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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

We want to hear from patients with experience of NHS and/or private orthodontists and dentists in any healthcare setting, including community practices and hospitals.

  • Did the orthodontist/dentist give you the treatment and support you needed?
  • If you had ongoing problems, how did the orthodontist/dentist and other healthcare professionals respond?
  • Have you tried to make a complaint?

Share your story and read other hub members' experiences in our Community thread: 

 

 

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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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NHS doctors say lengthy disciplinary processes have left them feeling suicidal

UK doctors are having suicidal thoughts because disciplinary proceedings against them by their NHS employer take so long to resolve, research has found.

Medics who have been accused of misconduct say the current system of investigating allegations is “brutal” and “humiliating” to go through and can feel “like a witch-hunt”.

Three out of four doctors who had faced proceedings said the length of time it took to conclude them damaged their mental health and led to them suffering anxiety, stress and depression.

Almost nine out of 10 (88%) said they were left feeling angry and frustrated by the disciplinary process. Four out of five were left feeling as if they were “guilty until proven innocent”, with some complaining that they were treated “like a criminal”.

Half of the doctors who recounted their experience as part of the MPS’s study said they had been accused of wrongdoing after raising concerns about patient safety where they worked. That prompted concern that misconduct charges are used as part of a “culture of fear” in the NHS.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 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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Baby death inquiry delayed by leadership confusion

Investigations into serious maternity safety concerns have been delayed by at least six months because national agencies could not decide who should lead the work, HSJ has learned.

Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust announced in May it would commission reviews of mortality linked to maternity and neonatal services. This followed a BBC Panorama documentary in January, which claimed cultural and staffing problems had caused avoidable baby deaths.

But, six months on, the review of maternity services has still not started, and the neonatal review did not begin until recent weeks – and is not due to complete until late this year, nearly 12 months after the BBC programme.

The trust said it was still working with NHS England to appoint an “external assessor” for the maternity review, while an NHSE regional team has now begun examining the neonatal deaths.

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Source: HSJ, 5 November 2024

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‘Tension’ and ‘poor behaviours’ uncovered on trust’s board

The board of a mental health trust grappling with serious culture and safety concerns is “not functioning well”, an NHS England investigation has found, amid the early departure of its chair.

Black Country Healthcare Foundation Trust has faced several challenges this year with poor staff survey results, a long-running dispute between the provider and its medical consultant group, and NHS England’s Midlands team being sent several letters by anonymous groups of staff on a range of serious issues.

The NHS England investigation found staff across the organisation “consider that the board is not functioning well, and that it is not able to resolve conflicts constructively.”

A report of the findings, published this week, added: “There has been a tolerance of poor behaviours at board and a hesitancy previously to tackle them.

“There is a need to refresh and reset relationships built on trust and respect, to create an environment where people feel comfortable to raise concerns in board meetings, not outside, [and] to enable resolution.”

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Source: HSJ, 5 November 2024

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Sectioned patients to avoid being locked in cells in overhaul of mental health system

Patients sectioned under the Mental Health Act will have more dignity and a say over their care under proposed reforms to what has been described as an “outdated” system.

Among the changes as part of the Mental Health Bill, which will come before parliament on Wednesday, police cells and prison cells will no longer be used for people experiencing a mental health crisis, with patients instead expected to be looked after within a suitable healthcare facility.

In July’s King’s Speech, Labour vowed to update the Mental Health Act in a bid to shift the balance of power from the system to the patient, with the aim of putting service users at the centre of decisions about their own care.

Writing exclusively for The Independent, health secretary Wes Streeting raised the story of Georgie, who was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at 16, forced to quit school, and admitted to a mental health ward.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has promised that the new bill will address a significant shift in attitudes to mental illness (PA Wire)

“Despite complying with treatment, she was assessed by a clinician and then detained under the Mental Health Act,” he said.

Mr Streeting added: “Her autonomy was removed and she was left feeling defeated and hopeless. This dehumanising treatment is how patients are too often treated, in this country, in 2024, under the law.”

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Source: The Independent, 6 November 2024

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New time critical medication resources for health professionals launched

Three new resources have been launched by the Parkinson’s Excellence Network to support UK healthcare professionals in hospitals to improve the delivery of time critical medication for people with Parkinson’s: 

  • An interactive resource showing which NHS organisations have pledged action on time critical medication. Access the map now.
  • Benchmarking to improve the delivery of time critical medication at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust: best practice case study. Read the case study. 
  • Self administration: a patient-centred approach to administering time critical Parkinson’s medication at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust: best practice case study. Find out more about self administration.

You can read more about all of this and more in the latest time critical medication blog.

Access all of the time critical medication resources.

Source: Parkinson's UK, 4 November 2024

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'Absolute chaos' as GP practices across England hit by EMIS outage

GP practices across England faced ‘chaos' on 4 November after an EMIS IT system outage cut off access to appointment booking systems and left clinicians unable to see patient records.

