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

NHS staff called 'heartless' over maternity comments

Staff working for a scandal-hit NHS trust allegedly made "heartless" criticisms about families involved in the largest-ever maternity review and claimed relatives are taking part so they can seek compensation.
Families also said they have been accused of grooming other affected families to join senior midwife Donna Ockenden's independent review of maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH).
The review began three years ago after allegations of harm to babies and mothers, and now involves nearly 2,500 families.
Trust chief executive Anthony May described the alleged comments made by staff as "shocking".
Speaking at the trust's annual meeting on Wednesday, Mr May said: "Some families very recently have fed back to me shocking examples of being stigmatised or gaslit - criticised for either being part of the independent review or for campaigning for better services.
"Families have heard that they are criticised for being in the review, and that they are in the review on the basis that they are seeking compensation.
"The families tell me that there are instances where they feel they have reason to believe they can trace that back to colleagues that work in NUH."
Dr Jack and Sarah Hawkins, who both used to work for the trust until their daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016, have been campaigning to highlight failures at NUH ever since.
They described the comments as "horrific" and "unfathomably heartless".
Dr Hawkins said: "We have been called 'compo seekers'.
"There has been a comment made that people are in this group because they have been groomed by Sarah and I and other people who have been around for a long time, and that has come out of NUH.
"We want change. We don't have any other reason to be in this fight.
"The first thing to allow you to change is to recognise that you need to change. And if your attitude is that you don't and that we are, in fact, scamming the system in some way, then it's so disheartening.
"We're not doing this for any reason other than babies are dying and being harmed and mums are dying and being harmed and families are being ripped apart."
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 3 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Family of nurse found dead in river say she was failed by ‘systemic neglect’

The family of a nurse whose body was found in a river after a three-week search have said she was failed by “systemic neglect and under-resourcing in mental health services”.
Victoria Taylor, 34, went missing from her home in Malton, North Yorkshire, on 30 September last year. Her body was recovered from the River Derwent on 22 October after an extensive search.
The inquest into her death in Northallerton heard that Taylor struggled with alcohol and mental health problems related to a childhood trauma.
Coroner Catherine Cundy said the trauma left “an indelible mark” on Taylor’s life “in the form of depression, anxiety and chronic feelings of worthlessness”. Recording a narrative verdict, Cundy said she could not be sure of Taylor’s intentions when she went into the river.
In a statement issued afterwards, Taylor’s sister, Emma Worden, said she hoped the inquest would be a turning point. She said: “Vixx was a devoted mother, a loving fiancee and a fiercely loyal sister. She showed up for those she loved with warmth, humour and a deep sense of care.
“She reached out for help. She made herself visible to services. And yet, time and again, she was failed and left without the support she needed. The failures in her care were not isolated incidents. They were part of a wider pattern of systemic neglect and under-resourcing in mental health services.
“Vixx deserved better. She deserved to be seen, heard and supported. Instead, she was left to carry burdens alone. Her death is a tragedy, but it must also be a turning point. Let this inquest be a step toward accountability, learning and change.”
During the daylong inquest Worden turned to representatives of Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS foundation trust (TEWV) saying they were going “round in circles”. She said: “Nobody looked her in the eye and said: ‘We will help you,’ and she’s not here now because you failed her.”
The coroner said she would be writing to TEWV and a number of other agencies with her concerns over the support Taylor was given.
She said she found it “difficult to understand” why community mental health services repeatedly declined to offer Taylor support as her situation deteriorated during 2024.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 3 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Martha’s rule now in operation at every acute hospital in England

Martha’s rule, which lets NHS patients request a review of their care, is now in operation in every acute hospital in England, health service bosses disclosed on Thursday.
The system has helped hundreds of people receive potentially life-saving improvements to their treatment since its rollout began last year. It has led directly to patients being moved to intensive care or receiving drugs they needed, such as antibiotics, or benefiting from other vital interventions.
It is named after Martha Mills, who died in 2021 at the age of 13 from sepsis after a bicycle accident. A coroner found she would probably have survived if she had been moved to the intensive care unit at King’s College hospital in London when she began deteriorating. Martha would have been 18 on Thursday if she had lived.
Martha’s rule became available in 143 acute hospitals in England last year. But it has also been implemented in the other 67 such sites, which means all 210 acute facilities are covered.
It gives patients, their loved ones and NHS staff the right to ask for a different medical team to examine the care being provided and recommend changes.
NHS England’s national medical director, Prof Meghana Pandit, said it is having “a transformative impact” on how hospitals work with patients and their families when their condition is worsening.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 4 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Hospitals where the poor wait much longer than the rich

