing said it would move on to look in more detail at the role of lawyers.

The findings came in the group’s first report – focusing on ‘the voice of the whistleblower’ – which found that, although the UK “remains a leading authority on whistleblowing legislation”, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) needed “a radical overhaul”.

Read the full article here.

Read more

Whistleblowers sacked by NHS fear no change after Lucy Letby case

NHS clinicians who were sacked after blowing the whistle about avoidable patient deaths say they fear lessons from the Lucy Letby murder trial have not been learned and the case will make no difference to their own claims for unfair dismissal.

They say hospital bosses are still more concerned about reputation than patient safety, despite what emerged in the Letby case about the tragic consequences of ignoring consultants who first raised suspicions about her killing babies.

Mansoor Foroughi is appealing against his dismissal by University Hospital Sussex NHS trust in December 2021 after raising concerns about patient deaths. 

Mansoor Foroughi, a consultant neurosurgeon, was sacked by University Hospital Sussex NHS trust (UHST) in December 2021 for allegedly acting in bad faith when he raised the alarm about 19 deaths and 23 cases of serious patient harm that he said had been covered up in the previous six years. Those deaths and at least 20 others are now being investigated by Sussex police after allegations of medical negligence.

Foroughi, whose appeal against his dismissal is due to be held in the coming months, told the Guardian: “I don’t think mine or anyone’s chances of success has increased [after Letby], and only a change in the law will do that.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2023

Read more
 

Whistleblowers flag ‘toxic management’ within maternity service

Former staff at a Midlands acute trust have raised concerns over a ‘toxic management culture’ and ‘unsafe’ staffing levels within its maternity services, HSJ has learned.

Two clinicians who recently worked within Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust’s maternity department have sent a letter to the Care Quality Commission outlining a series of concerns.

The letter, seen by HSJ, claimed there was a “toxic management culture alongside poor leadership” within the trust’s senior midwifery team.

It added: “This had led to 100 per cent turnover in staff within the middle management line… There is no confidence in the current leadership structure and no confidence that staff will be listened to and heard.”

HSJ also understands there are also concerns around the service within the trust’s management.

Although they do not raise direct patient safety concerns, the clinicians said the problems were “mostly long-standing” and had “deteriorated to the point where there is now a risk to patient safety”.

They added: “We are raising these concerns now with the CQC as we feel we have not been listened to and changed effected in a timely manner.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 10 March 2021

Read more

Whistleblowers claim children ‘seriously harmed’ at scandal-hit mental health hospitals

Children came to “significant” harm due to chronically low staffing levels at scandal-hit mental health hospitals, whistleblowers have said.

In a third exposé into allegations of poor care at private hospitals run by The Huntercombe Group, former employees have claimed that staffing levels were so low “every day” that patients were neglected, resulting in:

  • Patients as young as 13 being force-fed while restrained.
  • Left alone to self-harm instead of being supervised.
  • Left to “wet themselves” because staff couldn’t supervise toilet visits.

One staff member, Rebecca Smith, said she was left in tears after having to restrain and force-feed a patient.

Following a series of investigations by The Independent and Sky News, 50 patients came forward with allegations of “systemic abuse” and poor care, spanning two decades at children’s mental health hospitals run by the organisation.

The government has since launched a “rapid review” into inpatient mental health units across the country following the newspaper’s reporting.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 28 January 2023

 

Read more

Whistleblowers accuse NHS trust of avoidable baby deaths

Serious concerns about maternity services at an NHS trust have been revealed by BBC Panorama.

Midwives say a poor culture and staff shortages at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust have led to baby deaths that could have been avoided.

A newborn baby died after the trust failed to take action against two staff, the BBC has been told.

The trust says it is sorry for its failings and is determined to learn when things go wrong.

Concerns about two staff members, both midwives, had been raised by colleagues at the Cheltenham Birth Centre after another baby died 11 months earlier.

The birth centre allowed women with low-risk pregnancies the choice of giving birth there under the care of midwives - there were no emergency facilities in the centre.

In the event of complications, women should have been transferred to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, which is part of the same trust and about a 30-minute drive away.

But on both occasions, the two midwives did not get their patients transferred quickly enough.

