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Woman from Wales died after gastric sleeve surgery in Turkey, inquest hears

A woman died during an operation after travelling to Turkey for slimming surgery, an inquest heard.

Janet Savage, 54, was undergoing a gastric “stomach sleeve” operation but never came around from the procedure.

Savage, from Penrhosgarnedd near Bangor, had travelled to the private Ozel Rich hospital in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya and hoped to lose three stone, after earlier taking Ozempic.

A senior coroner at an inquest in Caernarfon found that Savage, a driving examiner, died from acute bleeding loss due to injury to her abdominal aorta, which had an attempted repair, after gastric sleeve surgery.

Savage had contacted a firm called Regenesis Health Travel, based in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, the inquest heard. It organises flights, hotels, surgical and non-surgical procedures at Ozel Rich hospital.

In a statement, Alison Ergun, Regenesis’s client service administrator, said Savage had told her in an exchange of Facebook messages in July last year that she was taking Ozempic, a medicine designed to treat people with type 2 diabetes, and wanted to lose three stone.

The women switched to WhatsApp to take the booking and the operation was booked at the hospital in Antalya for 5 August last year.

The inquest heard Ergun was later informed by her operations manager that there had been “complications”; Savage had stopped breathing and had been taken to intensive care. She died the following day, at 7.45am on 6 August.

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Source: The Guardian, 12 November 2024

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Licences granted to nearly 200 UK care providers despite labour law violations

Nearly 200 care providers have been given government licences to bring foreign nurses to the UK despite having previously violated labour laws, according to a study that highlights widespread employment problems in the social care sector.

The report by the Work Rights Centre shows 177 companies in England have been given licences to sponsor carers, even while publicly available information shows them to have violated workers’ protections in the past.

The study gives further evidence of major gaps in the government’s oversight of its foreign carer regime, under which hundreds of thousands of nurses and carers have travelled to Britain for work, only for many to experience exploitation and poor working conditions.

Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, said: “Our research finds that breaches of employment rights are endemic in the care sector. This cannot come as a surprise to the Home Office, which granted licences to companies with a history labour violations.

“For those who have been exploited, the fear of retaliation from their sponsor employer is enough to force them into silence. On top of this, working conditions are barely tolerable, with work schedules either all-consuming and exhausting, or so sparse that they do not provide enough income to make ends meet.”

The organisation also spoke to 92 different carers and found nearly two-thirds reported health and safety breaches, bullying or discrimination at work. Over half also said they were given unsustainable working hours, for example being asked to be on duty for as long as 100 hours a week despite only seeing clients for a fraction of that time.

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Source: The Guardian, 12 November 2024

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Hospitals issue warning about key NHS waiting list target as winter crisis looms

The government will not meet its ambition of getting NHS waiting times down to 18 weeks without investing in primary care, children’s services and mental health, NHS leaders have warned.

Healthcare chiefs also warned there is a “fundamental mismatch” between demand for services and what the NHS is able to do.

The boss of a trust that provides community and mental health services warned children are being “let down” amid “enormous” waiting lists.

“It’s really disappointing to see how absent children are, first of all in terms of policy, and I couldn’t account more strongly the extent to which I think they are being let down collectively,

“Waiting lists are enormous and are simply growing as things stand...there is a fundamental mismatch between demand and capacity as things stand,” they said.

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Source: The Independent, 12 November 2024

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Bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill ‘is safest choice’, argues MP

A bill to legalise assisted dying for some terminally ill adults is the “safest choice” and the “strictest” in the world, the MP behind the new law has claimed as it is set to be published.

Mentally competent adults with a life expectancy of six months or less who have a settled wish to die that has been approved by two doctors and the High Court would be able to do so under the proposed legislation for England and Wales.

Ahead of its publication on Tuesday, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater insisted her private member’s bill would make it illegal for someone to persuade a person through dishonesty, coercion or pressure to declare they wanted to end their life or to induce someone to self-administer drugs to die. Anyone found guilty of doing so would face a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

Critics argue the controversial Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which is likely to run to more than 40 pages, is being “rushed with indecent haste” and that MPs will not have adequate time to scrutinise it before the 29 November debate.

