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

Weight-loss drug cuts heart attack risk regardless of kilograms shed, study finds

The weight-loss drug semaglutide cuts the risk of heart attack or stroke regardless of how many kilograms people lose, the largest study of its kind has found.
However, shrinking waist size – a sign of less belly fat – was linked to better heart outcomes, according to the research.
The findings, published in the Lancet, suggest drugs could have wider benefits for patients beyond weight loss so should not be restricted to the most obese patients.
Researchers set out to examine the additional benefits of semaglutide, which is the main ingredient of the weight-loss drug Wegovy.
The select trial, led by University College London (UCL), looked at whether or not people taking the drug went on to suffer a “major adverse cardiac event” – including heart disease deaths, heart attacks or strokes.
Previous analysis of the data found that semaglutide reduced the risk of major adverse cardiac events by 20%. Researchers have now found the benefit was apparent regardless of how much weight people lost while taking the drug.
Academics said the findings suggested there were multiple ways the drug could benefit the heart, rather than the protective effect achieved solely by weight loss alone.
The lead author, Prof John Deanfield, of UCL’s Institute of Cardiovascular Science, said: “Abdominal fat is more dangerous for our cardiovascular health than overall weight and therefore it is not surprising to see a link between reduction in waist size and cardiovascular benefit.
“However, this still leaves two-thirds of the heart benefits of semaglutide unexplained. These findings reframe what we think this medication is doing.
“It is labelled as a weight-loss jab but its benefits for the heart are not directly related to the amount of weight lost – in fact, it is a drug that directly affects heart disease and other diseases of ageing.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 22 October 2025
Sam

NHS in Parkinson’s ‘crisis’ as 21,000 could be living with disease undiagnosed

More than 20,000 people across the UK could be living with undiagnosed Parkinson’s disease, a new study has revealed.
The charity Parkinson’s UK warns that a "painfully slow" NHS backlog, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, has left thousands in a state of uncertainty, with some individuals are waiting up to five years to see a neurologist.
The organisation is now urging the NHS to address what it describes as a "diagnosis crisis".
Research by Parkinson's UK, published in the journal Movement Disorders Clinical Practice, used data from more than 18 million primary care records.
It found diagnosis rates dropped by 26% – from 26,000 to 19,300 – between 2019 and 2021 and still have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
The study suggests that while excess deaths had a small impact on the prevalence of Parkinson’s, the biggest factors affecting diagnosis have been long NHS waiting lists, and access to neurology services.
Caroline Rassell, chief executive of Parkinson’s UK, said: “The painfully long Covid backlog, and slow recovery of neurology services, has left thousands of people with Parkinson’s struggling to be seen.
“Some people are waiting five years to see a neurologist.
“All too often we hear they are bounced between services, in a state of uncertainty, fearing the worst whilst they wait for a diagnosis.
“It’s simply unacceptable and forces those who can afford it, to turn to private healthcare for answers.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 23 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

CQC chief quits with ‘immediate effect’

The chief executive of the Care Quality Commission has quit with “immediate effect”, the regulator has announced today.
Sir Julian Hartley confirmed his departure after deciding his role had become “incompatible” with the ongoing independent maternity and neonatal inquiry ongoing at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, examining care provided while he was CEO. 
Arun Chopra, chief inspector of mental health, is planned to assume the role of interim CEO until a permanent successor is appointed, the CQC said in a statement. 
Sir Julian said: “This has been an incredibly difficult decision. However, I feel that my current role as chief executive of CQC has become incompatible with the important conversations happening about care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, including during the time I was chief executive there. I am so sorry for the fact that some families suffered harm and loss during this time.
“I will be giving whatever support I can to the inquiry into maternity services at Leeds, so families get the transparency and answers that they need and deserve – and I want to avoid my connection with the trust impacting on CQC’s work to rebuild people’s confidence in the regulator.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 23 October 2025
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Man murdered stranger in Devon park after losing mental health support, inquest hears

