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  3. Patient Safety Learning started following Hospitals in England ranking highly for empathy ‘have better patient outcomes’ , Building the business case for patient safety , ‘We don’t know if patients are alive or dead’: NHS whistleblower warns East London hospital IT failures could cost lives and 5 others
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    Resource allocation is a constant struggle in healthcare facilities. Current literature, as well as personal interviews with patient safety professionals from US Pennsylvania facilities has highlighted opportunities to build experience in developing a business case for patient safety initiatives. Join Amber Capaldi, MSN, RN, patient safety officer at Lehigh Valley Health Network, as she describes why developing a business case is an essential skill for patient safety teams, defines the key components of a business case, and identifies available resources that can be used when developing a business case. Register
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  6. Content Article
    Virtual wards, also known as hospital at home, are increasingly being used across the NHS to support people who would otherwise need hospital care to receive treatment and monitoring at home. A new NIHR-funded study led by University of Manchester researchers explored how safe care is delivered in virtual wards, highlighting the often unseen work carried out by patients and carers as they undertake key elements of risk-work previously held by clinicians. The findings show that virtual wards can provide a safe alternative to hospital care for some patients, allowing people to recover at home while still receiving clinical oversight. However, patients and carers often take on more practical and emotional responsibility than may be recognised as they assume duties that would normally be carried out by clinicians in hospital settings. This includes monitoring symptoms, managing equipment and responding to signs of deterioration, especially overnight or outside normal working hours. The researchers suggest that hospital at home services that combine technology with in‑person home visits could help make care safer, more flexible, and accessible for a wider range of patients. Recognising and supporting the work undertaken by patients and carers is essential to ensure virtual wards are safely delivered. As virtual wards expand as a key component of NHS policy to shift acute care from hospital to community settings, practice must ensure there is space for relational and training support for clinicians, patients, and carers so that remote acute care can be safely implemented across health systems.
  7. News Article
    A health minister has acknowledged that restricted access to weight loss drugs on the NHS may be driving individuals to seek unregulated alternatives, as officials face urgent calls to investigate deaths linked to black market obesity jabs. Health officials were directly challenged by MPs on the Health and Social Committee regarding measures to curb illicit sales of anti-obesity treatments. A stark warning was issued to NHS and Department of Health officials: "People have already died as a result of this, and there is a chance that this could get worse." Conservative MP Gregory Stafford questioned whether current NHS access constraints were creating a patient safety risk, citing evidence that barriers were pushing patients to "unregulated and potentially unsafe sources." Professor Aidan Fowler, national director of patient safety for NHS England, informed MPs that discussions with the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) frequently address risks around medicine safety, including black market issues, drawing parallels with cosmetic surgery. However, committee chairwoman Layla Moran delivered a harrowing account, stating: "I’ve met with families whose loved ones have tragically passed away because they did access on the black market, they then got sepsis and died, and the coroner report is still ongoing. “But the concern is it was the injection itself and its administration that caused the death, they don’t feel that the MHRA are on top of it, and I’m not sure that they will have heard today’s evidence and felt that you guys are either, and I really hope, minister, that when you go away and look at this that you bear in mind the fact people have already died as a result of this, and there is a chance that this could get worse." Read full story Source: The Independent, 3 June 2026
  8. News Article
    Jewish patients and staff within the NHS feel compelled to conceal their religious identity and "suffer in silence" due to antisemitism, according to Lord John Mann, who led a review into the issue. Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, who was tasked last year with examining the problem, urged the NHS to embody its role as "a responsible and inclusive employer". His review's recommendations, which are yet to be publicly released, are scheduled to be presented to Parliament on Thursday. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) revealed that Lord Mann’s investigation uncovered instances of "routine ostracism" experienced by some Jewish staff, leading some to contemplate leaving the health service entirely. The report is also anticipated to highlight that certain Jewish patients have expressed reluctance to seek treatment or have delayed crucial care within the NHS, citing concerns about antisemitism. Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 July 2026
  9. News Article
