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Keep up to date with the latest news, research and activity in patient safety.

Tech is helping GPs and clinicians see more patients

New figures from the NHS reveal that 31.4 million GP appointments were delivered in March 2025, a 6.1% increase on the same period last year and nearly 20% more than before the pandemic.
This increase, the NHS claims, is due to GP practices adopting digital services to help meet growing demand while ensuring patients are directed to the right care more efficiently.
Starting in October, all GP surgeries will be required to offer online appointment requests throughout working hours as part of a new contract, which aims to ease phone line pressure and allow smarter triaging based on medical need.
Currently, 99% of GP practices in England have already upgraded their phone systems, expanding capacity and reducing long waits for patients. Professor Bola Owolabi, NHS England’s director of healthcare inequalities, said in a statement: “GP teams are delivering over 30 million appointments a month, up nearly 20% on pre-pandemic levels. Patients can also manage repeat prescriptions and view test results through the NHS App, making care more convenient.”
The NHS has also announced that AI is enabling GPs and clinicians to cut the time spent on admin and increase the time and effort expended on patients. Data from AI trials shows an increase in patients seen by A&E, shorter appointments and more time by clinicians spent with the patient.
Read full story
Source: UK Authority, 30 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Earlier C-section could have saved baby

A baby who died three days after birth would have survived if her mother had been offered a caesarean section, a coroner has said.
Emmy Russo was delivered at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow but died on 12 January 2024.
Mother Bryony Russo told an inquest at Essex Coroner's Court that her requests for a C-section were "laughed off" during the hours she was there in labour.
Assistant coroner for Essex, Thea Wilson, said there were five missed opportunities to offer Ms Russo a C-section, and that Emmy's chances would have been different had she been born an hour earlier.
"She would have been born in a better condition and on the balance of probabilities she would have survived," she said.
"There was a failure to respond adequately to the request for a C-section"
Independent expert obstetrician Teresa Kelly had told the coroner there was enough evidence "this baby wasn't coping with labour" and staff should have acted sooner.
Giving evidence, midwife Megan Fletcher defended her decision not to escalate concerns to a more senior doctor, saying she was trying to avoid any further "invasive procedures".
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 7 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

More blood victims will die without compensation

More victims of the infected blood scandal will die without ever receiving full compensation, a government minister has said.
The paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds was giving evidence to a special session of the public inquiry into what's been called the worst treatment disaster in NHS history.
It's thought 30,000 patients in the UK were infected with HIV or hepatitis B and C after being treated with a contaminated blood clotting product or given a blood transfusion in the 1970s and 80s.
Mr Thomas-Symonds agreed it was "profoundly unsatisfactory" that just 106 final compensation awards have been paid, almost a year after a damning report into the scandal was published.
"I'm never going to think this is satisfactory until everybody has received the compensation that is due," the Cabinet Office minister said.
"The objective should be absolutely to pay [people] as soon as possible."
A final report into the scandal, published last year, found that the disaster could largely have been avoided if different decisions had been taken by the health authorities at the time.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 7 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Trump’s 2026 budget plan cuts healthcare funds

President Donald Trump unveiled his fiscal 2026 budget proposal on 2 May, cutting non-defense federal spending by $160 billion.
The budget provides resources to HHS to promote nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles and more, according to the White House press release. The funds will also tackle “over-reliance on medications and treatments” as well as food and drug quality and safety.
The VA medical centers will receive additional funds for healthcare services. Qualified veterans can also receive care from local community providers to expand access for those who otherwise would have to drive hours for care.
The budget would cut funds nearly in half for the National Institutes of Health and CDC. 
The budget further would eliminate divisions for the CDC focused on disease and injury prevention, including gun violence. It would also cut the programmes for environmental health, global health and public health preparedness, according to The Times. The CDC’s focus would narrow to cover just infectious disease.
President Trump’s budget proposes $1 billion cuts from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The budget does not cut funding for Medicare or Medicaid.
Read full story
Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 2 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

NHS maternal mental health services slash funding despite soaring demand

Two-thirds of specialist mental health services for mothers planned funding cuts last year despite soaring demand.
An analysis of NHS spending by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) found 27 out of 42 areas in England planned cuts totalling £3.2 million in the 2024/25 financial year.
Some areas such as Norfolk and Waveney planned to slash their budget by £257,466 - almost 5%.
It comes as NHS figures show a surge in demand for people seeking help, with 63,858 women accessing perinatal mental health services in the year to February 2025, compared to 43,053 women in the year to February 2022.
Baroness Luciana Berger, chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, told The Independent it was "deeply alarmed" by the findings.
"Our research shows that investing in perinatal mental health services is not only a compassionate choice but an economically sound one. Unaddressed perinatal mental illness takes a significant toll on families and costs the UK economy £8.1 billion a year.
"Cuts to these vital services risk devastating human consequences. Mental health remains the leading cause of maternal death. These tragedies will persist without continued investment and protection for specialist services.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 8 May 2025
Further reading on the hub:
Mums with babies in NICU: postnatal maternal mental health support Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures: Black maternal mental health
Patient Safety Learning

