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

Trusts scramble to improve reviews of babies’ deaths

Trusts have been scrambling to make reviews of babies’ deaths more “fair and transparent”, after a new national requirement for independent input.
Maternity providers are required to review all perinatal deaths, and it has long been a national recommendation that they should involve at least one external, independent reviewer.
However, in April 2024, it became a formal requirement from NHS Resolution to have an external reviewer in at least half of the cases.
Figures obtained by HSJ show that at least 19 trusts did not meet this benchmark overall in 2024.
NHSR, which runs the NHS clinical negligence indemnity scheme, said the requirement “ensures that reviews are conducted with fairness and transparency built on open, honest conversations and free from any internal bias”.
One trust did not use external reviewers at all to look at late miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal deaths, while others only used them for a small fraction of cases. The external reviewer is required to be a relevant senior clinician who is not part of any trust involved in the case.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 26 January 2026
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Providers ‘extending waiting times due to staffing cuts’

Eight in 10 NHS physiotherapists have reported they do not have enough staff to meet demand, up by 10 percentage points since 2024.
The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy survey, carried out in October and the results shared with HSJ, also found 65% of respondents said their service was subject to a recruitment freeze, an increase from 58% in July 2024.
The 1,100 members surveyed also said temporary roles were not being renewed, and that many services no longer cover maternity leave.
The proportion of NHS members concerned about staffing levels being insufficient to meet patient needs grew from just under 70% in the first quarter of 2024 to 80% in the fourth quarter of 2025. 
Ash James, the CSP’s director of practice and development, described the recruitment freezes as “absurd” when the NHS has a “ready and waiting physiotherapy workforce”. It was leading to longer waiting times, he said.
He said: “For example, I know of a community [musculoskeletal] service where their waits are two and four weeks, based on an activity-based contract. But because the trust didn’t have the funding to be able to maintain that level of activity, to deliver that for patients, they have imposed 12-week waits on the service when it was already two to four weeks.
“The funding is having a massive impact on the delivery of care for patients. They are waiting longer, their pain is getting worse, [and] we are getting poorer health outcomes because of those longer waits.
“We don’t want patients paying the price for this when there’s a solution ready to go.” The cuts were also damaging the morale of the remaining staff, added Mr James. 
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 26 January 2026
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UK’s biggest hospital was nicknamed Death Star. Then things got worse

The biggest hospital in the UK was known as the Death Star before it even opened.
The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH), with its imposing star-shaped design, rose 14 storeys high into the Glasgow skyline more than ten years ago.
But fears were raised about the building, with around 1,538 beds, long before patients arrived including over the design, functionality and capacity of the children’s wing. Documents show staff from the Royal Hospital for Children (RHC), the paediatrics wing in the QUEH complex, pleading months before the ribbon was cut: “Please listen to us … your management is lying if they are telling you that all of these decisions have been accepted and not challenged by clinicians.”
In 2015 patients began to arrive after the project was delivered on time and on budget, but safety problems quickly emerged, particularly for those with weak immunity. Less than two weeks after it opened 18 leukaemia patients were moved because of fears about air purity.
By 2019 two patients had died from an airborne disease linked to pigeon droppings and doctors had conducted a review that associated 26 patient infections to contaminated water. Among those affected was a ten-year-old leukaemia sufferer, Milly Main, who died in 2017 after contracting an infection found in water despite signs she was recovering from cancer.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Times, 17 January 2025
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‘I’m sorry’: hospital boss wishes he’d stopped rogue surgeon sooner

The chief executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital said he is “deeply sorry”, after an internal report revealed a rogue surgeon harmed more than a quarter of the children he operated on.
Matthew Shaw’s apology to families comes before the publication of a major review this week, which will set out the full scale of botched operations carried out by the orthopaedic surgeon Yaser Jabbar.
The review of Jabbar’s care will confirm that of the 333 children he performed surgery on during a six-year period, 91 were harmed — representing 27% of his surgical patients.
One child had a leg amputated, another may need to have an amputation in the future, while others have been left with chronic pain from nerve damage and debilitating deformities.
“I wish we could have stopped him earlier,” said Shaw, who is leaving Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in April, after six years in charge.
He also apologised to whistleblowers who helped to expose the scandal, and warned of weaknesses in the wider NHS that meant rogue surgeons like Jabbar, working in highly specialised areas, could be going under the radar.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: The Times, 24 January 2026
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Thousands of children facing 'catastrophic' waits for NHS community care

