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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    Dan Harrison, who had schizophrenia and psychotic delusions about his parents, had been sectioned ten days before he attacked his father. He was detained at Neath Port Talbot Hospital, run by the Swansea Bay University Health Board.
    During those ten days he received no treatment or medication. He escaped through a door being held open by a member of staff who was talking to someone else and immediately headed for the family home where he killed his father.
    The attack came after Dan's mother, Jane, and her husband repeatedly asked for help from mental health services as their son’s state of mind and behaviour deteriorated. They were refused.
    Last month Kirsten Heaven, assistant coroner for Swansea, recorded in a narrative verdict that there had been repeated failings by the Swansea University Health Board and local council. She said multiple system failures had contributed to Kim’s death and warned of more deaths if they were not addressed.
    Jane is speaking out now, with her son’s permission, after a Sunday Times investigation highlighted the scale of mental health-related killings in Britain. There have been at least 233 reported since 2020 and there have been repeated warnings about NHS services failing to provide crisis care.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 1 June 2024
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    Three more babies have died from whooping cough this year as cases continue to rise across the country, according to the UK Health Security Agency.
    Since January, there have been 4,793 confirmed cases of whooping cough, with 181 babies under the age of three months diagnosed with the illness. A total of eight babies have now died from whooping cough this year.
    Pregnant women have been urged to get the whooping cough vaccine in order for their babies to be protected before they are old enough to receive the vaccine themselves.
    Babies can first be vaccinated against the disease when eight weeks old, while pregnant women are advised to get the vaccine at 16 and 32 weeks.
    Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam, a consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA, said: “Our thoughts and condolences are with those families who have so tragically lost their baby.
    “With whooping cough case numbers across the country continuing to rise and sadly the further infant deaths in April, we are again reminded how severe the illness can be for very young babies.
    “Pregnant women should have a whooping cough vaccine in every pregnancy, normally around the time of their mid-pregnancy scan (usually 20 weeks). This passes protection to their baby in the womb so that they are protected from birth in the first months of their life when they are most vulnerable and before they can receive their own vaccines.
    “The vaccine is crucial for pregnant women, to protect their babies from what can be a devastating illness.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 6 June 2024
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    One out of every six people have symptoms when they stop taking antidepressants - fewer than previously thought, a review of previous studies suggests.
    The researchers say their findings will help inform doctors and patients "without causing undue alarm".
    The Lancet Psychiatry review looked at data from 79 trials involving more than 20,000 patients.
    Some had been treated with antidepressants and others with a dummy drug or placebo, which helped researchers gauge the true effect of withdrawing from the drugs.
    Some people have unpleasant symptoms such as dizziness, headache, nausea and insomnia when they stop taking antidepressants, which, the researchers say, can cause considerable distress.
    Previous estimates suggested antidepressant discontinuation symptoms (ADS) affected 56% of patients, with almost half of cases classed as severe.
    But this review, from the Universities of Berlin and Cologne, estimates one out of every every six or seven patients can expect symptoms when stopping antidepressants and one in 35 will have severe symptoms.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 6 June 2024
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    The United State's largest nurses union is demanding that artificial intelligence tools used in healthcare be proven safe and equitable before deployment. Those that aren’t should be immediately discontinued, the union says.
    Few algorithms, if any, currently meet their standard.  
    “These arguments that these AI tools will result in improved safety are not grounded in any type of evidence whatsoever,” Michelle Mahon, assistant director of nursing practice at National Nurses United, told Fierce Healthcare. 
    NNU represents 225,000 nurses in the US and has a presence in nearly every state through affiliated organisations, like the California Nurses Association, which protested the use of AI in healthcare in late April. NNU nurses also represent nearly every major hospital and health system in the nation. 
    Most AI nurses interact with is integrated into electronic health records and is often used to predict sepsis or determine patient acuity, union nurses said at an NNU media briefing last month. 
    EHRs cause an estimated 30,000 deaths per year, which is the third leading cause of death in the nation, Mahon said. Adding what they call “unproven” algorithms to EHRs is not how the health system should be spending dollars, NNU says.
    The union is demanding that all AI used in healthcare meet the precautionary principle, a philosophical approach that requires the highest level of protection for innovations without significant scientific backing. Any AI solution that does not meet this principle, which NNU claims is most of the AI currently on the market and deployed in hospitals, should be immediately discontinued, they say.