    The national patient data watchdog has said it will investigate how Palantir staff came to have access to identifiable patient data in the federated data platform, despite previous assurances that this would not be the case. In a statement published yesterday afternoon by the National Data Guardian (NDG), Nicola Byrne said the watchdog would “seek clarification” over why it was not previously informed that external contractors would be able to view identifiable patient data. Reports emerged last month that staff from companies working on the FDP, including Palantir, would be granted “unlimited access” to identifiable patient data through the National Data Integration Tenant environment. This is where NHS organisations will submit raw data before identifying features are removed or pseudonymised. In this week’s statement, Dr Byrne said there has been “subsequent confirmation from the [FDP] programme team that some external contractor staff also have access to identifiable patient information”. The NDG is an independent adviser to the government and the health service and has no statutory investigatory or enforcement powers. The watchdog said: “We need to be confident that the positions presented to us are accurate, consistent, and clearly reflected in public-facing transparency materials. We have also emphasised the need for timely engagement with the NDG whenever significant programme decisions change in ways that may affect public trust, as in this case.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 June 2026
  10. Content Article
    Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) is a discipline concerned with designing interactions in sociotechnical systems to improve both system performance and human well-being. This Cambridge Core Element introduces the core principles of HFE, tracing its development from multidisciplinary efforts to solve practical problems in military operations during the Second World War to its current application in healthcare improvement. The Element acknowledges the growing role of HFE in areas such as the design of the physical environment, medical device design, learning from patient safety incidents, and safety investigations. A critical reflection highlights persistent challenges, including conceptual ambiguity, structural and practical barriers to HFE integration, and the need both for a stronger evidence base and a compelling business case. The Element concludes by identifying future priorities for advancing HFE in healthcare, including continuing professional development and career pathways, embedding HFE in regulation and policy, and adopting evaluation approaches suited to complex systems.
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  12. News Article
    New parents require enhanced guidance on the safe use of baby slings, according to new research. Baby sleep experts at Durham University are advocating for improved education for parents, both pre-purchase and at the point of sale. A survey of 1,470 parents with infants under one year old revealed that nearly nine out of ten acquired their sling or carrier online. Of these, a mere three per cent received assistance from a virtual sales assistant or chat function, highlighting a significant gap in direct support. Researchers stress the need for more accessible and comprehensive safety information to prevent potential misuse. The survey found that even experienced parents had difficulty with positioning the baby in a sling, creating comfort for the carrier and securing the infant safely. Unsafe use of baby slings has been linked to accidental deaths from suffocation or falls. In 2023, six-week-old James Alderman died in a carrier during hands-free breastfeeding, leading a coroner to issue a warning. With incorrect sling or carrier fitting, a baby’s nose or mouth can be pressed against the parent’s body or blocked by fabric. In other cases, the baby can slump down in the carrier and their windpipe can become pinched. Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 June 2026
  13. News Article
    Patients and staff fare better at hospitals that rank highly on empathy, research suggests, with institutions also benefiting financially by spending less on agency staff, locums and consultants. The finding comes from the first study to rate NHS trusts in England according to an empathy score that is drawn from information on the organisation’s culture, leadership behaviour and practitioner empathy, among other factors. The report found that even modest increases in a trust’s overall empathy score were associated with widespread benefits, such as a better chance of the trust holding a “good” or “outstanding” rating for effectiveness and patient safety by the Care Quality Commission, the health and social care services regulator. Small improvements in empathy were also linked to better staff wellbeing, with higher scoring trusts reporting less burnout and absenteeism than those that scored lower. Expenditure on agency staff and external consultants was also lower in trusts with higher empathy ratings, the researchers found. “More empathic organisations have better patient outcomes, staff wellbeing and financial bottom lines,” said Prof Jeremy Howick at the University of Leicester, the study’s lead author. “Empathy helps patients because they feel listened to. If you’re not listening to the patient, or they don’t feel able to share all their symptoms, you won’t understand what they are going through and you cannot make an accurate diagnosis.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 June 2026
  14. News Article
    An interim chair has been appointed to the Care Quality Commission, which has bemoaned a “regrettable” delay in recruiting a permanent successor. Non-executive director Kay Boycott will take on the role from 1 June until 31 July unless a substantive chair is appointed earlier. At Care Quality Commission’s board meeting on Wednesday, Ms Boycott said the new health secretary, James Murray, had not yet put forward his preferred candidate for the position. That person will also need to go before MPs at the Commons’ health and social care committee before appointment. She said the continued delay was “regrettable”. Sir Mike Richards announced he would be retiring in February, but at the time said he would stay until a replacement chair was in place. However, Ms Boycott said Sir Mike had decided to step down for “personal reasons” at the end of last month, after the process took longer than expected. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 3 June 2026
