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  1. Past hour
  2. Content Article
    Physical AI refers to artificial intelligence (AI) systems that operate in and interact with the physical world, rather than existing only in software or digital environments. Physical AI typically involves the combination of AI models with sensors, actuators and other control systems that allow models to act upon real-world environments, taking models from the realm of bits to the realm of atoms. With AI, advanced physical systems can now perceive the environment, reason with the power of a large language model (LLM), act accordingly, and then learn from the outcome of that action. This IBM article explains more.
  3. Event
    This conference focuses on patient involvement and partnership for patient safety including implementing the New National Framework for involving patients in patient safety, and the role of the Patient Safety Partner (PSP) in your organisation or service. The conference will also cover engagement of patients and families in their own safety, and patient involvement under the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework: For further information and to book your place visit https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/virtual-online-courses/patient-involvement or email [email protected] Follow the conference on X @HCUK_Clare #PatientPSP2026 hub members receive a 20% discount. Email [email protected] for a discount code.
  4. Event
    This conference focuses on recognising & responding to the deteriorating patient in paediatrics and ensuring best practice in the use of the National Paediatric Early Warning System. The conference will include National Developments including effective implementation of PEWS in inpatient and emergency departments, Marthas Rule in Paediatrics and will update you on the November 2025 Suspected sepsis in under 16s: recognition, diagnosis and early management. For further information and to book your place visit: https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/virtual-online-courses/deterioration-in-paediatrics or email [email protected] hub members receive a 20% discount. Email [email protected] for a discount code.
  5. Today
  6. Event
    This conference brings together leading experts at the forefront of ensuring adherence to Martha’s Rule and offers a comprehensive and practical guide for clinical staff to seamlessly integrate Martha’s Rule into their daily practice. The conference delves into the caregiver’s perspective, principles and implications of Martha’s Rule, legal and patient safety considerations, effective communication strategies, and the use of technology in the adoption of Martha’s Rule. The 2026 six core Martha’s Rule core standards will be discussed and we will explore using the core standards to self-assess and obtain assurance on Martha’s Rule implementation or identify gaps for focused improvement. For further information and to book your place visit https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/virtual-online-courses/marthas-rule-patient-safety or email [email protected]. hub members receive a 20% discount. Email [email protected] for discount code.
  7. Event
    Corridor care refers to the practice of providing patient care in spaces that are not designed or equipped for clinical use. Whilst patients and staff agree this is completely unacceptable a report by the APPG in 2025 stated that In a survey of Emergency Department Clinical Leads in summer 2025, almost one in five patients were being cared for in corridors. NHS England have committed to eliminating corridor care and will begin collecting data on corridor care, and will publish it, subject to data quality, each month from May 2026 on NHS England’s website. This conference focuses on improving practice in eliminating corridor care through practical solutions and action plans to eradicate the practice. This conference will enable you to: Network with colleagues who are working to eliminate Corridor Care Understand the National definition and requirements in terms of escalation and incident reporting Learn from outstanding practice in reducing corridor care Reflect on how a human factors approach can change culture and practice Develop your skills in escalation, reporting and learning from incidents of corridor care Ensuring board ownership and escalation Implement the principles for providing safe patient care in corridors when it does happen Understand how you can action plan to eradicate corridor care Identify key strategies for improving patient flow Ensure you are up to date with the latest national developments Self assess and reflect on your own practice Supports CPD professional development and acts as revalidation evidence. This course provides 5 Hrs training for CPD subject to peer group approval for revalidation purposes For further information and to book your place visit https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/virtual-online-courses/eliminating-corridor-care or email [email protected]. hub members receive a 20% discount. Email [email protected] for discount code.
  8. Content Article
    The Health Economics Unit (HEU) has developed A framework for the ethical and effective decommissioning and disinvestment in clinical services, in partnership with the HFMA. The framework is designed to support health and care leaders to systematically evaluate, prioritise and implement decommissioning and disinvestment decisions, particularly in systems facing significant financial deficit. In producing the framework, the HEU explored the following questions: Reasoning: How are services or providers identified for decommissioning, consolidation or other significant change? Process: What constitutes best practice in decommissioning, consolidation, service redesign and the reallocation of funds? Challenges: What gaps and limitations have been identified that affect or constrain the decommissioning process and associated decision-making. Decommissioning framework - accompanying guide.pdf
  9. Content Article
    The Learn from patient safety events (LFPSE) service is a national NHS system set up by the National Patient Safety Team at NHS England, it is free to use and is available online as a web portal, to record information about patient safety events and support the improvement of safety across all care settings. NHS Somerset has produced an information sheet for primary care.
