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

Teenagers with painful periods more likely to suffer from this health issue later in life

Teenage girls experiencing severe period pain could face a heightened risk of chronic pain later in life, a new study suggests.
Researchers behind the study emphasised that menstrual pain should not be "dismissed or trivialised," asserting it "deserves serious attention" as a public health concern.
It is hoped these findings will "pave the way" for improved understanding and management of menstrual pain and its long-term implications.
For the study, published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, researchers at the University of Oxford looked at data from 1,157 people included in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), also known as Children of the 90s.
Researchers found that those with severe period pain at 15 had a 76% higher risk of chronic pain by 26 relative to those with no period pain, while those with moderate period pain had a 65% higher risk.
Among teenagers who reported no period pain, 17 per cent went on to develop chronic pain.
Gynaecologist Professor Katy Vincent of the University of Oxford, said: “We’ve known for a long time that period pain can really disrupt young people’s lives, impacting their social development, education and mental health.
“However, we know that most young people don’t seek help for period pain and those who do may be dismissed, belittled or told it is normal.
“This study shows that teenage period pain may also shape future physical health.
“Once established, chronic pain can be difficult to manage and has wide-reaching consequences for the individual, society and the healthcare system.
“The link between adolescent period pain and chronic pain in adulthood is therefore a wake-up call.
“We need to improve menstrual education, reduce stigma, and ensure young people have access to effective support and treatment early on.
“It would be fantastic if 2025/2026 was the year that we really started to take period pain seriously rather than telling teenagers they ‘just need to learn to live with it’.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 31 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

A common drug used to treat heart attacks may not help and could have fatal consequences for women

A type of drug used to help treat heart attacks does not work on the majority of patients and may actually contribute to hospitalisation and death for women, new research has found.
Beta-blockers are medicines that are used to lower blood pressure and cause the heart to beat more slowly and with less force. They have been used as first-line treatment after heart attacks for decades, according to CNN.
However, a study published Saturday in the European Heart Journal found that women with little heart damage after suffering heart attacks who were treated with beta-blockers were significantly more likely to have another heart attack or be hospitalized for heart failure further down the line.
These women were also nearly three times more likely to die compared with women not given the drug, the study found. This was especially true for women receiving high doses of beta-blockers, according to lead study author Dr. Borja Ibanez.
Despite this, the same is not true for men, the research found.
Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, told CNN that women being more susceptible to harm caused by beta-blockers than men was “actually not surprising.”
“Gender has a lot to do with how people respond to medication,” Freeman told the outlet.
“In many cases, women have smaller hearts. They’re more sensitive to blood pressure medications. Some of that may have to do with size, and some may have to do with other factors we have yet to fully understand.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 31 August 2025
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Baby dies of whooping cough after mother not vaccinated while pregnant

A baby whose mother was not vaccinated against whooping cough while pregnant has died after contracting the infection, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.
The death, which occurred between January and June 2025, is the first fatal case of whooping cough in the UK this year.
It follows government warnings about low vaccine uptake, including among children, as well as an increase in vaccine hesitancy.
None of the main childhood vaccines in England reached the uptake target of 95% last year, recent data from the health agency showed.
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection of the lungs and airways which can be fatal, particularly for babies. Eleven infants died of the illness in 2024.
Pregnant women, as well as infants and young children, are advised to get vaccinated against it. The uptake among pregnant women currently stands at 72.6%.
The UKHSA says vaccination during pregnancy, introduced in late 2012, is "key to passively protecting babies" in their first weeks of life. Infants are first offered a jab which protects against whooping cough at eight weeks old.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 31 August 2025
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NHS corridor care now year-round crisis in England, experts say