The legislation says two independent doctors must be satisfied that the person is eligible, but no doctors will be obliged to take part in the process.

Terminally ill people who have been resident in England and Wales for at least 12 months would have to take the prescribed medication themselves.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has already said he intends to vote against the bill, voicing his fears about coercion and people feeling a "duty to die".

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Source: The Independent, 12 November 2024

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Baby deaths trust still has care problems

An investigation into the high number of baby deaths at a Shropshire NHS trust in 2022 has identified poor care and issues with the neonatal service.

The Royal College of Physicians' review states further investigation is needed into high mortality across the entire West Midlands region, as well as at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital (SaTH) NHS trust.

On seven baby deaths, the report about the "obstetric journey" describes as poor the way problems were dealt with.

SaTH has insisted the quality of treatment had not contributed to deaths, but apologised for examples of poor care.

A total of 18 deaths were recorded by SaTH in the year 2021-22, which was 5% higher than similar sized trusts.

For the three years before this, neonatal mortality had also been high. So the trust invited the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) to look at its neonatal service.

The period 2021-22 was the time when senior midwife Donna Ockenden was reporting on SaTH failures that led to 200 deaths – at that stage the biggest maternity scandal in NHS history.

The RCP said the overall impression was of a maternity service that had taken huge strides over the past two years.

However, The RCP report identified only five cases where there was good practice in 2022. Two were unsatisfactory and 10 had room for improvement.

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Source: BBC News, 12 November 2024

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Covid inquiry told Treasury blocked NHS bed request

Boris Johnson’s government blocked a request to fund another 10,000 hospital beds at the height of the Covid pandemic, the chief executive of NHS England has said.

Amanda Pritchard told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry the decision, made by the Treasury in July 2020, had been “very disappointing”.

Extra beds and staff would have been used to cut waiting lists for planned care and “build resilience” going into a second winter wave of the pandemic, she said.

The government has said it cannot comment while the inquiry is in progress.

Ms Pritchard served as NHS England’s chief operating officer from 2019 until she was promoted to chief executive, in August 2021.

In her evidence, she said a request had been made to the government, for 10,000 extra permanent, staffed hospital beds, in July 2020.

The demand had been based on modelling the spread of the virus, along with the need to deal with other pressures that coming winter and resume more planned, or elective, surgery and other treatments for non-Covid patients.

But the inquiry heard the Treasury and the prime minister’s private office had refused the request, saying they wanted more use made of temporary Nightingale hospitals along with the private sector.

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Source: BBC News, 11 November 2024

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Nurses quitting profession early puts health reforms in England at risk, says union

ncreasing numbers of UK-trained nurses are set to leave the profession in England within a decade of registering, in a trend that could jeopardise the government’s overhaul of healthcare, according to a union.

More than 11,000 will have quit the register within their first 10 years on it, according to analysis by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) of the latest official figures.

Low staffing levels, increasing patient need and poor morale were among the factors cited by the largest nursing union, which examined data kept by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the regulator for nurses and midwives in the UK, and nursing associates in England.

Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN’s general secretary and chief executive, said: “Nursing is an incredible career, and it should be one for life, but thousands are quitting early because they are burnt out, underpaid and demoralised.

“It is a perfect storm for ministers as thousands leave the profession early and student recruitment collapses. It’s also a heartbreaking state of affairs for those who want to spend their lives caring for others.”

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Source: The Guardian, 11 November 2024

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Thousands of lung cancer cases detected in lorry clinics

A lung-cancer screening programme that sees mobile clinics visit local communities in England has detected the disease earlier in more than 5,000 people.

Specially adapted lorries have been visiting supermarkets, football grounds and town centres in areas with the highest rates of the disease, as part of the biggest initiative of its kind in NHS history.

Since the programme's launch, in 2019, 5,037 lung cancers have been detected, with 76% of those at the earliest stages of the disease.

