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

The negligence is staggering’: elderly and dying Australians left waiting for urgent aged care

Dying Australians approved for government-funded aged care home support are struggling to access it, with carers describing a system plagued by delays and lack of control around how funding is spent.
The accounts of carers and aged care assessors spoken to by Guardian Australia show that beyond the controversial, algorithm-driven assessment process for home care funding, many are left without adequate and timely support even after funding has been approved.
Emma Nicolle was caring for her dad, Alan, in his Canberra home for several months until he died on Wednesday with cancer. She said “the negligence is staggering”.
“My dad was clearly dying, so the need was urgent and acute,” Nicolle said.
“From late October I was begging Aged Care at Home to allow me to order the mechanised bed and wheelchair Dad desperately needed, as he was developing bed sores due to the unsuitable bed and chairs he had no choice [but] to use.
“He couldn’t shower without the modifications to his bathroom, and getting him in and out of bed, on and off the toilet, and into the car for hospital trips was exhausting, painful and inhumane for both of us.”
But Nicolle was told there was a mandatory waiting period to spend any budget on certain items.
Four months after funding was approved, a mechanised bed was delivered. Alan died less than two weeks later.
Moving her father in and out of bed has left her with injuries. “I have herniated discs myself so this has destroyed my health and caused Dad and I intolerable pain, discomfort, grief and shame.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 28 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Majority of women unaware menopause can trigger new mental illness

Four in five adults do not know menopause can trigger a new mental illness, a poll has revealed.
A YouGov poll, commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists to highlight the lack of awareness and stigma associated with the menopause, also revealed that only 21% of adult women in the UK know a new mental illness can be linked to the menopause.
That’s in comparison to 81% of people associating the menopause with hot flushes, 74% with mood changes and 64% with a reduced sex drive.
Just over one in four women (28%) said they feel comfortable speaking to a male boss about menopause.
This lack of knowledge has meant many women are not seeking or receiving the vital help they need.
Royal College of Psychiatrists president Dr Lade Smith said: “Menopause can have a significant yet often overlooked impact on women’s mental health and wellbeing. Women account for 51 per cent of the population, and all will experience menopause at some point. This is a societal issue for everyone. Simply put, we must do better.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 2 March 2026
Further reading on the hub:
Menopause and mental health: Implications for clinical practice, services and policy (RCPYSCH, March 2026) “It’s not menopause, you’re too young and don’t have the right symptoms"—the difficulties accessing menopause support and treatment Raising awareness of surgical menopause
Patient Safety Learning

Lucy Letby case expert witness was under fitness to practise investigation during trial

A doctor who gave crucial expert evidence about insulin poisoning for the prosecution of the nurse Lucy Letby was under investigation by the medical regulator at the time due to serious concerns about his fitness to practise.
The General Medical Council (GMC) opened an investigation into concerns about Prof Peter Hindmarsh, including that he had harmed patients, on the first day he gave evidence at Letby’s trial in late 2022.
The GMC investigation was still continuing when Hindmarsh gave evidence for a second time at the Letby trial three months later. Great Ormond Street hospital reported Hindmarsh to the GMC after a formal investigation led by his main employer, University College London hospitals trust (UCLH).
The jury in the trial of the nurse, who was convicted of murdering babies in the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit, was never informed about any investigation into Hindmarsh, one of the prosecution’s key witnesses.
While the GMC conducted its investigation, and during some of the period when Hindmarsh gave evidence, a medical tribunal ordered severe restrictions on his work, saying that he “may pose a real risk” to members of the public. The tribunal also considered the allegations about Hindmarsh “may have the potential to impact on his ability to act as an expert witness”.
Nevertheless, the tribunal permitted him to continue giving expert evidence for the prosecution of Letby. The Crown Prosecution Service told the defence it would oppose any attempt to inform the jury of the GMC investigation, on the basis that the allegations had not reached a final adjudication.
Ultimately the GMC investigation was never concluded, because Hindmarsh removed himself from the GMC register, a process known as “voluntary erasure”. That effectively ended the investigation, and there was no regulatory finding against him.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Trust hired medic despite misconduct allegations