  10. Content Article
    Language in electronic health records (EHRs) can transmit stigma, discrediting patients in ways that undermine the clinician-patient relationship and compromise future care. The authors of this study sought to develop a taxonomy of stigmatising language in EHRs to understand what patients are being stigmatised for, how that stigma is conveyed linguistically, and why. The authors identified six categories of stigmatising sentiments characterising patients as: (1) Socially undesirable, (2) Difficult to interact with, (3) Incompetent, (4) Manipulative, (5) Noncompliant, and (6) Not credible. These were implied through negative descriptions of patient behaviour portraying them as, e.g., Demanding, Adversarial, Deceptive, etc. Linguistic mechanisms extended beyond keywords, including practices for emphasising the intensity of patient behaviour (e.g., intensifiers), marking distance or divergence from the patient’s perspective (e.g., skeptical evidentials) and casting the clinician as the neutral or rational party (e.g., euphemisms). Stigmatising language in EHRs is not limited to discrete terms but is embedded in broader linguistic practices that shape how patients are represented and understood, particularly those describing how they fail to align with clinical expectations. This language may serve to document professional challenges, but it nonetheless reinforces paternalistic norms and compromises care. Understanding these dynamics is critical for moving toward patient-centered documentation and reducing harm in the EHR.
  11. Content Article
    The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regulates medicines, medical devices and blood components for transfusion in the UK. This roundup provides a summary of their latest safety advice for medicines and medical device users. It includes details of medicine recalls, medical device field safety notices and details of how to report drug reactions and device incidents. This month's Safety Roundup includes: Drug Safety Update on ACE-inhibitors: Be aware of the distinction between bradykinin- and histamine-mediated angioedema, as treatment strategies differ significantly. Letters, medicines recalls and device notifications sent to healthcare professionals in June 2026 . News and guidance on: MHRA launches AI sandbox to accelerate medicines development and improve safety.
  12. Content Article
    Stephen Bolsin, the anaesthetist who raised concerns about paediatric heart surgery services at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, told a BMJ conference on whistleblowing that all doctors should be given regular anonymous feedback about their performance so that they can "blow the whistle on themselves" before serious errors occur. "Risk adjusted measures of performance can be achieved," he said, "and these need to be anonymously fed back to the people carrying out the treatment. All medics will want to improve their performance once they have seen the data." He argued that this type of feedback could be an important mechanism of quality improvement. Related reading: Stephen Bolsin: Whistleblower on the Bristol scandal Whistleblower in Bristol case says funding was put before patients
  13. Content Article
    Meaningful patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) is fundamental to delivering a health and care system that is equitable, effective, and responsive to the needs of the populations it serves.  This new report highlights the collective impact of PPIE activity across the 15 health innovation networks in 2025/26, showcasing how insights from lived experience are shaping the design, delivery, and spread of innovation.  From early-stage research and development through to implementation at scale, patient insight strengthens relevance, improves outcomes, and ensures that innovation is not only clinically effective, but also accessible and acceptable to those who need it most.  Across the Network, PPIE activity is helping to strengthen innovation pathways, reduce health inequalities, improve relevance and adoption, and build stronger relationships with local communities and partners.  Related reading on the hub: 10 questions every organisation should ask about their PPIE Avoiding tokenism: ensuring meaningful Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE)
  14. Content Article
    How one of the poorest towns in England bought its abandoned local hospital and transformed it into a model for the future of health care and public services.