The two midwives on duty for both deaths are now being investigated by their regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 29 January 2024

Read more

Whistleblowers ‘frustrated and disappointed’ by CQC, review finds

The Care Quality Commission’s follow-up of whistleblowing concerns from health and care staff has been poor and inconsistent, and there is a “widespread lack of competence and confidence” on dealing with race and racism at the organisation, two reviews have found.

A “Listening, learning, responding to concerns” review was published by the Care Quality Commission, alongside a linked independent review into how the regulator failed Shyam Kumar, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the North West, who was also a CQC specialist professional adviser.

The wider review looked at a range of issues including how the CQC deals with racism; how well it listens to whistleblowers in providers; and how it deals with its own staff, including as part of a recent restructure, and its internal “Freedom to Speak Up” process. It followed concerns bring raised, in addition to Mr Kumar’s case, about these issues.

Scott Durairaj, a CQC director who joined it last year and led the review work along with a panel of advisers, reported there was “clear evidence, during the scoping, design phase and throughout the review, of a widespread lack of competence and confidence within CQC in understanding, identifying and writing about race and racism”.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 29 March 2023

Read more

Whistleblower says career shattered by treatment

A former top medic on the Isle of Man who was unfairly dismissed has said her career has been "shattered" by her treatment.

Rosalind Ranson was the Department of Health and Social Care's (DHSC) medical director from January 2020.

She was awarded a record £3.19m in compensation after a lengthy tribunal which ruled she had been unfairly dismissed for whistleblowing.

Dr Ranson raised a number of serious concerns about the coronavirus advice on the island that was not being passed on to ministers.

She was later marginalised before being dismissed as the island's top medic when the operational services of DHSC transitioned into Manx Care.

Dr Ranson said: "For me it is a tragedy that my 35-year career in medicine has come to an end through these circumstances.

"I was proud of my professional integrity, my resilience, and my strength to stand up for those that I protected through my work as a doctor."

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 4 May 2023

Read more
 

Whistleblower reveals 'culture of fear' stopped hospital staff exposing baby deaths

A whistleblower who worked at a hospital trust where hundreds of babies died or were left brain-damaged says there was "a climate of fear" among staff who tried to report concerns.

Bernie Bentick was a consultant obstetrician at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust for almost 30 years.

"In Shrewsbury and Telford there was a climate of fear where staff felt unable to speak up because of risk of victimisation," Mr Bentick said.

"Clearly, when a baby or a mother dies, it's extremely traumatic for everybody concerned.

"Sadly, the mechanisms for trying to prevent recurrence weren't sufficient for a number of factors.

"Resources and the institutionalised bullying and blame culture was a large part of that."

More than 1,800 cases of potentially avoidable harm have been reviewed by the inquiry. Most occurred between 2000 and 2019.

Mr Bentick worked at the Trust until 2020. He said from 2009 onwards, he was raising concerns with managers.

"I believe there were significant issues which promoted risk because of principally understaffing and the culture," he said.

He also accuses hospital bosses of prioritising activity - the number of patients seen and procedures performed - over patient safety.

"I believe that the senior management were mostly concerned with activity rather than safety - and until safety is on a par with clinical activity, I don’t see how the situation is going to be resolved," he said.

Read full story

Source: Sky News, 27 March 2022

Read more
 

Whistleblower raises alarm over ‘inadequate’ investigation into 60 suicides

A trust pressured into commissioning an external review of dozens of suicides faces fresh criticism and questions about the probe’s credibility after it emerged the investigation will not investigate each case but instead look to ‘identify themes’.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust originally said it would carry out the review of more than 60 patient suicides internally. But following criticism, it U-turned on this decision and last month agreed to an externally-led process.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ

Read more

Whistleblower Peter Duffy calls for oversight of NHS records to prevent evidence tampering

Peter Duffy warned that there is a growing risk of electronic patient records and NHS staff communications being exposed to tampering efforts in disputes with managers and executives.

The surgeon, who now practices on the Isle of Man, made the comments during talks given in September – to the Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP) and at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) in Dublin. He told audiences that “there is increasing potential for electronic tampering” of NHS IT records, holding serious implications for patient safety reporting and disputes with government and health service bodies.

The consultant medic, who says he was driven out of UHMBT in 2016 after blowing the whistle on dangerous practices and uninvestigated cases of harm within the trust’s urology services, won a constructive dismissal claim against his ex-employer in 2018.