A trust has admitted it was aware of misconduct allegations against a doctor when it hired him – a development described as “deeply troubling” by lawyers arguing that the consultant has since harmed other patients.
Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust hired Ali Shokouh-Amiri in 2022.
Dr Shokouh-Amiri, who continues to be employed as a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at MSE, was given a formal warning by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service last year over actions in 2017-18 in a past role. These included removing ovaries from two patients without consent.
The General Medical Council is currently seeking further action against the doctor, after the MPTS decided against striking him off or suspending him. 
Following a seven-month Freedom of Information request battle, MSE has confirmed to HSJ that it was aware of misconduct allegations against Dr Shokouh-Amiri at the time of his appointment in 2022.
Francesca Paul, a partner and medical negligence solicitor at Fletchers Solicitors, said it was “deeply troubling” to discover MSEFT was aware of allegations at the time of employment.
She said: “For those affected, including a number of patients we are representing, the news that Dr Shokouh-Amiri could have been prevented from harming them will be unimaginably distressing.
“It raises serious and legitimate questions about the trust’s recruitment and governance processes, particularly why it was considered appropriate to employ a clinician while such allegations were pending.
“These are not minor failings; they reflect a fundamental disregard for patient dignity and safety.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 3 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

NHSE culture change programme failed, says external review

An NHS England programme designed to improve leadership behaviours and culture in maternity departments following high-profile scandals failed to achieve its aims, an external review has concluded.
NHSE’s perinatal culture and leadership programme launched in 2022 as part of the three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, with five intakes covering all 120 trusts by mid-2025.
It followed reviews by Donna Ockenden at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust and Bill Kirkup at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust, which identified common challenges, including flaws in leadership, culture, and teamworking.
The PCLP sought to address these by bringing together senior leaders in maternity and neonatal services as a perinatal quadrumvirate (quad).
But an external review by academics at the University of Birmingham, shared exclusively with HSJ, has found “limited” evidence of change and that improvements “did not often ripple up/across and down throughout services”.
The report said: “This was due to an entrenched culture of siloed working within different staff groups, which the PCLP did not create the conditions to overcome, in large part due to quads and staff not having sufficient time to work on this alongside day-to-day operational pressures and a lack of sustained support for quads… from the wider trust.”
It added: “These challenges were exacerbated in trusts where divisional structures did not lend themselves to collective perinatal working.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 2 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

After blasting WHO costs, Trump officials propose more expensive alternative

After pulling out of the World Health Organization, the Trump administration is proposing spending $2 billion a year to replicate the global disease surveillance and outbreak functions the United States once helped build and accessed at a fraction of the cost, according to three administration officials briefed on the proposal.
The effort to build a U.S.-run alternative would re-create systems such as laboratories, data-sharing networks and rapid-response systems the U.S. abandoned when it announced its withdrawal from the WHO last year and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations.
While President Donald Trump accused the WHO of demanding “unfairly onerous payments,” the alternative his administration is considering carries a price tag about three times what the U.S. contributed annually to the U.N. health agency. The U.S. would build on bilateral agreements with countries and expand the presence of its health agencies to dozens of additional nations, the officials said.
“This $2 billion in funding to HHS is to build the systems and capacities to do what the WHO did for us,” one official said.
Public health experts said the effort would be costly and unlikely to match the WHO’s reach.
“Spending two to three times the cost to create what we already had access to makes absolutely no sense in terms of fiscal stewardship,” said Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who served as a senior covid-19 adviser during the Biden administration. “We’re not going to get the same quality or breadth of information we would have by being in the WHO, or have anywhere the influence we had.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: Washington Post, 19 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

NHS investigator says maternity unit care 'appalling'

A former NHS inspector said a hospital's maternity services may not have had to close if she had been listened to.
Maternity services at Yeovil District Hospital shut in May 2025 due to safety concerns and are set to reopen in April.
Amanda Ford, a registered nurse and midwife, said her concerns were not listened to after she witnessed "appalling care" and a baby death that should not have occurred while working for the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB).
Yeovil District Hospital said it strived to have an open, safe culture and acknowledged it did not always get this right. The HSIB no longer exists and its successor organisations declined to comment.
Ford, 56, worked for the HSIB in the South West from 2019 to 2020.
"Yeovil was one of my first units I was asked to go and investigate some incidents," said Ford.
"Within a month… I just was appalled. One was a baby death. That's a death that shouldn't have occurred - of a very healthy baby.
"One was a lady who was put through labour, who basically shouldn't have been labouring, and she was lucky to have survived that and her baby survived. It was just appalling care."
Ford has not provided the BBC with identifying details of either case.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 26 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

I need 120 pills a week to deal with the agony caused by vaginal mesh

A mum-of-three left in "constant, disabling pain" after an operation says women like her should not suffer in silence.
Kerry Watson, 40, uses a walking stick and takes more than 100 tablets a week to deal with the agony caused by having a vaginal mesh implant to treat a prolapsed bladder in 2014.
She is 1 of 25 women who have received compensation following operations carried out by a single surgeon in north Wales.
The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has apologised, admitting Kerry was not fully informed of the risks and side effects or of the alternatives to the mesh surgery.
Kerry, from Kinmel Bay in Conwy county, said she woke up from the operation in pain which never went away, and got gradually worse.
"It felt like I had a needle through my back, and it was coming out my front, and I couldn't twist past it," she said.
"Your mental health is affected. You get brain fog, you're tired, you're fatigued. You can't function as a woman – and that's every day for 10 years," she said.
"I'm a mum to three boys, but I felt like I was failing. As they were getting older, I couldn't even stand to watch them play football.
The NHS announced it would pause using vaginal mesh in 2018 following patient safety concerns.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 27 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