A man with mental health issues and a history of making violent threats murdered a woman in a Devon park after falling off a waiting list for a care coordinator, possibly because a health trust’s computer records were compromised by a cyber-attack, an inquest has heard.
If Cameron Davis had been allocated a care coordinator, a multi-agency meeting on him may have been called before he stabbed Lorna England, 74, the senior coroner for Devon, Plymouth and Torbay, Philip Spinney, concluded.
Cameron Davis fatally stabbed Lorna England after warning he would kill a stranger if he was not sectioned. 
Spinney highlighted that on the day of the murder, a mental health nurse tried to contact the police on their non-emergency 101 line to report that Davis was threatening to kill someone. The nurse waited on the line for about two hours before he was disconnected.
The inquest heard that Davis had been known to mental health services in Devon from November 2021.
In January 2023, the month before he murdered England, Davis presented himself at a police station in Exeter and told an officer he would “100%” kill someone. He was taken to hospital but discharged.
On Saturday 18 February, the morning of the killing, he told a paramedic he would kill a “random person” if he was not detained. He was taken back to hospital but again discharged and went on to attack England that afternoon.
The coroner said psychiatric teams had followed the correct procedures in deciding not to detain Davis. But he said: “There was a mistake in 2022 when Mr Davis appeared to be removed from a waiting list. Mr Davis did not have a care coordinator allocated.”
He said: “It is my conclusion that Mr Davis would have greatly benefited from a care coordinator as a single point of contact as would the other agencies involved to share information.
“A care coordinator may have convened a multi-agency meeting after a decline in Mr Davis mental health at the end of January [2023].”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 22 October 2025
Sam

NHS health checks in England to have questions on menopause for first time

NHS health checks are to include questions about the menopause for the first time, ministers have announced, with millions of women in England expected to benefit.
Adults aged from 40 to 74 who do not have a pre-existing long-term health condition are eligible for an NHS health check every five years. The checks are intended to identify those at higher risk of heart and kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia and stroke.
The checks will also include questions about the menopause, which the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) estimates could help as many as 5 million women. The questions will be written over the next few months and ministers hope the change will take effect from 2026.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the change would give women “the visibility and support they have long been asking for.”
“Women have been suffering in silence for far too long,” he said, and they are “left to navigate menopause alone, with very little support – all because of an outdated health system that fails to acknowledge how serious it can be.
“No one should have to grit their teeth and just get on with what can be debilitating symptoms or be told that it’s simply part of life.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 23 October 2025
Related reading on the hub:
“It’s not menopause, you’re too young and don’t have the right symptoms"—the difficulties accessing menopause support and treatment
Patient Safety Learning

‘Troubling’ bid to curb checks for restricted patients

The Government is making a legal bid to curb the need for health and care providers to get council sign-off and oversight when they admit and put restrictions on people with limited mental capacity.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is asking the Supreme Court, in a case brought by the attorney general of Northern Ireland, to set aside a 2014 legal ruling known as “Cheshire West”, which widened the definition of when so-called “deprivation of liberty safeguards” (DoLs) apply.
The move comes at the same time as the DHSC has revealed proposals to reform the DoLs system in England.
A panel of judges this week began considering whether the Northern Ireland minister of health has the power to revise the DoLs code of practice. 
The Cheshire West ruling resulted in a revised two-part test of whether someone is being deprived of their liberty: if they are under continuous supervision and control, and not free to leave.
It applies where a person is deemed to lack mental capacity to decide themselves. Previously there had been no clear definition.
Patient Safety Learning

CQC prosecutes hospital over ‘avoidable harm’