  15. News Article
    A maternity service has been given a “good” rating by the Care Quality Commission, despite inspectors finding midwives being asked to work back-to-back shifts with no sleep breaks. The report published today rates both of Oxford University Hospitals’ units – at the John Radcliffe Hospital and the Horton General Hospital – as “good” overall. This is despite its finding several safety concerns at the main site, John Radcliffe. OUH is also one of 12 trusts under examination by a government-commissioned maternity review, amid concerns raised by campaigners about standards and traumatic births. On a visit in October, Care Quality Comission inspectors found seven breaches of four of its “fundamental standards” at the John Radcliffe, and rated it “requires improvement” for safety. Inspectors found inadequate staffing levels and unsafe working hours. They reported: “Community staff raised concerns about the on-call system because there were times when they were called to work a 12-hour night shift after working a day shift. “Managers redeployed community staff to backfill hospital shifts overnight during busy periods. Which resulted in extended periods without rest. Staff told us this meant they were awake for more than 24 hours, which they felt impacted their wellbeing and patient safety.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 June 2026
  16. News Article
    A senior clinician at an east London NHS trust has told LBC News that patients have already come to harm because of serious failures linked to a new electronic patient record system — including one case where a patient is said to have died after a referral was missed. The whistleblower, who works at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and asked not to be named, alleged a patient with Covid, who also had cancer, died while waiting for a haematology referral after the request was not received by the department. The clinician said the problems have left staff “in tears”, caused missed referrals, delayed diagnoses, and created what they described as “chaos” across the organisation. They told LBC they were speaking out because they were “very, very worried for patient safety”. “It’s keeping me up at night,” they said. “We can’t deliver the service we want to for our patients, and I feel that we’re not being heard.” The senior clinician, who has worked in the NHS for several decades, said serious issues emerged after the Trust rolled out its electronic patient record system late last year. They alleged referrals were not always reaching the right teams, staff were struggling with missing or unreliable patient information, and serious findings were not always being escalated properly. “I think we are talking thousands of patients. I think we are talking about patient deaths," the whistleblower warned. “It will take some time for those to be revealed, the impact that it’s had.” Read full story Source: LBC News, 27 May 2026
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  18. News Article
    Sir Jim Mackey has warned NHS leaders that cyber security is a “dramatically” bigger threat than it was just a few weeks ago, due to rapidly changing tech. At today’s public board meeting, the NHS England chief executive said the service needed to do “basic things” to safeguard against a “risk environment [that] has now changed really dramatically”. At the same meeting, NHSE’s tech committee chair Mark Bailie said the NHS’s sprawling and patchily-updated information systems were “a direct patient safety issue”. The non-executive director previously told the March public board meeting that the cyber threat was a major area of weakness. Since then, it was revealed that patient data from UK Biobank – a government-supported research database – was available to buy on Chinese auction sites. The NHS’s suppliers are particularly vulnerable, with a lack of multifactor authentication at the Synnovis pathology provider, allowing the fatal attack in 2024. An NHSE risk assessment published last night increased its recorded risk level for cyber security to the highest possible - 25 out of 25 – with a likelihood level of “frequent” and impact of “catastrophic”. Read full story (paywalled) Source:: HSJ, 4 June 2026
  19. Yesterday
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  23. News Article
    Would you trust an AI chatbot to be your therapist, medical professional or confidante? New research shows that one in five American adolescents between the ages of 12-21 (around 8.2 million) are turning to Big AI’s chatbots for help with their mental health. That marks a more than 40% increase in the past year, rising from just one in eight the previous year, a 1,009-person survey from the non-profit research institute RAND found. The findings may not come as that much of a shock following the rise of chatbot use in schools and data showing that nearly half of U.S. teens used the platform multiple times each month. Still, they raise many questions about the impact of asking AI for mental health guidance. Mental health among U.S. teenagers has been at crisis levels in recent years, and suicide is the second leading cause of death for that age group, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. AI chatbots have also been involved in investigations of the deaths of several U.S. teenagers who died by suicide, according to reports. Read full story Source: The Independent, 2 June 2026
  24. News Article