Some of the NHS’s best performing trusts have a big gap between waiting times for their most and least deprived patients. 
NHS England published data for the first time this summer which breaks down waiting times for each trust and integrated care system by the index of multiple deprivation (IMD).
HSJ  has analysed the new data. At a national level, it confirms the widely accepted view that a greater share of patients who live in postcodes with the worst IMD ratings are waiting longer for elective care. The same applies to people with a Bangladeshi or Pakistani background, and some mixed ethnic backgrounds.
However, HSJ’s  analysis also reveals some trusts and systems have a much bigger gap than others when it comes to the percentage of more and less deprived people waiting more than 18 weeks.
Several of those trusts and systems with the biggest gaps serve a wealthier than average population overall, and are among the better performers nationally when it comes to treating their patients from the wealthiest areas.
Nationally, 59.2% of patients on the elective waiting list who are living in postcodes in the most deprived IMD decile (1) have been waiting within the national target time of 18 weeks. This compares to 60.9% of those living in areas earmarked as belonging to the wealthiest decile (10) – a gap of 1.7 percentage points.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 4 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

AI assistant helps NHS staff increase time with patients by almost 25%

An AI assistant has allowed NHS staff to spend nearly 25 % more of their time interacting with patients, a trial has found.
The technology, known as Tortus, transcribes consultations automatically and produces summaries for medics to review.
Tortus uses so-called ambient voice technology, a mix of speech recognition and artificial intelligence, to pick up relevant medical information from a conversation, while filtering out background noise and irrelevant chat.
The study found the platform helped increase direct interaction between patients and clinicians by 23.5% during appointments.
It also reduced the overall length of appointments by 8.2%.
Health minister Stephen Kinnock, said: “This is exactly the kind of innovation we need as we work to build an NHS fit for the future and end hospital backlogs.
“By freeing up clinicians from administrative burden to spend more time with patients, we’re not just improving efficiency, we’re enhancing the human connection that sits at the heart of great healthcare.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 4 September 2025
Related reading on the hub:
Balancing promise and risk: AI hallucinations, confabulations and omissions in healthcare Patient safety and the role of AI in a cautiously optimistic future: A blog by Ian Fearnley New AI system to identify patient safety issues announced: Patient Safety Learning’s initial reflections
Patient Safety Learning

‘I felt doomed’: social media guessed I was pregnant – and my feed soon grew horrifying

Kathryn Wheeler can't remember where she was when her TikTok feed showed her a video of a woman holding her stillborn baby, but she remembers how she felt. "At first, it appeared like any other video of a woman holding a newborn. It was tightly wrapped in blankets while she cradled it in her arms. She was crying, but so are most of the women in these post-birth videos. It wasn’t until I read the caption that I realised what I was looking at. Her baby had been delivered at 23 weeks. I was 22 weeks pregnant. I felt doomed," she says.
Her social media algorithms knew she was pregnant before family, friends or her GP. Within 24-hours, they were transforming her feeds.
"On Instagram and TikTok, I would scroll through videos of women recording themselves as they took pregnancy tests, just as I had done. I “liked”, “saved”, and “shared” the content, feeding the machine, showing it that this is how it could hold my attention, compelling it to send me more. So it did. But it wasn’t long before the joy of those early videos started to transform into something dark."
The algorithm began to deliver content about the things you fear the most while pregnant: “storytimes” about miscarriages; people sharing what happened to them and, harrowingly, filming themselves as they received the news that their baby had no heartbeat. Next came videos about birth disfigurements, those found by medical professionals early on, and those that were missed until the baby’s birth.
On TikTok, there are more than 300,000 videos tagged under “miscarriage”, and a further 260,000 under “miscarriageawareness”. One video with the caption “live footage of me finding out I had miscarried” has almost half a million views. Another showing a woman giving birth to a stillborn baby has just under five million.
For Dr Christina Inge, a researcher at Harvard University specialising in the ethics of technology, these experiences are not surprising. “Social media platforms are optimised for engagement, and fear is one of the most powerful drivers of attention,” she says. “Once the algorithm detects that a person is pregnant, or might be, it begins testing content – the same as it does with any other information about a user. If a user lingers on an alarming video on pregnancy, even if just for a second, that is interpreted as interest. The system then feeds you more of the same.
“Distressing content isn’t a glitch; it’s engagement, and engagement is revenue,” Inge continues. “Fear-based content keeps people hooked because it creates a sense of urgency; people feel they need to keep watching, even when it’s upsetting. The platforms benefit financially, even as the psychological toll grows.”
The negative effect of social media on pregnant women has been widely researched. In August, a systematic review into social media use during pregnancy considered studies from the US, the UK, Europe and Asia. It concluded that while social media can offer peer-to-peer advice, support and health education, “challenges such as misinformation, increased anxiety and excessive use persist”. The review’s author, Dr Nida Aftab, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, highlights the role healthcare professionals should play in helping women make informed decisions about their digital habits.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 3 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Scottish drug deaths fall but remain worst in Europe

