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

Medicines watchdog to investigate UK peptide clinics over health claims

The medicines regulator is investigating whether UK clinics are breaking the law by making claims about the benefits of unregulated, experimental peptide therapies, the Guardian can reveal.
Interest in experimental peptides has boomed in recent years. The substances are delivered by injection and are touted by sellers, influencers and even some medics as aiding everything from anti-ageing to recovery from injury.
There is little scientific evidence to support such health and wellness claims in humans. Where studies have been carried out, most are in animals or cells.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said clinics are not permitted to make medicinal claims for the peptide treatments offered by their service.
An MHRA spokesperson said: “If clinics offering peptide injections make medicinal claims for those treatments, the products will be considered medicines and subject to regulation under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.
“The MHRA will take action against clinics which are identified as breaching the legal requirements.”
However, a Guardian investigation has found a number of clinics operating in the UK offering a variety of unregulated, experimental peptides and making a host of claims about their benefits on their websites.
These include approved prescription weight-loss medications based on synthetic peptides that mimic natural hormones, such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, found in weight loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro respectively. But many other peptides on the market have not undergone the strict regulatory processing that those used in medications have undergone, and remain experimental.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 4 April 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Key stroke treatment still not available around the clock across England

The NHS has not made a “life-changing” treatment for stroke available around the clock across England despite ministers repeatedly promising that it would.
The health service was expected to improve stroke care by making a clot removal technique called mechanical thrombectomy available everywhere in the country 24/7 from 1 April.
Doctors describe it as a gamechanging intervention that, if done quickly, can help someone who has had a severe stroke avoid ending up with a serious disability as a result.
However, seven of England’s 24 regional stroke centres are still not providing thrombectomy on an all-hours basis, mainly because they do not have enough doctors and other staff to do so.
Experts fear the NHS’s failure to deliver universal 24/7 access to the treatment could mean patients who have a stroke overnight, in the evening or at weekends in underserved areas may become avoidably severely disabled, or may even die, because they could not have the procedure.
More than 100,000 people a year in the UK have a stroke, of whom 38,000 die and many others are left with life-changing disabilities that rob them of their independence.
Dr Sanjeev Nayak, a stroke specialist at the Royal Stoke hospital in Stoke, said: “A patient presenting during normal working hours in a well-served area may receive rapid, life-changing treatment, whereas the same patient presenting at night or in a different region may not receive thrombectomy at all. This creates a real postcode lottery in access to one of the most effective treatments in modern medicine.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Safety risks ‘normalised’ under ‘ineffective’ group model

A trust group that has seen a rise in “never events” has been heavily criticised for “inadequate” oversight and management of patient safety. 
An assessment commissioned by the Humber Health Partnership also found incidents were “not always being escalated appropriately” and reported “persistent delays” in addressing issues previously raised by the Care Quality Commission.
Hull University Teaching Hospitals and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole trusts, which formed the group in 2024, were subject to NHS England intervention over major performance, safety and governance concerns last year.
Late last year, the trusts commissioned a firm called Thevaluecircle to carry out an independent review of governance. The assessment, which was finalised in January, has now been released to HSJ following a freedom of information request.
It found there was “inadequate rigour in the management of never events and other patient safety incidents” and claimed risks had been “normalised over time, reducing the sense of urgency and active management”.
HUTH recorded six never events in the six months to January, the ninth highest figure for a provider, while NLAG recorded one. Never events are the most serious preventable clinical mistakes and include wrong site surgery, leaving surgical instruments inside a patient after surgery, and blood transfusion errors.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 7 April 2026 
Patient Safety Learning

NHS England publishes fresh guidance on safe use of ambient scribes

NHS England has published new guidance on the use of AI-powered ambient scribing tools in health and care settings, setting out how organisations can safely adopt the technology while meeting data protection and patient rights requirements.
Ambient scribes are AI tools that passively listen to clinical conversations and automatically generate outputs such as consultation notes, summaries or letters. The technology helps reduce administrative burden and allows clinicians to spend more time with patients.
The guidance, developed with input from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the National Data Guardian (NDG), includes sections for patients, healthcare workers, and IG professionals.
Read full article.
Source: Digital Health, 2 April 2026
Mark Hughes

Deaths linked to ‘overwhelmed’ department

At least eight cancer patients were harmed – and in some cases potentially died – because of operational and admin failures in an “overwhelmed” hospital department, HSJ  has learned.
A thematic review of 15 cases from the urology department at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust said several of the patients had died, in some cases having developed metastatic cancer, following missed or late diagnoses. Others had suffered psychological harm as a result of delays.
Read full article (paywalled).
Source: Health Service Journal, 2 April 2026
Mark Hughes