    British surgeons have issued a stark warning regarding individuals travelling overseas for leg-lengthening procedures, highlighting the significant burden placed on the NHS. Hospitals across the UK are increasingly encountering patients who require extensive follow-up care, including complex corrective surgery, intensive physiotherapy, and long-term rehabilitation, following operations performed abroad. Experts have detailed the "challenging" complications observed, such as implant failure, inadequate bone healing, and severe limb deformities. This alert comes as MPs are set to debate medical tourism, alongside other cosmetic procedures like liquid Brazilian butt lifts, in a committee hearing this week. The Royal College of Surgeons of England noted that these findings underscore a growing trend of patients seeking surgical and cosmetic treatments outside the UK. A study led by specialist limb reconstruction surgeons at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust calculated that addressing complications from just seven such cases has already cost the NHS over £36,000, with warnings that the true financial impact is likely far greater. Writing in the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the team said they had seen a “recent increase in patients presenting for rehabilitation and treatment of complications following limb lengthening”, such as implant failure, poor bone healing and severe joint stiffness. Read full story Source: The Independent, 3 June 2026
  25. Content Article
    Rare conditions affect over 3.5 million people in the UK. People affected by rare conditions face profound systemic inequity, often experiencing a complicated diagnostic odyssey followed by fragmented care and limited access to treatments. The Genetic Alliance UK 'Equity for Rare' consultation highlights the inequities the rare conditions community experiences, and found that equity broadly means ensuring that people with rare conditions can navigate the healthcare system with the same dignity and efficacy as those with common conditions. While common conditions are not without their own challenges, they often benefit from established clinical infrastructure, visibility and prioritisation. By contrast, those with rare conditions must navigate a system fundamentally not designed for their specific needs. This report acknowledges that rarity is seldom a standalone challenge and it intersects with broader drivers of inequity such as ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status. This report adopts a narrower focus, highlighting that a defining, and immutable, characteristic of all rare conditions in their small patient population. It centres this analysis on how this scarcity is a fundamental driver of inequity for all rare conditions, resulting in three systemic challenges: low priority, limited evidence, and low clinical familiarity. Overcoming these three challenges is essential to delivering a fair healthcare system for those affected by rare conditions. Genetic Alliance UK is calling on the governments of the UK to: Deliver a UK-wide map of rare conditions: The four UK nations must urgently fund comprehensive rare condition registries and work in partnership to map all 7,000 rare conditions. Robust national data infrastructure is not optional, it is the foundation of equitable service planning, resource allocation, and healthcare delivery. Close the evidence gap through fair research investment: Government and research funders must correct the imbalance in research investment by directing funding towards rare conditions. Decision-makers must also reform evidence standards to recognise that uncertainty is an inherent feature of rare conditions and should not be used as a barrier to access or innovation. Mandate system-wide accountability for rare conditions: Healthcare systems must stress-test policies, commissioning decisions, and service delivery frameworks against the realities of low-prevalence conditions. This must include systematic auditing to identify gaps, eliminate inequities, and enforce consistent standards of clinical accountability across all services. Embed rare conditions into mainstream healthcare delivery: Current reforms across the UK healthcare system present an opportunity to fully integrate rare condition care into routine service provision. Failure to act now will entrench existing health inequalities for the 1 in 17 people in the UK that will be affected by a rare condition at some point in their life. Commit to a bold successor to the UK Rare Diseases Framework: UK governments must commit to a long-term successor to the UK Rare Diseases Framework that delivers measurable improvements for people with rare conditions. This successor must set clear targets, and the nations must respond with adequate funding, directly addressing the structural drivers of inequity identified in this report. Further reading on the hub: Top picks: Rare diseases
  26. Content Article
    Nearly one million people in the UK have dementia. By 2040, that number will rise to 1.4 million. Yet the systems designed to diagnose and support people are struggling to keep pace, with delays, inequalities and missed opportunities far too common. Too many people have a poor experience, wait too long for a diagnosis and receive less treatment and support than clinical guidance says they should. Everyone with dementia has the right to an early and accurate diagnosis and the best available treatments. Individuals and our health and care systems are paying for the price of inaction. Alzheimer's Society’s two new 'Unlocking the door' reports lay out a stark reality – and a clear programme of reform for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.   Key recommendations Together, the two reports set out a coherent programme of reform across diagnosis and treatment. These reforms are designed to: ensure diagnosis is early and accurate support consistent access to effective dementia drugs and non-drug interventions reduce inequalities and unwanted regional variation strengthen systems’ readiness for future innovation in diagnosis and treatments deliver better outcomes for people living with dementia and their families. To do this, we need: clear targets to set a national ambition and local accountability strengthen clinical guidance and standardise pathways invest in and support the dementia workforce strengthen dementia data and monitoring build systems ready for innovation. Further reading on the hub: Top picks: Key patient safety resources for people with dementia
