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

One in four women in England have serious reproductive health issue, survey finds

More than a quarter of women in England are living with a serious reproductive health issue, according to the largest survey of its kind, and experts say “systemic, operational, structural and cultural issues” prevent women from accessing care.
The survey of 60,000 women across England in 2023, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care and analysed by academics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, found that 28% of respondents were living with a reproductive morbidity, such as pelvic organ prolapse, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, or cervical, uterine, ovarian or breast cancer.
Almost a fifth (19%) of women reported experiencing severe period pain in the last year, and 40% of respondents reported heavy menstrual bleeding. More than 30% of participants aged 16-24 reported severe period pain.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 10 April 2025
Mark Hughes

Target date for NHSE abolition revealed

National leaders are targeting October 2026 for the abolition of NHS England and consolidation of its functions into the Department of Health and Social Care, according to Health Service Journal.
The timeframe is not yet confirmed, and will depend on ministers securing space in the King’s Speech and parliamentary time to progress a health bill. There is also an acceptance that completing the process in 18 months will be challenging.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: Health Service Journal, 11 April 2025
Mark Hughes

New pill can slow progression of incurable breast cancer

A new type of drug for one of the most common kinds of advanced breast cancer is now available on the NHS in England.
Some 3,000 women a year could benefit from capivasertib after a clinical trial showed it can slow progression of the disease, and shrink tumours in a quarter of people. In trials, in 708 women, when combined with hormone therapy, the drug doubled the time the cancer took to grow, from 3.6 months to 7.3 months. It also shrank tumours in 23% of patients.
The drug has been given the green light for NHS funding by England's drug assessment body. It's one of a range of treatment options available to people whose cancer has spread and is no longer curable.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 11 April 2025
Mark Hughes

Endometrosis: Hundreds of patients share their heartbreaking stories - and why the NHS is failing them

People from across the UK have shared their heartbreaking experiences of living with endometriosis - as they say the NHS is “failing” them.
Living with the inflammatory condition is an uphill battle, from getting a diagnosis to navigating daily life and even accessing healthcare. For Endometriosis Awareness Month, National World launched the campaign Endo the Battle to amplify the voices of those living with endometriosis across the UK and highlight the challenges patients face.
This campaign surveyed members of the public to share their stories with endometriosis. They received almost 400 responses, highlighting delays in getting a diagnosis, the crippling costs of paying for private care and knowledge gaps within the healthcare sector.
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Source: The Scotsman, 11 April 2025
Mark Hughes

151 dead as Nigeria struggles with rapidly spreading outbreak

Health authorities in Nigeria are struggling to contain a rapidly spreading meningitis outbreak that has so far killed 151 people - with children affected the most.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported this week that cases, initially identified in October, have now spread to 23 of the country's 36 states. Nearly half of the fatalities (74) have occurred this year alone.
Local partners described the recent rise in fatalities as "alarming". The NCDC has highlighted a critical factor contributing to the high death toll, namely delayed access to healthcare. NCDC spokesperson Sani Datti explained that many infected individuals either do not seek medical attention or arrive at health facilities too late, already suffering from severe complications.
This issue has plagued previous outbreaks in Nigeria. The outbreak comes at a particularly challenging time for Nigeria's healthcare system, which is grappling with the impact of US aid cuts implemented earlier this year.
Nigeria relied heavily on such aid over the years to help fight similar outbreaks and support its underfunded healthcare systems.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 9 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Experts fear rise in diseases as layoffs halt health research: ‘Incredibly bizarre gaslighting’

Mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) portend a future with more infectious disease outbreaks, chronic conditions, and a widening gulf in health between the most affluent and vulnerable, experts told the Guardian.
Further, they said, the Trump administration’s multipronged attacks on American science represent a generation-defining experience, a new chapter in the “boom and bust” cycle of health funding, and a masterclass in branding, as Donald Trump and the secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, dismantle institutions in the name of improving them.
“I fear for the country,” said Dr Steven Woolf, a population health researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University and a family physician. “Many people not too fond of bureaucracy may feel this big shakeup in Washington DC is well overdue. But I don’t know that people appreciate what’s coming their way – much like a far-off tsunami warning.”
Experts said they see the chaos, confusion and upheaval – from the ideological purge of basic research grants early in Trump’s tenure to more expected layoffs at the National Institutes of Health – as leading to shorter, sicker American lives.
“These are cuts that are not driven by a rational strategy to improve population health,” said Woolf. “This is all being done in the name of ‘making America healthy again’ – that’s the incredibly bizarre gaslighting that’s going on.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 9 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning

