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

Private NHS provider hit by cyber attack

A major private provider of NHS services has been hit by a cyber attack, taking down its network and potentially breaching patient data.
HCRG Care Group, which was formerly Virgin Care, confirmed it was looking into claims made by a ransomware group that more than two terabytes of sensitive information had been breached.
HCRG provides community services for the NHS in Kent, Surrey and Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire.
An HCRG spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we are currently investigating an IT security incident and have recently identified a post on the dark web by a group claiming responsibility. Our team has not observed any suspicious activity since the implementation of immediate containment measures, and we are working with external forensic specialists to investigate the incident.
”We have informed the [Information Commissioner] and regulators and are keeping them updated on our investigation. Our services are continuing to operate and safely see patients, and those with appointments or who need to access our services should continue to do so.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 20 February 2025
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Trump’s aid cuts deny one million women a week access to contraception

On 20 January, USAID issued a blanket “stop-work” order to all of its partners, demanding that organisations cease operations. In early February, the Trump administration fired the majority of all 10,000-plus USAID workers, leaving around just 290 employees.
Though a US federal judge issued a temporary order to lift the aid freeze on 14 February, there is no clear evidence yet that programmes are back in action, with many hesitant to act under rapidly changing guidance.
USAID’s reach across the world cannot be overstated. Some 141 countries relied on some form of USAID in 2024, worth $42.5bn (£33.3bn) in 2023 (the last available year).
Around $600m each year of USAID funding has been spent on family planning; and now, the impact of its withdrawal is being felt worldwide.
For every week without USAID, nearly one million women and girls worldwide are denied contraceptive care, according to analysis from the Guttmacher Institute, a leading reproductive health policy organisation.
An average of 130,390 women received contraceptive care each day from US-funded programmes before the freeze.
As a result of the immediate stop-work order, some 912,730 women will not receive contraception each week; amounting to approximately 3.8 million women who are estimated to have already been denied contraceptive care since the freeze (between 20 January and 18 February).
Most of these programmes are in sub-Saharan Africa, with funding going to family planning in Mali, Niger, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and more.
But the withdrawal of USAID will impact all sectors of global health; not least maternal health, where USAID has been vital to healthcare infrastructure in many of these countries.
“Looking at the wider landscape in addition to family planning, when you take away maternal health services as well, which is what’s happening, there’s a cascading effect,” a USAID official explained.
With gaps in midwives, equipment, and pre- and post-natal care, the risk of maternal death is likely to increase, in addition to pregnancy complications.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 18 February 2025
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A critical hospital bed shortage could soon hit the US

Hospitals in the United States, already overflowing this winter amid what experts have deemed a “quademic” could face even more occupancy issues and — deadly consequences — within the next decade.
The nation is on track for a critical hospital bed shortage by 2032, researchers have said. The shortage is largely driven by a reduction of staffed hospital beds, potentially preventing life-saving care for patients.
“We’ve all heard about increased hospital occupancy during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but these findings show that hospitals are as full, if not more so, than they were during the pandemic, even well into 2024 during what would be considered a post-pandemic steady state,” Dr. Richard Leuchter, assistant professor of medicine at UCLA Health, said in a statement.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 19 February 2025
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USA: Louisiana halts mass vaccination efforts

The Louisiana Department of Health has terminated mass vaccination campaigns and barred public health workers from recommending seasonal vaccines, The Times-Picayune has reported.
1. Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham issued a memo to state health workers  that said medical decision-making should occur between patients and physicians, not public health workers. 
"Rather than instructing individuals to receive any and all vaccines, LDH staff should communicate data regarding the reduced risk of disease, hospitalization, and death associated with a vaccine and encourage individuals to discuss considerations for vaccination with their healthcare provider," he wrote in the directive, obtained by The Times-Picayune.
While the state's public health divisions will still stock vaccines, the department "will no longer promote mass vaccinations," the document said. 
Alongside his staff memo, Dr Abraham posted a public statement criticising state and federal officials' response to the pandemic, including vaccine mandates.
"For the past couple of decades, public health agencies at the state and federal level have viewed it as a primary role to push pharmaceutical products, particularly vaccines," he wrote. "Perhaps there are some treatments that every human being should take, but they are few and far between, and things that are good generally don't have to be pushed by the government. Medical decision-making is a zero-sum game: when outside forces get involved, patient autonomy is sacrificed."
Read full story
Source: Becker's Clinical Leadership, 14 February 2025
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Man dies at hospital after wrongly being fed jelly