Jesy Nelson ‘proud’ as NHS announces rollout of SMA screening for newborns

Former Little Mix star Jesy Nelson has said she is “proud” of having reached a “major milestone” as a rollout of screenings for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is to begin earlier than expected.
The singer, 34, campaigned for all newborn babies to be screened for SMA after her twins, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe Nelson, were diagnosed with the rare condition, which causes progressive muscle wastage.
In a letter addressed to Nelson and Giles Lomax, the chief executive of the charity SMA UK, health secretary Wes Streeting confirmed that screenings will be rolled out earlier than planned and begin as part of in-screening evaluations (ISE) from October 2026 instead of January 2027.
Read full article.
Source: The Independent, 2 April 2026
Mark Hughes

Trust halts launch of AI tool that lacked NHSE-required sign-off

An NHS trust has abandoned plans to trial a major US supplier’s ambient voice technology after concerns were raised about its compliance with NHS England accreditation requirements, HSJ has revealed.
Epic Systems had this week planned to launch a trial of its native AI Charting functionality at Frimley Health Foundation Trust, despite not holding Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Class I medical device status, which is required of all AI scribing tools capable of summarisation.
Frimley Health has since confirmed the trial did not go ahead as it had not gone through the trust’s internal governance processes and has been paused pending further work.
Epic’s AI Charting tool does not appear on the MHRA Class I medical device registry and the company is also not on NHSE’s AVT registry.
HSJ understands that two other trusts – understood to be one in the north of England and one in the east – are currently live with Epic’s AVT.
Several other trusts are understood to be in conversations with Epic about trialling its AVT, including University College London Hospitals FT, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s FT, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Trust, and East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust.

Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 1 April 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Hundreds of hospitals across the US threatened by Medicaid cuts, report says

More than 400 hospitals across the United States are facing closure or slashing crucial services due to coming Medicaid cuts, a new analysis from progressive watchdog organization, Public Citizen, has found.
Cuts to the federal and state health insurance program are expected to reduce access to health care for many Americans, raising insurance costs and limiting state funding.
Roughly 8 million people are projected to become uninsured by 2034, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said.
Losing millions of patients could throttle income for 446 hospitals in 44 states and Washington, D.C., Public Citizen said. The hospitals serve 6.6 million patients and employ 275,458 workers.
“[The cuts] will have knock-on effects on hospitals that disproportionately serve these communities, deepening the financial strain already plaguing rural and safety-net hospitals and compromising their ability to deliver care, potentially leading many to close,” the report warned.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 31 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Almost half of primary teachers in England see pupils with eating disorders, survey finds

Almost half of primary school teachers are seeing pupils with eating disorders “at least occasionally”, rising to four in five at secondary level, according to a survey by the UK’s largest education union.
The findings emerged in a poll of 10,000 teachers in English state schools about pupils’ mental health, which also revealed “overwhelming” exam anxiety in secondaries and dwindling numbers of counsellors to support students.
Asked whether they had observed children showing signs of an eating disorder in the past year, 45% of primary teachers and 78% of secondary teachers said they had seen it at least occasionally.
Of those, 4% at primary level said they saw evidence of eating disorders “regularly”, compared with 14% of secondary teachers and 20% in special schools and pupil referral units.
The National Education Union (NEU) poll also revealed that two-thirds (68%) of secondary school teachers who responded regularly encountered absenteeism linked to students’ mental ill-health.
The rise in mental health problems among children and young people is well documented. A study published in the Lancet last year reported a 65% increase in annual hospital admissions between 2012-3 and 2021-2 for children and young people aged five to 18 with mental health concerns. Increases were “particularly steep” for eating disorders, rising from 478 to 2,938 over the same period – an increase of 515%.
The consultant paediatrician Dr Lee Hudson said eating disorders had become more common but pointed out that the term covered a wide spectrum of conditions, not just anorexia.
He said young children could have early anorexia or avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (Arfid), characterised by limiting food type or quantity. “Eating disorders have become more common. We know it’s going up, but we don’t know why,” he said.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 1 April 2026
Further reading on the hub:
Top picks: 15 resources on eating disorders
Patient Safety Learning

‘Should never have been prescribed’: private UK cannabis clinics face call for tighter regulation

