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

NHS medical negligence persisting in England ‘despite 24 years of warnings’

Medical negligence in the NHS keeps harming and killing patients because governments and health service bosses have not acted on 24 years’ worth of warnings, MPs have said.
In a scathing report published on Friday, the public accounts committee (PAC) excoriates the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England for allowing the cost of mistakes to balloon to £3.6bn a year.
Between them, the two bodies have failed to take “any meaningful action” to address the problem in England, despite four PAC reports from as early as 2002 advising them to do so, the committee says.
“It feels impossible to accept that, despite two decades’ worth of warnings, we still appear to be worlds away from government or [the] NHS engaging with the underlying causes of this issue,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the influential cross-party committee.
He cited “unacceptable stasis” surrounding maternity care as an example of inaction that is persistently harming patients and costing ever larger sums of taxpayer funding. Reports have been published since 2015 into maternity scandals in Morecambe Bay, East Kent, and Shrewsbury and Telford. Another inquiry is continuing into childbirth care in Nottingham.
Last year, acute concern about maternity care across the NHS in England prompted Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to order an inquiry, led by Valerie Amos, into maternity care.
“The PAC finds that, as government’s liability for clinical negligence quadrupled over 20 years (£60bn in 2024-25), the [Department of Health and Social Care] is unable to show any meaningful action taken to address this and the NHS has not done enough to tackle the underlying causes of patient harm,” it said.
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The Source: The Guardian, 30 January 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Great Ormond Street doctor who botched surgery harmed nearly 100 children

Nearly 100 children were harmed by a Great Ormond Street Hospital limb reconstruction surgeon, a review has found.
The investigation, published by the world-famous London hospital into Yaser Jabbar, found widespread evidence of unacceptable practice in the botched operations he carried out.
Jabbar worked at the hospital between 2017 and 2022, providing care to 789 children – 94 of them came to harm, GOSH's report concluded.
Most of those – 91 – were patients he did surgery on. He specialised in limb-lengthening and reconstruction for children with complex problems.
Read full article.
Source: BBC News, 29 January 2026
Mark Hughes

NHS cuts use of physician associates over ‘substitute doctor’ fear

The NHS has reduced the use of physician associates after a government review found that they were being used as a “substitute” for doctors, a survey has suggested.
The number of physician associates (PAs) averaging more than 11 patient interactions — including consultations, follow-ups, results and referrals — per shift, has dropped since publication of the Leng review in July. More than three-quarters (76 per cent) of PAs said their scope of practice had been restricted in recent months.
The findings come from a survey of 457 associates by United Medical Associate Professionals (UMAPs), the physician associates union.
Read full article (paywalled).
Source: The Times, 29 January 2026
Mark Hughes

MHRA issues guidance for people using mental health apps

As an increasing number of people turn to mental health apps and technologies for support, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has published guidance on how to use the tools safely.
Not all digital mental health technologies are regulated as medical devices – some are instead classed as wellbeing or lifestyle products, which means they may not have been through the same checks.
MHRA and NHS England have developed free online resources for the public, parents, carers and professionals which use short animations and real-world examples to show what safe, well-evidenced digital mental health technologies look like, and explain how to report concerns through the MHRA Yellow Card scheme.
Read full article.
Source: Digital Health, 28 January 2026
Mark Hughes

How robots are allowing surgeons to safely perform common operations from up to 1,700 miles away

Surgeons can safely perform two common operations from distances of up to 1,700 miles, a new study has found.
New research delved into telesurgery, a cutting-edge technique that allows medical professionals to operate on patients remotely using a surgical robot connected via a secure video-link.
Academics in China initiated the study, highlighting that robust evidence on this method has previously been "scarce". Their primary aim was to ascertain whether telesurgery could achieve results comparable to, or "non-inferior" to, those from robotic-assisted surgery performed locally.
Some 72 patients were randomly assigned to be given telesurgery or local surgery, with the main measure of success the outcome of the surgery.
The researchers found telesurgery “was not inferior to local surgery in terms of the probability of surgical success”.
Read full article.
Source: The Independent, 29 January 2026
Mark Hughes

Black women on the nightmare of seeking healthcare in the US: ‘I have to be my own doctor’