Duffy now alleges that emails concerning the care of a patient at the centre of his whistleblowing were forged and backdated by senior UHMBT staff, several years after his employment claim against the trust had ended.

The emails were not disclosed during the tribunal – despite a court order having been issued to release all communications concerning the care of the patient in question, the late Peter Read, who died in early 2015 – and are understood to have surfaced during the course of an external review into UHMBT’s urology services carried out between late 2019 and 2021.

Niche Consult, a private firm commissioned by NHS England/Improvement (NHSE/I) to investigate Duffy’s patient safety disclosures alongside broader concerns regarding the trust’s urology department, determined that the emails in question were not fakes.

Duffy told the AfPP and RCSI audiences that, during the Niche review of UHMBT’s urology services in 2020, he was “abruptly told that two entirely new, never-seen-before emails had suddenly, unexpectedly appeared”. The emails appear to partly implicate him in the series of clinical errors and missed care opportunities that contributed to Read’s death.

Duffy described the allegedly falsified emails as being part of “an executive vendetta” waged against him in retaliation for his whistleblowing activity and negative publicity surrounding it, as UHMBT was seeking to cultivate the image of a “turnaround” trust in the years following a major maternity scandal between 2004 and 2013.

Read full story

Source: Computer Weekly, 28 September 2022

 

Read more

Whistleblower nurse calls for new body to tackle bullying in NHS

A nurse who was threatened by colleagues for speaking out about care failings at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust has said bullying remains a “real problem” in the NHS.

Helene Donnelly has told MPs that more than 10 years on from the scandal – commonly known as Mid Staffs – she was still seeing “echoes” of what she experienced happening across the country.

“Although it is in the minority, as we saw at Mid Staffs the results can be absolutely catastrophic”

She called for the development of a national body to improve workplace cultures in the NHS and “stamp out bullying once and for all”.

The inquiry into poor standards of care and deaths at Mid Staffordshire indentified issues around staff behaviour, inadequate staffing levels and skills, and lack of effective leadership and support.

Ms Donnelly told a Health and Social Care Committee hearing today that there were “real negative behaviours” at the trust that created a “real bullying culture of fear and intimidation”.

“There was not a culture that encouraged and enabled staff to speak up and if they did as I did, we were bullied and threatened,” said Ms Donnelly, who now holds the roles of ambassador for cultural change and lead Freedom to Speak Up Guardian at the organisation where she works.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Nursing Times

Read more

Whistleblower Dr Chris Day wins right to appeal in his ten year patient safety battle against Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust

Whistleblower Dr Chris Day has won the right to appeal when a a Deputy High Court Judge Andrew Burns of the Employment Appeal Tribunal granted permission to appeal the November 2022 decision of the London South Employment Tribunal on six out of ten grounds at a hearing in London.

The saga which has now being going on for almost ten years began when Dr Day  raised patient safety issues in intensive care unit at Woolwich Hospital in London. The Judge said today this was of the “utmost seriousness” and were linked to two avoidable deaths but their status as reasonable beliefs were contested by the NHS for 4 years using public money.

In a series of twists and turns at various tribunals investigating his claims Dr Day has been vilified by the trust not only in court but in a press release sent out by the trust and correspondence with four neighbouring trust chief executives and the head of NHS England, Dr Amanda Pritchard and local MPs.

This specific hearing followed a judgement in favour of the trust by employment judge Anne Martin at a hearing which revealed that David Cocke, a director of communications at the trust, who was due to be a witness but never turned up, destroyed 90,000 emails overnight during the hearing.

A huge amount of evidence and correspondence that should have been released to Dr Day was suddenly discovered. The new evidence showed that the trust’s chief executive, Ben Travis, had misled the tribunal when he said that a board meeting which discussed Dr Day’s case did not exist and that he had not informed any other chief executive about the case other than the documents that were eventually disclosed to the court.

Read full story

Source: Westminster Confidential, 26 February 2024

Read more

Whistleblower denied mental health treatment after suing nearby trust

A mental health provider has apologised after telling a whistleblower he was being declined treatment due to an employment tribunal he had brought against a neighbouring trust.

Andrew Wardley was among a group of staff who raised concerns over a major research project at The Christie, a prominent cancer trust in Greater Manchester.

Dr Wardley, a leading oncologist, has claimed he was sidelined and effectively bullied out after raising legitimate concerns. He has brought an employment tribunal against the specialist trust.