Oliver Robinson felt he had exhausted conventional therapies when he left the Priory, a private mental health facility where he was treated for depression and addiction between 2019 and 2022. Initially he found relief from a new kind of prescription elsewhere. But by the time he took his own life in November 2023, aged 34, his family believe his medicine was making him worse.
In January, an inquest concluded that Robinson’s prescription for medicinal cannabis had “probably contributed to his death”. Catherine McKenna, the coroner for Manchester North, also ruled that his continued use of the prescription, first issued to him in May 2022 by Curaleaf Clinic, a private cannabis provider, “acted as an obstacle” to him receiving appropriate psychiatric and addiction care. His family understand this to be the first ruling of its kind.
Now, Oliver’s brother, Alexander Robinson, is launching a campaign for tighter controls on UK private cannabis clinics, including a ban on prescribing to patients with serious mental illness, and greater oversight of a rapidly expanding industry.
Alexander worries that others in Oliver’s position could be harmed by accessing medicinal cannabis. “If things do not change he is not going to be the last,” he said.
The NHS typically prescribes only a small number of licensed CBMPs – those approved by the medicines regulator – for conditions such as severe epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and chemotherapy-related pain. Legally, specialist doctors can prescribe cannabis-based medicines, including unlicensed products, in NHS and private settings where they judge it clinically appropriate.
According to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the healthcare regulator that oversees private cannabis clinics, most products prescribed privately are unlicensed, meaning they have not been approved by the medicines regulator. 
Freedom of information data from NHS Business Services Authority showed there were 659,293 unlicensed cannabis products privately prescribed in 2024, more than double the 282,920 issued in 2023.
About 80,000 people in the UK are thought to be in receipt of a private prescription. But there is limited evidence that cannabis is a suitable treatment for depression.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 31 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

More than one million people to get ‘life-changing’ weight loss drugs to prevent heart attacks and strokes

More than a million people with heart disease could be prescribed weight loss jabs on the NHS to prevent them from having heart attacks or strokes.
Sold under the brand name Wegovy and made by Novo Nordisk, the weekly jab is a type of drug called a GLP-1 receptor agonist. It works by mimicking the natural hormone which regulates blood sugar, appetite and digestion.
The drug can be prescribed to lower blood sugar in people living with type 2 diabetes, but can also help people to lose weight and has been shown to work directly on the heart and blood vessels.
Now the NHS’s spending watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), has given the green light to give semaglutide to overweight and obese patients living with certain heart and circulatory conditions.
It is expected that 1.2 million people across England could benefit.
Naveed Sattar, Professor of Cardiometabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, said the move was a “genuine win–win” that will improve patients’ quality of life.
“We now have medicines that not only reduce heart attacks, strokes, and peripheral arterial disease, but also simultaneously lead to meaningful weight loss – which in turn lowers the risk of many weight‑related conditions,” Prof Sattar said.
“Given that so many people living with cardiovascular disease also struggle with excess weight, it’s no longer sufficient to focus solely on lipids and blood pressure. We must also address weight directly if we want to deliver the best possible outcomes for our patients,” he added.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 1 April 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Head of NHS England ‘really worried’ about medicine supplies

The head of the NHS in England has said he is “really worried” about medicine supply issues.
A number of experts have raised concerns about cost implications and supply disruption linked to the war in Iran.
The NHS England chief executive, Jim Mackey, was asked during a phone-in on LBC Radio on Tuesday what contingency planning was in place because “the UK imports 75% of its medicine”. He said: “We are really worried about this. We’ve already had a couple of supply shocks in the last 12 to 18 months of key supplies.”
He said a team was in place to “focus on where the risks might be through the supply chains”.
Asked how much supply there was, he replied: “It depends what you’re talking about. In every area, we’ve got enough to get through for a reasonable period … so generally, a few weeks.
“Because things perish and it costs money to store and various other things go out of use, you can’t hold years and years of supply. Generally, dependent on the product, we keep a reasonable period. Some of that is held centrally, some held locally.”
Questioned whether, in some instances, it would be “weeks’ worth of supply”, Mackey said: “Yeah, it could be days for some products.”
His remarks surprised drug and pharmacy organisations, which said they were not yet seeing any shortages related to the conflict.
Henry Gregg, the chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, said: “We’re not currently seeing shortages of medicine directly linked to the conflict in the Middle East, but pharmacies are seeing disturbing spikes in prices, which can be an early indicator of challenges.
“The Department of Health have issued unprecedented numbers of price concessions designed to cope with price surges, which are likely exacerbated by this current situation.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 31 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Teenager died after asking ChatGPT for ‘most successful’ way to take his life, inquest told