People are nearly 20 times more likely to survive for five years if their cancer is detected early, experts say.

Phil Bennett, from Droylsden, Manchester, counts himself lucky.

At first, he ignored a letter inviting him to be screened at one of the mobile clinics.

He had no symptoms and was too busy with work as a self-employed decorator. But when he did take up the offer, it was discovered he had stage-one lung cancer.

And its early detection made a huge difference to his chances of beating the disease.

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Source: The Independent, 8 November 2024

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NHS doctors could ‘spend more time with patients’ thanks to AI helper

An AI assistant which frees up doctors so they can spend more time with their patients is being trialled in the NHS.

The technology enables medics to listen to patients instead of typing up documents and letters – which the AI does for them.

The generative AI tech is being trialled across London, led by Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH), with possible expansion to other regions.

Funded by NHS Frontline Digitisation, the trial will include about 5,000 patient assessments in hospitals, GP surgeries, A&E departments and mental health services.

The AI, called Tortus, uses ambient voice technology (a combination of speech recognition and artificial intelligence) to pick up relevant medical information from a conversation, while filtering out background noise and irrelevant chat.

It aims to cut down the amount of time medics spend on administrative tasks by drafting notes, follow-up letters and suggests clinical codes, which are then checked by the doctor.

GOSH paediatric immunology consultant, Dr Maaike Kusters, told the PA news agency the technology was a “massive gamechanger in how I do my consultations”.

She added: “The patients I see in my clinics have very complex medical conditions and it’s so important to make sure I capture what we discuss in our appointments accurately.

“However, often this means I am typing rather than looking directly at my patient and their family.

“Using the AI tool means I can sit closer to them face-to-face and really focus on what they were sharing with me, without compromising on the quality of documentation.”

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Source: The Independent, 11 November 2024

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Breathing issues cause more emergency NHS admissions than any other condition

Serious breathing problems lead to more emergency admissions to hospital in England than any other medical condition, NHS data reveals.

More people with asthma, bronchitis or emphysema have to go into hospital for treatment because they are struggling to breathe than those with heart disease, joint problems or cancer.

During 2023-24 hospitals in England recorded 868,212 emergency admissions for diseases of the respiratory system, NHS figures obtained by Asthma + Lung UK show. That represented one in eight of all the 5.2m unplanned admissions during the year.

Such admissions are contributing significantly to hospitals being overwhelmed so often, and especially during winter, when cold weather breeds infections, the charity said.

Asthma + Lung UK claims the number of unplanned stays in hospital for breathing problems is so high because of a “collapse in care for people with lung conditions” in recent years.

“Lung conditions are silently suffocating the NHS, pushing it to breaking point and causing 66,524 deaths every year,” said Sarah Sleet, its chief executive. “Every day, people with respiratory conditions are needlessly suffering, hospitals are overwhelmed by emergency admissions for breathing issues, particularly during the winter.”

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Source: The Guardian, 11 November 2024

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TikTok ‘mewing’ orthodontist struck off after boy, 6, had ‘seizure-like episode’

An orthodontist whose unorthodox methods around shaping the jawline have gained popularity on social media has been struck off after a boy ‘suffered seizure-like episodes’ during treatment.

Dr Mike Mew, whose “mewing” techniques have racked up more than two billion views on TikTok and were the subject of a Netflix documentary, was found to be a “risk to public safety” by the General Dental Council following a misconduct hearing.

Following a tribunal held on Monday and a seven-year investigation, Dr Mew is set to be erased from the dental register and was given an immediate suspension order “for the protection of the public.”

The tribunal said: “Committee considered that not to impose an immediate order would be inconsistent and undermine its findings which found that you were a risk to public safety as you were undertaking treatments with no objective evidence base.”

A misconduct hearing last year was told the boy struggled to keep the devices on this long and the episodes were triggered if he was pushed too far to wear them.