Children waiting more than two years for tooth extractions

Children needing a general anaesthetic for tooth extraction are waiting nearly three years in a hidden crisis that is not recorded on national waiting lists.
A national report on hospital dentistry found there were more children on locally held waiting lists for assessment than on the nationally reported waiting list – 27,285 compared to 22,474.
Some of the longest waits are thought to be in Kent and Medway, where 200 children are waiting for dental extractions – many of them with autism or learning disabilities. The longest wait is 143 weeks — about two years and nine months.
The issue is going under the radar because there is a lack of a consistent dataset for community dental services, which are responsible for dentistry for children with special care needs, such as physical or learning disabilities.
Children with additional needs often can’t have teeth extracted under a local anaesthetic and instead need to be admitted to a hospital with a paediatric intensive care unit where they can have a general anaesthetic.
Being on a locally held waiting list – typically when a community dental service is not part of an acute trust – can mean commissioners are unaware of the scale of children waiting.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 6 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

East Kent Hospitals Trust pays out more than £4 million in compensation for negligence claims relating to medication errors since 2019

A Kent hospitals trust has paid out more in compensation for medication blunders than any other in England, new data suggests.
Since 2019, East Kent Hospitals - which runs the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, QEQM in Margate, and William Harvey in Ashford - has handed over almost £5 million to patients affected by errors in prescribing, dispensing, administering or advising on medicine.
According to figures released by NHS Resolution - the legal arm of the health service - the 10 negligence claims settled by the trust over five years cost it £4,723,658 in compensation.
This sum is the highest of any trust in the country where at least five claims have been settled, and does not include legal fees, meaning the full cost to taxpayers is even higher.
Medication errors, which the NHS defines as patient safety incidents involving mistakes with medicines, can include prescribing the wrong drug or dose, poor communication between hospitals and GPs, or failing to properly monitor patients on powerful medication.
Read full story
Source: Kent Online, 6 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

‘The pain was worse than giving birth’: why are so many women separated from their babies in prison?

One by one, 29 women sat before Dr Laura Abbott in similarly small, nondescript rooms across five UK prisons, and described losing their babies. They were not bereaved in the conventional sense – although they were clearly holding in grief, as once the guards had left, they let rare public tears fall. Prisoners who had given birth in custody, they had been separated from their newborn children. In some cases this had happened within four or five days of becoming mothers.
“It was worse than giving birth,” said one woman. “That was the hardest pain of my life. I’ve never felt pain like it … It was in my chest, in my heart. Even in my belly.”
“It was as if my whole body craved him,” said another woman. “It’s like losing a limb, losing your sight,” a third explained. “It’s like losing any hope.”
Some of the mothers were still producing milk when Abbott and her assistants spoke to them. One said she was so reluctant to raise this in the prison that she was expressing manually into her cell sink.
Abbott, 54, a former midwife and senior lecturer in midwifery at the University of Hertfordshire, spoke to the women last year for the Lost Mothers Project, which will be launching at the British Museum in London on 8 May.
A collaboration between the university, the charity Birth Companions and an advisory team of women with lived experience, the report, which is the result of three years of research, examines the experiences and needs of an invisible cohort.
Anna (not her real name), 38, has endured this. She was six months pregnant when she was sent to prison nine years ago for her first offence. She was at full term when she finally stood before an MBU board. She is vocal about the horrors of giving birth in custody. She had to press her call bell “four or five times for an hour” when she felt labour pains. She says she was taken to hospital in handcuffs: “[The guard] told me to be grateful that she put me in long cuffs.” They were taken off before she was taken to the delivery suite – since 2022, it is mandated that restraints must not be used on pregnant women taken to appointments unless they are deemed essential.
But it is when she talks about her subsequent separation from her son that Anna momentarily loses her words. She was initially granted an MBU place, but when bailed before sentencing she had to go back to the beginning, and needed to reapply when she returned to prison. This bureaucratic delay resulted in a five-week separation.
Anna began to feel suicidal, and even stopped her mum bringing her son to visit. “It was just getting harder. Sometimes my legs felt heavy, as if they didn’t want to walk away,” she says. “Sorry, I’m getting upset …” She continues: “It was as if somebody was tearing my heart out.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 6 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

