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

‘I wish I could say I kept my cool’: my maddening experience with the NHS wheelchair service

In this Guardian Long-read, Paul Sagar says that after he was paralysed in a climbing accident, he discovered how "inconsiderate, illogical and incompetent many wheelchair providers can be".
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Source: Guardian, 2 December 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

NHS to pay 25% more for innovative drugs after UK–US zero-tariff deal

The UK has agreed to pay 25% more for new medicines by 2035 as part of a US-UK drug pricing deal that will cost an estimated additional £3bn a year.
The transatlantic agreement will also see the health service in England, which currently spends £14.4bn a year on innovative therapies, double the percentage of GDP it allocates to buying such products, from 0.3% to 0.6% over the next decade.
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Source: Guardian, 1 December 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

Doctors to stage five-day strike before Christmas

The British Medical Association has announced a fresh round of strikes in England in the long-running pay dispute.
Resident doctors, the new name for junior doctors, will stage a five-day walkout from 17 December.
This will be the 14th strike by the doctors' union since March 2023 and is expected to cause significant disruption, particularly in hospitals.
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Source: BBC News, 1 December 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

Our daughter died from meningitis after starting uni - a jab would have saved her

A popular and sporty teenager who made a "big impression" at her new university died within weeks of starting, after contracting meningitis.
Meg Draper was 18 and had joined swimming and netball teams, but died in October from meningococcal type B meningitis, external (MenB) while studying physiotherapy in Bournemouth.
Her parents, from Pontypool, Torfaen, and the National Union of Students UK, external are now calling for a vaccine, or booster, to be made available to young adults on the NHS.
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Source: BBC News, 1 December 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

New AI tools could help save lives by spotting warning signs of bowel cancer earlier (20 November 2025)

Five smart technologies that act as a "second pair of eyes" during bowel examinations have been conditionally recommended by NICE for NHS use, potentially helping doctors spot harmful growths that could turn into cancer.
Patients having a colonoscopy – a camera test to look inside the bowel – could benefit from cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) tech that helps doctors spot small growths called polyps more easily. Some of these polyps can turn into bowel cancer if not found and removed early.
NICE's independent advisory committee has said five AI technologies can be used in the NHS whilst more evidence is collected over the next four years to understand their full benefits.
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Source: NICE News, 20 November 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

Serious NHS patient care incidents rise 55% in four years

Serious patient safety incidents recorded across Scotland’s health service have risen by more than half in four years, prompting fresh criticism of the Scottish Government’s handling of the NHS.
Incidents involving falls, delays in treatment as well as gynaecological and neonatal incidents saw the steepest increase, according to the data.
New figures obtained by Scottish Labour through freedom of information requests show that the number of Significant Adverse Event Reviews (SAERs) carried out across health boards and the Scottish Ambulance Service increased by 55% between 2020 and 2024.
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Source: The Herald, 1 December 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

Failure to diagnose treatable male infertility leading to unnecessary IVF, experts say

Couples are needlessly going through IVF because male infertility is under-researched, with the NHS too often failing to diagnose treatable causes, leading experts have said.
Poor understanding among GPs and a lack of specialists and NHS testing means male infertility is often left untreated in couples struggling to conceive, despite men accounting for 50% of all infertility cases
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Source: Guardian, 30 November 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

CQC admits it falsely claimed not to know about trust maternity concerns

The Care Quality Commission has admitted it did know about concerns over the death of a baby at a trust being investigated for serious maternity failures after initially denying it had been informed.
Baby Harriet Hawkins died during her mother’s six-day labour at Nottingham City Hospital in 2016 following a series of mistakes by hospital staff. 
Last year, the CQC launched an independent external review after Harriet’s parents Sarah and Jack claimed a right of reply statement provided by the regulator to the ITV documentary Maternity: Broken Trust was “dishonest”.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 28 November 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

Women 'traumatised' by breast cancer treatment at NHS trust

Breast cancer patients suffered unnecessary mastectomies, delayed diagnoses and a lack of compassionate care at an NHS Trust in north-east England, the BBC has learned.
More than 200 cases are now being investigated at County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT) - 43 of these are reported to involve significant harm. One death is also being examined.
Women have told the BBC that they were left feeling "butchered" by surgery, while a leading expert says that what went on at the trust was "a textbook example of how not to carry out breast cancer management".
In addition, the BBC discovered that nearly £6m was paid out by the trust to clinics run privately by its main breast cancer surgeon.
In total, medical records of nearly 1,600 patients treated since 2023 are now being examined following concerns about the service the trust offered.
Read full article.
Source: BBC News, 28 November 2025
Mark Hughes