  27. News Article
    Thousands more black men will be invited to take part in a prostate cancer screening trial as the health secretary insisted he was “following the science” in not backing population-wide testing. James Murray accepted a recommendation from the UK national screening committee (UKNSC) that will result in only a few thousand high-risk men with a gene mutation being screened for the disease. However, he announced funding to expand the Transform trial, which is exploring the best ways to test for the disease, to ensure it includes more black men. Prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease in the UK, with more than 64,000 men diagnosed every year. Last week, the UKNSC recommended against screening all men using the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test, saying it was “likely to cause more harm than good”. Instead, men with BRCA2 genetic mutations – which puts them at far higher risk – will be tested every two years between the ages of 45 and 61 if they have a family history of breast, ovarian, pancreatic or prostate cancers. Dr Ian Walker, director of policy at Cancer Research UK, said the decision would be “disappointing for some” but was in line with evidence as there was some debate over the reliability of the PSA test. The UKNSC also recommended against screening for other at-risk groups, including black men, saying there is “ongoing uncertainty on whether screening would cause more good than harm”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 June 2026
  28. News Article
    GPs in England are so “overloaded” that they cannot help older people who are at risk of falling in what NHS bosses accept is an unacceptable failure of care, the House of Commons’ public accounts committee has said. Pressure on GPs’ time has intensified as a result of the government’s decision to give patients online access to their services, according to a report by the influential cross-party group of MPs. The committee found that GPs are doing too little to tackle falls even though they are the most common cause of death from injury among over-65s, cause tens of thousands of hip fractures, add to hospitals’ workloads and cost the UK an estimated £4.4bn a year. Family doctors in England are obliged under the terms of their contract to identify, assess and support people over 65 with moderate or severe frailty. However, “many GPs are not currently able to deliver on these requirements”. During 2024/25 just 17% of those patients were assessed. Only 18% of the 226,000 people who were diagnosed with severe frailty that year were assessed for their risk of falling and only 16% underwent a review of the medication they were taking. Prof Victoria Tzortziou Brown, the president of the Royal College of GPs, said the report vindicated its warnings that “prioritising online access to our services without equal focus on continuity and proactive care may have unintended consequences for other areas of care, and risks disadvantaging some of our most vulnerable patients. “While most GP practices will always try to offer their older patients the time they need, this is increasingly challenging against a backdrop of intense workloads and workforce pressures while also responding to increasing demand and policy requirements to improve access.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 June 2026
  29. Content Article
    This guide highlights key considerations for audit and risk assurance committees when overseeing the planning, deployment and scaling of artificial intelligence (AI) within public sector organisations. It draws on National Audit Office (NAO) findings, the UK Government’s AI Playbook, and lessons from digital transformation programmes across government. This guidance includes: where AI is used in government areas that organisations need to consider areas of focus and suggested questions to ask.
  30. News Article
    A decision to provide substandard dialysis treatment due to “exceptional” capacity pressure was not responsible for high mortality discovered among the service’s patients, a trust has claimed. HSJ has discovered internal reports from East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust that acknowledge it saw “increased mortality” after it began putting “significant numbers” of patients on two-weekly treatments rather than the standard three. The increased death rate was particularly seen among sicker patients. Twice-weekly dialysis is often used in low and middle-income countries where resources are limited. In the UK it has become more common but is usually used in a limited way as patients step up to three sessions, and with close monitoring. But the East Kent documents, released to HSJ under the Freedom of Information Act, show it discovered that a “significant number of patients” had been put on twice-weekly dialysis “long term”, in one case for more than a year, “due to capacity issues”. A renal deep dive report, considered by a trust committee, questioned whether the service did enough to assess “dialysis adequacy” and to review the risks and benefits of the changes. The trust had not been measuring patients’ residual kidney function, and there was variability in how often they were reviewed by consultants. It has also emerged that NHS England launched a review of the service in 2024 over concerns about its “quality, safety and sustainability”. It was found to be an outlier for deaths within a year of patients starting dialysis or transplantation, in data UK Renal Registry data covering 2018-22. At the time, it was struggling to dialyse all the patients who needed it, with some having to go outside the county. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 June 2026
  31. News Article