The systems set to gain and lose hundreds of millions

Nine integrated care systems are set to lose hundreds of millions in NHS funding relative to others in coming years – while eight stand to make big gains – under new NHS England funding policy.
New NHSE CEO Sir Jim Mackey has vowed to move systems to their “fair share” funding allocation in the next few years, and to withdraw the “deficit support” that has provided a large subsidy to some areas since Covid.
It is unclear if NHSE will decide to cut their funding in real or cash terms in order to move more quickly to “fair shares”. Sir Jim has not said how quickly the change will happen, but he is seeking to remove “deficit support” as soon as next year. 
He said: “We will need to develop an affordable pace of change policy [for moving to fair share allocations], but I think it’s important that you can see where we are heading.”
However, rapidly removing their support is likely to lead to major service challenges in these areas, or to deepening their deficit problems even further.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 10 April 2025
 
Patient Safety Learning

A woman dies every two minutes due to failures in maternal care, shocking new figures reveal

A woman dies every two minutes due to failures in maternal healthcare, according to shocking global data that has prompted stark warnings about the impact of cuts to aid funding by the US and the UK.
A new report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed that there were 260,000 maternal deaths in 2023, equating to 712 women a day or 30 per hour – with the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa.
The WHO has warned that the global target for all UN member states to reduce maternal deaths – down to 71 per 100,000 by 2030 – will be missed by more than twice this amount as “the pace of progress has slowed to a near standstill”.
Leading health organisations including the WHO have warned that recent sweeping cuts to international aid by the US government, which amount to more than £595m ($770m) for maternal health and family planning, will risk “a shift backwards” in the progress made on cutting maternal deaths – defined as any death related to or aggravated by pregnancy, or within six weeks of the end of a pregnancy.
Speaking at a press conference, Dr Bruce Aylward, assistant director general of universal health coverage for the WHO, said: “The funding cuts risk not only that progress, but we could have a shift backwards.” He said that cuts were already “affecting access to lifesaving supplies and medicines, and especially treatments for some of the leading causes of maternal death”.
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Source: The Independent, 10 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Infected blood victims losing faith as inquiry hearings restart

The infected blood inquiry is holding two more days of hearings amid concerns about the government's response on compensation, with campaigners warning they are "losing faith".
It comes nearly a year after the final report was published into the scandal - said to be the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.
More than 30,000 people contracted HIV and hepatitis from contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 80s – and 3,000 people have since died.
Victims groups have since said the government has been slow to pay out compensation and the process was lacking transparency. Inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff said he had decided to act given the "gravity" of the problems expressed.
And a spokesperson said it was continuing to act on the inquiry's recommendations, adding: "The victims of this scandal have suffered unspeakably."
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 9 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning

England’s ‘complex’ health and care system harming patients, report says

Navigating England’s “complex” health and care system is “extremely difficult” and carers and patients are experiencing burnout, distress and harm as a result, a damning report says.
There were frequent failures by NHS and care organisations in coordinating care for people with long-term health conditions, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) found. Figures show 41% of adults and 17% of children have at least one long-term health issue.
The report said patients unable to navigate the health and care system were getting sicker as a result, missing vital appointments, and their care could be delayed or forgotten about, meaning they may need more intensive and expensive treatment in future or longer stays in hospital.
Patients and carers had to retell their health history to different health and care providers, the research showed. The system was not joined up and information did not flow well across health and care organisations, patients and carers told the investigators.
This was making people exhausted and feeling burned out, frustrated, angry and guilty, the report says. Some patients’ and carers’ physical and mental health was deteriorating because of the extra burden of navigating the health and care system.
Neil Alexander, a senior safety investigator at HSSIB, said: “Long-term care is complex and we acknowledge the challenges faced by providers, especially at a time of extreme pressure on resources. However, our investigation emphasises that if care is not properly coordinated, those with long-term conditions and their carers can suffer mental and physical deterioration and harm. Patients can need more intensive treatment or longer stays in hospital, placing further pressure on services.
“The stories and experiences shared with us provided powerful testimony as to the impact on people. Patients and carers were open about their feelings of anguish and exhaustion, their anger, sadness and loss of trust in a system they felt sometimes was fighting against them. Many told of the frustration at not being able to speak to the specialist and dedicated staff who would be able to help them.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 10 April 2025
Further reading on the hub:
Care co-ordination for people with long-term conditions: Patient Safety Learning’s response to HSSIB investigation Digital-only prescription requests: An elderly woman sent round the houses How the Patients Association helpline can help you navigate your care Lost in the system? NHS referrals The challenges of navigating the healthcare system: David's story
Patient Safety Learning

