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

Rogue ex-solicitor who abandoned clients must pay £92,000 and indemnity costs

A disgraced former solicitor who abandoned his clients with no reasonable explanation has been ordered to repay £92,000 and hit with indemnity costs, after a judge found he seriously abused the court’s process. 
Darren Hanison was on record to represent six women who brought vaginal mesh claims against the NHS, as part of a larger cohort of 305 claimants linked to the proceedings.
Hanison failed to lodge the papers ahead of a hearing in 2022 which caused it to be relisted. Hanison’s firm, Fortitude Law, was shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2023 over his suspected dishonesty. In February this year he was struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after facing 17 allegations including dishonesty, misleading clients, poor service and serious regulatory breaches.
At a hearing to deal with costs issues relating to the mesh claims, the defendants in the six linked claims requested that Hanison repay £92,000 in various payments made on account. They also asked that the former solicitor should pay the costs of the aborted hearing in 2022, as well as costs associated with the detailed assessment proceedings for the six claims.
Read full story
Source: The Law Society Gazette, 6 August 2026
Patient Safety Learning

‘Babies will be born in laybys’: maternity cuts leave women with stark choices in Devon

For mother-to-be Harriet Knight, the suspension of maternity services at one of England’s most remote hospitals means having to face horribly stark choices.
“The next closest maternity unit is a full two hours away and we have a family history of labour taking under two hours from start to finish,” said Knight.
“So we have the option of potentially giving birth in a layby on the north Devon link road as we try to get there or opting for free-birthing at home with no access to maternity care.”
Mothers in labour will have to trek to Exeter or Taunton, at least an hour and a half away, but usually more, especially at this time of year when the roads are thick with holiday traffic.
“It feels there is no safe option at the moment,” said Knight, who is 34 weeks pregnant. “We live in one of the most rural places in the country and this has left pregnant mothers in north Devon in a really scary situation. It feels like a complete failure by the hospital trust.”
One option she and her partner are considering is spending all their savings on temporary accommodation in Exeter as her due day approaches. “Moving out may be the only thing we can do to keep us safe,” Knight said.
Hannah Rulton, who is expecting her third baby in November, is to undergo a caesarean section because during her second labour she and her child suffered severe shoulder dystocia, an obstetric emergency in which the baby’s head is delivered, but the shoulder gets stuck behind the mother’s pubic bone.
“He was stuck for 11 minutes. Both my son and I very nearly died. The trauma of that birth has never left us. Every appointment during this pregnancy has brought back memories,” she said.
“I have been told there is a significant chance of shoulder dystocia occurring again and what now keeps me awake at night is the fear of going into labour before my planned surgery. The thought of making that journey knowing I have a history of one of the most time-critical obstetric emergencies imaginable is absolutely terrifying."
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 10 August 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Mentally ill men forced into prison to get a bed

Police are sending people in mental health crisis to prison when they should be in a secure hospital, with “devastating consequences”, inspectors have warned.
West Midlands Police introduced a local version of the national “Right Care Right Person” policy without consultation or agreement from partner agencies, including the NHS, inspectors found.
Under this approach, the force stopped asking “liaison and diversion” mental health services to arrange assessments before sending detainees to court, including where it identified serious mental illness.
It appears to have begun last year and involves about nine prisoners each month.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons told HSJ: “The crucial diversion function in custody is being overridden by criminal justice imperatives when the core purpose of liaison and diversion is to prevent vulnerable, acutely mentally unwell detainees entering the criminal justice system.”
NHS England has expressed “serious concerns” and an inspectors’ report said that, along with senior managers at the prison, NHSE had raised the issue with the police. Despite a warning from the prisons inspector in the autumn, as of June there was “no progress at all” in stopping the police sending “the most mentally unwell men to Birmingham without prior assessment or diversion”, the inspectorate has reported.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 10 August 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Risk of patient safety 'bonfire' with Health Bill changes, Lib Dems say

The Liberal Democrats have urged Andy Burnham to stop the "bonfire of patient safety" as part of the government's plans to modernise the NHS.
Healthwatch England (HWE), an independent body which represents the views of patients at their local health and social care providers, is set to be scrapped under the NHS Modernisation Bill.
The Health Service Safety Investigation Bureau (HSSIB), which carries out patient safety investigations, is also being abolished.
The government says its changes will strip back bureaucracy and improve patient safety.
The Lib Dems warned it risks another Stafford Hospital scandal – where years of abuse and neglect led to hundreds of unnecessary patient deaths.
Under the government proposals, Healthwatch's responsibilities will be transferred to integrated care boards (ICBs) and local authorities, meaning they would have to respond to feedback about their own services, rather than being challenged by an independent body.
Separately, HSSIB's functions will be transferred to the government-run Care Quality Commission (CQC), which the Lib Dems argue raises concerns there is no guarantee that staff who raise safety concerns are given anonymity.
Other measures include the abolition of NHS England in a bid to centralise the running of health and social care services under the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 10 August 2026
Related reading on the hub:
The King’s Speech 2026: Six key takeaways for patient safety (Patient Safety Learning) Perspectives on the NHS Modernisation Bill  
Patient Safety Learning