Tens of thousands of children in England have spent more than a year waiting for NHS community care such as hearing services, speech and language therapy and disability support, the BBC has found.
The analysis shows a quarter of the 300,000 children on waiting lists have been waiting more than 12 months.
Tiya Currie's six-year-old son, Arun, struggled to get the support he needs.
He has had difficulties with his speech since he was just a toddler. But when Tiya, 46, from London, tried to get help she faced "waiting list after waiting list", she said.
"I was completely in the dark and I was tearing my hair out. That was really stressful."
After two years of waiting, Tiya and her husband felt they had no choice but to use £4,000 of their savings to pay privately for speech therapy and a formal diagnosis, which revealed Arun had developmental language disorder (DLD).
NHS leaders and doctors say the delays are "catastrophic", harming not only their health but also development – and are calling for the same priority to be given to tackling these long waits as has been given to the hospital backlog.
The government says the long waits are unacceptable, but under its 10-year plan greater investment in community services will improve access to care.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 26 January 2026
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US officially leaves World Health Organization

The US has officially withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO), leaving the UN agency without one of its biggest donors.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order signalling the withdrawal a year ago, having criticised the organisation for being too "China-centric" during the Covid pandemic.
The US Department of Health and Human Services said it took the decision due to the WHO's alleged "mishandling" of the pandemic, an inability to reform and political influence from member states.
The WHO has rejected these claims and its director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the withdrawal was as a loss for the US and the world.
The organisation pointed to its global efforts to combat polio, HIV aids, maternal mortality, and its international treaty on tobacco control.
"The WHO tarnished and trashed everything that America has done for it," a joint statement from US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy and Secretary of State Marco Rubio read.
The pair said the organisation had "abandoned its core mission and acted repeatedly against the interests of the United States", including failing to return the American flag based at its Geneva headquarters.
"Going forward, U.S. engagement with the WHO will be limited strictly to effectuate our withdrawal and to safeguard the health and safety of the American people," they added.
The US department said it would have bilateral relations with other countries to ensure disease surveillance and pathogen sharing, but were unable to provide information about which specific countries they had such links with so far.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 23 January 2026
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NHS cancer gene database to identify patients at risk

A new NHS database of genes linked to cancer could enable patients and their families in England to find out whether they are at risk of developing the disease.
People will be able to have their genetic information compared to the world-first register of 120 genes known to increase the likelihood of getting cancer, NHS England has said.
Those identified as having an inherited risk will be offered routine check-ups and screening for certain cancers, including breast and prostate cancer. Patients could also be tested to see whether they would respond better to particular treatments, allowing for personalised care.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the "life-changing and life-saving" tool would fast-track screening and allow more cancers to be caught sooner.
Tens of thousands of cancer patients and those with a family history of the disease already undergo genetic testing on the NHS every year. Those known to have a higher risk profile will be added to the new register.
They will be given tailored information about what they can do to lower their chance of developing cancer or detect it early.
NHS England's national cancer director told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was "the first time any health care system has brought together all the information about all the genetic risk into a single place."
Prof Peter Johnson said it pulled together the tests patients were already offered to check their cancer susceptibility into a single register, "so that we can contact people to offer them screening and in some cases preventative treatment".
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 24 January 2026
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Parents want answers following tragic death of their 12-day-old baby