The Care Quality Commission is prosecuting a large hospital trust for an alleged failure to provide safe care and treatment resulting in “avoidable harm”. 
The regulator today said it was launching the prosecution against University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust, with a hearing due to take place at Brighton Magistrates Court on Monday.
It said it was bringing the action under regulations 12 (1) and 22 (2) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, which relates to a provider’s responsibility to ensure people receive safe care and treatment, and making it a criminal offence where a breach results in avoidable harm or where a person has been exposed to a significant risk of avoidable harm.
The prosecution relates to a young person who was able to abscond from an acute children’s inpatient ward at Worthing Hospital in 2022.
UHSFT has been under intense scrutiny over recent years and is one of the 12 trusts subject to a government-commissioned investigation into maternity service quality. An independent review also recently uncovered claims of misogyny and sexual harassment reported by female staff members.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 22 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

‘I’m 43, blind and stuck living in a lockdown with my parents’

A blind man said he is living in a “personal lockdown” after having to move back in with his parents while waiting 18 months for vital support.
David Brookmyre, 43 and from Middlesbrough, had to quit his job and move 50 miles away to live with his parents last summer after the glaucoma he’s had since birth rapidly deteriorated. Now, he is unable to leave the house on his own and go out at night without careful planning.
“It's almost like a bit of a personal lockdown,” he told The Independent. “There’s one route I can take down the road with a bit of care because it’s a quiet path to where I live, but other than that, I need to be walking along with somebody, and this is why I was hoping to get some mobility training.”
Mr Brookmyre is one of thousands of visually impaired people who have been forced to wait for local authority training, known as vision rehabilitation, to help them relearn how to do things and live independently. Experts warn that without timely help, those experiencing sight loss will become isolated from society.
A Freedom of Information request by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) revealed that 20% of local authorities, including the likes of Newcastle upon Tyne, Brighton and Hove, and Croydon in London, have people waiting for more than a year to receive just an initial assessment of the services they need.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 22 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Huge difference between side effects of different antidepressant drugs, study reveals

The side effects of different antidepressants have been ranked - revealing a huge difference between drugs.
Researchers looked at the impact medications had on patients in the first eight weeks of starting treatment.
It revealed individuals prescribed certain antidepressants may gain up to 2kg in weight, vary heart rate by as much as 21 beats every minute or have changes in blood pressure.
“Antidepressants are among the most widely used medicines in the world. While many people benefit from them, these drugs are not identical – some can lead to meaningful changes in weight, heart rate, and blood pressure in a relatively short period,” said senior author of the study Dr Toby Pillinger, an academic clinical lecturer at King’s IoPPN, a consultant psychiatrist.
Led by experts from King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), the team analysed data from 58,534 participants across over 150 studies, comparing 30 antidepressants against a dummy drug, known as a placebo.
Researchers said that the findings, which have been published in The Lancet, should “empower” patients but urged them to speak with a medic if they have any concerns.
Study author Andrea Cipriani, professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, added: “Most clinical decisions – especially in mental health – are still made by physicians with little input from patients.
“Our results emphasise the importance of shared decision making, the collaborative process through which patients are supported by the clinicians to reach a decision about their treatment, bringing together their preferences, personal circumstances, goals, values and beliefs.
“This should be the way forward in the NHS and globally.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 22 October 2025
Related reading on the hub:
Antidepressant Risks - Adverse interactions The question that will save lives: Interview with Katinka Blackford Newman, founder of Antidepressant Risks Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction: After 30 years, why is the health system still failing to recognise this life-limiting adverse effect? Long-lasting sexual dysfunction after taking antidepressants: Lack of recognition harmful to patients
Patient Safety Learning

NHS trusts dropped from maternity failings review

Two NHS trusts have been removed from a review of maternity failings across England.
Trusts in Shropshire and Leeds have been dropped from the government's rapid reviews of "failures in the system", after it was confirmed last month they were two of 14 trusts to be looked at.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust (SaTH) was removed after "discussions with West Mercia Police about the detail and schedule of [an] ongoing investigation". The decision has left families in the county shocked.
The news Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTH) is no longer included in the review comes after a "separate maternity inquiry announced by the Secretary of State" on Monday, officials said.
The national inquiry is due to urgently look at the worst-performing maternity and neonatal services in the country and to report back by December.
North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan said she was concerned how "a review into maternity care in the UK doesn't think it can learn from one of the most in-depth investigations into failings at a maternity unit over decades".
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 22 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Staff skipped checks and said a vulnerable young woman was safe. Days later, she was dead

