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

Data watchdog demands answers on Palantir patient data access

The national patient data watchdog has said it will investigate how Palantir staff came to have access to identifiable patient data in the federated data platform, despite previous assurances that this would not be the case.
In a statement published yesterday afternoon by the National Data Guardian (NDG), Nicola Byrne said the watchdog would “seek clarification” over why it was not previously informed that external contractors would be able to view identifiable patient data.
Reports emerged last month that staff from companies working on the FDP, including Palantir, would be granted “unlimited access” to identifiable patient data through the National Data Integration Tenant environment. This is where NHS organisations will submit raw data before identifying features are removed or pseudonymised.
In this week’s statement, Dr Byrne said there has been “subsequent confirmation from the [FDP] programme team that some external contractor staff also have access to identifiable patient information”.
The NDG is an independent adviser to the government and the health service and has no statutory investigatory or enforcement powers. The watchdog said: “We need to be confident that the positions presented to us are accurate, consistent, and clearly reflected in public-facing transparency materials. We have also emphasised the need for timely engagement with the NDG whenever significant programme decisions change in ways that may affect public trust, as in this case.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 4 June 2026
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Baby sling safety warning as experts urge better guidance for new parents

New parents require enhanced guidance on the safe use of baby slings, according to new research.
Baby sleep experts at Durham University are advocating for improved education for parents, both pre-purchase and at the point of sale.
A survey of 1,470 parents with infants under one year old revealed that nearly nine out of ten acquired their sling or carrier online.
Of these, a mere three per cent received assistance from a virtual sales assistant or chat function, highlighting a significant gap in direct support.
Researchers stress the need for more accessible and comprehensive safety information to prevent potential misuse. The survey found that even experienced parents had difficulty with positioning the baby in a sling, creating comfort for the carrier and securing the infant safely.
Unsafe use of baby slings has been linked to accidental deaths from suffocation or falls.
In 2023, six-week-old James Alderman died in a carrier during hands-free breastfeeding, leading a coroner to issue a warning.
With incorrect sling or carrier fitting, a baby’s nose or mouth can be pressed against the parent’s body or blocked by fabric. In other cases, the baby can slump down in the carrier and their windpipe can become pinched.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 4 June 2026
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Hospitals in England ranking highly for empathy ‘have better patient outcomes’

Patients and staff fare better at hospitals that rank highly on empathy, research suggests, with institutions also benefiting financially by spending less on agency staff, locums and consultants.
The finding comes from the first study to rate NHS trusts in England according to an empathy score that is drawn from information on the organisation’s culture, leadership behaviour and practitioner empathy, among other factors.
The report found that even modest increases in a trust’s overall empathy score were associated with widespread benefits, such as a better chance of the trust holding a “good” or “outstanding” rating for effectiveness and patient safety by the Care Quality Commission, the health and social care services regulator.
Small improvements in empathy were also linked to better staff wellbeing, with higher scoring trusts reporting less burnout and absenteeism than those that scored lower. Expenditure on agency staff and external consultants was also lower in trusts with higher empathy ratings, the researchers found.
“More empathic organisations have better patient outcomes, staff wellbeing and financial bottom lines,” said Prof Jeremy Howick at the University of Leicester, the study’s lead author. “Empathy helps patients because they feel listened to. If you’re not listening to the patient, or they don’t feel able to share all their symptoms, you won’t understand what they are going through and you cannot make an accurate diagnosis.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 4 June 2026
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CQC gets caretaker chair after ‘regrettable’ delay

An interim chair has been appointed to the Care Quality Commission, which has bemoaned a “regrettable” delay in recruiting a permanent successor.
Non-executive director Kay Boycott will take on the role from 1 June until 31 July unless a substantive chair is appointed earlier.
At Care Quality Commission’s board meeting on Wednesday, Ms Boycott said the new health secretary, James Murray, had not yet put forward his preferred candidate for the position. That person will also need to go before MPs at the Commons’ health and social care committee before appointment.
She said the continued delay was “regrettable”.
Sir Mike Richards announced he would be retiring in February, but at the time said he would stay until a replacement chair was in place.  
However, Ms Boycott said Sir Mike had decided to step down for “personal reasons” at the end of last month, after the process took longer than expected.
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Source: HSJ, 3 June 2026
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Midwives ‘awake for 24hrs’ at under-fire maternity unit