Call for medical notes alert for maternity scandal families

When Kayleigh Griffiths lost her baby daughter, Pippa, in 2016 through maternity failings in Shropshire, she had no idea how many times she would have to retell her traumatic story at future medical appointments.
She has worked to get a so-called "Ockenden alert" on her medical notes – an idea which came out of meetings with other traumatised families.
Donna Ockenden is the senior midwife who led the 2022 review which found more than 200 babies and nine mothers in Shropshire could have survived with better care.
Mrs Grifiths wants the alert to be offered to more affected families, and eventually to people nationally.
She said it meant health workers "can see that alert and have a look at what that means for us".
"And it might just mean that they take a bit of extra time to read our notes, to understand what our history is, so that we don't have to keep going over that same story at every single appointment because it is retraumatising," she added.
Read full article.
Source: BBC News, 28 November 2025
Mark Hughes

Public Health Wales and WHO partner to drive digital health equity

The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated Public Health Wales as a collaborating centre for digital health equity.
The partnership will play a key role in shaping WHO’s work on digital health equity and strengthening collaboration and advocacy among regional stakeholders in this area.
As a WHO collaborating centre, Public Health Wales will contribute to technical reviews, research and evidence-gathering to support WHO’s work on digital health equity at regional and global levels.
Key areas of collaboration include supporting the implementation of the regional digital health action plan for the WHO European Region 2023–2030, identifying best practices and guiding inclusive digital health policy development.
Read full article.
Source: Digital Health, 28 November 2025.
Mark Hughes

EPRs pose ‘persistent’ threat to patient safety

Electronic patient record systems pose “persistent” risks to patients and have directly contributed to several incidents of harm, a national safety watchdog has found.
The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) has today published the findings of its thematic review into patient safety issues associated with EPRs, which examined 112 of its investigations dating from 2018 to May this year.
The review found EPRs have contributed to incidents where patient care was missed, delayed or incorrect, and that the risks were “persistent despite national recommendations and guidance”.
Read full article (paywalled).
Source: Health Service Journal, 27 November 2025.
Related reading
You can read Patient Safety Learning's response to this report here.
Mark Hughes

The new asthma treatment that could ‘transform lives’

A monthly injection could enable severe asthma patients to stop taking daily steroid tablets without affecting their symptoms, a new trial has found.
The drug, Tezepelumab (also known as Tezspir and made by AstraZeneca), works by binding to and blocking a protein that drives airway inflammation.
The injection is recommended as an additional maintenance treatment for patients over 12 when usual medications have not proven effective enough.
It was approved for NHS use by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 2023.
Read full article.
Source: The Independent, 27 November 2025.
Mark Hughes

NHS trust fined £200k over vulnerable girl's death

An NHS trust has been fined £200,000 for failing to provide "safe care and treatment" for a 16-year-old girl who died on hospital grounds after fleeing her ward.
Ellame Ford-Dunn, from Upper Beeding, West Sussex, died at Worthing Hospital in March 2022 where she had been admitted as a mental health inpatient.
She ran into the grounds of the hospital and was not immediately followed by a nurse because of "confusion" and a lack of appropriate procedure in place, the court heard.
Last month, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust (UHST) pleaded guilty to failing to provide safe care and treatment to Ellame which exposed her to a significant risk of "avoidable harm".
Read full article.
Source: BBC News, 26 November 2025.
Mark Hughes

Baby died from sepsis after mishandled biopsy, inquest hears

A 10 day old baby died of sepsis following a biopsy after doctors gave her the wrong antibiotics, sent her home too early, and failed to get her parents’ informed consent, an inquest has heard.
Willow Rose Courtney-Thompson, who was born prematurely on 12 October 2024, had problems feeding and underwent a suction rectal biopsy at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to rule out the rare bowel condition Hirschsprung’s disease.
But an inquest heard the procedure was carried out without informed consent from her parents, Joseph and Lauren Courtney-Thompson, who were not made fully aware of its risks and benefits.
Read full story
Source: BMJ News, 25 November 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning

Maternity warning system hit by IT fault

A maternity unit criticised by the Care Quality Commission is battling a high-risk fault in its new electronic patient record system which causes women’s deterioration scores to display incorrectly.
The issue – affecting St George’s University Hospitals Foundation Trust’s implementation of Oracle Health’s iClip Pro – was first identified in June and remains unresolved.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 26 November 2025
Patient_Safety_Learning
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