Qualified dentist Aliyah Janmohamed, who worked with Dr Mew at his clinic in Purley, south London, between June 2017 and January 2019, said: “Sometimes Patient B has post-traumatic episodes following past medical interventions."

The child’s mother also told Ms Janmohamed in a phone call that Dr Mew “never listens” to her concerns and she was unhappy with his “one-size-fits-all” approach, adding that he was a “dangerous professional who needs to listen to his patients more”.

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Source: The Independent, 9 November 2024

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Popular cold medications don’t work, say experts, as US considers ban

A pharmacy drugs expert says many popular cold and flu remedies should be banned because they are a waste of money.

It comes as as the American Food and Drug Administration wants to stop phenylephrine, which is widely used in cough and cold medicines from being sold in the US.

The ingredient is in some of the best-selling remedies such as Sudafed, Benadryl, Lemsip and Beechams.

Hisham Al-Obaidi, a pharmacy lecturer at the University of Reading and an ambulance service advanced pharmacist practitioner, said phenylephrine hydrochloride had minimal activity when taken orally.

“Although it is absorbed into the bloodstream, it is extensively broken down in the liver, resulting in little to no pharmacological effect,” Dr Al-Obaidi said.

He said that by contrast, the nasal spray is effective.

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Source: The Independent, 9 November 2024

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200 patients failed after hospital missed warning

Hundreds of patients got the wrong or no treatment for a lung condition, a trust investigation has found, five years after concerns were first raised.

Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals Trust has published a report accepting that 216 of its interstitial lung disease patients had either not had their condition investigated properly, were given no treatment or the wrong treatment, or were not properly referred onwards.

The trust, part of a hospital group with St George’s in south west London, said the failures were down to a single consultant who left the trust last year.

The report said a Datix incident report about the issue had been submitted in November 2019 but nothing was done until further concerns were raised in 2023 in Datix reports, Freedom to Speak Up reports and alerts to Health Education England by trainee doctors. The trust would not clarify whether concerns were raised at any point between November 2019 and 2023, saying it was something an external investigation would look at.

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Source: HSJ, 11 November 2024

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Doctors to refuse overtime in major dispute with hospital trust

Doctors at a major teaching trust are to refuse overtime and extra shifts from next week, HSJ has learned, amid escalating tensions with executives over a decision to stop paying premium rates for locum shifts.

Resident doctors and consultants will cease taking up overtime, extra sessions and waiting list work at University Hospitals Birmingham unless they are paid at rates agreed by the British Medical Association.

The BMA confirmed this morning that doctors were in official dispute from today, with the union officially recommending members not work outside their contracted hours for less than rates the BMA advises, laid out in local dispute cards.

Rinesh Parmar, BMA West Midlands regional consultants committee chair, said: “We have been successful in negotiating with other trusts to prevent them making unilateral changes to rates for extra-contractual work and it is disappointing that managers at UHB do not see fit to follow national guidance for the benefit of their patients and staff.

“Without offering appropriate rates for work, the trust runs the risk that doctors will simply not pick up these extra shifts. This will inevitably lead to burnt out doctors, understaffed wards and patients who will have to suffer with poor and delayed care.”

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Source: HSJ, 8 November 2024

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‘Not fit for purpose’: Patients waiting years for wheelchairs from NHS’ leading provider

The son of a man with motor neurone disease who died while waiting for a wheelchair from the NHS’ leading provider has accused them of "sincerely failing his dad".

John Clarke, 67, was diagnosed with the disease in April. The NHS integrated care board in Stoke-on-Trent told him that AJM Healthcare would be providing his wheelchair and, following an assessment in May, he was told that it would be delivered in July.

His family said they were then offered a different wheelchair, which was far too heavy, and instead resorted to buying him a second-hand wheelchair from eBay.

Ben Clarke, John's son, told ITV News: "It’s not something anyone should have to face.

"If you’re faced with a terminal illness and you’ve got limited time left, you don’t want to be fighting what you take to be the professionals from the off.

Eight-year-old Summer Calvin is struggling at the hands of the same provider.