    A hospital provider has admitted that confidential patient information relating to almost 33,000 of its patients was stolen and shared on the dark web, two years after the cyberattack took place. Bedfordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust sent a notice to patients on Monday after being informed by pathology systems provider Synnovis that data relating to approximately 32,927 individuals was affected. The high-profile ransomware attack happened in June 2024, causing widespread disruption and shutting down IT systems. It primarily affected providers in south east London, which used the software for its pathology services. However, Bedfordshire FT has only now revealed to patients it was also affected, because the trust said a lengthy review had been required to establish precisely which data had been compromised. Historic tests carried out before November 2020 may have been affected, including names, dates of birth, patient numbers, NHS numbers, postcode, and test results going back nine years. The trust said files taken were not organised as a single database and were “highly unstructured, incomplete and fragmented”, and it had taken over a year of detailed analysis by specialist teams to reconstruct and understand what information was present, and which organisations it related to. As a result, personal data within the files is fragmented, incomplete, and dispersed across multiple documents, the trust said. Bedfordshire FT said Synnovis “provided essential services to us” and that during the attack, criminals “unlawfully accessed internal systems and extracted a set of files, which were later published on online forums known for sharing stolen data”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 June 2026
  32. Content Article
    More information about "AI in healthcare: the problem is not hallucination, it is false confidence"
    Traditional large language models (LLMs) are extraordinarily useful. They can summarise, draft, explain, search, translate, simplify and accelerate work that previously sat in queues, inboxes and clinical admin backlogs. But we need to be brutally clear about what they are. They are not truth machines. They are language machines. My friend Herb Roitblat’s critique goes straight to the root of the issue. LLMs predict likely words. They do not, in their traditional form, represent truth. Roitblat’s framing is that probability and reinforcement can guide which tokens are selected, but this is not the same as the system knowing whether a proposition is true. Reliath’s position is even more direct: the problem is structural because the unit of analysis is the token, not the fact.[1] That distinction matters everywhere. In healthcare, it matters more. A bad answer in marketing is embarrassing. A bad answer in healthcare can change a pathway, delay a diagnosis, distort a record, mislead a patient or create a false sense of clinical certainty. The real problem: fluent nonsense at the point of trust The danger with LLM hallucination is not simply that the model gets something wrong. People get things wrong all the time. The danger is that the model gets something wrong while sounding structured, fluent, balanced and authoritative. In healthcare, that is an especially toxic combination because patients often lack the knowledge to challenge the answer, and clinicians are already overloaded. This is why hallucination is not just a technical bug. It is a trust failure. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that large multimodal models used in health can produce false, inaccurate, biased or incomplete statements, and that this can harm people when used for health decisions. It also highlights automation bias, where clinicians or patients overlook errors because the system appears authoritative.[2] That is the strategic issue. Not whether AI can be useful. It clearly can. The issue is where we place it in the system, what level of authority we give it, and whether the output is grounded in verifiable facts or simply dressed in confident language. Why healthcare makes the hallucination problem worse Healthcare is not a clean data environment. It is full of abbreviations, conflicting notes, outdated pathways, local protocols, missing observations, patient-specific exceptions and subtle clinical context. A word like “negative” can be life-changing depending on where it sits. A missing allergy can be catastrophic. A fabricated instruction in a discharge summary can move from screen to ward to patient before anyone has noticed. Recent research into LLM-generated clinical notes found a 1.47% hallucination rate and a 3.45% omission rate across clinician-annotated sentences. That sounds low until you realise that 44% of hallucinated sentences were judged major, meaning they could affect diagnosis or management if left uncorrected.[3] This is the healthcare problem in miniature. The percentages may look manageable. The consequences are not. Guardrails are not enough A lot of AI strategy today is built around mitigation: use better prompts, add retrieval, add a guardrail, add a human in the loop, add a second model to check the first one. All of these can help. None of them changes the fundamental nature of a traditional LLM. Herb’s challenge to the market is that guardrails often mask the problem rather than remove it. RAG can improve grounding, but it is still vulnerable to retrieval errors, source errors, chunking errors, interpretation errors and confident synthesis of the wrong material. Herb instead argues for shifting from tokens to factoids and facts, with “Truth Profiles” and logical or semantic representations designed to distinguish verified information from hypothesis or fabrication. That is an important strategic shift. The goal is not better autocomplete. The goal is accountable intelligence. What this means for AI in healthcare Healthcare AI cannot just be plausible. It has to be auditable. It must show what it knows, where it got it