The ongoing case has caused him severe stress and anxiety, prompting him to seek psychological treatment with South West Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust, which runs services near his home in Huddersfield.

He told HSJ an initial phone conversation with trust staff had been positive and ended with an agreement he would benefit from treatment with the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies team.

But he subsequently received a letter from the trust, which said: “Given the ongoing litigation IAPT would not be in a position to offer any therapy".

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 20 September 2023

Read more

When the NHS spends billions on personal injury cases, it’s the public that loses

Hunt’s radical plan to reform compensation for clinical negligence is “completely unacceptable” says the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, which includes some of the kinds of firms that urge people to sue the NHS, soliciting online, in TV ads or posters in waiting rooms.

Damages paid by the NHS as a result of medical negligence claims have soared exponentially over the last decade, up from £900m to £2.2bn now. Yet despite horror stories of deaths and life-changing damage in badly run maternity wards, the National Audit Office (NAO) finds no evidence of more injuries, only that the number of claims and sums awarded by courts are shooting up. The NAO found that “the claimant’s legal costs exceeded the damages awarded in 61% of claims settled”. Though the lawyers in the clinical compensation business protest vigorously that they defend patients’ rights, the Hunt committee demolishes any justification for the present system.

The report quotes Sir Ian Kennedy QC, the chair of many inquiries and emeritus professor of health law and ethics at University College London, who wrote in 2021 that clinical negligence was an “outdated, arbitrary and scandalously expensive system” with a “stranglehold that lawyers exert over a system that should be putting the interests and needs of patients first”.

What injured patients need is an independent authority to conduct a speedy and transparent investigation of what went wrong, with everyone free to speak openly, ending in reasonable compensation and a pledge to prevent anyone else being put at risk by the same error. Peter Walsh, the chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents, told the committee that litigation was often “a last-gasp attempt to get a sense of justice and to get to the bottom of what has actually happened after people have experienced denial after denial”.

Instead of a system of delays and denials that frustrates grieving families and terrorises doctors as lawyers seek to pin personal blame on someone, the committee proposes a system closer to those used in New Zealand and Scandinavia. An independent administrative body would investigate a patient’s case to see if the harm done was avoidable and if so, to fix fair compensation briskly within six months. The priority would be openness and learning from mistakes to protect future patients. Not needing to find a person to blame makes it easier for patients to get compensation – but the payout would be far lower. Some warn this lower burden of proof would encourage a flood of claims, but New Zealand found a similar system ended up halving the sums paid out. 

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 3 May 2022

Read more
 

When parents of sick children don't get to decide

The parents of five-year-old Tafida Raqeeb, who is on life support, are going to the High Court to challenge an NHS decision which is preventing them from taking her abroad. 

Tafida Raqeeb suffered a traumatic brain injury in February as a result of a rare condition, arteriovenous malformation, where a tangle of blood vessels causes blood to bypass the brain tissue. Tafida's mother and father want to seek treatment in Italy. But the Royal London Hospital, which is caring for their daughter, says releasing her is not in her best interests.

A spokesperson for Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, said that its clinicians and independent medical experts had found "further medical treatment would not improve her condition".

In England and Wales the concept of parental responsibility is set out in law, in the Children Act 1989. This gives parents the responsibility broadly to decide what happens to their child, including the right to consent to medical treatment. But this right is not absolute. If a public body considers that a parent's choices are not in the best interests of their child, and an agreement cannot be reached, it can challenge these choices by going to court. It comes down to a judge to make the final decision, based on the evidence available.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 2 September

Read more

Wheelchairs and weight: 'I haven't been able to weigh myself for 22 years'

Weight management is a sensitive topic. Nevertheless, the measurement is often used as a marker to inform medical decisions or for someone's personal interest. But for many wheelchair users, accessing scales has proved near impossible.

"The last time I was weighed was about 22 years ago, " Lizzie tells the BBC podcast, Access All. "I think I was about 15."

As a result, now aged 37, Lizzie has been through three successful pregnancies, all without knowing how her body was adapting or how her baby was growing.

Based in Devon, she has a degenerative muscle-related impairment and uses a wheelchair. This makes weighing herself on traditional bathroom scales, which require you to stand still and independently on a small platform, a challenge.