Corridor care in the NHS is now a year-round crisis, experts have warned, as analysis showed nearly 3 million patients attended A&E over the first two months of the summer.
The latest NHS figures in England, analysed by the Liberal Democrats, show that since 2015 the number of people going to A&E in June and July has increased 15% to 2.9 million – the highest level recorded over the past decade.
Whereas 12-hour trolley waits were almost nonexistent a decade ago, with just 47 recorded throughout June and July in 2015, in June 2025 38,683 patients, 7.2% of all those attending A&E, had to wait 12 hours or more to be admitted. In all, 74,150 patients – 1,216 a day – waited at least 12 hours during June and July this year.
Some hospitals reported even higher proportions of patients facing long waits. More than a quarter of patients at five NHS trusts had to wait at least 12 hours to be admitted during June and July.
Helen Morgan, the Lib Dem health and social care spokesperson, said the figures showed the NHS was entering a state of “permacrisis”.
“What was once a winter crisis has become a year-round disaster, with the health service buckling under pressure all year round,” she said.
“Every day people are put at risk by long, deadly waits with families watching helplessly as loved ones are left in agony on trolleys in A&E corridors.”
Patricia Marquis, the executive director for England at the Royal College of Nursing, said: “An explosion in 12-hour waits is the clearest indicator that corridor care is now a year-round crisis. There has been no respite for understaffed nursing teams during a record summer and they will now be worried about what the coming winter has in store.
“Ministers need to act with urgency before the cold weather arrives and stop patients being placed in corridors, cupboards, waiting rooms and any space hospitals can spare. It is utterly undignified and will never be a safe standard of care.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2025
Further reading on the hub:
Corridor care and patient safety series A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift My experience of the 'Wait 45' policy
Patient Safety Learning

New champion for patient safety: There’s a lot to do, but I aim to do it

Karen Titchener is a determined woman with an eight-year plan to make Scotland the safest place in the world for patients.
She starts as Scotland’s newly appointed Patient Safety Commissioner, facing years-long waiting lists for appointments, bed blocking and countless other problems.
She says: “It is a big job. There’s a lot to do, but I aim to do it.”
Titchener has decades of ­leadership experience around the UK and US where she was Vice-President of Hospital At Home, something she describes as “one of the biggest ­revolutions in medical care”.
She wants Scotland to expand the 16,000 number of patients cared for at home last year, helped by a £85 million budget boost. She said: “This is vital for relieving pressure on the system.
“For a busy mum with other children to look after and a home to run, having your ill child cared for by Hospital At Home has to be a positive. This service is a ­success only if we continue to ensure patients receive the quality of care they would in a hospital.”
Titchener promises to publish reports and recommendations. She said: “I’m a believer in openness and transparency. If we promise to do something and it doesn’t happen, there has to be accountability.
“I want to see us moving to a culture of preventing harm rather than reacting after harm has already happened.”
Read full story
Source: Sunday Post, 1 September 2025
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Leadership improves at ‘toxic’ trust

One of England’s largest trusts previously criticised for its “toxic” environment has made significant improvements to its culture, inspectors have said.
The Care Quality Commission updated its well-led rating for University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust from “inadequate” to “good” following an inspection in April and May.
The trust’s leadership was rated “inadequate” last year and staff reported a “toxic” culture, including bullying, racism and inappropriate behaviour. It has been subject to a string of leadership, cultural and care quality concerns in recent years, and undergone a major overhaul of its senior leadership. 
Charlotte Rudge, CQC deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said UHB should be “proud” of its leadership, culture and governance improvements.
“At the previous inspection, we told the trust leadership they needed to do more work to significantly improve culture and staff wellbeing,” she said.
“In response, they introduced a comprehensive plan and took action to make significant improvements in this area.
“Leaders now provided a clear shared direction for the organisation which didn’t just align plans and objectives but translated them into real action to improve people’s care.” 
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 29 August 2025
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Stop letting down resident doctors, NHSE tells trusts

Trusts are to have new responsibilities for improving resident doctors’ working lives under a plan unveiled by NHS England today.
They will have to appoint a senior leader responsible for “resident doctor issues”, reporting to their board, within six weeks. They should also, with immediate effect, make sure doctors get detailed rotas six weeks before rotations start.
In a letter to provider leaders today, NHSE indicated it would be monitoring their delivery of these tasks. It will also be asking for updates on whether they have taken a range of steps to improve resident doctors’ wellbeing, such as designated on-call parking spaces, and access to 24/7 hot meals, rest areas and lockers.
New data on these and other indicators will be published “from the autumn”, NHSE said, and become part of the NHS Oversight Framework, which NHSE uses to judge organisational performance.
The letter, from NHSE CEO Sir Jim Mackey and national medical director Professor Meghana Pandit, says: “Despite previous commitments to act on the concerns [doctors] have repeatedly raised about how they are treated as a rotating part of the workforce, many of these problems – payroll errors, poor rota management, lack of access to rest facilities and hot food, and unnecessarily repeating training – persist.”
NHSE has issued a “10 point plan” aimed at improving the working lives of 75,000 resident doctors. It says: “While some progress has been made, it has been too slow, and many still face unfair and inconsistent working conditions.”
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 29 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Innovative ambulance software to speed up emergency care in Rwanda