ICB seeks first GP and dentist integration

An integrated care board in the East of England is working to integrate general practice and dental care records, and exploring shared sites for the two primary care services.
Suffolk and North East Essex ICB is exploring how to “bring primary care services together”, according to recent board papers.
Ed Garratt, its chief executive, said dental practices first began to collaborate through the ICB’s dental priority access and stabilisation scheme, which saw them offer 15,000 urgent appointments.
“We’re now thinking about how to create networks of dental practices that could work together with our general practice networks,” he told HSJ. He added that the ICB was also pursuing integrating the summary care record – a patient record held by GPs – so it could be shared with dentists.
Mr Garratt said having GPs and dentists working at the same hub sites was likely to be “the ultimate end stage” for this work.
He said the moves were designed to improve communication and holistic care across dental and other health. “Often, dentists and GPs might share the same patient, but they would never communicate about that patient. So you can have more holistic care potentially if people were working closer together,” he said.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 10 April 2025
Further reading on the hub:
The challenges of navigating the healthcare system
Patient Safety Learning

What’s lost: Trump whacks tiny agency that works to make the nation’s health care safer

Sue Sheridan’s baby boy, Cal, suffered brain damage from undetected jaundice in 1995. Helen Haskell’s 15-year-old son, Lewis, died after surgery in 2000 because weekend hospital staffers didn’t realize he was in shock. The episodes turned both women into advocates for patients and spurred research that made American health care safer.
On April 1, the Trump administration slashed the organization that supported that research — the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ — and fired roughly half of its remaining employees as part of a perplexing reorganization of the federal Health and Human Services Department.
Haskell, of Columbia, South Carolina, has done research and helped write AHRQ-published surveys and guidebooks on patient engagement for hospitals. The dissolution of AHRQ is dislodging scores of experienced patient-safety experts, a brain drain that will be impossible to rectify, she said.
Survey data gathered by AHRQ provides much of what is known about hospitalisations for motor accidents, measles, methamphetamine, and thousands of other medical issues.
“Nobody does these things except AHRQ,” she said. “They’re all we’ve got. And now the barn door’s closed.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on the social platform X on April 1 that layoffs at HHS, aimed at reducing the department’s workforce by about 20,000 employees, were the result of alleged inefficacy. “What we’ve been doing isn’t working,” he said. “Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year.”
But neither Kennedy nor President Donald Trump have explained why individual agencies such as AHRQ were targeted for cuts or indicated whether any of their work would continue.
Read full story
Source: KFF Health News, 3 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Thousands of prisoners wrongfully restrained in hospital every year

Pregnant women handcuffed during and after labour. Dying men shackled to their hospital bed. A prisoner restrained while having his leg amputated.
Channel 4 News can reveal these are just some of the extraordinary cases where restraints are being wrongfully used on vulnerable prisoners while they’re receiving medical care.
In a rare and exclusive interview, the Prisons Ombudsman, Adrian Usher, told us: “Thousands of people, men and women, are being restrained inappropriately… the fact that the Prison Service, frankly, get it wrong so frequently is an issue that we should all be concerned about.”
Mr Usher said he has raised his own concerns many times with the Prison Service, but that not enough is being done quickly enough to tackle what he called “inhumane practices.”
He is particularly concerned about cases like ‘Laura’ – a young ex-offender who spoke to us about being restrained while in labour in 2023. We’re not using her real name to preserve her anonymity.
Serving time at HMP Bronzefield for drugs offences, she was deemed a “low risk” prisoner. She had suspected pre-eclampsia – a condition which can be life threatening for both mother and baby – and was handcuffed to a prison officer in hospital for hours after being induced and going into labour.
“I felt like an animal. I was handcuffed and I was having a lot of pain in my tummy and I asked her if she could loosen my handcuffs and she argued she couldn’t do it. I was crying. I got angry and very sad for being there chained and going through the very fragile moment,” she said.
“Many times I asked them to remove the chains, “ she went on. “I couldn’t have privacy with the doctor, I couldn’t use the toilet properly. And sometimes I couldn’t even walk properly. I couldn’t sleep. It was hurting me. Every time I ask them or question them about the handcuffs they told me that they had to use them, it was the rules.”
Read full story
Source: Channel 4 News, 8 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Social care must stay ‘distinct’ from NHS, says Streeting