There is equipment out there to help wheelchair users, like Lizzie. Chair scales enable someone to sit on a seat which records their weight and there are similar bed and hoist versions too. There are also wheel-on scales which are very large and involve subtracting the weight of the chair afterwards. But none of these seem widely available.

Dr Georgie Budd, who is based in Merthyr Tydfil, says this worries her. A wheelchair user herself she appreciates how difficult it can be for people to access scales.

"There's a lot of things that we use weight for in health - anaesthetics and drug dosing - and just to keep an eye on it as well for someone's general health. During pregnancy for example, if someone was losing weight I, as a GP, would actually be really quite concerned," she says.

Neither NHS England nor the government have guidance for doctors nor advice on what equipment to use and no figures are kept on how many hospitals have access to such equipment and where they are.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) previously considered the issue in 2014 and requested more research be carried out. But so far nothing has been started.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 13 October 2023

Read more

Wheelchair waiting times England: disabled people ‘denied fundamental right’ as thousands wait months for NHS chairs

Thousands of disabled adults and children, including those with the highest and most complex needs, are having to wait more than four months for an NHS wheelchair, official health figures show.

In one part of the country more than two-thirds of patients referred to the wheelchair service face waits of more than 18 weeks, or roughly four months, to get the help they need. Besides preventing them from getting around independently, and the mental health problems that can come from the resulting social isolation, a leading disability charity says disabled people can also be left with physical pain if forced to use poorly fitting or unsuitable chairs while they wait for upgrades and adaptations.

Data published by NHS England shows 16.5% of patients – one in six –  were waiting longer than the NHS target time of 18 weeks for a wheelchair, equipment for a wheelchair, or wheelchair modifications between October and December last year. This represents more than 6,000 adults and almost 1,600 children, of which thousands were registered as having high or specialist needs. The figures include new patients as well as re-referred patients whose needs may have changed or whose current equipment needs adjusting or modified.

Read full story

Source: National World, 21 March 2023

Read more

What’s behind the mystery of thousands of excess deaths this summer?

Over the past couple of months, deaths in England and Wales have been higher than would be expected for a typical summer. In July and August, there were several weeks with deaths 10% to 13% above the five-year average, meaning that in England about 900 extra people a week were dying compared with the past few years.

The leading causes of death are within the typical range (the five-year average): heart and lung diseases, cancers, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Covid-19 deaths could account for half of the excess mortality, but the other half is puzzling, as there’s no one clear reason that jumps out.

It’s likely to be a mix of factors: Covid is making us sicker and more vulnerable to other diseases (research suggests it may contribute to delayed heart attacks, strokes, and dementia); an ageing population; an extremely hot summer; and an overloaded health service meaning that people are dying from lack of timely medical care.

The excess mortality puzzle has been weaponised by some to argue that this is a delayed consequence of lockdown. In essence, this is to say that mandatory restrictions on mixing and stay-at-home legal orders, as well as turning the NHS into a Covid health service during the first and second waves of infection, prevented people from being diagnosed or treated for other conditions such as cancer, heart disease, or even depression – and that those long-hidden conditions are now killing people.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 13 September 2022

Read more
 

What was found in the FDA’s "hidden" device database?

After two decades of keeping the public in the dark about millions of medical device malfunctions and injuries, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published the once hidden database online, revealing 5.7 million incidents publicly for the first time.

The newfound transparency follows a Kaiser Health News investigation that revealed device manufacturers, for the past two decades, had been sending reports of injuries or malfunctions to the little-known database, bypassing the public FDA database that’s pored over by doctors, researchers and patients. Millions of reports, related to everything from breast implants to surgical staplers, were sent to the agency as “alternative summary” reports instead.

Read full story

Source: Kaiser Health News, June 27 2019

Read more

What those living with dementia want people to know

Across the UK, 850,000 people are living with dementia - and soon, if predictions are correct, there will be a million.

Some of them, and their families, share their tips with BBC News for living with the condition, how to talk to people with dementia and how they have learned to adjust to their changing brains.

Tommy Dunne, who has Alzheimer's disease, says: "If someone said to me, 'How would you communicate with a person with dementia?', I'd say the first thing you want to do is talk to the person, not the dementia. The second thing you want to do is get down to the person's level - if the person is sitting on the couch, don't stand over them and talk down, get down to the person's level, maintain eye contact. Speak in short sentences. Don't ask multiple questions at once - you know like, 'Who, what, why, where and when?' all in the one question - because we can't process that."