Cerys Lupton-Jones pauses between two doorways. One door leads into a side room in the Manchester mental health unit where she's a patient. The other leads into a toilet.
The 22-year-old had tried to end her life just 20 minutes earlier - but no staff are seen on the CCTV footage from inside the unit.
She hesitates for about 30 seconds, walking backwards and forwards. Then she enters the toilet and shuts the door.
The next time she is seen on the footage, doctors and nurses are fighting to resuscitate her.
Cerys dies five days later, on 18 May 2022.
A coroner has concluded that some of the care Cerys was given at Park House, which was run by the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, was a "shambles".
Staff were meant to be checking on her every 15 minutes.
But the last recorded observation - at 15:00 - had been falsified, saying she had been seen in a corridor. CCTV shows at that point, Cerys was already in the toilet where she would fatally harm herself.
A staff member who was supposed to be looking after her has now admitted to falsifying these records.
Zak Golombeck, coroner for Manchester, said that if someone had stayed with her after the earlier attempt to take her life, what followed may never have happened. He said neglect was likely to have contributed to her death.
Campaigners are calling for an inquiry into the number of deaths at the mental health trust and believe the services are in crisis.
Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust said it "failed her that day, and we are so very sorry that we did not do more".
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 21 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

NHS productivity slows despite ministers hailing ‘green shoots of recovery’

Hospital productivity growth has “slowed sharply” in recent months, new analysis has revealed, prompting experts to warn the NHS is set to miss a key government target.
It comes just weeks after ministers celebrated data showing the NHS had exceeded its target to become 2% more productive each year of this parliament.
NHS England data showed the acute sector had delivered 2.7% growth over the past financial year, 2024/25, as the amount of activity rose faster than staffing costs.
However, research carried out by the Health Foundation and the Strategy Unit, which compared staffing and activity growth month-by-month, found “progress has slowed sharply” in the final quarter of 2024/25, and in the first months of the current financial year.
The think tank said: “Further analysis reveals weakening growth across all components of care, with the fastest fall in emergency inpatient care. Staffing growth has slowed too, but not to the same degree. Taken together, this paints a picture of cooling acute productivity growth.”
Anita Charlesworth, who is co-leading the Health Foundation’s commission on NHS productivity, said the target would not be delivered by “short-term, one-off initiatives and getting people to try and have a big push on one aspect of care for a few months”.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 22 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Cuts to world’s biggest malaria fund risk a million more deaths – including 750,000 children

Cuts to the world’s biggest funder of malaria prevention, including by the UK government, could lead to almost a million more deaths by 2030 – including 750,000 children, a report has warned.
It could also drive losses of $83 billion (£62bn) in national economies across Africa, and cost billions in extra trade with the rich countries making up the G7.
On 21 November the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which provides 59 per cent of all international malaria funds, will hold a summit with the aim of raising $18bn (£13.5bn) for the next three years. The event will be co-hosted by the UK and South Africa.
A report by the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) and Malaria No More UK estimated that if the Global Fund could no longer pay for malaria prevention, only treatment, almost one million more people would die by 2030 with 750,000 of them being children under five.
In the event that the Global Fund raised 80% of what it did last time, that would still amount to more than 80,000 additional deaths.
The disease kills roughly 600,000 people a year, with the vast majority being children under five.
“We are really at a very momentous time in human history,” said Joy Phumaphi, executive secretary of AMLA and former health minister of Botswana. “There are tools that are available that can actually facilitate the elimination of malaria,” she said, including new vaccines, more effective insecticide- treated bed nets and the use of drones to kill mosquito larvae in standing water.
But, she added, “one of our biggest challenges at the moment is financing”.
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 21 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Suicide rates among young people in England rose 50% in 10 years, figures show

