Skip to content

News

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

Hundreds of UK care home deaths not added to official coronavirus toll

Hundreds of people are dying in care homes from confirmed or suspected coronavirus without yet being officially counted, the Guardian has learned.
More than 120 residents of the UK’s largest charitable provider of care homes are thought to have died from the virus in the last three weeks, while another network of care homes is reported to have recorded 88 deaths.
Care England, the industry body, estimated that the death toll is likely to be close to 1,000, despite the only available official figure for care home fatalities being dramatically lower.
The gulf in the figures has prompted warnings that ministers are underestimating the impact of Covid-19 on society’s most frail, and are failing to sufficiently help besieged care homes and workers.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 7 April 2020
 
 
Sam

'Our hospitals weren't made to use this much oxygen'

Shortages are dogging the fight against the coronavirus. At Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) it's still only possible to test six staff for the virus per day, consultants have been making their own personal protective equipment, and there's an urgent need to save oxygen.
Searching for ways round the problem, Dr Tom has been working with Leeds University on a 3D-printed valve that could be attached to the hospital's ventilators to reduce the amount of oxygen they use.
But he also began looking at CPAP machines used to treat sleep apnoea at home. These maintain air at a continuous pressure, inside a mask, to keep the user's airways open - they have to be repurposed to provide oxygen for use in the hospital, but they use much less of it than standard hospital ventilators.
They said, 'Yes we've got 2,000, how many do you want?''' he says. "And so our plan is to start with 100 and to see whether, if we use these early enough during a patient's stay, we can prevent people deteriorating and needing to go on to the more complex ventilators, and needing to come to the intensive care unit."
We've been testing them over the weekend, and there's evidence from China and from the US that they seem effective. They just help inflate your lungs and that seems to be beneficial.
They are also very simple, which means that there's no need for a huge amount of training.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 7 April 2020
 
Sam

Intensive care doctors question 'overly aggressive' use of ventilators in coronavirus crisis

Doctors seeing patients with blood oxygen levels so low they are surprised they are conscious – yet they are sitting up and talking.
British and American intensive care doctors at the front line of the coronavirus crisis are starting to question the aggressive use of ventilators for the treatment of patients. 
In many cases, they say the machines – which are highly invasive and require the patient to be rendered unconscious – are being used too early and may cause more harm than good. Instead they are finding that less invasive forms of oxygen treatment through face masks or nasal cannulas work better for patients, even those with very low blood oxygen readings.
Dr Ron Daniels, a consultant in critical care at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, on Thursday confirmed reports from US medics that he and other NHS doctors were revising their view of when ventilators should be used. 
Read full story
Source: The Telegraph, 9 April 2020
 
Sam

Coronavirus: NHS workers' lives at risk over PPE shortages, says BMA

NHS staff still do not have the protective equipment they need to treat coronavirus patients, medics have said.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said doctors were putting their lives at risk by working without adequate protection.
It comes as the health secretary said 19 NHS workers had died with coronavirus since the outbreak began.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 11 April 2020
Sam

80% of coronavirus patients on ventilators in New York die

Eight in ten coronavirus patients placed on ventilators in New York City have died, according to officials.
New York state has recorded more cases than any country other than America itself. The tally rose by 10,000 in 24 hours to 159,937, ahead of Spain and Italy, which at different times have reported the most infections in the world. The US, which now holds the position, had 463,433 confirmed cases yesterday and the national death toll was 16,504.
Read full story
Source: The Times. 10 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

For survivors of severe COVID-19, beating the virus is just the beginning

The next few months will be full of grim updates about the spread of the new coronavirus, but they will also be full of homecomings. Patients hospitalised with severe COVID-19, some having spent weeks breathing with the help of a mechanical ventilator, will set about resuming their lives.
Many will likely deal with lingering effects of the virus — and of the emergency treatments that allowed them to survive it.
“The issue we’re all going to be faced with the most in the coming months is how we’re going to help these people recover,” says Lauren Ferrante, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Yale School of Medicine.
Hospital practices that keep patients as lucid and mobile as possible, even in the throes of their illness, could improve their long-term odds. But many intensive care unit doctors say the pandemic’s strain on hospitals and the infectious nature of the virus are making it hard to stick to some of those practices.
Read full story
Source: Science, 8 April 2020
Sam

Coronavirus: What's happening in UK care homes right now is a scandal our grandchildren will ask about

Once COVID-19 seeps into care homes, it is a monumentally difficult job to protect the residents, writes Sky's Alex Crawford.
We will look back at this appalling, tragic episode in our global history, and our children and grandchildren will ask us: "Did that really happen? Did you really leave the most vulnerable of our society - the elderly, the infirm, the defenceless, the muddled, sick and weak - in care homes, shut away from their closest relatives? Did you leave them to be ravaged by a deadly virus, and do very little to help them?"
Because that is what's happening right now. There are elderly people - many with Alzheimer's, many with dementia, many frail - in thousands of residential homes up and down Britain, and they are very much at risk.
Read full story
Source: Sky News, 11 Aril 2020
Patient Safety Learning

Coronavirus: 'Difficult' cancer care decisions taken

Cancer doctors say difficult decisions are having to be made to postpone some patients' care during the coronavirus crisis.
Some treatments such as chemotherapy can weaken the immune system, and potentially put patients at greater risk from COVID-19. Some of those affected have been expressing concern.
Roisin Pelan is 38 and lives in Lancashire. She has incurable breast cancer and had been taking chemotherapy tablets every day. Every three months she also visits the hospital to receive the drug intravenously. Last month she was told her chemotherapy treatment would be stopped for 12 weeks.
"It's terrifying they've stopped treatment that I know is keeping me alive," she says.
"To have that taken away is just unbearable. How do we know it's only going to be 12 weeks? This pandemic could go on a lot longer."
NHS England has told trusts that all essential and urgent cancer treatments must continue but specialists should discuss with patients whether it is riskier for them to undergo it or delay.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 13 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