    Read full story
    Source: Fierce Healthcare, 3 June 2024
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Major hospitals in London have declared a critical incident after a cyber attack led to operations being cancelled and patients being diverted elsewhere for care.
    NHS officials said they were working with the National Cyber Security Centre after the attack on Synnovis, which provides pathology services to large hospitals and GP surgeries in the capital.
    The company said the ransomware attack has affected all of its IT systems, which has impacted its pathology services.
    Some procedures and operations have been cancelled or have been redirected to other NHS providers as hospital bosses continue to establish what work can be carried out safely.
    Synnovis was the victim of a ransomware cyberattack. This has affected all Synnovis IT systems, resulting in interruptions to many of our pathology services.
    Mark Dollar, Synnovis chief executive
    Health service leaders said there has been a “significant impact” King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ – including the Royal Brompton and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital – and GP services in south-east London.
    A memo to staff said the “critical incident” has had a “major impact” on the delivery of services, with blood transfusions particularly affected.
    Patients have described last-minute cancellations to operations and blood tests.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 4 June 2024
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    The negotiation of a pandemic accord intended to prevent the global disaster seen during Covid-19 should be completed in the next year, WHO have announced.
    “The amendments to the international health regulations will bolster countries’ ability to detect and respond to future outbreaks and pandemics by strengthening their own national capacities and coordination between fellow states, on disease surveillance, information sharing, and response,” said WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “This is built on commitment to equity, an understanding that health threats do not recognise national borders, and that preparedness is a collective endeavour.”
    The revised international health regulations includes a commitment to strengthening access to medical products and financing, and stronger, more precise language that should accelerate the detection of health threats and the necessary global action to manage them.
    “Full implementation of the international health regulations brings the world closer to being safer from pandemic threats. A new pandemic agreement with equity at its heart would further strengthen the rules around and guide international collaboration,” said Helen Clark, former New Zealand prime minister and co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
    Read full story 
    Source: BMJ, 4 June 2024
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    A record number of people in England were diagnosed with gonorrhoea last year, annual UK Health Security Agency figures show.
    Diagnoses rose 7.5% - from 79,268 in 2022 to 85,223 in 2023.
    Syphilis, meanwhile, rose 9.4% - from 8,693 to 9,513, the highest number since 1948 - with more heterosexual men and women becoming infected.
    Overall, sexually transmitted infection diagnoses, including several different STIs, rose 4.7%.
    The British Association of Sexual Health and HIV said the rise in STIs was a “concerning indicator” of pressure on sexual-health services and called for a new strategy.
    President Prof Matt Phillips said: “We find ourselves at a critical point for securing the viability of sexual-health services.
    “From recruitment challenges, to public-health funding, to ensuring the right experts are supporting every clinic, the next government has an opportunity to change the tides and address these barriers, to ensure everyone has timely access to expertise to support good sexual health and wellbeing.”
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 4 June 2024
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    The NHS and government have failed to implement a single recommendation from a key Jimmy Savile inquiry – almost 10 years after plans to prevent future sex abuse of patients in hospitals were put forward, The Independent can reveal.
    The shocking discovery was uncovered by the panel tasked to chair the public inquiry into Lucy Letby, the nurse who killed several newborn babies in her care.
    Analysing the progress made by the NHS and government after some of the most high-profile health scandals in the UK, it found across 30 inquiries, dating back to 1967, just 302 out of more than 1,400 key recommendations had been adopted.
    Alan Collins, a lawyer who represented dozens of victims in claims against Savile’s estate, slammed politicians and public bodies over the failure.
    He says: “The thread that runs through the numerous reports, the investigations behind them, and the ongoing failures with lack of implementation is the lack of accountability.
    “We have seen time after time the lack of professional curiosity in the face of glaring wrongdoing yet this cultural vacuum rarely sees those charged with responsibility for safeguarding subject to any consequences.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 3 June 2024
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    Patients are being squeezed onto wards, forced to have intimate examinations in front of each other and left dying in hospital corridors as nurses are forced to play “trolley tetris”, NHS staff have revealed.
    Testimonies from nurses, given to the Royal College of Nursing and seen by The Independent, reveal they are regularly forced into “unsafe” practices, such as squeezing more patients into wards with insufficient space and staffing.
    The warnings come as the RCN has urged the next government to act on the “national emergency” with a survey of thousands of nurses revealing patients are being left without access to oxygen and put in undignified situations.