Victoria and Thomas Gillibrand's baby Pippa died after a carefully planned home birth resulted in her suffering a severe brain injury due to a lack of oxygen during her delivery.
Concerned about reports of staff shortages and safety concerns in maternity services prior to Pippa’s delivery and after carrying out extensive research, Victoria and Thomas believed the labour and their baby would be more closely monitored by a dedicated one-to-one home birth team and that a home birth was the safer option.  
Following Pippa’s death, an investigation was initiated by the Trust, with several concerns being highlighted, including:
The risk assessment for a homebirth was not fully completed; there was no documented discussion regarding a small risk of serious medical problems for the baby, compared to planning the birth in other settings for mothers having their first baby.  There was also no discussion of a plan to continue labour on the midwife led unit when the homebirth team were already called out to a homebirth.  This meant Victoria was not fully informed of all the risks when she was planning her homebirth. The Trust’s homebirth service can safely provide resources for one homebirth. If any further homebirths occur at the same time the assumption is that the labouring mother will receive care on the midwife led unit. This was not documented in Trust guidance. This meant that Victoria was not invited to attend hospital when the homebirth team were initially not available to provide one to one care at home. There were no bleep holders or senior managers on call to escalate safety concerns to or get advice from. Awareness of the whole maternity service was not recognised due to the high acuity on the labour ward, with no escalation of safety concerns when the maternity service was under pressure outside of the hospital setting. The Trust does not provide enough equipment for two homebirths to be held simultaneously. There was no risk assessment done when Victoria’s husband, Tom, first called the labour ward.  It was not the role of the labour ward coordinator to triage telephone calls from mothers requesting the homebirth team to attend.  There was no follow up telephone call to Victoria from the homebirth team due to them being at another homebirth, which led to a missed early opportunity to assess Victoria and Pippa’s wellbeing. Pippa’s wellbeing was not assessed in line with national and Trust Guidelines.  When Victoria was assessed as being in the second stage of labour, intermittent auscultation was not performed every 5 minutes, only recorded twice in the first 30 minutes.  This was due to the midwifery team focusing on other activities, such as the staffing issues and setting up the homebirth equipment.  There was a delay in recognition of difficulties to auscultate Pippa’s heart rate due to the staff’s previous positive experiences at homebirths which led to a delay with subsequent actions. There was incomplete documentation of the advice and care given during telephone calls, at Victoria’s home and during the events of her labour. This was due to a very busy labour ward and poor connectivity of the laptops in the homebirth setting, which meant staff were initially unable to document in the electronic patient record system and document Pippa’s heart rate on the partogram; there was no alternative method for documentation available for staff to be able to effectively capture vital information regarding Pippa’s wellbeing. This did not support clinical oversight or risk assessment during labour. Rebecca Cahill, specialist clinical negligence senior associate with JMW, representing the family, said: “The death of this tiny baby is utterly tragic. Vicky and Tom’s loss is devastating and unimaginable, but to learn that Pippa’s monitoring was not in line with NHS Guidelines, and that staff shortages appear to have impacted the care that they received only compounds their loss.
 “They obviously have a number of concerns and so welcome the coroner’s investigation to ensure that no stone is left unturned in trying to find out why Pippa died.”
Read full story
Source: Warrington Guardian, 24 January 2026
 
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Chiropodist struck off after removing prisoners toe without consent

A chiropodist who removed part of a prisoner's toe without their consent has been struck off.
Lady Deborah Knight Griffiths, who had been a qualified chiropodist since 2008, carried out the procedure on the prisoners foot at HMP Forest Bank in Salford, Greater Manchester, on 13 November 2020.
A disciplinary hearing found she had "performed an invasive procedure outside the scope of her practice upon an individual who was acutely vulnerable and thereby placed him at real risk of harm” and “she had not maintained or developed the skills to do so.”
She had been hired by First Steps Podiatry Ltd and was employed to provide foot care by Sodexo, the private operators of the prison. The prisoner she treated in this instance was “in poor health and suffered from diabetes” and had toes amputated previously.
The hearing found she had omitted 11 pre-operative checks before performing the procedure - including failing to take a blood pressure reading, performing an X-ray and obtaining written or informed consent.
She was also found to have kept no written records of the diabetic inmate’s treatment or any reference to the dose of the local anaesthetic used.
Knight Griffiths also failed to maintain “accurate and complete records” for the patient, inappropriately stitched the patient's wound with a suture and “did not obtain a tissue sample or wound swab prior to the procedure” the hearing revealed.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 23 January 2026
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Almost a quarter of UK GPs are seeing obese children aged four and under