Suicide rates among children and young people in England have increased by 50% in the last decade, figures show.
The Office for National Statistics analysed data covering almost 12 million children and young people aged between 15 and 25 from 2011-12 to 2021-22. There were 4,315 suicides across the whole period.
A total of 440 young people killed themselves in 2021-22, up 47% from the 300 such deaths in 2011-22. The number of suicides per 100,000 children and young people was up 54% over the same period.
Suicide rates were higher around the summer exam period and slightly lower at the start of the academic year, the ONS found.
Gemma Byrne, the policy and influencing manager at the charity Mind, said the figures were devastating and showed that the country was “sliding backwards, not moving forwards, on young people’s mental health”.
She said: “The causes of suicide are complex and differ from person to person, but we know that over half a million people under 18 are on mental health waiting lists, with one in four of them waiting for more than two years for meaningful care. Too many young people can’t get help in the community when they need it.
“Until the government grasps the scale of the nation’s mental health crisis, more children and young people will be let down by the systems supposed to care for them. We must see investment in timely support for young people, through a national network of early support hubs and a commitment to tackling mental health waiting lists, so they can get help before it’s too late.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 20 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Management training scheme more likely to reject minority ethnic applicants

Applicants from minority ethnic backgrounds are much more likely than others to be rejected by the NHS graduate management training scheme, HSJ can reveal.
Last year, 84% of the 37,557 applications to the graduate management training scheme were from people with a minority ethnic background, but they made up 38% of the 197 people that started the scheme.
HSJ analysis of NHS England data shows that of the previous five full recruitment cycles, one in every 198 minority ethnic applicants was successful, compared to one in every 41 for white applicants.
Of the 1,193 successful applicants in each of the past five full recruitment cycles, 321 (27%) identified as from a minority ethnic background. 
The latest NHSE Workforce Race Equality Standard report warned that many more staff were from a minority ethnic background than board members, with the gap, at 16.8% nationally, being “especially large in 2024, having increased from 13.5% in 2021”.
Habib Naqvi, chief executive of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, said the low rate of successful minority applicants to the GMTS identified by HSJ was “concerning, not least because the lack of diverse representation at leadership level is a long-standing challenge for the NHS”.
He told HSJ: “Healthcare leaders need to take stock of the data and lead by example in ensuring opportunities for these coveted placements are equally accessible and open to applicants from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 20 October 2025
Patient Safety Learning

NHS policies to improve care for people taking multiple medicines may not be effective

Current NHS policies designed to improve care for people taking multiple medicines may not be effective, according to new research.  
In England, more than one in seven people take five or more medicines daily, leading to growing concerns over the overuse of medicines – known as polypharmacy – because of potential side effects and patient harms.  
The new study is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and led by the universities of Exeter and Bristol. Published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, it looked at how medication safety in general practice might be improved for people taking lots of medicines. 
Drawing on current NHS policy recommendations, the researchers developed a process involving rigorous reviews of a person’s medicines by a pharmacist and GP, and compared this new method of care with the usual type of care carried out in GP practices.
They found that the enhanced process did not lead to improvements in safe prescribing for patients taking multiple medicines. 
The findings suggest the need to reconsider NHS approaches to improving medication safety for people with complex prescriptions, with researchers calling for future policies to be revised to ensure efficient and effective use of resources. 
Professor Rupert Payne of the University of Exeter, who led the project, said: “This is one of the largest studies of its kind. It adds strong evidence that the strategies being used by the NHS to improve medicines safety need to be reconsidered. We’ve also learned that there are ways we can improve the experience of patients and help GPs and pharmacists to work more effectively together. The NHS should look at how this might be made to happen in practice, as more of the same doesn’t seem to be working.” 
Read full story
Source: University of Exeter, 20 October 2025
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