Scotland remains the drugs death capital of Europe for the seventh year in a row despite a 13% fall in fatalities, official figures suggest.
There were 1,017 drug misuse deaths in 2024, external, down 155 from the previous year.
National Records of Scotland said the latest figure was the lowest annual number since 2017. It brings the total in a decade to 10,884.
After adjusting for age, there were 191 drug misuse deaths per million people in Scotland in 2024.
According to the most recent European data, the next highest rate was Estonia with 135 deaths per million in 2023.
Scottish Drugs Minister Maree Todd said the fall in deaths was welcome but that there was "still work to be done".
Experts say they are concerned about the potential for deaths to increase again this year.
Kirsten Horsburgh, chief executive of the Scottish Drugs Forum said the recent arrival of deadly synthetic opioids known as nitazenes was "a crisis on top of a crisis."
Suspected deaths early in 2025 "are already higher than they were last year, external" she said.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 1 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Adults with learning disabilities die 20 years early, report finds

People with learning disabilities and autism in England are dying almost 20 years younger than the rest of the population, a long-awaited report has said.
The annual mortality review commissioned by NHS England, external was originally meant to be published last year but faced repeated delays.
It found 39% of deaths of people with learning disabilities and autism were classed as avoidable in 2023, almost twice as high as the general population.
NHS England said it was rolling out more training for staff and identifying patients with learning disabilities earlier so they can be given more appropriate care.
The charity Mencap says about 1.5 million people in the UK have a learning disability which it defines as a lifelong reduced intellectual ability, usually identified soon after birth or in the early years.
The Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) was created in 2015 to try to understand why so many in that group were dying younger than the wider population and from avoidable causes.
The latest research, led by a team at King's College London, looked at data from the deaths of 3,556 adults in 2023 and compared it to previous years.
It found that while there had been some improvements, with life expectancy increasing slightly to 62.5 years old, those with learning disabilities and autism were still experiencing significant inequalities.
"These stark new figures show people with a learning disability are dying a shocking 19.5 years younger than the general population," said Mencap's chief executive Jon Sparkes.
"People with a learning disability and their families deserve better. In this day and age, no one should die early because they don't get the right treatment."
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 2 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

‘I waited 10 months for a routine hospital appointment - then ended up in A&E’

When Pippa Dungey went to her GP suffering from numbness in both her legs last year, she was told she faced a waiting list of 10 months for specialist neurology services.
Two months later, the 25-year-old trainee solicitor, from southeast London, ended up in A&E unable to walk.
Ms Dungey first went to see her doctor in September last year and was referred to a neurologist, but warned to expect a long wait for an appointment.
As she waited, her symptoms worsened, and eventually they became so bad she was unable to lift her right leg and forced to drag it around.
She sought help from A&E and her GP, but was turned away and told she would have to wait for her neurology appointment.
But eventually she was forced to go back to A&E, where she was admitted for a week and unable to walk and was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
Ms Dungey said: “By November I was really concerned. I couldn’t lift my right leg and was just dragging it around, which was really scary. I felt like I’d been hung out to dry and didn’t know who to turn to. Everyone was telling me that they couldn’t do anything. I even tried to go privately, I was exhausting every avenue and didn’t know what to do."
Ms Dungey was one of the hundreds of thousands of people waiting for NHS neurology services - 6,175 of whom have been waiting for more than a year.
Charity the MS Society has warned people living with MS were waiting an average of five months for their first neurology appointment in 2023-24, a 65 per cent increase on the average wait time in 2019-20.
The charity have warned MS patients left waiting are at risk of “irreversible disability” and have said the government has so far overlooked neurological conditions in its 10 year plan.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 3 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

ICBs told to ‘urgently review unacceptable waiting times’

NHS England has warned integrated care boards it is “not acceptable” to set “minimum waiting times” of more than 18 weeks for elective care.
The warning follows proposals by several ICBs to set minimum waiting times above the 18-week statutory target. One system proposed a 28.5-week minimum wait for some procedures.
In an official briefing for NHS leaders, NHSE elective chief Mark Cubbon said: “I’m aware that some ICBs have set minimum waiting times above 18 weeks. This is not acceptable, given our commitment to the constitutional standard.
“These ICBs have been asked to urgently review their approach and work with providers to ensure patients can be treated sooner.”
The introduction of minimum waiting times prompted concerns from patient and clinical groups, who warned patients were facing “unnecessary pain”. The Nuffield Trust said the proposals gave “no clear process” to ICBs on how to ration funding and that this “will lead to inequity and undermine public trust in the NHS”.
Royal College of Surgeons vice president Frank Smith said: “It is deeply concerning that some ICBs have set minimum waits above 18 weeks. It is right NHS England intervenes, but this is another symptom of the NHS under severe strain.”