A maternity service has been given a “good” rating by the Care Quality Commission, despite inspectors finding midwives being asked to work back-to-back shifts with no sleep breaks.
The report published today rates both of Oxford University Hospitals’ units – at the John Radcliffe Hospital and the Horton General Hospital – as “good” overall.
This is despite its finding several safety concerns at the main site, John Radcliffe.
OUH is also one of 12 trusts under examination by a government-commissioned maternity review, amid concerns raised by campaigners about standards and traumatic births. 
On a visit in October, Care Quality Comission inspectors found seven breaches of four of its “fundamental standards” at the John Radcliffe, and rated it “requires improvement” for safety.
Inspectors found inadequate staffing levels and unsafe working hours.
They reported: “Community staff raised concerns about the on-call system because there were times when they were called to work a 12-hour night shift after working a day shift.
“Managers redeployed community staff to backfill hospital shifts overnight during busy periods. Which resulted in extended periods without rest. Staff told us this meant they were awake for more than 24 hours, which they felt impacted their wellbeing and patient safety.”
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Source: HSJ, 4 June 2026
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‘We don’t know if patients are alive or dead’: NHS whistleblower warns East London hospital IT failures could cost lives

A senior clinician at an east London NHS trust has told LBC News that patients have already come to harm because of serious failures linked to a new electronic patient record system — including one case where a patient is said to have died after a referral was missed.
The whistleblower, who works at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and asked not to be named, alleged a patient with Covid, who also had cancer, died while waiting for a haematology referral after the request was not received by the department.
The clinician said the problems have left staff “in tears”, caused missed referrals, delayed diagnoses, and created what they described as “chaos” across the organisation.
They told LBC they were speaking out because they were “very, very worried for patient safety”.
“It’s keeping me up at night,” they said. “We can’t deliver the service we want to for our patients, and I feel that we’re not being heard.”
The senior clinician, who has worked in the NHS for several decades, said serious issues emerged after the Trust rolled out its electronic patient record system late last year.
They alleged referrals were not always reaching the right teams, staff were struggling with missing or unreliable patient information, and serious findings were not always being escalated properly.
“I think we are talking thousands of patients. I think we are talking about patient deaths," the whistleblower warned.
“It will take some time for those to be revealed, the impact that it’s had.”
Read full story
Source: LBC News, 27 May 2026
 
Patient Safety Learning

1 in 5 American adolescents have gone to an AI chatbot for mental health guidance

Would you trust an AI chatbot to be your therapist, medical professional or confidante? New research shows that one in five American adolescents between the ages of 12-21 (around 8.2 million) are turning to Big AI’s chatbots for help with their mental health.
That marks a more than 40% increase in the past year, rising from just one in eight the previous year, a 1,009-person survey from the non-profit research institute RAND found.
The findings may not come as that much of a shock following the rise of chatbot use in schools and data showing that nearly half of U.S. teens used the platform multiple times each month.
Still, they raise many questions about the impact of asking AI for mental health guidance.
Mental health among U.S. teenagers has been at crisis levels in recent years, and suicide is the second leading cause of death for that age group, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
AI chatbots have also been involved in investigations of the deaths of several U.S. teenagers who died by suicide, according to reports.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 2 June 2026
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More Brits going abroad for leg-lengthening surgery to get taller – but it comes with ‘serious complications’

British surgeons have issued a stark warning regarding individuals travelling overseas for leg-lengthening procedures, highlighting the significant burden placed on the NHS.
Hospitals across the UK are increasingly encountering patients who require extensive follow-up care, including complex corrective surgery, intensive physiotherapy, and long-term rehabilitation, following operations performed abroad.
Experts have detailed the "challenging" complications observed, such as implant failure, inadequate bone healing, and severe limb deformities.
This alert comes as MPs are set to debate medical tourism, alongside other cosmetic procedures like liquid Brazilian butt lifts, in a committee hearing this week.
The Royal College of Surgeons of England noted that these findings underscore a growing trend of patients seeking surgical and cosmetic treatments outside the UK.
A study led by specialist limb reconstruction surgeons at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust calculated that addressing complications from just seven such cases has already cost the NHS over £36,000, with warnings that the true financial impact is likely far greater.
Writing in the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the team said they had seen a “recent increase in patients presenting for rehabilitation and treatment of complications following limb lengthening”, such as implant failure, poor bone healing and severe joint stiffness.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 3 June 2026
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Thousands more UK black men to be invited for prostate cancer screening