New AI model could ‘predict disease’ before it happens using NHS data

A groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) model is being trained using NHS data from 57 million people in England in the hope it could predict disease and complications before they occur.
The world-first study, spearheaded by researchers at University College London (UCL) and King’s College London (KCL), has the potential to “unlock a healthcare revolution”, officials said.
The AI, known as Foresight, uses technology similar to that of ChatGPT, however, instead of predicting text, Foresight analyses a patient's medical history to forecast potential future health issues.
As part of the pilot, it will be trained using eight routinely collected datasets, including hospital admissions, A&E attendances and Covid-19 vaccination rates, which have been stripped of personal information.
“Foresight is a really exciting step towards being able to predict disease and complications before they happen, giving us a window to intervene and enabling a shift towards more preventative healthcare at scale,” Dr Chris Tomlinson of UCL said.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 7 May 2025
Sam

'The NHS at its worst', ex-ombudsman tells inquiry

A former health ombudsman has condemned mental health services for their handling of two vulnerable young men who died in their care.
Sir Rob Behrens, who was parliamentary and health service ombudsman (PHSO) from 2017 to 2024, spoke at the Lampard Inquiry, which is examining the deaths of more than 2,000 people under mental health services in Essex over a 24-year period.
Sir Rob said it was "a disgrace" how Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) had failed in its care of 20-year-old Matthew Leahy, who died in 2012, and a 20-year-old man referred to as Mr R, who died in 2008.
"This was the National Health Service at its worst and needed calling out," Sir Rob said.
Sir Rob referred in his inquiry appearance to several reports made during his tenure, including "Missed Opportunities", which looked into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Mr Leahy and Mr R.
Mr Leahy was found unresponsive at the Linden Centre in Chelmsford. He reported being raped there just days before he died.
Sir Rob told the inquiry the PHSO identified "19 instances of maladministration" in Mr Leahy's case by North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust - a predecessor to EPUT - including that his care plan was falsified.
The former ombudsman said there had been "a near-complete failure of the leadership of this trust, certainly before it was merged" with South Essex Partnership Trust to become EPUT.
"This was an indictment of the health service," he added.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 6 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

‘Concerning’ lack of female-only medical trials in UK, say health experts

Health experts are calling for more UK clinical trials to focus on finding new treatments for women, as “concerning” data reveals they are severely under-represented, with 67% more male-only studies than female-only.
Details of thousands of studies were collected by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the University of Liverpool. The evidence shows the UK is a hub for pioneering research, with one in eight trials testing humans for the first time, and cutting-edge treatments such as gene therapies becoming a new growth area.
But a review of the data by the Guardian found that women were significantly under-represented. Both sexes were included in most trials (90%), but male-only trials (6.1%) were nearly twice as common as female-only studies (3.7%). Pregnant and breastfeeding women were especially under-represented – involved in just 1.1% and 0.6% of trials respectively.
Women’s health experts expressed alarm over the figures, which they said meant women and their doctors were having to make decisions about whether to take a drug in a “vacuum of evidence”. Some areas of research are dominated by men at all levels – funders, researchers, consultants and patients – and as a result there could be a “reluctance” to fund female-only trials, the experts added.
Dr Amy Brenner, an assistant professor in the clinical trials unit at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said: “It is particularly concerning that there are more male-only trials than female-only trials as, while they may be disease-specific, it is certainly not true that there are more male-only than female-only diseases.”
The gender gap had serious implications, Brenner said. “This under-representation means there is a lack of evidence on the safety and effectiveness of many interventions in women.” There was an “urgent need” to correct the disparity in order to improve women’s health outcomes, she added.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 7 May 2025
Further reading on the hub:
Medicines, research and female hormones: a dangerous knowledge gap
Patient Safety Learning

Cut ‘board headcount’, ICBs told

A “blueprint” for integrated care board cost-cuts says “headcount should be reduced at board level”. 
The “model ICB blueprint” issued by NHS England says the organisations should “look to streamline boards to deliver [their] core role”. 
HSJ understands the biggest reductions in board members are expected to come from ”greater collaboration” such as shared roles, and “clustering” of integrated care board leadership in many regions – expected to involve sharing of chairs and CEOs.
Discussions about consolidation are already well underway in several regions, although NHSE understands formal mergers are likely to be delayed until at least next year.
The blueprint document indicates ICBs must also remove some board posts which are linked to functions being axed or transferred. These functions include performance management, workforce, and “digital leadership and transformation”. The guidance says ICBs should “streamline” boards “with the right roles and profiles to deliver core Model ICB functions”.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 6 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