BBC investigation finds 50,000 people waited over 24 hours in A&E corridor care

More than 52,000 patients waited longer than 24 hours to be admitted to hospitals across north-west England last year, a BBC investigation has revealed.
Known as "corridor care", patients are lining up on trolleys or sitting on chairs, stuck in A&E because there are no beds for them in the wards.
The Royal College of Nursing has described the situation as a "national emergency" and called on the government to end the practice.
NHS England said the NHS was currently experiencing its busiest winter on record and hospitals around the country had been "experiencing rising demand for a number of years".
Dr Michael Gregory, regional medical director for NHS England in the North West, said: "Providing care in corridors is not what we want for our patients, and we are working hard to reduce the use of corridor care and tackle long waits."
Aside from the misery facing patients, the pressure on medical staff is huge.
The Royal College of Nursing has been campaigning on the issue for several years.
"We're hearing from members who are going to work, feeling anxious and upset. We've had members saying they're sitting in their car crying before they go into work," said Simon Browes, the college's North West regional director.
"It's because they can't do the job they want to do and they're faced with this distressing, relentless situation".
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has described the situation countrywide as "a national shame", while the Royal College of Nursing has called it "a national emergency". Both are demanding an end to the practice.
Browes, who worked as a nurse before taking on his role at the RCN, said the health risks to patients of corridor care are well known.
"We're going to see people dying who should not die. We're going to see people leaving the profession because they can't work under those conditions any more," he said.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 2 March 2026
Read our blogs on corridor care:
How corridor care in the NHS is affecting safety culture The crisis of corridor care in the NHS: patient safety concerns and incident reporting Corridor care: are the health and safety risks being addressed? Corridor care guidance needs to move beyond what “should” happen and grapple honestly with why it isn’t
Patient Safety Learning

Warning over early signs of brain inflammation as experts call for national guidelines

The early detection of brain inflammation could be life-saving, experts have warned, following the tragic death of a 12-year-old girl who died by suicide while suffering from an undiagnosed form of the condition. Mia Lucas developed severe psychosis and was sectioned, ultimately taking her own life in a specialist psychiatric unit, weeks after the onset of her symptoms.
In the wake of her death, Sheffield coroner Tanyka Rawden has urged for national guidelines to be established for the recognition and diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis. Campaigners and medical specialists concur, highlighting the urgent need for greater awareness of a condition often missed in various healthcare settings due to its diverse symptoms.
While the coroner's report was issued earlier this year, some of the world’s foremost experts on encephalitis were already developing crucial national guidelines for doctors. These are anticipated to be published in late 2026.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 2 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Government ditches ‘700k appointments’ manifesto pledge

The government has admitted that a manifesto pledge was badly designed and is on course to be missed, a year after telling integrated care boards to deliver it.
Labour’s 2024 manifesto said it “will tackle the immediate [dental] crisis with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments”. A year ago, integrated care boards were told to commission their share of the “additional urgent appointments”  to take place during 2025-26.
But this week, NHS England wrote to ICBs saying: “The government has now confirmed that the 700,000 commitment will be broadened with immediate effect to all dental appointments measured through courses of treatment.”
Several sector sources confirmed to HSJ  that the original target was effectively being scrapped.
Speaking at a conference last week, the former NHSE chief dental officer Sara Hurley said: “It’s lovely that [the government] are going to be able to fiddle with, sorry, amend the definition to what the new appointment offering is.”
There has been widespread outcry in recent years because in many areas it is extremely difficult to get NHS dental appointments.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 2 March 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Scandal-hit hospital left children with lifelong conditions, MSPs told

Children have been left with debilitating conditions due to their treatment at a scandal-hit Glasgow hospital, their parents have told MSPs.
The Scottish government has been urged to launch a probe into concerns children treated at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) are suffering from conditions including chronic stomach pain and incontinence after being given anti-infection treatments for too long.
The families claim children were given prophylactic drugs due to infection risks at the hospital, but say they have been lied to by health chiefs.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the treatment was an established method of preventing infections, and that the hospital is safe.
First Minister John Swinney's spokesman said he was looking at the issues "as a matter of urgency".
fter years of denials, the health board admitted last month that issues with its water system probably caused infections in child cancer patients at the QEUH campus, which includes the Royal Hospital for Children.
A public inquiry is looking into how design, construction, and system failures led to safety issues, and whether these problems could have been prevented.
Separately, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is looking at seven cases of patients who died, to establish if there is sufficient evidence of criminality such as corporate homicide or breaches of health and safety law.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 26 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Dash claims NHSE ‘very reluctant’ to tell local leaders what to do