from, what is uncertain, what is missing and what should not be inferred. That means future healthcare AI systems need to separate four things that traditional LLMs often blur together: known facts, clinical interpretation, hypothesis and recommended action. Mix those up and you create danger. Keep them separate and you create a system clinicians can inspect, challenge and use. If the system can only generate likely language, then it must be treated as an assistant. If it can represent propositions, provenance, uncertainty and truth values, it starts to become something closer to clinical infrastructure, subject of course to validation, regulation and real-world safety testing. The strategic takeaway AI will absolutely transform healthcare. But the winners will not be the organisations that adopt the most AI the fastest. They will be the organisations that understand where AI is safe, where it is dangerous, where it is merely impressive and where it is genuinely trustworthy. The next phase of healthcare AI cannot be built on beautiful answers that may or may not be true. It has to be built on verifiable facts, clear provenance, explicit uncertainty and clinical accountability. Because in healthcare, the question is not “can the AI answer?” The question is “can we trust what happens next?” References Roitblat H. The self-curation challenge for the future of AI. 9 March 2025. WHO. WHO releases AI ethics and governance guidance for large multi-modal models. World Health Organization, 18 January 2024. Asgari E, Montaña-Brown N, Dubois M, et al. A framework to assess clinical safety and hallucination rates of LLMs for medical text summarisation. NPJ Digital Medicine, 2025; 8 (274). Further blogs from Richard: The harsh interface between patient care and automation led to a highly avoidable death AI found to not speed up lung cancer diagnosis—AI alone is not enough
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  37. News Article
    Three new vaccines are being developed to tackle the rare species of Ebola that has already killed nearly 250 people. The International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which is working on one vaccine, said the outbreak was threatening to be the worst ever. The University of Oxford and the pharma company Moderna are also researching vaccines against the Bundibugyo species. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which is providing funding to each group, said "every day counts". There are now more than 1,000 suspected cases in the DR Congo with nine confirmed cases in neighbouring Uganda. There is growing concern this outbreak – which was detected only after it had spread in a conflict zone with limited healthcare resources – could reach the size of the largest ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-16. Then, nearly 29,000 people were infected and more than 11,000 died. Dr Mark Feinberg, head of IAVI, said: "I think this is clearly threatening to be as severe an outbreak as that, if not even worse, and development of a vaccine, and other countermeasures, is clearly a priority." It echoes concerns from the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which said the situation was "deeply alarming" and never before had "so many cases" been recorded so soon. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 June 2026
  38. Content Article
    New powers for ministers to establish a ‘single patient record’ (SPR) in England was one of the headline-grabbing measures in the government’s new Health Bill, published earlier this month. The SPR was announced in the government’s 10-Year Health Plan last year. The aim is to bring together people’s NHS and social care data, like test results and letters, in one place to improve care.  The ambition is good. Virtually every major NHS digital strategy since 2002 has called for patient data to flow more freely across the system – for instance, between GPs and hospitals – to make care faster and safer. The SPR is the latest and most legislatively ambitious attempt to deliver this, acknowledging that voluntary and standards-based approaches have repeatedly fallen short. But making it happen is easier said than done. The Health Bill set out little detail about how the SPR will look and work in practice. And the experience of a long line of failed NHS IT programmes points to a mix of questions government will need to answer to build trust in the proposals. In this blog, the Health Foundation sets out four questions for SPR: How will the SPR actually work? How can patient and clinician trust be earned?  What will implementation look like? What kind of transformation will the SPR enable?
  39. News Article
    Millions of people with breast cancer could safely avoid chemotherapy as scientists have developed a DNA test that can distinguish between patients who are likely to benefit from the treatment and those who are not, according to trial results. The international study found that more than two-thirds of its participants could be spared the side of effects of chemotherapy and treated with hormone therapy alone. Chemotherapy can cause fatigue, nausea, hair loss, a weakened immune system and fertility issues. The study, led by University College London (UCL), involved more than 4,000 newly diagnosed patients over the age of 40 in the UK, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. The primary treatment for breast cancer is usually surgery to remove tumours. Chemotherapy is often recommended afterwards to diminish the risk of return. It is also regularly offered to people with early-stage breast cancer that has spread to the nearby lymph nodes. Clinicians are concerned the treatment provides little benefit to those with the most common type of breast cancer, UCL said. The university said more than 5,000 NHS patients a year could avoid chemotherapy as a result of the trial. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 May 2026
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