New ambulance technology, developed in Rwanda with support from NIHR’s Research on Interventions for Global Health Transformation (RIGHT) programme, is speeding up emergency care for patients.
Rwanda Build Program (RWBuild) worked with local and international partners to develop the 912Rwanda software. The technology helps ambulance crews and hospitals to treat emergency patients faster, by automatically recommending the nearest available facility that can provide the care the patient needs.
While high-income countries have developed sophisticated ambulance systems to reduce the delay in getting patients to appropriate healthcare facilities, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often lack the financial and training resources to implement similar solutions.
Up to 250 million people suffer injuries each year in LMICs. In Rwanda, injury causes 9% of deaths, with 47% of these occurring before the patient reaches hospital. The software could help to improve outcomes for these patients, as well as helping to reduce deaths and disability from other emergency medical conditions, like post-partum hemorrhage, sepsis, malaria, heart attacks, and strokes.
The project has received more than £3 million from NIHR’s RIGHT programme, as well as nearly $1 million from the United States National Institutes of Health.
The initial phase of the 912Rwanda software is already operational in Kigali. This helps to prioritise ambulance deployment based on data collected by dispatchers. It has been used since December 2023 for over 20,000 journeys, allowing ambulance teams to locate patients quickly in areas where smartphone penetration and triangulation via cell phone masts is not possible.
The second phase, launched in August 2025, introduces triage software which incorporates a Destination Decision Support Algorithm. This enables ambulance crews to capture simple patient information that is used to recommend the nearest suitable healthcare facility to treat each patient. This is especially critical for patients with life-threatening conditions, who must reach treatment within one hour of symptom onset.
Read full story
Source: NIHR, 7 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

NHS to lose out on new drugs, pharma firm warns

NHS patients will lose access to new cutting-edge treatments because of skyrocketing costs, the pharmaceutical giant Novartis has claimed amid a row over drug pricing deals.
The warning comes after talks over the cost of medicines for the UK between Health Secretary Wes Streeting and pharma firms broke down last week.
A body assesses whether a new drug is value for money before approving it for use on the NHS, but Novartis said its methods were outdated and made it harder for innovative drugs to be approved and launched.
Norvartis's UK boss Johan Kahlstrom said costs meant the UK was "largely uninvestable", but Streeting has vowed he will not allow firms to "rip off" taxpayers.
Swiss firm Novartis said it was not considering the UK for major new investments in manufacturing, research, or advanced technology because of "systemic barriers".
The firm, which employs 78,000 people globally, said patients were losing access to or missing out entirely on new treatments as a result of the current situation.
It said due to the "declining competitiveness" of the UK market, the company had "already been unable to launch several medicines" in the country "for public reimbursement - medicines that are, or soon will be, available to patients in other European countries".
"The concern is that future launches and research investment could be further deprioritised for the UK if the environment remains uncompetitive," the company added.
Read full story
Source: BBC News, 27 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Boards told to rate their own ‘capability’

Trust leaders have been told to rate their own boards’ “capability” under new rules that could influence which providers are put in a new special measures regime.
Trusts must complete the provider capability self-assessment – which is part of the new NHS Oversight Framework – by 22 October, according to guidance published by NHS England this week.
HSJ understands the requirement is intended to help boards prepare for the governance standards required to achieve the “new” foundation trust status promised in the 10-Year Health Plan, as well as feeding into NHSE’s day-to-day regulation.
The principles behind the new self-assessment were broadly welcomed by trust leaders, but NHS Providers said it was “concerned returns may not capture the actual quality of leadership seen across the trust sector”.
The lobby group said this was because of the format of the assessment. It also called for more clarity to ensure the process was “transparent and that providers feel the rating given is fair”.
The guidance says provider boards must assess their capability against expectations in six areas: strategy, leadership and planning; care quality; culture; access and delivery of services; productivity and value for money; and financial performance and oversight.
Read full story
Source: HSJ, 29 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Nine in ten autistic people over 40 are undiagnosed, research suggests

Almost 90% of autistic people over the age of 40 in the UK are living without a diagnosis, a study suggests.
This could make them “more susceptible to age-related problems” and socially isolated in older age, researchers warned.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition and causes people to interact differently to others.
Those with the condition may get anxious in social situations, seem blunt, and struggle to understand what others are thinking or feeling, among other things.
The study estimated that among middle-aged adults who are autistic – between 40 to 59 years old – some 91.45% men and 79.48% of women are undiagnosed, with an overall underdiagnosis rate of 89.29%
Dr Gavin Stewart, British Academy postdoctoral research fellow at the IoPPN, said: “These very high underdiagnosis estimates suggest that many autistic adults will have never been recognised as being autistic, and will have not been offered the right support.
“This could make them more susceptible to age-related problems, for example being socially isolated and having poorer health.”
Read full story
Source: The Independent, 29 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Chickenpox jabs introduced as experts warn many children in England start school without vaccinations