The chair of NHS England has told a patient safety event that the national body is “trying to avoid” telling every part of the country how to work.
Penny Dash said there was a “reluctance” to mandate, dictate and measure from within NHSE.
She said NHSE chief executive Sir Jim Mackey was “very, very antimandating” and that the term would “have many of her colleagues shaking”.
Dr Dash pointed to resistance that officials had experienced from local authorities, health and wellbeing boards, and local authority commissioning services, adding: “They absolutely do not want us to mandate.”
She was responding to a question about how NHSE could regulate effectively with a “mandate-averse philosophy”, while addressing the Public Policy Projects’ Patient Safety Forum on Wednesday.
She said: “We are a national health service, there is quite rightly an expectation that there is some consistency in care, there is quite rightly an expectation that all of these things matter and that us, as NHS England, we should be mandating, dictating and then measuring.
“I can completely see how we can get to that point, and yet, we then have a very, very, very strong view from many people, ‘no, no, no, devolve, devolve, devolve’, and it’s live, and it’s playing out an awful lot…” 
She added: “It’s a really hard balance to strike, and we’re going to have to continue to work our way through it. We don’t want to be overly mandating – there are real negatives of mandating too much…”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 27 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

NHSE bid to divert referrals falling well short of target

NHS England is set to fall “well short” of a key target to ramp up GPs’ use of “advice and guidance” from specialists – and the model is “unlikely to be the silver bullet ministers hoped for” to help cut waiting lists, experts have warned.
The warning comes in a Nuffield Trust analysis, shared exclusively with HSJ. It represents a blow for ministers and NHS leaders because reducing referrals through an expansion of A&G is one of the central planks of their elective recovery plan.
The findings raise further questions about the NHS’s attempts to meet the government’s headline target of recovering 18-week performance back to the 92 per cent standard by 2029, which is already widely viewed to be off track.
The A&G model, when working well, allows GPs to seek advice from hospital specialists on a patient’s condition before making a referral. And in around half of these cases, the GP can avoid referring the patient onto the waiting list. This is known as a “diversion” – although the report explains that some of these cases would never have resulted in referrals.
But the analysis concludes that, while A&G requests have increased, the NHS will not deliver nearly enough requests overall, or “divert” enough referrals, to meet its ambitious targets.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 27 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Drop in overseas workers is ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts

Hospitals and care homes in the UK face “an impending car crash”, experts have warned, as research shows the number of overseas nurses and carers has collapsed.
Analysis of Home Office quarterly data reveals the number of overseas nurses granted entry to the UK has fallen by 93% over three years. Just 1,777 overseas nurses were granted entry in 2025, compared with 26,100 in 2022.
Visas for workers in the caring personal service occupations category – which includes care workers, but also nursing auxiliaries, ambulance staff and dental workers – had the steepest decline in new workers from overseas in absolute terms.
The figure fell from 107,847 workers granted entry in 2023 to just 3,178 in 2025, a 97% decline over two years. Only 23 overseas care workers were granted entry from October to December 2025.
The study, by the charity Work Rights Centre, highlights the impact of the UK’s lurch to the right on migration, which some economists fear will compound skill shortages, inflation, tax rises and problems meeting the needs of an ageing population.
Overall, the number of skilled worker visas issued has fallen for the ninth consecutive quarter to the lowest levels since 2021, as fewer migrant care workers, nurses, scientists, therapists, education professionals and tradespeople come to the UK, where visa conditions have been systematically tightened.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 26 February 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Puberty blockers: Controversial trial paused over safety concerns

The controversial Pathways trial assessing the effect of puberty blockers on young people with gender incongruence has been paused owing to “concerns related to the wellbeing of participants.”
The UK medicines watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has written to King’s College London, which is leading the trial, “to discuss potential amendments that we believe will strengthen the trial protocol.”
The move comes after a concerted effort by campaigners to stop the trial going ahead. In December the Bayswater Support Group, which represents 800 parents of children and young adults who identify as transgender, sent a pre-action letter to the MHRA threatening judicial review unless the study is halted.
But the MHRA emphasised that the pause is related to scientific and wellbeing issues and not a direct result of the potential legal action.
The Pathways study was set up after a review of gender services for children and adolescents by the paediatrician Hilary Cass in 2024 found extremely limited data on the harms of puberty blockers and recommended further research.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: BMJ, 24 February 2026
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