An elderly man with swallowing difficulties died in hospital after he was wrongly fed jelly and choked.
Milton Keynes Coroner's Court heard that Edward Cassin, 67 should not have been given jelly as it turns to liquid in the mouth and causes choking with people with dysphagia.
Because of his dysphagia he was on a modified diet and required supervision when eating to mitigate the risk of choking.
Despite this, there was evidence he was repeatedly fed jelly - highlighted as a food he should not be given - through his stay in hospital.
He was not properly supervised and he aspirated.
He died four days later in Milton Keynes University Hospital on 28 June 2023 as he was waiting to be discharged to a new care home.
The trust said it had "made meaningful changes to policy and practice to prevent similar incidences happening in the future".
Assistant Coroner Sean Cummings recorded his medical cause of death as aspiration pneumonia, chronic dysphagia and type 2 diabetes.
He concluded his death was contributed to by neglect and if he had been treated for the developing aspiration pneumonia he would likely not have died at the time he did.
Caron Heyes, a director at Fieldfisher representing Eddie's family, said: "We were shocked that eight years after Public Health England issued clear guidelines about the dangers of feeding inpatients with dysphagia and learning disability, they are still not recognised in a major hospital."
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 20 February 2025
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NHSE steps up intervention over cancer delays

Two additional trusts have been placed in NHS England’s highest level of oversight for their performance on cancer and diagnostics.
West Suffolk Foundation Trust and University Hospitals Leicester (UHL) Foundation Trust have been moved into tier one of NHSE’s tiering frameworks on cancer and diagnostics.
The national body’s quarter four update, seen by HSJ, also shows:
A total of 17 trusts, some of the country’s biggest providers among them, are now in tier one for their performance on either cancer, diagnostics or electives. Five trusts are in tier one for all three: Mid and South Essex; Norwich and Norfolk; Shrewsbury and Telford; Sheffield Teaching Hospitals; and University Hospitals Sussex. Leeds Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, a major cancer centre, has been moved to tier two for its cancer performance. It was previously in tier one for cancer and electives. Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 20 February 2025
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England’s top doctors launch review to make postgraduate medical training ‘best in the world’

Two of England’s leading doctors are to oversee a significant review into postgraduate training for newly qualified medics.
National Medical Director Professor Sir Stephen Powis and Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty will lead the review as part of work to address concerns raised by resident doctors (previously known as junior doctors).
The review will be based on feedback from current resident doctors and students, locally employed doctors and medical educators, with a series of engagement events around the country starting from this month.
The review will cover placement options, the flexibility of training, difficulties with rotas, control and autonomy in training, and the balance between developing specialist knowledge and gaining a broad range of skills.
The national listening events in February and March will be followed by a call for evidence in the spring to ensure the widest possible range of views, experiences and ideas are captured. A report on the review’s findings is due to be published in the summer.
Read full story
Source: NHS England, 19 February 2025
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An invisible medical shortage: Oxygen

Oxygen is vital to many medical procedures. But a safe, affordable supply is severely lacking around the world, according to a new report.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of people in poor nations died literally gasping for breath, even in hospitals. What they lacked was medical oxygen, which is in short supply in much of the world.
On Monday, a panel of experts published a comprehensive report on the shortage. Each year, the report noted, more than 370 million people worldwide need oxygen as part of their medical care, but fewer than 1 in 3 receive it, jeopardising the health and lives of those who do not. Access to safe and affordable medical oxygen is especially limited in low- and middle-income nations.
“The need is very urgent,” said Dr. Hamish Graham, a pediatrician and a lead author of the report. “We know that there’s more epidemics coming, and there’ll be another pandemic, probably like Covid, within the next 15 to 20 years.”
The report, published in The Lancet Global Health, comes just weeks after the Trump administration froze foreign aid programmes, including some that could improve access to oxygen.
Boosting the availability of medical oxygen would require an investment of about $6.8 billion, the report noted. “Within the current climate, that’s obviously going to become a bit more of a challenge,” said Carina King, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute and a lead author of the report.
“We’re not pitting oxygen against other priorities, but rather that it should be embedded within all of those programs and within those priorities,” Dr. King said. “It’s completely fundamental to a functioning health system.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The New York Times, 17 February 2025
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USA: Trump casts psychiatric and weight-loss drugs as threats to children

President Donald Trump has instructed his administration to scrutinize the “threat” to children posed by antidepressants, stimulants and other common psychiatric drugs, targeting medication taken by millions in his latest challenge to long-standing medical practices.
The directive came in an executive order Thursday that established a “Make America Healthy Again” commission led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has criticized the use of those drugs and issued false claims about them.
The order said the commission should prepare a “Make Our Children Healthy Again” assessment within 100 days that examines “the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.” The directive comes as children and teens endure a mental health crisis exacerbated by the covid pandemic.
The medication review joins a slew of Trump administration policies upending the government’s approach to health, many of which are embroiled in legal challenges. They include attempts to remove vaccine information from health agency websites, to ban gender transition care for children and to cut billions in biomedical research funding.
Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the order follows concerns about doctors overprescribing the drugs and harming Americans of all ages. The president called for a review of prescription practices and use of the drugs to determine whether the government should offer new guidance on the medication.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Washington Post, 18 February 2025
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MP claims Yorkshire NHS Trust's leadership has 'gone rogue' in letter to Health Secretary