New systematic review explores the link between patient experience and patient safety

Patient experience and patient safety are widely recognised as two fundamental dimensions of healthcare quality. But how closely are they connected.
In a new systematic review, we examined evidence from 30 studies published between 2000 and 2023 to better understand the relationship between patient experience and patient safety. Key takeaways from this review include:
Patient experience and patient safety are closely related components of healthcare quality.  Evidence suggests positive links between experience and safety, although findings are not consistent across all studies.  More research is needed to understand how specific aspects of patient experience influence safety outcomes.  Evidence gaps remain in primary care, mental health and some important Picker Principles, including family and carer involvement and access to advice.  Quality improvement efforts should address patient experience and safety together rather than as separate priorities.
Read full article.
Source: Picker, 6 August 2026
Mark Hughes

Trust drops from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’

A hospital trust’s leadership has been rated “requires improvement” by the Care Quality Commission and accused of “excessive scrutiny” of staff.
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust’s well-led rating has been downgraded from “outstanding”, which was issued in May 2021, along with an “outstanding” overall trust rating.
These were both displayed on the CQC’s page for the trust, despite its main hospital (East Surrey Healthcare) being downgraded to “requires improvement” overall last year. Medical care was rated “requires improvement” last year (also down from “outstanding”), and maternity was judged as “requires improvement” in 2023.
Read full article (paywalled).
Source: Health Service Journal, 29 July 2026
Mark Hughes

Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and WHO call for urgent, community-led action to contain Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have called for an urgent scale-up of the community-led Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with stronger early detection, contact follow up, access to care, support for frontline health workers and faster delivery of resources to affected communities. 
The call followed a joint high-level mission to Uganda and DRC on 4 and 5 August, which drew lessons from Uganda’s successful containment of local transmission, assessed operational challenges in Bunia and brought the priorities of communities and frontline responders into high-level discussions with national leaderships in Kinshasa. The mission was led by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, H.E. Dr Jean Kaseya, Director-General of Africa CDC, and Dr Mohamed Janabi, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
With visits in Kampala, Bunia and Kinshasa, members of the delegation met national and provincial authorities, response coordinators, health workers, community representatives and partners. The mission assessed progress, identified critical operational gaps and brought the concerns of affected communities and frontline teams directly to national leadership.
Read full article.
Source: WHO, 6 August 2026
Mark Hughes

Probe into hospital AI safety launched

AI tools that are already being rolled out across the NHS face an investigation by the national safety body.
The announcement of a probe into AVT came after the Health Services Safety Investigations Body said there were “indications that routes for recognising and reporting AI-related incidents are not yet mature enough to provide confidence that emerging risks are being identified”.
The body said AVT adoption was pressing ahead but the service “has focused more strongly on efficiency benefits than on patient safety risk”.
Investigators will look at “potential patient safety issues associated with the use of AVT in hospitals”.
Read full article (paywalled).
Source: Health Service Journal, 6 August 2026
Mark Hughes

Patients with motor neurone disease set for fast-tracked care

Patients with motor neurone disease (MND) will get faster access to care and support, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Yvette Cooper, has set out during a visit to the Rob Burrow Centre for Motor Neurone Disease in Leeds (Wednesday 5 August 2026). The announcement comes as the government launches action to tackle delays and fragmentation in support for people living with MND and is part of the first phase of fixing the social care system and pursuing Andy Burnham’s ambition to introduce a national care service.
MND patients and families too often face lengthy waits and have to navigate a complex system spanning health, social care and housing services at a time when every day matters.
The Rob Burrow Centre brings specialist MND services together under one roof, providing coordinated care, treatment and support in a single location, making accessing services easier for people living with MND and their families. Learning from this, the new fast-track care pathway will draw on these principles of a more joined-up, person-centred approach and help deliver care support more consistently and much more quickly across the country, lessening the need for families to navigate multiple services and reducing stress and delays to care.
Read full article.
Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 5 August 2026
Mark Hughes

US jury says Medtronic owes $88 million in first case to go to trial over Covidien's hernia mesh