Thousands more black men will be invited to take part in a prostate cancer screening trial as the health secretary insisted he was “following the science” in not backing population-wide testing.
James Murray accepted a recommendation from the UK national screening committee (UKNSC) that will result in only a few thousand high-risk men with a gene mutation being screened for the disease.
However, he announced funding to expand the Transform trial, which is exploring the best ways to test for the disease, to ensure it includes more black men.
Prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease in the UK, with more than 64,000 men diagnosed every year.
Last week, the UKNSC recommended against screening all men using the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test, saying it was “likely to cause more harm than good”.
Instead, men with BRCA2 genetic mutations – which puts them at far higher risk – will be tested every two years between the ages of 45 and 61 if they have a family history of breast, ovarian, pancreatic or prostate cancers.
Dr Ian Walker, director of policy at Cancer Research UK, said the decision would be “disappointing for some” but was in line with evidence as there was some debate over the reliability of the PSA test.
The UKNSC also recommended against screening for other at-risk groups, including black men, saying there is “ongoing uncertainty on whether screening would cause more good than harm”.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 3 June 2026
Patient Safety Learning

GPs in England too ‘overloaded’ to help older people at risk of falling, say MPs

GPs in England are so “overloaded” that they cannot help older people who are at risk of falling in what NHS bosses accept is an unacceptable failure of care, the House of Commons’ public accounts committee has said.
Pressure on GPs’ time has intensified as a result of the government’s decision to give patients online access to their services, according to a report by the influential cross-party group of MPs.
The committee found that GPs are doing too little to tackle falls even though they are the most common cause of death from injury among over-65s, cause tens of thousands of hip fractures, add to hospitals’ workloads and cost the UK an estimated £4.4bn a year.
Family doctors in England are obliged under the terms of their contract to identify, assess and support people over 65 with moderate or severe frailty. However, “many GPs are not currently able to deliver on these requirements”. During 2024/25 just 17% of those patients were assessed.
Only 18% of the 226,000 people who were diagnosed with severe frailty that year were assessed for their risk of falling and only 16% underwent a review of the medication they were taking.
Prof Victoria Tzortziou Brown, the president of the Royal College of GPs, said the report vindicated its warnings that “prioritising online access to our services without equal focus on continuity and proactive care may have unintended consequences for other areas of care, and risks disadvantaging some of our most vulnerable patients.
“While most GP practices will always try to offer their older patients the time they need, this is increasingly challenging against a backdrop of intense workloads and workforce pressures while also responding to increasing demand and policy requirements to improve access.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 3 June 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Substandard dialysis did not kill patients, says trust

A decision to provide substandard dialysis treatment due to “exceptional” capacity pressure was not responsible for high mortality discovered among the service’s patients, a trust has claimed.
HSJ has discovered internal reports from East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust that acknowledge it saw “increased mortality” after it began putting “significant numbers” of patients on two-weekly treatments rather than the standard three. The increased death rate was particularly seen among sicker patients.
Twice-weekly dialysis is often used in low and middle-income countries where resources are limited. In the UK it has become more common but is usually used in a limited way as patients step up to three sessions, and with close monitoring.
But the East Kent documents, released to HSJ under the Freedom of Information Act, show it discovered that a “significant number of patients” had been put on twice-weekly dialysis “long term”, in one case for more than a year, “due to capacity issues”. 
A renal deep dive report, considered by a trust committee, questioned whether the service did enough to assess “dialysis adequacy” and to review the risks and benefits of the changes.
The trust had not been measuring patients’ residual kidney function, and there was variability in how often they were reviewed by consultants.
It has also emerged that NHS England launched a review of the service in 2024 over concerns about its “quality, safety and sustainability”. It was found to be an outlier for deaths within a year of patients starting dialysis or transplantation, in data UK Renal Registry data covering 2018-22. At the time, it was struggling to dialyse all the patients who needed it, with some having to go outside the county.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 2 June 2026
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33,000 patients had data stolen in trust cyber attack

A hospital provider has admitted that confidential patient information relating to almost 33,000 of its patients was stolen and shared on the dark web, two years after the cyberattack took place.
Bedfordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust sent a notice to patients on Monday after being informed by pathology systems provider Synnovis that data relating to approximately 32,927 individuals was affected.
The high-profile ransomware attack happened in June 2024, causing widespread disruption and shutting down IT systems. It primarily affected providers in south east London, which used the software for its pathology services.
However, Bedfordshire FT has only now revealed to patients it was also affected, because the trust said a lengthy review had been required to establish precisely which data had been compromised.
Historic tests carried out before November 2020 may have been affected, including names, dates of birth, patient numbers, NHS numbers, postcode, and test results going back nine years. 
The trust said files taken were not organised as a single database and were “highly unstructured, incomplete and fragmented”, and it had taken over a year of detailed analysis by specialist teams to reconstruct and understand what information was present, and which organisations it related to.
As a result, personal data within the files is fragmented, incomplete, and dispersed across multiple documents, the trust said.
Bedfordshire FT said Synnovis “provided essential services to us” and that during the attack, criminals “unlawfully accessed internal systems and extracted a set of files, which were later published on online forums known for sharing stolen data”.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 2 June 2026
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Three Ebola vaccines in development amid growing outbreak fears in Africa