The leadership of a Yorkshire NHS trust have “gone rogue” with governance “in free fall”, a city MP has alleged in a letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
Bradford West MP Naz Shah, in a letter published in full on X to her 65,000 followers, has raised concerns about the running of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and called for the removal of chair Sarah Jones.
It comes after NHS England took enforcement action against the trust last summer following concerns raised by former chair Max Mclean, who resigned in October 2023 and is now pursuing a whistleblowing claim.
Reports said that since his resignation “there has been a subsequent deterioration in relationships between members of the board, including in relation to culture and behaviour, made by some members against others [which]... give rise to significant concerns as to how the board is operating”. It also warned the trust was on course to record a £14m financial deficit this year.
In her letter to Mr Streeting and NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard, Ms Shah said she has been raising “serious concerns” about the trust for 15 months and claimed there has been a “witch hunt” against governors who have raised concerns, with attempts to oust them.
Read full story
Source: The Yorkshire Post, 17 February 2025
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Cancer patients not getting right treatment, say doctors

Senior doctors responsible for monitoring cancer care in England and Wales are concerned failings in NHS services are contributing to up to half of patients not getting the right treatment for some cancers.
In evidence provided to the BBC, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NatCan), external highlighted particular problems with prostate, kidney and colon cancers.
The expert group said it had found significant variation between hospitals and warned the problems accessing nationally-recommended treatments were putting lives at risk.
It carries out audits across nine major cancers - responsible for 80% of cases - and has found shortfalls across a range of different cancer types and stages.
Figures shared with the BBC show:
30% of patients with high-risk prostate cancer do not get curative treatment with either surgery or radiotherapy, with performance varying between 20% and 43% across different services. 34% of stage three colon cancer cases do not get chemotherapy within three months of surgery – at some hospitals the numbers exceed 60%. 50% of stage four renal cell carcinoma patients, a type of kidney cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, do not get drug treatment – with performance varying between 20% and 85%. NatCan said while a minority of patients would be choosing not to have treatment themselves and others may not be well enough, that could not fully explain the scale of the shortfall or variation between hospitals.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 19 February 2025
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Life expectancy growth stalls across Europe as England sees sharpest decline, say researchers

Life expectancy improvement is stalling across Europe with England experiencing the biggest slowdown. Experts are blaming this on an alarming mix of poor diet, mass inactivity and soaring obesity.
The average annual growth in life expectancy across the continent fell from 0.23 years between 1990 and 2011 to 0.15 years between 2011 and 2019, according to research published in the Lancet Public Health journal. Of the 20 countries studied, every one apart from Norway saw life expectancy growth fall.
England suffered the largest decline in life expectancy improvement, with a fall in average annual improvement of 0.18 years, from 0.25 between 1990 and 2011 to 0.07 between 2011 and 2019.
The second slowdown of life expectancy growth in Europe was in Northern Ireland (reducing by 0.16 years), followed by Wales and Scotland (both falling by 0.15 years).
Sarah Price, NHS England’s director of public health, said: “This important study reinforces that prevention is the cornerstone of a healthier society, and is exactly why it will be such a key part of the 10-year health plan which we are working with [the] government on.
“The slowdown in life expectancy improvements, particularly due to cardiovascular disease and cancer, highlights the urgent need for stronger action on the root causes – poor diet, physical inactivity, and obesity.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 18 February 2025
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“Life-changing” services marks milestone of care