She has a rare genetic condition which means she can’t walk or speak. It means that Summer is abnormally tall for her age and she grew out of her wheelchair in September 2022. But her family say the replacements being offered by AJM Healthcare haven’t been suitable. 

"We were told that they had a certain list of chairs that they could pick from, and they were only allowed to use those ones," Summer's mother Larissa Evans told ITV News.

AJM Healthcare describes itself as the NHS’ leading provider of wheelchair services. The company supplies approximately 150,000 registered users, representing around 20% of all wheelchair service needs for NHS England.

Yet over the past 12 months, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has seen a sharp rise in complaints. Most relate to people not receiving new wheelchairs or the correct parts, and the waits range from a month to two years.

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Source: ITV News, 8 November 2024

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Americans stockpile abortion pills and hormones ahead of ‘reproductive apocalypse’ under Trump

When the presidential election results were handed down on Wednesday, Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of Aid Access, the No 1 supplier of abortion pills by mail in the United States, was huddled in a Paris apartment with her team of eight American physicians and 15 support staff. The group – which usually operates remotely, shipping out more than 9,000 abortion pills a month – had convened in person before the election, knowing they might have to spring into action.

They were right: as news of Trump’s victory spread, the website received more than 5,000 requests for abortion pills in less than 12 hours – a surge even larger than the day after Roe v Wade fell. “I can see all the new requests ticking in as we’re talking,” Gomperts said in a phone call on Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve never seen this before.”

The scenario repeated itself across the country as news of Trump’s victory broke, with women’s and trans health providers getting inundated with requests for services that their patients feared might be banned in a Trump administration. The telehealth service Wisp saw a 300% increase in requests for emergency contraception; the abortion pill finder site Plan C saw a 625% increase in traffic.

“Clearly, people are trying to plan for the reproductive apocalypse that we anticipate will be happening under a Trump presidency,” said Elisa Wells, the co-founder of Plan C.

Dr Crystal Beal, meanwhile, was dealing with an influx of emails on Wednesday from trans patients concerned about their access to hormones and hormone-blocking therapy. Beal runs a site called QueerDoc, which provides estrogen, testosterone and hormone-blocking drugs. Trump is hostile to trans rights, vowing to punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors, and Beal’s patients wanted to know how to protect themselves from a second Trump administration.

By early on Wednesday afternoon, QueerDoc had already received more messages that day than it would in a typical week.

“Some of it is ‘How can I safeguard my access to medication?’” Beal said. “Some of it is ‘Should I change [the gender on] my legal documents back so I’m safer? Should I stop taking medication so I’m safer?’”

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Source: The Guardian, 7 November 2024

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Nurse’s death linked to approved weight-loss drug

The death of a nurse from North Lanarkshire has been linked to the use of a weight-loss drug recently approved for use on the NHS.

Susan McGowan, 58, took two low-dose injections of tirzepatide, known under the brand name Mounjaro, over the course of about two weeks before her death on 4 September.

Her death certificate, seen by the BBC, lists multiple organ failure, septic shock and pancreatitis as the immediate cause of death – but "the use of prescribed tirzepatide" is also recorded as a contributing factor.

It is thought to be the first death officially linked to the drug in the UK.

After researching Mounjaro and seeking medical advice, Susan purchased a prescription via a registered online pharmacy.

The drug typically costs between £150 and £200 for a four-week supply and can be purchased from any registered pharmacy in the UK.

Days after her second injection she began experiencing severe stomach pains and sickness, so she went to A&E at Monklands - where her colleagues battled to save her life.

Dr Alison Cave, MHRA chief safety officer, said that new medicines, such as tirzepatide, are more intensively monitored to ensure any new safety issues are identified promptly.

She said: "Our sincere sympathies are with the family of individual concerned. Patient safety is our top priority and no medicine would be approved unless it met our expected standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.

"We have robust, safety monitoring and surveillance systems in place for all healthcare products.

"On the basis of the current evidence the benefits of GLP-1 RAs outweigh the potential risks when used for the licensed indications."