Christina Brown was 18 years old the first time she had to correct a doctor when advocating for health.
Breast cancer runs in her family, so she had been taught early by relatives how to examine her own body – what was normal, what wasn’t and when something warranted attention. When she found a lump in her breast in September 2014, she didn’t hesitate. She went to a doctor.
At each appointment, Brown, a 30-year-old content creator in New York City, said she explained the same concern, pointed to the same spot, and was met with the same response. They told her they couldn’t feel anything. That there was no lump. That she was wrong.
“I literally had to grab their hands and show them where the lump was, and they would be surprised and then just pass me to the next doctor to do the exact same thing,” Brown said. It took four rounds of this before anyone agreed to schedule a biopsy. By then, months had passed.
That experience reshaped how Brown approached medical care: it taught her that knowing her body better than the experts is vital. Additionally, it prompted her to seek out Black doctors whenever possible because she figured a Black physician would be more likely to believe her the first time around. A 2023 survey found that Black patients who have more visits with Black healthcare providers report having more positive medical experiences.
Brown’s story is not unique. Across gynecology, primary care, and reproductive health, many Black women describe navigating medical care as a nightmare. “To be a Black woman in America is to have an adverse experience at the doctor’s office, and with her health,” Brown said. “It’s one where you are constantly feeling dismissed, misunderstood, gaslit, downplayed and straight up lied to.” Whether through relentless self-advocacy, intimate knowledge of their own bodies, or the deliberate choice to seek out Black physicians, many Black women move through medical settings strategically, as a means of survival.
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Source: The Guardian, 27 January 2026
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DHSC-NHSE merger timetable revealed

The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have revealed a full timetable for merging their functions.
An update to staff late on Tuesday, seen by HSJ, says the organisations are aiming for the legal abolition of NHSE to be complete by April 2027, although it requires legislation to pass in time.
The prime minister first announced that NHSE would be abolished in March last year.
A new “target operating model” is being developed and is expected to be published by the end of May (see timeline chart left).
The DHSC plans to launch a 45-day consultation from October on the “detailed design proposals for the new DHSC and on any potential future downsizing”.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 27 January 2026
Patient Safety Learning

British medics could ‘turn their backs on NHS’ if not prioritised for training places

British medics will “turn their backs on the NHS” if they are not prioritised for specialty training, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has warned.
Mr Streeting warned the health service must “break our over-reliance on international recruitment”, as he unveiled plans to give UK and Irish medical graduates precedence for these vital training places.
Specialty training marks the final stage of a doctor’s qualification, focusing on a specific medical field or general practice.
The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill, due for Commons discussion on Tuesday, would also see British and Irish graduates prioritised for foundation training.
Setting out the bill, the health secretary said: “We’ve known for years that the treatment of resident doctors is often totally unacceptable and the very real fears about their futures are wholly justified.
“Every time I’ve met a resident doctor, either formally or informally, they tell me, without fail, how their careers are blocked because there are far too many applicants for training places.
“Not only do I think they have a legitimate grievance, I agree with them.”
Mr Streeting warned that if they do not deal with the issue, “the resentment it causes will just get worse” and British medics will “turn their backs on the NHS”.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 28 January 2026
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Newborn baby dies after mum not woken for heart rate check

A newborn baby died after hospital staff failed to wake his mother for "potentially lifesaving observations" before his birth, an investigation has found.
Sonny Taylor was left "distressed for a significant amount of time" before a delayed emergency Caesarean at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor, and died three days later from a severe brain injury caused by sepsis and lack of oxygen.
His parents Eve and Thomas said he was "badly let down when he needed help the most".
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board accepted the report's findings and apologised "unreservedly" for the failures in care.
Sonny's mother, Eve, 29, had been admitted to hospital after her waters broke at 36 weeks. Later that afternoon she was taken to the maternity ward after signs of potential infection were identified.
At 18:00 GMT, her observations and Sonny's heart rate were recorded as normal.
While Eve was asleep at 22:00, midwifery staff did not wake her to carry out further observations or listen to Sonny's heart rate, despite this being required, an internal investigation report found.
"When I awoke Sonny was not moving as much and I immediately knew something wasn't right," she said.
A registrar confirmed the foetal heart rate was abnormal, but Eve was wrongly transferred to the labour ward, causing further delay before Sonny was delivered by emergency Caesarean at 02:03.
Tests later showed Sonny "had been distressed for a significant amount of time" and should have been delivered earlier, the report said.
Investigators said that if Sonny's heart rate had been identified as abnormal earlier, "this would likely have changed the outcome".
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 27 January 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Inquiry examining thousands of deaths will not report until 2028