Almost a quarter of GPs are seeing children aged four or under who are obese, according to a survey of UK family doctors.
The “alarming” research also found that almost half (49%) of GPs have seen boys and girls up to the age of seven who have obesity, including a handful younger than a year old.
However, four out of five family doctors find it difficult to talk to children or their parents about the condition, in case such conversations make them feel upset, angry or ashamed.
Dr John Holden, the chief medical officer at the medical organisation MDDUS, which ran the survey, said: “These findings are an alarming confirmation of the growing crisis of childhood obesity across the country and the very real difficulties this creates in everyday GP consultations.”
The survey asked 540 family doctors about their experience of managing obesity, the explosion in the use of weight loss drugs and what widespread levels of dangerous overweight means for the NHS.
Almost one in four (23%) said they had seen children aged zero to four where obesity was a clinical concern. Among the doctors, 81% have seen obesity in those between their first 12 months and the age of 11. Four in five (80%) find it somewhat or very challenging to talk to the parents of an obese child under the age of 16 about their weight and health, with only 10% saying that is easy to do. Nearly two thirds (65%) find it hard to talk to obese young people themselves, with just 20% saying that is easy. Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 25 January 2026
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NHS to increase accuracy of bowel cancer test in England

The main test for the UK’s second deadliest cancer is being made more accurate in England, in a move NHS bosses believe will save hundreds of lives.
The sensitivity of the faecal immunochemical test (Fit), which detects bowel cancer by spotting blood in the patient’s stool, will be increased as part of an overhaul of cancer diagnosis and treatment.
NHS England is lowering the threshold for the amount of blood detected through a Fit test needed to trigger the patient being sent for further investigation.
It is now 120 micrograms of blood a gram of stool. But that will be reduced to 80 micrograms by 2028 and will bring England into line with the threshold already used in Scotland and Wales.
“This is a major step forward in bowel cancer detection and will help save hundreds more lives from this devastating disease,” said Prof Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer.
“Testing at a lower level threshold will now provide a better early warning system for bowel cancer, helping us to spot and treat cancers earlier, often picking up problems before symptoms occur.”
About 44,100 people in Britain are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year and it claims about 17,400 lives, making it the second commonest cause of cancer death. Risk factors include eating processed meat, being overweight and drinking alcohol, leading Cancer Research UK to conclude that more than half of cases – 54% – are preventable.
“Once fully implemented testing at the lower level threshold is expected to reduce late stage diagnoses and deaths from bowel cancer by around 6%,” NHS England said. Preventing and detecting more cases earlier will save the health service £32m a year, it estimates.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 26 January 2026
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Fake weight-loss medication in tablet form could flood Britain, experts warn

Experts are warning that fake weight-loss treatments could become more prevalent as tablet forms of the medications, currently available only via injections in the UK, are launched.
They say stronger regulation and enforcement are needed to prevent fraudsters from cashing in on tablets which will be easier to counterfeit.
While pill forms of weight-loss medications are expected to be much cheaper, and hence more accessible than injectable versions, experts have warned they are also an easier target for fraudsters.
“Pills are much easier prey for scammers than injectables as they require relatively accessible equipment to manufacture the pill – something to mix the powders and a pill press – and can provide the scope for vast production,” said Bhavik Patel, a professor of clinical and bioanalytical chemistry at the University of Brighton.
Dr Bernard Naughton, an associate professor and researcher in pharmaceutical regulation and innovation at Trinity College Dublin, said counterfeit pills could include medications taken out of the legitimate supply chain – and potentially stored incorrectly – while they could also be contaminated, or contain an incorrect dose, incorrect active ingredient or no active ingredient at all.
“We can see already that there have been some examples of the injections being falsified,” said Naughton. “It’s relatively easy to just create a pill and, if you’ve got good packaging, to falsely put it forward as the legitimate product.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 24 January 2026
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‘Molly never got to hear it’: fury as denials finally end on Glasgow hospital infections

All Molly Cuddihy wanted was recognition of what she had gone through. That was what she told the Scottish hospitals inquiry in 2021, where she described the “frightening” fits and rigors she had suffered after contracting a bacterial infection at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth university hospital while undergoing chemotherapy. “I was made sicker by the environment,” the 19-year-old said in her evidence.
Molly had been 15 and revising for her National 5 exams when she was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer. She was treated at the Royal hospital for children and the adjacent QEUH, which are both part of a six-year public inquiry that reached its final stages and heard devastating new admissions this week.
“You had a critically ill teenager who could see what was materially wrong with the hospital building in 2018,” said her father, John. He said the clinical care his daughter received was “world-class” – a sentiment echoed by all the families affected by this scandal – but “the basic principles of providing a safe and secure environment in which those clinicians could operate were simply absent”.
After years of denial, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde finally admitted this week that serious infections in 84 child cancer patients, two of whom died, were probably caused by a contaminated water system at its flagship hospital.
The arduous delay in accepting what patients, families and whistleblowers had been telling hospital and health board management since the £842m super-hospital first opened in 2015 piled “avoidable distress and harm” on already suffering families, John says. “The fact that Molly never got to hear those words is even more painful.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 23 January 2026
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UK grapples with widespread aspirin shortage as medicine added to export ban list