The Independent Healthcare Providers Network CEO David Hare said: “It is hard to see how minimum waits set even below [18 weeks] will support the government’s elective recovery targets and clear commitments to supporting and promoting patient choice.
“We know that many patients value the option of choosing a provider with a short waiting time and that a degree of contestability in the system drives up efficiency and productivity.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 3 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Parents of teenager who took his own life sue OpenAI

A California couple are suing OpenAI over the death of their teenage son, alleging its chatbot, ChatGPT, encouraged him to take his own life.
The lawsuit was filed by Matt and Maria Raine, parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, in the Superior Court of California on Tuesday. It is the first legal action accusing OpenAI of wrongful death.
The family included chat logs between Adam, who died in April, and ChatGPT that show him explaining he has suicidal thoughts. They argue the programme validated his "most harmful and self-destructive thoughts".
In a statement, OpenAI told the BBC it was reviewing the filing.
"We extend our deepest sympathies to the Raine family during this difficult time," the company said.
It also published a note on its website on Tuesday that said "recent heartbreaking cases of people using ChatGPT in the midst of acute crises weigh heavily on us". It added that "ChatGPT is trained to direct people to seek professional help," such as the 988 suicide and crisis hotline in the US or the Samaritans in the UK.
The company acknowledged, however, that "there have been moments where our systems did not behave as intended in sensitive situations".
The lawsuit, obtained by the BBC, accuses OpenAI of negligence and wrongful death. It seeks damages as well as "injunctive relief to prevent anything like this from happening again".
According to the lawsuit, Adam began using ChatGPT in September 2024 as a resource to help him with school work. He was also using it to explore his interests, including music and Japanese comics, and for guidance on what to study at university.
In a few months, "ChatGPT became the teenager's closest confidant," the lawsuit says, and he began opening up to it about his anxiety and mental distress.
By January 2025, the family says he began discussing methods of suicide with ChatGPT.
Adam also uploaded photographs of himself to ChatGPT showing signs of self harm, the lawsuit says. The programme "recognised a medical emergency but continued to engage anyway," it adds.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 27 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Vaping may be causing irreversible harm to children’s health, doctors say

Doctors have raised the alarm about high levels of vaping among children worldwide, saying they are convinced e-cigarettes are causing irreversible harm to their health.
Cardiologists, researchers and health experts said they were “extremely concerned” about the harmful effects of e-cigarettes on millions of teenagers and young people, including exposure to toxins and carcinogens – some of which are still unknown.
Nicotine levels in e-cigarettes can be very high, raising the risk of addiction and injury to the developing brains of adolescents. Children are also risking long-term cardiovascular effects as a result of vaping at school and college, experts say.
Speaking at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) annual congress in Madrid, the world’s largest heart conference, Prof Maja-Lisa Løchen, a senior cardiologist at the University hospital of North Norway, said she was concerned that millions of children could face ill health in future.
She said: “I worry that vaping may be causing irreversible harm to children’s brains and hearts. Of course we have to wait for long-term data, but I am concerned. It increases your blood pressure, your heart rate, and we know that the arteries become more stiff.”
Also speaking in Madrid, Prof Susanna Price, a consultant cardiologist at Royal Brompton hospital in London and the chair of the ESC advocacy committee, said: “We are seeing an increase in children vaping but what we don’t yet know is what that translates to in long-term cardiovascular risk because they haven’t been around long enough.
“I think there is a push to suggest that vaping is safe but we don’t know that. It’s my concern that we’re going to replace one highly addictive substance with another one that may have a similar profile with respect to cardiovascular risk.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