States in America sue HHS over layoffs and restructuring

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the federal government on 5 May aiming to block the Trump administration’s large-scale restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS).
In the lawsuit, New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James and 19 other AGs argue the restructuring is an “unconstitutional and illegal dismantling of the department.” They contend the government has violated hundreds of laws and bypassed congressional authority by enacting the plan, which has erased decades of public health progress and left HHS unable to execute many vital functions.
The state AGs said the restructuring has significantly hindered mental health and substance use services, HIV/AIDS response efforts, maternal mortality monitoring and disability support, among other key services. 
HHS announced the restructuring 27 March, outlining plans to lay off 10,000 full-time employees and consolidate the agency from 28 divisions to 15. The agency defended the restructuring — and its legality.
“We are following the law, period,” an HHS spokesperson said. “Nothing has been rushed and multiple rounds of discussions between divisions and HHS occurred before the announcement. Every step taken has been deliberate, collaborative and consistent with federal personnel policy and civil service protections. To suggest otherwise is inaccurate and misrepresents the integrity and facts of the process.”
“The reforms are designed to strengthen the agency’s capacity to serve the American public, not weaken it. HHS remains confident that the process will withstand legal scrutiny and looks forward to a resolution that reflects the facts and the law.”
Read full story
Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 5 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

ICB functions radically reduced in national ‘blueprint’

More than a dozen functions have been earmarked for “transfer” out of integrated care boards, including workforce planning, primary care, and digital leadership.
Several of them will transfer to emerging “neighbourhood health providers”, according to NHS England’s new “model ICB blueprint”, which is meant to help the boards cut 50% from their overheads.
The document also orders integrated care boards to reduce their board-level headcount to focus on ”core model ICB priorities”.
The document names 18 functions and activities which ICBs should “transfer [out] over time”, six they should “selectively retain and adapt”, and 11 which should “grow”.
NHSE financial reset and accountability director Glen Burley, who has been overseeing the work so far, told HSJ it was a “first step in a joint programme of work to reshape the focus, role, and functions of ICBs”. 
“We are seeking to reduce the management costs of the NHS so that more money can be spent on the frontline,” he said. “This won’t be achieved by simply moving functions to different organisations – instead ICBs need to be working together to merge functions to cut duplication.”
Read full story
Source: HSJ, 6 May 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Care homes under threat as family visa crackdown blocks 100,000 workers

A government crackdown on visas for overseas workers could put overstretched care homes under threat of closure, with tens of thousands fewer staff coming to the UK, The Independent can reveal.
Applications for Britain’s health and care worker visa are at a record low after care workers were prevented from bringing children and other dependants with them in a bid to curb climbing migration numbers.
Between April 2023 to March 2024, when the new rules came in, there were 129,000 applicants, but that plummeted to just 26,000 in the year to March 2025, according to government figures.
The revelation comes as care homes struggle to retain staff, with more than 100,000 vacancies across England last year - a rate of 8 per cent and three times the national average.
Age UK warned that overseas recruits were “keeping many services afloat” and some care homes could be forced to shut if they could not find alternatives, piling more pressure on NHS hospitals.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 6 May 2025
Sam

Private providers costing ICB ‘three times more’ than NHS equivalent

NHS-funded access to private autism and ADHD services is “unsustainable” and “up to three times more expensive than our local provision”, according to an integrated care board’s review.
Northamptonshire ICB found the use of independent providers under “right to choose” rules for diagnosis and treatment of autism and ADHD was expected to cost it £3m in 2024-25, according to the document obtained by HSJ.
This represents an additional 66% on top of its £4.5m budget for its commissioned autism and ADHD services.
Extremely long waits, rocketing demand, and a growing market nationally have seen a big rise in people exercising choice rules, which require commissioners to pay for treatment if a provider has a contract with at least one other ICB.
In its review of community paediatric services, the ICB said its spending growth on the independent sector is “unsustainable” as “costs are up to three times more expensive than our local provision”. 
NHS funding of the same services is effectively capped as they are on “block” contracts. The review was completed in December and recently released after a Freedom of Information request.
Government has deprioritised tackling long waits for these services, but NHS England last year launched a national taskforce on the issue. The ICB’s review warned any “national solution will almost certainly involve greater use of the independent provider market”, which it said was less cost-effective than its commissioned services. 
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 6 May 2025
Sam
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