A high-profile inquiry into mental health deaths will not be complete until at least 2028, after its chair announced a delay to its timeline.
The Lampard inquiry, set up to examine at least 2,000 deaths over a 23-year period, was made statutory in 2023. Closing hearings had originally been expected to take place, with recommendations issued in 2027.
However, chair Baroness Kate Lampard today announced final hearings will now take place in June 2027, with findings pushed back to 2028.
In a statement, she said hearings planned for April would be “vacated… to permit sufficient time to undertake [the inquiry’s] investigative work and collate related evidence”.
Baroness Lampard said the inquiry had experienced delays to obtaining witness statements and documents, particularly from the main provider, Essex Partnership University Foundation Trust. The FT was a “clinical service with competing priorities”, she said.
The delays in receiving information had “impacted the ability of the inquiry to progress investigations and other work as quickly as I would like”.
Recent statements from lawyers for families involved have also accused the inquiry of being “inexcusably silent” on its timetable and being at risk of failing in its duties.
Read full story
Source: HSJ, 28 January 2026
Patient Safety Learning

Five trusts ‘high outliers’ for ‘largely preventable’ infections

Five trusts with unusually high levels of surgical infections, which experts called “largely preventable” harm, have been identified by the UK’s health security agency.
The UKHSA briefing issued last month said the acute providers had rates of surgical site infections (SSIs) that fell above 95th percentile thresholds for certain orthopaedic categories in 2024-25.
The group of “statistical high outliers” were Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals trusts, identified for repair of neck and femur. North Tees and Hartlepool FT were identified for reduction of long bone fractures, and North Bristol Trust for hip replacement.
Infection Prevention Society vice president Kerry Holden toldHSJ: “Reducing surgical site infections is fundamental because they are largely preventable harms that have a significant impact on patients, including increased morbidity, prolonged recovery, and avoidable readmissions, as well as substantial cost pressures on the healthcare system.”
She added that an outlier trust would be expected to review practices such as theatre discipline, skin preparation, and treatments or action taken to prevent disease, as well as develop targeted quality improvement interventions with clear leadership oversight.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 27 January 2026
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Flagship 10YHP policy ‘won’t solve long A&E waits’

A flagship 10-Year Health Plan policy will have “limited ability” to cut emergency care pressures, one of its main objectives, according to research shared with HSJ.
The central mental health policy in the 10-Year Health Plan was a commitment to invest “up to £120m” in the next five years to create a network of around 85 “mental health emergency departments”, near existing hospital EDs.
It said the MHEDs would “[ensure] patients get fast, same-day access to specialist support in an appropriate setting”, because at present “many people experiencing a mental health crisis go to accident and emergency department because it is the most visible or accessible option”.
Waits of several days are common for patients in mental health crisis in mainstream EDs, and HSJ  has reported on multiple cases of poor care in acute hospitals for people with complex mental health needs.
However, in research published today, the Nuffield Trust think tank found that if the NHS simply opens more MHEDs, then “bottlenecks” and long waits “will persist regardless of where patients are seen”.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 28 January 2026
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Trans people ‘increasingly heading abroad’ for gender surgery due to ‘horrific’ NHS waiting lists

Trans people are increasingly travelling abroad to countries such as Thailand to undergo gender-reassignment surgeries (GRS), with lengthy NHS backlogs resulting in some patients waiting up to 20 years for treatment.
Charities have warned that difficulties in accessing healthcare in the UK harm patients’ mental health and create a “desolate experience” for the trans community.
As a result, there has been a rise in recent years of trans people taking increasingly drastic action by paying thousands to travel to countries such as Thailand, Poland, Spain and Turkey for speedier treatment.
The damning Levy Review, which was published in December, found that waiting times for a first appointment at an NHS adult gender dysphoria clinic are projected to reach 15 years unless there are improvements.
Dr David Levy found that long waiting lists were also driving people to self-source hormone drugs from high-risk online providers abroad, while there was “virtually no other data” available from adult clinics beyond the waiting times.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 26 January 2026
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Human rights groups hit out at Trump expanding ‘disastrous and deadly’ abortion policy