A 16-year-old boy killed himself after asking ChatGPT for the “most successful” way to take your own life, an inquest has been told.
Luca Cella Walker, a private school pupil from Yateley, Hampshire, died on 4 May last year.
An inquest at Winchester coroner’s court heard on Tuesday that, hours before his death, Walker had asked the generative AI chatbot for the “most successful” way for someone to kill themself on a railway line.
At the time of his death, he was studying at Sixth Form College Farnborough. He had recently graduated from Lord Wandsworth College near Hook, Hampshire. The court heard that the school had a “bully or be bullied” culture, which had been a “formative” factor in his mental health struggles.
His parents, Scott Walker and Claire Cella, told the inquest they had had no idea about their son’s mental health struggles and described it as an “invisible battle”.
DS Garry Knight from the British Transport Police, who investigated Walker’s death, told the inquest: “They found he had been on ChatGPT the night before, at about 12.30am, asking for advice on the most successful ways to commit suicide on the railway. It makes quite chilling and upsetting reading.”
Knight added: “It is built in to say you can contact organisations for help such as Samaritans, but Luca had sidestepped that, which ChatGPT accepted and gave the most effective ways people can [kill themselves] on the railway.”
Coroner Christopher Wilkinson told the inquest of his concerns about the impact of AI software but added he felt unable to act due to its growing scope.
Wilkinson said: “It’s clear from what I’ve read that he was asking for specifics. Thankfully, perhaps the only good thing is that ChatGPT does seem to be applying an element of worry about why these questions are being asked, but it certainly doesn’t stop the conversation.
“It’s sidestepped by the individual saying he’s not looking for himself but he’s looking for research purposes.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 31 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Procurement for ‘groundbreaking’ cancer service delayed

NHS England has had to cancel the procurement of a “groundbreaking” cancer screening programme due to “procedural issues”.
The NHS wants to roll out a new self-testing service to improve uptake of cervical cancer screening, which remains persistently below the NHSE target.
The aim was to enable people in under-screened groups to order self-sampling test kits via the NHS App from June 2026 onwards.
However, this target has now been put in doubt after NHSE announced on 12 March it had terminated the procurement.
This came nine days after it had announced its intention to award the three-year contract worth £15.6m to supply and deliver the kits to diagnostics and digital health provider Chronomics.
Last summer, the government announced the new HPV self-sampling service would be a “ground-breaking initiative” intended to “revolutionise cervical cancer prevention rates by tackling deeply entrenched barriers that keep some women away from potentially life-saving screenings”.
Those barriers include “a fear of discomfort, embarrassment, cultural sensitivities and the struggle to find time for medical appointments”, the government said. Screening uptake remains at 68.8% against a target rate of 80%.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 31 March 2026
Sam

‘Inadequate’ provider threatens CQC with legal action

A patient transport company rated “inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has said it is taking legal action against the watchdog because it claims the judgement was based on factual inaccuracies and inspectors “going rogue”.  
Inspectors gave the company poor scores for both safety and leadership and identified “systemic shortfalls that placed people at risk and did not meet the standards of a safe or well‑led service”, including what they described as substandard training and “poor management”.
But the parent firm of HTG-UK East – Norwich, which was inspected last September, said it rejected the watchdog’s “highly damaging” findings. HTG-UK chief Neil Berry told HSJ that inspectors chose “hearsay over hard evidence” and dismissed 34 “factual inaccuracies” raised by the team.
He said HTG-UK had successfully overturned a warning notice issued after the inspection – but accused inspectors of “going rogue” and still proceeding with an “inadequate” rating.
This is not the first time a patient transport company has taken legal action against the CQC over an “inadequate” report.
At a tribunal hearing in March 2023, Specialist Medical Transport successfully appealed the CQC’s notice of decision at a First-tier Tribunal, which found the regulator’s decision “was not necessary, reasonable or proportionate”. 
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 31 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Poor IT a ‘critical’ threat to breast cancer service

Poor IT represents a “critical” threat to patient safety and service delivery in a trust’s breast cancer unit, a report has warned.
A Royal College of Radiologists review of County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust’s breast cancer service found cases where the wrong women were scanned, while others had the incorrect side of their body examined.
Problems with the trust’s picture and communication service (PACS) meant that clinicians were sometimes unable to access critical prior imaging – particularly from independent sector providers – leading to delays, system overload and reliance on incomplete records.
There were also reports of misdirected or lost findings, risking time-critical results not being acted upon.
The RCR report is the latest investigation into breast cancer services at CDDFT, where major failings were identified last year after a review of cases.
While previous reviews have looked at surgical practice, leadership and governance, the RCR review focuses on the imaging and reporting aspect of the symptomatic breast service. However, leadership and governance problems were also found in radiology, the RCR said.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 31 March 2026
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