  15. News Article
    There are significant concerns that a substantial number of Northern Ireland's healthcare buildings cannot deliver safe and effective services, according to a new report from a public spending watchdog. The Auditor General's latest analysis of what is known as the health estate said only 40% of facilities were in an acceptable condition, with many categorised as being "high risk" and requiring urgent maintenance costing more than £250m. The report said almost half of the estate was more than 50 years old and about one sixth more than 75 years old. The Department of Health welcomed the report and said work had already begun to tackle some of the issues identified. It added that health trusts had "provided assurance" that all associated risks were managed to ensure buildings remained "in a safe state to support service delivery". Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 July 2026
  16. News Article
    The NHS will have to divert £45bn from essential services to pay for new medicines under the terms of the UK-US trade deal agreed last December, leading to more than 200,000 avoidable deaths of patients, analysis has found. Ministers have defended the deal as a way of helping British drug exports to the US avoid tariffs, and giving patients in England access to potentially life-extending drugs that would otherwise be denied. But they have been accused of caving in to US demands to spend billions of pounds a year extra on drugs supplied to the NHS after pressure from Donald Trump. The potentially devastating impact on NHS care has also caused growing alarm among health experts. Now analysis, published in the British Medical Journal, lays bare the likely cost of the deal to the NHS – and the projected deadly impact of cuts to health services on the population in England – for the first time. In total, £44.7bn in NHS cash will be diverted from health services by 2036 in order to pay more for new medicines under the trade deal, unless extra funding is made available to cover the additional costs, the analysis suggests. Reduced NHS spending on services will have an adverse effect on the nation’s public health, the analysis found, causing 229,000 excess deaths by 2036. The estimated avoidable death toll is larger than the number that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, between March 2020 and June 2022 (137,000). If the indirect effect on adult social care was also included, excess deaths would increase to 291,000, the report from the University of York, the University of Liverpool and Christchurch hospital in New Zealand found. Most of the preventable deaths would be among people with heart, respiratory and gastrointestinal disease or cancer. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 July 2026
  17. Content Article
    Samuel Cross, Karl Claxton, and Andrew Hill argue that diversion of billions of NHS funding to pay more for new drugs under the UK-US trade deal will harm public health and result in thousands of excess deaths.
  18. News Article
    The CEO of NHS England has ordered trust boards to enforce joint accountability for maternity between medical directors and chief nursing officers, following criticisms of “siloed” leadership in major reviews. In a letter circulated to hospital trusts, Sir Jim Mackey said he had been “deeply moved” by recent reports by Baroness Valerie Amos and Donna Ockenden. In the note, seen by HSJ, Sir Jim said it must be a “turning point”, adding: “We cannot allow failures in care to persist and be followed by reviews that continuously highlight the same themes.” He announced a “10-point plan for maternity and neonatal services”, saying there are parts of the reviews that “we must focus on delivering now.” This includes asking boards to complete audits of their triage services within three months, and implement improvements within a year. They should ensure all pregnant women have 24/7 access to maternity units, with dedicated round-the-clock midwifery staffing to answer calls and provide face-to-face assessments, which should be separate from the labour ward. National standards for triage services will be circulated by the end of this week. Triage services were a major focus of criticism in the Amos review. Trusts must also check mortuaries by 31 July, in response to findings about shocking treatment of bodies, particularly by Ms Ockenden at Nottingham hospitals. Both reviews found leadership had become “siloed”, with conflicts between obstetricians and midwives. In response, Sir Jim said all trusts must establish clear joint accountability at board level for maternity and neonatal services. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 July 2026
  19. Content Article
    The soon-to-be-published NHS 10-year workforce plan will attempt to set out the staff that the NHS will need in future – both in terms of numbers and skill mix. This promises to take account of the reformed model of care described in the government’s 10-year plan for health, with more care delivered out of hospital in the community, greater reliance on digital technology, and a bigger focus on prevention. But what will the NHS estate need to look like to support this new way of working? And what needs to change in the current financial regime to help the service get there? The HFMA, supported by healthcare construction specialist Darwin Group, recently organised a roundtable, bringing together estates and finance professionals to discuss how the NHS estate needs to change to be fit for the future. The roundtable covered a lot of territory, from accounting rules to system behaviours, but one thing was clear – significant reform will be needed to provide an estate that supports the government’s ambitions. Roundtable chair Helen Hughes, a former NHS finance director and now chief executive of the charity Patient Safety Learning, said the discussion was taking place against a backdrop of significant demand for capital, but limited funding in a difficult financial environment for the whole public sector. She highlighted the ‘scary figure’ of £15.9bn across the NHS to address its backlog maintenance – bigger than the whole Department of Health and Social Care capital budget for the current year. 