Britain is grappling with widespread shortages of aspirin, a vital medication for preventing strokes and heart attacks in vulnerable patients. The Government has responded by adding aspirin to its export ban list, aiming to safeguard supplies for UK patients amidst manufacturing delays cited as a primary cause.
Both the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), representing approximately 6,000 pharmacies, and the Independent Pharmacies Association, with over 5,000 members, report significant difficulties in sourcing the drug.
The NPA confirmed that pharmacists across the UK are being forced to tightly ration existing stock, prioritising patients with the most severe heart conditions or those requiring emergency prescriptions.
The NPA ran a snap survey of 540 UK pharmacies this week and found 86% reported being unable to supply aspirin to their patients in the previous seven days.
The problem is worse for the 75mg dose, though all types are affected.
Several pharmacies said they have also stopped making aspirin available for over the counter sales.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 23 January 2026
Further reading on the hub:
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pharmacy inquiry into medicines shortages in England (July 2025) Creon shortages: “It’s just another thing patients with cystic fibrosis could do without” Medicines shortages: minimising the impact on patients (a blog by Catherine Picton) Medication supply issues: A pharmacist’s perspective
Sam

National maternity review will not ‘sideline’ Nottingham probe, pledges chair

The high-profile chair of a major maternity review into care failures in Nottingham has pledged to ensure its results “will not be sidelined” by the government’s national investigation.
Concerns Donna Ockenden’s findings could be sidelined, followed ministers announcing in September that the national maternity review’s recommendations would “supersede the multiple existing actions and recommendations already in place”.
While Ms Ockenden’s Nottingham University Hospitals Trust inquiry began in 2022, it is not due to report until June. And a spokesman for the Nottingham families told HSJ this week that they had heard “credible rumours of an attempt to minimise and overshadow” the review.
The government’s national review, led by Baroness Valerie Amos – which this week published a call for evidence  – is due in the spring.
Ministers also said that “Baroness Amos and her team will draw on [previous reviews] to create one clear, national set of actions to improve care across the country”.
In response to the concerns about the status of her independent inquiry, Ms Ockenden said: “I cannot see any reason why anyone who has any understanding of maternity services would even be thinking of sidelining Nottingham.
“Nottingham is the largest ever inquiry into a single service in the history of the NHS. We, as a review team, have worked with diligence with families across Nottinghamshire.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 23 January 2026
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Osteoporosis patients ‘abandoned’ after being diagnosed by text, damning inquiry reveals

The NHS is failing osteoporosis patients, diagnosing them via text message only to then "forget" them, a damning parliamentary inquiry has found.
Some individuals told MPs they received no scheduled follow-up after their diagnosis, while others faced years-long waits for crucial bone scans.
Further highlighting the systemic issues, a new report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on osteoporosis and bone health revealed that only 34% of eligible patients are receiving medication to prevent fractures.
Experts condemned the findings, stating they expose a "deep, structural failure in how the NHS treats a condition affecting millions", putting patients at risk of losing their independence and facing premature death.
The patient survey found that more than half had not been contacted by a healthcare professional about their condition in the past year, while almost one in four (23%) had not been contacted in more than three years.
Fewer than a third (30%) said they were satisfied with how their osteoporosis is monitored by the NHS.
These satisfaction levels differed in deprived areas (28%) compared to wealthier areas (50%).
Meanwhile, the research found that half of all integrated care boards (ICBs) and health boards have no defined osteoporosis care pathway connecting hospitals and primary care.
The APPG said a “particularly troubling” theme to emerge from the inquiry is the “sense of abandonment felt by many people with osteoporosis as a result of the lack of clinical ownership of their condition”.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 22 January 2026
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