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Source: BBC News, 8 November 2024

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Covid inquiry told top NHS doctor was terrified

The most senior doctor in NHS England has said he was "personally terrified" that hospitals could have been overwhelmed in the early stages of the pandemic.

Prof Sir Stephen Powis told the Covid inquiry officials had drawn up a draft document advising whose care should be prioritised if the NHS found itself unable to cope with the surge in patients.

The 'Covid-19 decision tool' assigned points based on a patient's age, frailty and underlying conditions. A high score meant they might not be admitted to intensive care if services were overwhelmed.

The tool was never issued publicly, after it became clear infections might have already reached a peak in March 2020.

Sir Stephen, who still serves as national medical director at NHS England, said the senior clinicians who were asked to draw up the plans at short notice "did a magnificent job" that "nobody ever wants to do".

"But it became absolutely clear to me that this was going to be controversial, [and] that it hadn't had the opportunity to be discussed more widely with patient groups, [or] with the public," he added.

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Source: BBC News, 7 November 2024

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Remove barriers on NHS data access to save patient lives

Barriers on NHS data access should be removed so it can be used to improve patient care and allow crucial research into diseases like dementia, cancer and heart disease, a review has urged.

Patients and their families are being let down because policymakers and healthcare leaders are not maximising the benefits of the rich abundance of health data in the UK, Professor Cathie Sudlow OBE, who led the independent review, said.

The UK is unique because its population of 68 million people are largely seen by the NHS, with health data going back decades, the report commissioned by top government health officials said.

But access to this existing health data is difficult or slow and can take many months or even years – impeding its use to improve people’s health and lives, the Sudlow Review found.

Prof Sudlow said: “Research about health conditions affecting millions of people across the UK is far too often prevented or delayed by the complexity of our systems for managing and accessing data.”

She added: “This review shows that getting this right holds a great prize for our own care and for an effective healthcare system for everyone.

“We need to recognise our national health data for what they are: critical national infrastructure that can underpin the health of the nation.”

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Source: The Guardian, 8 November 2024

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Just 1 in 10 scans moved to community centres despite push

Only about 1 in 10 CT and MRI scans are taking place in “community diagnostic centres” despite a national drive to shift these services into the community.

In August, the most recent data, there were a total of 723,243 CT scans conducted across the NHS, 59,300 (8%) of which took place in community diagnostic centres.

Meanwhile, there were a total of 398,199 MRI scans, 53,572 (13.5%) of which were carried out at CDCs.

One of the main aims of the CDC programme, in its third year, was to improve diagnostic accessibility, and reduce pressure on hospitals by shifting where many tests, including CT and MRI — key scans for detecting cancer — take place.

While MRI, CT and overall diagnostic activity at CDCs recorded by NHSE is up on last year (CDCs accounted for 6% of all tests in August 2023 and 10% in August this year), one expert told HSJ that progress had been “slower than hoped.”

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Source: HSJ, 7 November 2024

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Trusts accused of ‘gaming’ £2bn elective fund

Government has ordered a review into how the NHS is spending billions of pounds of extra elective recovery funding, over concerns trusts are charging more for procedures but not treating significantly more patients, HSJ has learned.

NHS England is understood to be carrying out the urgent review, looking at a handful of trusts where a steep increase in income has not led to a commensurate rise in removals from the waiting list.

The review has been triggered by concerns that additional waiting list payments are being driven by trusts changing their activity data recording and coding, meaning they can earn more without necessarily increasing activity levels or “clock stops” (appointments which mean a case is removed from the waiting list).

A government source said the Department of Health and Social Care was reviewing the growth in funding “to ensure value for money.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “We inherited a broken NHS with waiting lists sitting at record highs. We are committed to getting better value for money, driving productivity, and delivering 40,000 extra appointments per week, including by listening and learning from trusts on the ground.”

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Source: HSJ, 7 November 2024

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USA: Against the odds, hospitals are getting safer

Hospitals are performing better on quality and safety metrics than they did pre-pandemic, despite seeing sicker patients—and more of them.