One in 10 hospital nurses absent due to coronavirus

One in 10 nurses working in acute hospitals are off work due to coronavirus, according to internal NHS figures seen by HSJ.
Internal NHS figures from the COVID-19 national operational dashboard state that, on Saturday, English acute trusts reported that 41,038 nurses and midwives were absent . 28,063 (68%) were COVID-19 related. The total nursing and midwifery headcount in acute trusts is about 280,000 — meaning roughly 10% are off on covid-related absence.
There are ongoing complaints from staff about their access to COVID-19 tests — which, it is hoped, will hope reduce the absence rates from suspected cases — while national officials say these are now being made available.
Read full story
Source: HSJ, 14 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

GPs tell patients to buy their own oxygen as NHS supplies run low

GPs are advising patients with respiratory diseases to buy oxygen privately amid shortages of the gas across the NHS.
Last week hospitals were warned to urgently consider limiting how many patients were given oxygen simultaneously.
Hospitals usually have a pipeline to pump liquid oxygen from a central store to the wards, but most do not have the capacity to meet the demand from the number of patients they are treating with COVID-19.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Times, 12 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

Patients with abscesses and other dangerous conditions are being left at risk as dental surgeries go bust

Millions of patients face being left without a dentist as one in five practices are on the brink of collapse this month.
A sharp loss of income since the government banned all routine dental care during the coronavirus crisis has crippled practices, with many poised to close permanently. Some have already been forced out of business.
A British Dental Association (BDA) survey of 2,800 practices found 71.5% said they could stay “financially sustainable” for only three months at the most. More than one in five, 20.4%, said they would not survive beyond April. Mick Armstrong, who chairs the association, said: “Practices are weeks from a cliff edge. Without meaningful support, the nation’s dental services face decimation.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Times, 12 Aril 2020
Patient Safety Learning

Coronavirus: More tests promised for care homes

All care home residents and staff with COVID-19 symptoms will be tested for coronavirus as laboratory capacity increases, the government has promised.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was "determined" to ensure everyone who needed a test had access to one. 
Care providers have been calling for more testing for weeks, with charities saying the virus is "running wild" amid outbreaks at more than 2,000 homes. At the moment only the first five residents who show symptoms in a care home are tested, to determine whether there is an outbreak of the virus.
Providers have also complained that deaths among residents were being "airbrushed" out of official figures and demanded greater support for the industry.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 15 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

Private hospital threatens nurses refusing to treat COVID-19 patients

Nurses at a hospital run by a major private healthcare provider have been threatened with disciplinary action after apparently refusing to treat coronavirus patients, according to a leaked email seen by HSJ.
The email was sent on Sunday by a senior matron at Nuffield Health’s Cheltenham Hospital, which has been made available to the NHS during the COVID-19 outbreak.
She said: “I’m hoping to get another undisturbed day as I’m going to have to formally take on everyone who won’t help on the C19 side."
“Unfortunately, it will be a disciplinary matter and referral to the [Nursing and Midwifery Council]. I really don’t want to go down that route but they’re giving me little choice.”
It is not clear why staff had refused to help with COVID-19 work, but one staff member who spoke with HSJ said nurses had objected to working without personal protective equipment.
A spokesman for Nuffield Health said: “We can categorically state that we have been provided with a full supply of PPE from the local NHS trust so that all members of the team are protected when they treat COVID-19 patients. The team has also been given the appropriate training to ensure they can carry out their roles safely.”
Read full story
Source: HSJ, 14 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

Game-changing ventilators have yet to be given approval by medical regulator

None of the new life-saving mechanical ventilators ordered last month to cope with the increase in coronavirus patients has so far been awarded safety approval.
Models by manufacturers such as Dyson have yet to get the green light from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the Financial Times reported.
It comes a month after the Government issued a rallying cry to put non-medical manufacturers such as Dyson on a "war footing" to make additional machines.
The lag is thought to be due in part to changing clinical understanding of how best to manage the virus.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Times, 14 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

Why is coronavirus killing so many more people in the UK than in Ireland?

In March, while the UK delayed, Ireland acted. For many this may prove to have been the difference between life and death.
The choices our governments have made in the last month have profoundly shaped what risks we, as citizens, are exposed to during the course of this pandemic. Those choices have, to a large extent, determined how many of us will die.
At the time of writing, 365 people have died in Ireland of COVID-19 and 11,329 have died in the UK. Adjusted for population, there have been 7.4 deaths in Ireland for every 100,000 people. In the UK, there have been 17 deaths per 100,000. In other words, people are dying of coronavirus in the UK at more than twice the rate they are dying in Ireland.
In her article, Elaine Doyle explores why this might be.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 14 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning

World will face a mental health crisis after coronavirus pandemic, experts warn

The world is likely to face a global crisis in poor mental health after the coronavirus pandemic has passed, experts have warned.
Two dozen mental health scientists including neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and public health experts have warned of the long-term impact of the virus on people’s mental health and demanded governments prioritise research to come up with evidence-based treatments.
They also called for real-time monitoring of mental health in the UK and across the world in order to gauge the severity of the expected increase in poor mental wellbeing.
Their warning, in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, comes as a new Ipsos Mori survey carried out at the end of March revealed people’s mental health was already being affected by the UK lockdown and self-isolation policy.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 16 April 2020
Patient Safety Learning
Registered address: Patient Safety Learning, China Works SB203, 100 Black Prince Road Vauxhall, London, SE1 7SJ

Account

Navigation

Search

Search

Configure browser push notifications
Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.