Marion says: "[dementia]... affects my vision and my spatial awareness. I have yellow painted on the doorframes - and that helps me so I know where I am. Everything was painted white before - and if everything is white, for me, I don't know where the door stops and the wall starts. The colour yellow stands out very well."

Read full story

Source: BBC News. 13 October 2021

Read our hub interview with dementia leads at Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust on keeping patients with dementia safe.

Read more
 

What the US government should be doing – but isn’t – to guard against unsafe prescription drugs

Documents released in an Ohio court case last month, in a landmark, multi-district opioid lawsuit, gave new insight into an unparalleled opioid epidemic in the United States. It revealed that between 2006 and 2012, some 76 billion opioid pills were distributed in the United States — more than 200 pills for every man, woman and child.

It paints a damning picture of the tension between drug company profits and patient safety during the time opioid sales were climbing dramatically. In one 2009 exchange, a pharmaceutical company representative emailed a colleague at another company to alert him to a pill shipment. “Keep ’em comin’!” was the response. “Flyin’ out of there. It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are.”

According to Charles L. Bennett et al. in an editorial published in the Los Angeles Times, the failings are at every point in the system, starting with drug approvals. But the authors believe there is a particularly serious problem with the mechanisms for identifying, monitoring and disseminating information about issues with a drug after its release.

They suggest a good starting point for reforming the system would be increased transparency about drugs already recognised as particularly dangerous. These drugs, currently numbering about 70 (including opioids), carry the FDA’s so-called 'black box warning,' intended to alert patients and their doctors to the high risks associated with the drugs. But that is not enough. The authors propose a 'black box' database or 'registry,' publicly available and simple to use, that would contain extensive information about where, by whom and for what purpose black box drugs are prescribed, as well as where and in what quantities such drugs are being distributed and sold. Information about adverse side effects, culled from the myriad of government databases that now collect them, would also be consolidated in an open form and format.

Read full story

Source: Los Angeles Times, 8 August 2019

Read more

What the NHS is learning from Brazil

Knocking on doors to check on people's health and catch problems before they escalate is common practice across Brazil. But could that approach work in the UK?

Comfort and Nahima are two out of four door-knockers on round Churchill Gardens, a council estate in the Pimlico neighbourhood of London, visiting residents as part of a proactive community healthcare pilot.

They can help with anything from housing issues which impact health, such as overcrowding, or pick up the early signs of diabetes by chatting informally to residents about their lifestyle.

These community health workers are partly funded by the local authority and partly by the NHS so they can co-ordinate between the local GP surgery and other social services.

Local GP Dr Connie Junghans-Minton says the proactive approach had led to fewer requests for appointments

The National Institute for Health Research helped crunch the data from the pilot. Households which had been visited regularly were 47% more likely to have received immunisations and 82% more likely to have taken up cancer screening, compared to other areas.

The idea to import this model to the UK came from Dr Matthew Harris, a public health expert at Imperial College London who worked as a GP in Brazil for four years. There, community health workers have been credited with achieving a drop of 34% in cardiovascular deaths.

"In Brazil they have scaled this role to such degree that they have 270,000 community health workers across the whole country, each of which looks after 150 households, visiting them at least once a month," Dr Harris said.

"They've seen extraordinary outcomes in terms of population health in the last two or three decades. We think we've got a lot to learn from that."

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 9 May 2023

Read more

What the Fuller Stocktake report means for primary care and digital technology

The recent publication of the Fuller Stocktake report sets out a new vision for the role of primary care in integrated care systems. With primary care the bedrock of the NHS and at “the heart of communities”, the paper’s recommendation to similarly establish it at the centre of new ICS systems and foster greater collaboration is a welcome one that has been greeted positively in many quarters.

However, a key priority underpinning many of the recommendations made is the need to create sustainable primary care for the future. Within this, there is a challenge to tackle “inadequate access to urgent care” which the report argues is having a direct impact on general practice’s ability to provide continuity of care to patients who need it most as well as overall primary care capacity. Referred to as being two sides of the same coin, this stark recognition of current workload and workforce challenges in general practice alongside their wider contributing factors is both timely and welcome.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 27 July 2022

Read more
×
×
  • Create New...