That's according to a new report from the American Hospital Association and Vizient, a health care performance improvement company. The organisations analysed data from Vizient's Clinical Data Base, which contains information from more than 1,300 hospitals and collects data on more than 10 million inpatients and 180 million outpatients each year.

In the first quarter of this year, hospitalised patients—despite facing more acute, complex health issues—had a survival rate over 20 percent higher than anticipated based on the severity of their conditions compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, per the report.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the analysis found 200,000 patients who survived health episodes that likely would have been fatal in 2019. Mortality rates and hospital-acquired conditions, including central line-associated bloodstream infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections, have decreased over the past five years.

The report comes at an interesting time, as hospitals are entering a "new era of 'normal' operations" in the wake of COVID-19, Dr. David Levine, chief medical officer at Vizient, told Newsweek.

"This study allowed us to show that things are back on track," Levine said. "Not to say we're anywhere near declaring victory, but that improvement that was going on before 2019 has regained its momentum."

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Source: Newsweek, 10 October 2024

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Makers of Wegovy and Ozempic issue warning over deadly weight-loss copycats

Healthcare giant Novo Nordisk has said it was aware of reports of 10 deaths and 100 people left in hospital who had taken compounded copies of its weight-loss and diabetes drugs.

U.S. regulations allow compounding pharmacies to copy brand-name medicines that are in short supply by combining, mixing or altering drug ingredients to meet demand.

Novo Nordisk’s popular weight-loss injection Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic, both known chemically as semaglutide, were until recently in shortage in the United States.

Given all the regulatory surveillance of Novo Nordisk’s production of the two drugs, CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said it was puzzling that people in the United States could inject themselves with a product that was not regulated, approved or inspected.

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Source: The Independent, 7 November 2024

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HRT should be offered as first-line treatment for menopause, says Nice

Women with menopause symptoms should be offered hormone replacement therapy (HRT) as a first-line treatment, not therapy, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).

Its final menopause guidelines for medics in England and Wales, published on Thursday, state that HRT is the preferred treatment for managing symptoms such as hot flushes, night sweats, depression and sleep problems, in what is seen as a climbdown from previous wording.

Controversial draft guidance published last November said women experiencing these menopausal symptoms could be offered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) “alongside or as an alternative to” HRT.

The draft guidance provoked widespread criticism that it put CBT on a par with HRT, thereby belittling symptoms and harming women’s health.

Nice said it has responded to the feedback and rewritten the guidelines, which now say CBT should only be considered for patients on HRT who still have symptoms, or those who are unable or do not wish to take HRT.

Prof Jonathan Benger, chief medical officer and interim director of the centre for guidelines at Nice, said: “We are not suggesting that CBT is an alternative to HRT. It’s not an either/or, and we have worked through the guidelines extensively to really clarify this point.

“We are very keen to emphasise that HRT is our recommended first-line therapy for vasomotor symptoms [night sweats and hot flushes] and for [other] symptoms of menopause.”

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Source: The Guardian, 7 November 2024

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Trusts paying the biggest premiums for safety errors

The trusts paying the highest negligence premiums as a proportion of their income have been revealed, with experts warning the “sheer costs involved in managing accidents that could be avoided” neared £3bn this year.

Several acute trusts – mainly in London and the South East – spent over 4% of their income on premium costs to insure themselves against clinical negligence, according to HSJ analysis of NHS Resolution data.

Anne Kavanagh, a medical negligence lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, said: “Sadly the level of contributions made by the trusts to the CNST [Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts] is a reflection of injuries suffered by patients who have been damaged as a result of negligent care – that is care which would not be supported by any other reasonably competent practitioners.”

Paul Whiteing, CEO of Action Against Medical Accidents, added: “The CNST contribution data is a stark reminder of the sheer costs involved in managing accidents that could be avoided. This is an example of where more investment in prevention would save valuable NHS resources given £2.8bn was paid in claims last year.”

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Source: HSJ, 6 November 2024

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