AI stethoscope could detect major heart conditions in seconds

Stethoscopes powered by artificial intelligence (AI) could help detect three different heart conditions in seconds, researchers say.
The original stethoscope, invented in 1816, allows doctors to listen to the internal sounds of a patient's body.
A British team conducted a study using a modern version and say they found it can spot heart failure, heart valve disease and abnormal heart rhythms almost instantly.
The tool could be a "real game-changer" resulting in patients being treated sooner, the researchers say - with plans to roll the device out across the UK following a study involving 205 GP surgeries in west and north-west London.
The device replaces the traditional chest piece with a device around the size of a playing card. It uses a microphone to analyse subtle differences in heartbeat and blood flow that the human ear cannot detect.
It takes an ECG (electrocardiogram), recording electrical signals from the heart, and sends the information to the cloud to be analysed by AI trained on data from tens of thousands of patients.
The study by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust saw more than 12,000 patients from 96 surgeries examined with AI stethoscopes manufactured by US firm Eko Health. They were then compared to patients from 109 GP surgeries where the technology was not used.
Those with heart failure were 2.33 times more likely to have it detected within 12 months when examined with the AI stethoscope, researchers said.
Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, clinical director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and consultant cardiologist, said such innovations are vital "because so often this condition is only diagnosed at an advanced stage when patients attend hospital as an emergency".
"Given an earlier diagnosis, people can access the treatment they need to help them live well for longer."
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 30 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

NHS England to cease funding clinical information standards body

Concerns have been raised that plans to cease funding for the body which develops clinical information standards for health and social care could stall digital ambitions in the 10 year health plan.
Digital Health News has learned that the contract for the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB), which was founded in 2013, will not be renewed when it ends in December 2025 because NHSE intends to develop and maintain clinical standards in-house.
In a statement on behalf of its members, PRSB said: “We believe that removing independent clinical and technical expertise and dis-establishing a trusted, cross-sector community network will reduce the momentum behind digital transformation, and the consequences will be felt across the health and care system, by doctors and nurses, allied health professionals, social care professionals and, most importantly, by patients and service users.”
It adds: “If it ceases to exist, we risk losing both critical capability and the hard-won trust that underpins successful, joined-up digital care for the 10 year plan.”
PRSB is writing to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to see if it would be willing to fund the organisation going forward.
Oliver Lake, chief executive of PRSB, told Digital Health News: “Our widely implemented standards, backed by clinical expertise and strong partnerships across the sector, are helping to improve patient records and patient safety.”
He added that despite uncertainties around funding, PRSB hopes to “work collaboratively with NHSE and the DHSC to improve data quality”.
Read full story
Source: Digital Health News, 1 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Gonorrhoea vaccine rollout in Scotland begins

A gonorrhoea vaccine rollout has begun in Scotland following a UK-wide rise in cases.
The illness, which is the second most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in Scotland, is potentially painful and in rare cases can be life-threatening.
The vaccine programme, which was introduced in England last month, will be offered to gay and bisexual men, trans women and anyone who's had a bacterial STI in the past two years.
Speaking ahead of the rollout, Public Health Minister Jenny Minto said the campaign was "urgent and timely since the number of diagnoses has been high and the disease is becoming increasingly difficult to treat with antibiotics".
Doctors and charities called for vaccinations earlier this year after the UK's joint committee on vaccination and immunisation (JCVI) recommended a targeted rollout in November 2023.
The Scottish government is funding the vaccination programme.
Minto said: "The science tells us that this vaccine will potentially protect thousands of people and prevent the spread of infection.
"Anything which stops people from contracting gonorrhoea in the first place can have huge benefits, including ensuring our health system remains resilient by reducing the amount of treatment needed."
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 01 September 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Former CDC official ‘only sees harm’ to public health under RFK Jr’s leadership

The former immunizations director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned of the future of American health under the leadership of Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
In an interview on Sunday with ABC, Demetre Daskalakis – who resigned this week in protest over the White House’s firing of CDC director Susan Monarez – said: “From my vantage point as a doctor who’s taken the Hippocratic Oath, I only see harm coming.”
He went on to add: “I may be wrong, but based on what I’m seeing, based on what I’ve heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP, they’re really moving in an ideological direction where they want to see the undoing of vaccination.”
Daskalakis’s interview comes amid growing chaos across US health agencies and rare bipartisan pushback towards the White House’s firing of Monarez, which came amid steep budget cuts to the CDC’s work as well as growing concerns of political interference.
There have also been growing public calls for Kennedy to resign, particularly as he has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and be lambasted in response by experts and lawmakers alike.
Explaining his resignation, Daskalakis said: “I didn’t think that we were going to be able to present science in a way free of ideology, that the firewall between science and ideology has completely broken down. And not having a scientific leader at CDC meant that we wouldn’t be able to have the necessary diplomacy and connection with HHS to be able to really execute on good public health.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 31 August 2025
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