Medtronic must pay an Alabama man and his wife $88 million, a federal jury decided on Tuesday, in the first case to go to trial out of thousands facing the company from people claiming they were injured by hernia-repair mesh implants made by one ‌of its units.   Following a three-week trial in Boston, jurors found that Medtronic's Covidien unit failed to provide an adequate warning about the dangers posed by the mesh implanted in Larry Patterson in 2017, Medtronic and the man's lawyer said. The failure of Patterson's hernia mesh implant required significant reconstructive surgery, according to his complaint. The jury awarded no punitive damages, and it did not find that Covidien engaged in fraud.   The verdict was by far the largest in more than a dozen hernia mesh and transvaginal mesh ⁠cases that have gone to trial, Patterson's attorney Timothy O'Brien said.   Read full article.   Source: Reuters, 4 August 2026
Mark Hughes

Scotland: Ministers accused of dodging maternity failures scrutiny in review

Scottish ministers have been accused of sidelining past maternity failures after choosing a forward-looking model for a national review that officials warned could be “improvement-focused, not investigatory”, The Herald can reveal.   Internal papers show ministers were offered a choice between an investigation into historic harm, accountability and redress, similar to major maternity inquiries elsewhere in the UK, and a review centred on the future design of services.   They chose principles focused on the latter, prompting political opposition warnings that bereaved families and women who have suffered serious harm could be denied answers, and that catastrophic mistakes could be repeated.   Read full article (paywalled).   Source: The Herald, 6 August 2026
Mark Hughes

NHS must prepare for annual summer heat pressures, says Yvette Cooper

The NHS has been warned to prepare for potential annual summer crises caused by extreme heat with the same pressures as winter, as heatwaves caused by the climate crisis become routine in the UK.
The health secretary, Yvette Cooper, said NHS staff were feeling A&E pressures that would normally be expected only during flu season – and said the government would use major investment in NHS infrastructure to tackle the health service’s resilience to high summer temperatures.
Doctors and other medical professionals have warned of the impact that repeated heatwaves are having on the NHS in England, including advice from the Royal College of GPs to cancel surgeries in extreme weather. Radiotherapy machines and MRI scanners have failed in hot weather, wards have overheated and cooling units serving hospitals have broken down.
England is on track to record its highest number of heat-related deaths this summer, with an estimated 2,877 people dying in the May and June heatwaves.
Read full article.
Source: The Guardian, 5 August 2026
Mark Hughes

Trump linked MMR vaccines to autism. Ties between the two were just debunked again

There is no link between receiving the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine before age 2 and being diagnosed with autism, according to a new study of more than 2.5 million U.S. children.
“These results reinforce existing evidence supporting the safety of MMR vaccination,” the medical research scientists, from University of Washington, wrote last week. The research supports decades of work with similar results, including by the World Health Organization, which said earlier this year there was no evidence that vaccines cause autism.
The results come at a fraught time for U.S. public health, and in particular for childhood vaccinations, including the MMR shot. Federal data reveals that MMR vaccination rates have been steadily dropping since before the pandemic and cases of life-threatening measles are at a 35-year high.
Read full article.
Source: The Independent, 5 August 2026
Mark Hughes

Major expansion of community mental health support across England

People struggling with their mental health will get help earlier and closer to home, with 159 new NHS mental health facilities opening across England under plans announced today.
Backed by £343 million, the rollout is the biggest redesign of mental health services in a generation. It includes 100 new community mental health centres, offering walk-in support without a referral and without a months-long wait, and 59 dedicated mental health emergency departments giving people in crisis specialist care in a place designed for them.
Demand for mental health services has risen sharply, particularly among children and young people, with around one in five people experiencing a common mental health condition each year. Too often, people only receive support once they reach crisis point, leaving families without the help they need and placing greater pressure on NHS services.
The new centres will make it far easier for people to get the right help the first time they ask for it, by bringing mental health and specialist teams together under one roof – working alongside GPs, councils, the voluntary sector and families, with direct links into housing and employment support.
The first sites open from autumn this year, with further facilities following from March 2027.
Read full article.
Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 5 August 2025
Mark Hughes

Watchdog urged ministers to axe Scotland maternity taskforce

Scotland’s patient safety watchdog privately urged ministers to scrap their maternity taskforce over concerns it was failing to act with sufficient urgency, The Herald can reveal.
Karen Titchener, the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland, wrote to Health Secretary Angela Constance in June recommending the Scottish Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce be discontinued and replaced with an independent, nationwide assessment of services.
Read full story
Source: The Herald, 5 August 2026
Patient_Safety_Learning

Yvette Cooper: ‘Women should not feel pressured to have an ideal birth’

National maternity standards are set to be reintroduced under plans to improve maternity care, Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has said.
The standards will be measured by patient experience and will incorporate an early warning system to signal underperformance.
The announcement follows a review into maternity care, led by Baroness Valerie Amos, which concluded families have suffered from repeated failures in NHS care.
Read full story
Source: Independent, 5 August 2026
Patient_Safety_Learning
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