Three new vaccines are being developed to tackle the rare species of Ebola that has already killed nearly 250 people.
The International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which is working on one vaccine, said the outbreak was threatening to be the worst ever.
The University of Oxford and the pharma company Moderna are also researching vaccines against the Bundibugyo species.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which is providing funding to each group, said "every day counts".
There are now more than 1,000 suspected cases in the DR Congo with nine confirmed cases in neighbouring Uganda.
There is growing concern this outbreak – which was detected only after it had spread in a conflict zone with limited healthcare resources – could reach the size of the largest ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-16. Then, nearly 29,000 people were infected and more than 11,000 died.
Dr Mark Feinberg, head of IAVI, said: "I think this is clearly threatening to be as severe an outbreak as that, if not even worse, and development of a vaccine, and other countermeasures, is clearly a priority."
It echoes concerns from the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which said the situation was "deeply alarming" and never before had "so many cases" been recorded so soon.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 1 June 2026
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Millions of breast cancer patients could safely avoid chemotherapy, study suggests

Millions of people with breast cancer could safely avoid chemotherapy as scientists have developed a DNA test that can distinguish between patients who are likely to benefit from the treatment and those who are not, according to trial results.
The international study found that more than two-thirds of its participants could be spared the side of effects of chemotherapy and treated with hormone therapy alone.
Chemotherapy can cause fatigue, nausea, hair loss, a weakened immune system and fertility issues.
The study, led by University College London (UCL), involved more than 4,000 newly diagnosed patients over the age of 40 in the UK, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand.
The primary treatment for breast cancer is usually surgery to remove tumours. Chemotherapy is often recommended afterwards to diminish the risk of return.
It is also regularly offered to people with early-stage breast cancer that has spread to the nearby lymph nodes.
Clinicians are concerned the treatment provides little benefit to those with the most common type of breast cancer, UCL said.
The university said more than 5,000 NHS patients a year could avoid chemotherapy as a result of the trial.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 30 May 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Weight loss drugs could widen health inequalities, experts warn

Weight loss jabs are transforming obesity treatment, but without access to affordable healthy food and ongoing support they could widen health inequalities in the UK, experts have warned.
The injections, also known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, are taken by an estimated 2.4 million Britons and work by mimicking the natural hormone which regulates blood sugar, appetite and digestion.
Although drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro have transformed weight-loss treatment, researchers at Cambridge University and University College London (UCL) have argued that their long-term benefits depend on diet, exercise and healthcare support.
“We have highlighted that obesity treatment is not just a medical issue, but a social and structural one. Without integrated dietary support and attention to food affordability, these medications could deepen existing health inequalities,” Dr Adrian Brown at UCL Medicine said.
“The key message is clear: these treatments are powerful, but their long-term public health impact will depend on whether the right support systems are in place to ensure equitable and safe access for all patients,” he added.
The report, published in the journal Nature Medicine, warned that healthier diets are often more expensive, and on top of the cost of weight-loss jabs, are unaffordable for many.
Dr Marie Spreckley from Cambridge University said: “The key question is not simply who can access these medications, but who can benefit from them in the long term. If access to healthy food, nutrition support and ongoing care is uneven, there is a risk that the benefits of these treatments will also be uneven.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 1 June 2026
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Lab fault sees hundreds fast-tracked for unnecessary cancer tests

More than 1,300 patients were referred for urgent bowel cancer investigations they may not have needed after a calibration error at a shared NHS pathology service.
South West London Pathology identified a processing error affecting fecal immunochemical test (FIT) results, meaning results were five times higher than they should have been between 27 December 2025 and 4 March 2026.
Of the 17,000 FITs processed during that period, 4,223 returned incorrect results.
A total of 1,326 patients were subsequently placed on the two-week wait urgent cancer referral pathway and may have undergone a colonoscopy or CT colonoscopy, which they did not need.
The error occurred after a unit conversion process – used to translate results into the format used by UK GPs – stopped being applied for a period of time. HSJ understands this was due to human error rather than a technical fault.
16 NHS trusts and one integrated care board spanning London and Surrey had patients referred, with 281 GP practices having registered patients impacted by the incident.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 2 June 2026
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