Human rights groups and charities have hit out at the decision by Donald Trump's administration to extend the US policy that bars groups receiving foreign aid from promoting abortion — even using their own money — in what has been called a "disastrous and deadly" move.
Known as the "Mexico City policy" or by critics as the "global gag rule," the policy was reinstated by Trump when he returned to the White House last year. That followed a tradition for Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan introduced the policy in 1984. Democratic presidents have repeatedly dropped it.
In what Vice President JD Vance has called “a historic expansion of the Mexico City Policy”, the U.S. will stop funding any organization working on diversity and transgender issues abroad. Mr Vance says the change will make the policy “about three times as big as it was before... and we’re proud of it because we believe in fighting for life”.
In response, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy policy and campaigns, Erika Guevara-Rosas, said: “The expansion of the Global Gag Rule is an assault on human rights. By targeting organizations that support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and recognise gender diversity, the Trump administration is deliberately deepening inequality and putting the lives of millions around the world at risk.
“The Global Gag Rule is a disastrous and deadly US policy. It strangles healthcare systems, censors information and violates the rights to health, information, and free expression... Doubling down on this policy is cruel, reckless and ideologically driven. Expanding it to international and U.S.-based organizations will impact the poorest and marginalised first and hardest," she added.
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Source: The Independent, 26 January 2026
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Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries, study suggests

Google’s search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month.
The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are “reliable” and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic.
However, a study that analysed responses to more than 50,000 health queries, captured using Google searches from Berlin, found the top cited source was YouTube. The video-sharing platform is the world’s second most visited website, after Google itself, and is owned by Google.
Researchers at SE Ranking, a search engine optimisation platform, found YouTube made up 4.43% of all AI Overview citations. No hospital network, government health portal, medical association or academic institution came close to that number, they said.
“This matters because YouTube is not a medical publisher,” the researchers wrote. “It is a general-purpose video platform. Anyone can upload content there (eg board-certified physicians, hospital channels, but also wellness influencers, life coaches, and creators with no medical training at all).”
Google told the Guardian that AI Overviews was designed to surface high-quality content from reputable sources, regardless of format, and a variety of credible health authorities and licensed medical professionals created content on YouTube. The study’s findings could not be extrapolated to other regions as it was conducted using German-language queries in Germany, it said.
The research comes after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading health information in Google AI Overviews responses.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 24 January 2026
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UK loses WHO status as measles-free after rise in deaths and fall in jab uptake

The UK has lost its status as a measles-free country after a rise in deaths from the disease and fall in the proportion of children having the MMR jab in recent years.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it no longer classified Britain as having eliminated measles because the disease had become re-established.
The UK is one of six countries in Europe and central Asia that the WHO says is no longer measles-free, the others being Spain, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
The WHO had adjudged the UK to have eliminated the disease between 2021 and 2023, but recent increases in the number of recorded cases – there were 3,681 in 2024 – and rises in the number of outbreaks and deaths has led to a rethink.
Doctors, public health experts and local councils said the WHO’s decision reflected the country’s diminishing uptake of the MMR vaccination, which they linked to vaccine hesitancy and parents’ difficulty in getting appointments for their child to be immunised.
Dr Simon Williams, a public health researcher at Swansea University, said: “It’s sad to see the UK losing its measles elimination status, although it’s not surprising given outbreaks in recent years. Measles is an eminently preventable disease but vaccine coverage of MMR has declined. We are seeing vaccine hesitancy growing in the UK, as in many countries, and social media-based conspiracies about MMR are a factor.”
He said the decision by the UN health body “is a wake-up call that more needs to be done” to get rates of MMR in children in the UK back up to the 95% that the organisation says is needed to eliminate measles, mumps and rubella altogether through herd immunity.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 26 January 2026
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