A mum-of-four has praised a hospital-at-home service – hailing it as a “life changing miracle” for her family.
Maria Hicklin, whose two young sons Roman, aged seven, and Ricco, aged two, have both battled respiratory conditions, knows firsthand the benefits of the Paediatric Virtual Ward delivered at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust.
The service has treated over 2,000 children with 143 of these being via direct access to the virtual ward, effectively saving 3,800 bed days and making a cost saving of over £1.7 million.
Maria, from Oldbury, explained how it has helped her two boys: “The virtual ward service has transformed our experience and saved us money. We’ve had minimal hospital admissions and the medical team provides home visits, monitoring equipment, and offers continuous support.
“They’ve even helped build my confidence in administering medication. The team comes out within an hour if we need help, and they know the boys by name. Roman and Ricco are now comfortable and less anxious about their medical conditions.
“It’s a stark change from previous winters. Every cold and flu season, we were constantly rushing to A&E. It was destroying our family. 
“Roman is also autistic, and this made hospital visits even more traumatic. He wouldn’t eat hospital food, and the constant needles and medical procedures were overwhelming for him.”
NHS England introduced virtual wards to allow patients to get hospital-level care at home safely and in familiar surroundings, helping speed up their recovery while freeing up hospital beds for patients that need them most.
Dr Maria Atkinson, Consultant Paediatrician, said: “Our virtual ward allows us to provide acute medical care directly in patients’ homes, reducing the stress of hospital admissions and keeping families together during challenging medical periods.
“Roman has had a particularly challenging medical journey, having first contracted COVID-19 and then developed severe asthma and pneumonia, leading to repeated hospital visits. His younger brother Ricco suffers from viral-induced wheeziness, which added to the family’s medical challenges.
“This isn’t just about saving money. We’re providing personalised, compassionate care that keeps children in their home environment through admission avoidance, and by facilitating a reduced length of hospital stay this can support the entire family.”
Read full story
Source: NHS Sandwell and West Birmingham, 6 February 2025
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USA: Why states are tackling physicians’ concerns about mental health treatment

Medical doctors face higher rates of burnout and depression than the general population and are twice as likely to die by suicide. The risks were magnified at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, but the problem existed long before that.
More than 40% of physicians, medical school students and residents cite fear of disclosure requirements on licensure forms as a main reason they don’t seek mental health care, according to the American Medical Association (AMA), which has been pushing for legislative and regulatory changes.
More states and health systems are amending licensure and credentialing forms to remove mental-health-related questions, such as asking about whether a doctor sought mental health care or treatment, or received a mental health diagnosis. Others have codified such changes into state law.
The rationale for asking about mental health was to ensure patient safety. The AMA says safety can be addressed with general language that asks whether a physician is suffering from any impairment that could interfere with patient care.
“Having any past diagnosis of a mental health need or a substance use problem is often not relevant,” said AMA President Jesse Ehrenfeld. “The key inquiry ought to be whether the impairment represents a current concern for safety and the physician’s ability to provide competent professional care.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Washington Post, 18 February 2025
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USA: Trump’s firings strike the nation’s health agencies

The United State's health agencies were upended over the weekend by a confusing, slow-motion rollout of terminations that left staff worried about the future of various projects, including those to improve maternal health, discover new cancer treatments and provide help for 9/11 responders.
Several thousand probationary employees across the Department of Health and Human Services were notified they would be terminated after four weeks of leave — fired in what some are calling a “Valentine’s Day massacre.” The termination notices, which arrived over the weekend, capped a chaotic week of speculation about when the cuts would come and who would be affected.
The terminations had a swift impact. The Food and Drug Administration’s top food official resigned Monday, citing the “indiscriminate firing” of 89 staff members from the agency’s food program and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s rhetoric toward staff.
Overall, several thousand people from the more than 80,000 workers employed at HHS agencies were told they were terminated. All were probationary, meaning they had just a year or two on the job or had recently been promoted. Many worked on issues critical to consumers, such as improving health care, regulating food packaging or responding to infectious-disease outbreaks.
In interviews, they described a bewildering process that often required them to inform their own bosses they had been terminated.
The cuts swept across health agencies such as an emergency preparedness office, the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and more. Patient advocacy groups — as well as current and former employees — expressed deep alarm over the cuts.
“The cumulative effects of threatened cuts to federal health research funding and forced departures at our nation’s premier health agencies will put our global leadership and our nation’s health at risk,” a coalition of patient groups, including the Friends of Cancer Research and the American Diabetes Association, wrote in a joint statement.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Washington Post, 18 February 2025
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Almost 1 in 10 may have Long Covid, research finds

Almost one in 10 people in England think they could have long Covid, according to analysis of national data.
University of Southampton researchers examined information collected by NHS England that showed 4.8% of people reported having the condition.
The analysis of more than 750,000 responses to the GP Patient Survey also found that 9.1% of people believe they may have long Covid.
Long Covid is a chronic condition induced by Covid-19 infection, with symptoms including fatigue, feeling short of breath, brain fog, and heart palpitations.
The information also shows higher rates of long Covid in deprived areas and people with particular ethnic backgrounds, parents, carers and those with another long-term condition.
Professor Nisreen Alwan, who co-authored the study, said the analysis "adds further evidence of the unfairness of long Covid", with people who are "already disadvantaged in society more likely to be affected".
"It also shows us that many people aren't sure if they have it, and may need diagnosis, treatment and support."
He said the condition was "still a very significant issue impacting individuals, families, the economy and wider society".
"We need to do more to prevent it, diagnose it, and properly support people who are affected by it," he added.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 18 March 2025
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