  20. Yesterday
  21. Community Post
    This is an important area of research. From our experience at Serene Soul Care, providing home carer services, we often see how timely assessment and appropriate referral can make a significant difference for people, particularly older adults receiving care at home. With initiatives like Pharmacy First, there's a growing need for accurate point-of-care UTI diagnostics that support faster decision-making and appropriate antibiotic prescribing. I'm also interested in evidence around patient experiences, costs, and current care pathways in community pharmacies and primary care. If anyone can recommend recent studies or real-world data on this topic, I'd be grateful.
  22. Content Article
    Known as MBRRACE-UK, this outcome review programme’s latest report focuses on UK perinatal deaths of babies born in 2024, finding that rates of baby death continued to decrease in that year. Since MBRRACE-UK began, the number of babies who died shortly before, during, or soon after birth has been falling Stillbirth, neonatal mortality and extended perinatal mortality rates were lower in England and for the UK as a whole, compared with 2023. In 2024, the UK extended perinatal mortality rate was 4.77 baby deaths for every 1,000 births, which is 21% lower than in 2013. However, inequalities linked to deprivation, ethnicity and prematurity remain. Mortality rates continue to be higher in the most deprived areas, and babies of Black and Asian ethnicity continue to experience higher mortality rates than babies of White ethnicity. The report also highlights the relationship between ethnicity, deprivation and congenital anomalies, with some ethnic groups being more likely to live in the most deprived areas and congenital anomalies contributing disproportionately to neonatal mortality. But there are some small encouraging shifts, such as the fact that neonatal mortality for the most deprived group fell by 14%, while the gap between most and least deprived areas narrowed slightly after years of widening. These findings show that progress is being made in reducing baby deaths, but there is still important work to do – especially to tackle the gaps linked to deprivation, ethnicity, and how early in pregnancy a baby is born.
  23. Content Article
    This BMJ article argues that repeated failures in NHS maternity services—highlighted by the Nottingham review, which found hundreds of cases of potentially avoidable harm and deaths—cannot be explained solely by staffing, leadership or system pressures, but instead stem from a deeper cultural issue: an entrenched ideology that prioritises “normal childbirth” over safety. This mindset has led to patterns such as delaying interventions, discouraging women from seeking care early and failing to escalate risks, even when warning signs are present. The author suggests that clinicians often act according to what seems reasonable within their belief system (“local rationality”), meaning harmful decisions are shaped by training and culture rather than intent.
  24. Content Article
    Hearing another professional speak disrespectfully about a patient can be shocking and upsetting. So what should you do? Abi Rimmer hears three opinions in this BMJ commentary.
  25. News Article
    An NHS hospital trust in Greater Manchester is using a new form of technology to help tackle growing pressure on its emergency department. Tameside & Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to identify patients who may need extra support before they end up back in hospital. The tool looks at information already routinely collected during a visit to Tameside General Hospital A&E and predicts which patients are most likely to return within the next month, allowing staff to step in with community care before their health problem worsens. Read full story Source: Manchester Evening News
  26. News Article
    The findings of two recent health inquiries in Northern Ireland demand a clear, direct and robust response, the Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has said. In a hard-hitting speech to senior health leaders, Nesbitt said the experiences of patients described in the reports had rocked public confidence in the health and social care system. The minister said both reports set out serious and in places deeply disturbing failings in care which highlight breakdown in systems, in oversight and culture. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 June 2026
  27. News Article
    A review into maternity safety in England was changed just days before publication to remove criticism of a "normal birth drive", according to a former member of the inquiry team. The campaign, which encourages vaginal birth without any medical intervention and is backed by many midwives, has been found to have contributed to avoidable deaths and harm in other reviews. But Dr Bill Kirkup told the BBC that similar criticism was removed from the government-commissioned review, forcing him to resign. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 July 2026
  28. News Article
    Up to 4 million women with irregular periods should be investigated for polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, according to new NHS guidance. PMOS, previously known as polycystic ovarian syndrome, is believed to affect up to 13% of reproductive age women, the World Health Organization estimates. Symptoms include irregular, very short, long or absent periods, excess levels of testosterone, and ovaries with multiple small follicles. The condition is associated with greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnoea, fatty liver disease, mental health issues and complications in pregnancy. Read full story Source: Guardian, 1 July 2026
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