EMIS is the most widely-used GP practice IT system in England, in use at more than half of practices across the country - and practices as far apart as London, Cheshire and Bristol were reporting an outage on the morning of Monday 4 November.

Dr Selvaseelan Selvarajah, a GP at St Andrews Health Centre in East London told GPonline that staff first flagged the issue at around 7.30am on 4 November.  He said: ‘We came in this morning, it worked for a few seconds and then there was the wheel of doom. We restarted the system a few times and it still did not work, then we raised it with the EMIS team.’

Dr Selvarajah added: ‘Mondays are always busy but this has been chaotic. It is a patient safety issue too, because we have a complex issue of not being able to access medications and hospital letters. EMIS told us that it is unavailable for some users and they are treating it as a high priority issue.' He said that from what he had heard, GP practices across the country had been affected.

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Source: GP Online, 4 November 2024

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GPs plan to triple on-day ‘hub’ appointments

A system-wide GP provider collaborative will significantly expand on-the-day centralised “hubs” as part of its plan to transform general practice, it has announced.

A draft plan for the future of general practice in Cornwall has been developed by its General Practice Collaborative Board, including the county’s primary care network clinical directors, Kernow Local Medical Committee, and GP federation Kernow Health.

A big part of its draft plan is to substantially develop segmentation of patients. Under this, growing numbers of people would be sent to centralised “hubs” for non-complex but urgent appointments.

The registered population would be assigned to red, amber or green categories in the GP IT system. Around half of practice appointments would be protected for amber and red patients – the most vulnerable, with ongoing conditions – while green patients, who are generally well, would more often be sent to hubs.

This kind of approach has proven controversial in some areas in recent years, particularly integrated care board proposals in north west London; although many areas have adopted some form of urgent care hubs. 

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Source: HSJ, 4 November 2024

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Nursing and medical director failed to act on suicide risks, court told

A trust’s nursing director and associate medical director should have reduced risk on a mental health inpatient ward by ensuring bin liners were removed, a court has heard.

North East London Foundation Trust and its ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa have been charged with manslaughter by gross negligence concerning the death by suicide of mental health inpatient Alice Figueiredo, who died aged 22 on a NELFT ward in 2015.

Both the trust and the ward manager deny the charges.

Mr Aninakwa failed to remove bin bags from a communal toilet on Hepworth Ward at Goodmayes Hospital in Ilford, jurors heard on Monday, as the prosecution began to make its case. Prosecutors said this meant Ms Figueiredo was repeatedly able to access the plastic bin liners, which she had used in 18 earlier suicide attempts.

Giving the prosecution’s opening statement, Mr Duncan Atkinson KC said: “The failure in the completion and analysis of Datix records, and the failure to issue appropriate guidance to make plastic bags — a recognised means of self-harm generally; and a clear means by which Alice had herself self-harmed — inaccessible to patients like Alice, can be attributed to the senior management through the director of nursing and the associate medical director, amongst others.”

He added: “These failings by the trust and by its senior management were so truly exceptionally bad as to amount to gross negligence.”

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Source: HSJ, 4 November 2024

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Doctors paid up to £200,000 overtime to tackle NHS backlog

Senior doctors are charging the NHS premium rates for overtime, as pressure to cut waiting lists is allowing some to make more than £200,000 a year from additional work, a BBC News investigation has found.

That is nearly double the average basic pay for a full-time consultant in England.

Many of the consultants earning the most are thought to be part-time, allowing them to work significant amounts of overtime for rates exceeding £200 an hour – more than four times normal pay.

In response, Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC: "I don't think the rates are acceptable. Every penny that goes into the NHS needs to be well spent."

But the British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors' union, pointed out the NHS would not have to rely so much on overtime were it not for staffing shortages.

And hospitals said covering for strike days and sickness had also been factors.

The findings come as the government invests more money in the NHS, to increase the number of appointments and operations it can offer – a key election promise made by Labour.

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Source: BBC News, 5 November 2024

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Stillbirth rate high for black and Asian babies in UK

Stillbirth rates remain "exceptionally high" for black and Asian babies in the UK, a report examining baby loss in 2019 has found.

The figures come despite improving numbers overall, with some 610 fewer stillbirths in 2019 than in 2013.

The MBRRACE-UK report found babies of mothers living in deprived areas are at higher risk of stillbirths and neonatal deaths than those in other places.

Charities say there is an urgent need to tackle inequalities around birth.

There were some 2,399 stillbirths (a death occurring before or during birth once a pregnancy has reached 24 weeks) and 1,158 neonatal deaths (babies who die in the first 28 days of life) in the UK in 2019.

The report, by the Universities of Leicester and Oxford, found:

  • Overall stillbirth rates fell from 4.2 per 1,000 births in 2013 to 3.35 per 1,000 births in 2019
  • For babies of black and black British ethnicity, stillbirth rates were 7.23 per 1,000 births
  • For babies of Asian and Asian British ethnicity, stillbirth rates were 5.05 per 1,000 births
  • For babies of white ethnicity, stillbirth rates were 3.22 per 1,000 births.

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Source: BBC News, 15 October 2021

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