Wes Streeting has rejected the notion of merging the delivery or funding of social care with the NHS, arguing it is better “delivered and commissioned through local government”.
Speaking at the Commons health and social care committee today on the reorganisation of NHS England, the health and social care secretary was definitive that health and adult social care are best as “distinct services”.
Wes Streeting told MPs: “I am now even more strongly of the view as secretary of state for health and social care that social care has different roles and responsibilities than the NHS…
“[Social care is] not all about treating or preventing ill health. It’s about promoting dignity, independence, quality of life, and a range of caring functions, which I think not only are not delivered by the NHS today, but are better delivered and commissioned through local government than they would be through the NHS.”
His comments come despite an ongoing government commission on social care policy by Baroness Louise Casey, reporting to the prime minister, and the hopes of some in the Labour Party for its proposed “National Care Service” to result in a “free at the point of delivery” service combined with the NHS. Combining funding pots, accountability, and delivery across the two has also been a long-standing recommendation of experts and integration projects.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 8 April 2025
Sam

‘Mothers will never be the priority’: Postnatal mental health support cut despite surge in women seeking help

Postnatal mental health services are closing across the country due to a lack of funding despite record numbers of women seeking help, The Independent can reveal.
One in five of the 600,000 women a year who give birth in the UK experience a mental health condition, NHS figures show – and a quarter have a negative birth experience.
Mental health conditions are the leading cause of maternal death between six weeks and a year after birth – accounting for one in three deaths, according to the Oxford University-led group MBBRACE-UK, which records all maternal and baby deaths in the UK.
Postnatal suicide rates rose by more than 50 per cent during the pandemic and have remained high ever since. Between 2017 and 2019, the rate of suicide was 0.46 for every 100,000 mothers who gave birth in that period, but between 2021 and 2023 - the latest figures available - the rate was 0.70 per 100,000 mothers.
But in January, the Government announced it was scrapping funding for the nationwide rollout of Women’s Health Hubs, which aimed to improve access to services such as perinatal mental health support.
“This is a completely neglected mental health crisis, on an extremely large scale,” Danny Chambers MP, the Lib Dem spokesperson on mental health, warned Parliament in February.
"And now several charities which plug the gaps in NHS support, by helping parents unable to access NHS help or who are stuck on waiting lists, have been forced to close or suspend services because of funding cuts."
Read full story
Source: The Independent,  8 April 2025
Sam

‘Below-standard care’ surgeon named — 800 patients to be reviewed

The care of hundreds of NHS patients — many of them children — is being urgently reviewed because concerns about a surgeon at one of England’s leading hospitals.
She is Kuldeep Stohr, a specialist paediatric orthopaedic consultant at Cambridge University Hospitals Trust. Stohr, who spoke of seeing 200 patients a month at Addenbrooke’s Hospital during a 2022 webinar, has been suspended by the trust after an initial review in January identified nine children who had suffered care “below the standard” the trust would expect.
This review was conducted by James Hunter, a surgeon and the national clinical leader for paediatric trauma and orthopaedics at NHS England, who found that the quality of some children’s lives had been affected.
Now the trust has worked with Hunter to identify 800 of Stohr’s patients to be assessed by a team of experts in a new review. Of these, about 560 are children and 140 are adults. Another 100 adults and children who were treated as emergencies at the Cambridge hospital will have their care reviewed.
Many of the cases involving Stohr are linked to osteotomies — a surgical procedure where a bone is cut to reshape or realign bones such as those in the legs. Some families fear the operations were not performed correctly, with some children having to have multiple operations over several years. There are concerns about poor post-surgery follow-up and alleged delays in complications being recognised and treated.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Times, 5 April 2025
Patient Safety Learning
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