England needs to “wake up” to its faltering infant vaccination programme, experts have warned, as it was revealed that one in five children start primary school unprotected from serious infectious diseases.
It comes as the government announces a new vaccination programme for chickenpox from January, meaning that GPs will offer eligible children a combined vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella and varicella – the clinical term for chickenpox – as part of the routine infant vaccination schedule.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the target for vaccine uptake among children in order to achieve herd immunity is 95%. But figures for 2024-25 released by the UK Health Security Agency on Thursday show that no childhood vaccine has met this requirement.
Only 83.7% of five-year-olds have received both doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, while uptake of the four-in-one preschool booster vaccine – which protects against polio, whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria – stood at 81.4% among five-year-olds in England.
The low uptake rates have prompted fears that children will be more vulnerable to infectious diseases as they begin primary school in September. The government has urged parents to make sure their children are up to date with their vaccines.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 29 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Multiple patients harmed at ‘overly cautious’ trust

Multiple glaucoma patients were harmed at a trust that was “overly cautious” about surgical intervention and did not follow national care guidelines, a royal college review has found.
The Royal College of Ophthalmologists reviewed 14 patients at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals Foundation Trust who experienced delays in being seen by the glaucoma team. Seven of these patients had suffered some level of harm while in three other cases the review team was unable to decide if harm was caused through “aspects of service delivery”.
The trust would not confirm what level of harm these patients suffered but said they had all now received treatment.
HSJ obtained a redacted copy of the review, which also raised concerns that patients were left on maximum medical therapies while their glaucoma progressed and that assessments done by the trust were not in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance. It urged the department to ensure best practice was put in place.
Read full story (paywalled)
Source: HSJ, 29 August 2025
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CDC erupts in chaos after ousted chief Susan Monarez refuses to resign

The US’s top public health agency was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to oust its leader Susan Monarez, sworn in less than a month ago, as her lawyers said she would not resign and that she was being “targeted” for her pro-science stance.
Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was ousted on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that offered no explanation its decision.
“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” HHS said in an unsigned statement posted to social media. Her lawyers pushed back in a statement, saying she had “neither resigned nor received notification” from the White House of her termination.
Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate just last month, appeared to have run afoul of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, after she declined to support sweeping changes to US vaccine policies, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times.
“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk,” her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement. “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 28 August 2025
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Malawi set to run out of TB drugs in a month after US, UK and others cut aid

Malawi is facing a critical shortage of tuberculosis drugs, with health officials warning that stocks will run out by the end of September.
It comes just months after the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the country had successfully reduced tuberculosis (TB) cases by 40% over the past decade.
In March, the WHO’s country representative, Dr Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo, announced that Malawi had also seen a high rate of success in treating TB and a significant reduction in the number of deaths.
But the health ministry, which was already badly hit by the cuts in aid from the US, UK and other donors, has been forced to warn the public of low stocks of first-line TB medicines across Malawi, which means patients may find their treatment disrupted or ended.
Dr Samson Mndolo, Malawi’s secretary for health, said the low stock was down to disruption in the global supply of pharmaceutical ingredients, worsened by declining international support and aid, and said newly diagnosed patients may be denied access to the standard drug regimens.
Read full story
Source: The Guardian, 28 August 2025
Patient Safety Learning

Hospitals at risk if cybersecurity law expires, former FBI leader says

The expiration of a 2015 federal cybersecurity law could put hospitals and health systems at risk for more cyberattacks, a former FBI leader wrote in Fortune.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which lapses 30 September has enabled quick threat-intelligence sharing between government and businesses, including thousands this year alone, preventing “countless” hacks over the past decade, according to the 17 August article by Cynthia Kaiser, former deputy director of the FBI’s cyber department.
“If information sharing degrades after CISA 2015’s sunset, hospitals — and all other critical infrastructure — very likely will lose crucial early warnings about ransomware variants and other attack methods,” she wrote. “When a hospital’s systems are threatened, rapid information sharing matters. Minutes count in medical emergencies, and delays can be fatal.”
Ms. Kaiser pointed to research from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.-based University of Minnesota that estimated ransomware attacks killed between 42 and 67 Medicare patients from 2016 to 2021.
Read full story
Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 18 August 2025
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