    RCN deputy chief nurse Lynn Woolsey said in May: “We have increasing evidence from members up and down the country of patients being cared for in undesignated bed spaces, vending machines being moved out of A&E to make space for patients, two patients being put in one bed space, with one patient being asked to face the wall while a rectal exam was carried out on the other patient... shocking, shocking information and situations.”
    In the face of the worsening A&E and ambulance waiting times last year, The Independent revealed hospital staff in many areas were ordered to move patients from emergency departments on, regardless of space.
    In one example, a nurse said her trust ordered workers to accept patients from A&E at midday every day, adding: “Doesn’t matter what capacity A&E is or the ward. It’s just what has to be done. We have no space, no tables, no curtains.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 3 June 2024
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    The families of nine babies who died at a scandal-hit NHS trust over a three-year period have called for a public inquiry into the standard of its maternity care.
    A collective letter has been sent to each of the families' MPs after they lost babies at hospitals run by the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.
    Of the nine bereaved mothers, four said they too almost died as a result of "poor standards of care" from maternity teams between 2021 and 2023
    The trust said it had recruited more midwives and "changed" how it supported families, with outcomes now better "than most other trusts in the country".
    But the Sussex-based families said they had called for a public inquiry into its maternity services to ensure accountability for "systemic failures", and so the trust learns from past mistakes.
    In the letter to the MPs, the parents said: "With the volume and repetition of errors in maternity care by the trust, we believe that babies and potentially mothers will continue to unnecessarily die under the trust’s care unless there is additional intervention."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 4 June 2024
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    A new artificial intelligence tool (AI) developed in the UK can rapidly rule out heart attacks in people attending A&E and help tens of thousands avoid unnecessary hospital stays each year, according to its creators.
    Known as Rapid-RO, the AI tool has been found to successfully rule out heart attacks in over a third of patients across four UK hospitals during trials.
    Professor James Leiper, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which funded the study, said: “This research demonstrates the important role AI could play in guiding treatment decision for heart patients.
    “By quickly identifying patients who are safe to be discharged, this technology could help people avoid unnecessary hospital stays, allowing valuable NHS time and resource to be redirected to where it could have the greatest benefit.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 3 June 2024
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    Overcrowding is forcing hospitals to treat so many patients in corridors and storerooms that it constitutes a “national emergency”, the UK’s nursing union has said.
    The growing and widespread practice is endangering patients’ safety by leaving them without oxygen or easily able to attract staff’s attention, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned.
    “Corridor care” also deprives patients of their dignity because they have to undergo intimate examinations in view of others and do not have easy access to a toilet, it added.
    Hospitals become so stretched that some patients have died while being looked after in what the RCN said were “inappropriate areas”, which can also include car parks and fracture rooms.
    The RCN called on the NHS to recognise the serious risk “corridor care” posed to patients by recording every time it happened and classifying it as a “never event”. The latter would put it on a par with incidents such as surgeons operating on the wrong part of someone’s body.
    A new RCN report, based on a survey of 11,000 nurses across the UK, includes evidence of the impact on patients and staff of care being delivered in such settings. One nurse said: “You wouldn’t treat a dog this way.”
    Nurses described patients being told they had cancer while they were in public areas, and someone with dementia being left for hours without oxygen in a corridor.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 3 June 2024
    Related reading on the hub:
    A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    Young women from West Yorkshire have criticised a "lack of support" available for a painful and debilitating medical condition.
    The three patients, all in their 20s, said they either struggled to get a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) confirmed despite numerous GP appointments, or were not given effective treatment.
    PCOS causes painful and irregular periods, and affects up to one in 10 women in the UK.
    The NHS said it "strongly advised" any woman concerned about their health to contact their GP.
    Alex Offer, 24, from Leeds, said it took nine years before she was told she had PCOS after doctors "ignored" her concerns from the age of 15.
    One GP dismissed her symptoms as being caused by stress and anxiety, she said.
    Laaraib Khan, 24, also from Leeds, reported a similar experience.
    Although she received her diagnosis at the age of 13 after her mother pushed her GP to take her complaints seriously, in the past 11 years she said she had been given "little support" and was left to manage the syndrome herself.
    "You have to lean on other women who are going through it rather than going to your GP, who will most likely turn you away," she said.
    Research by the charity Verity PCOS UK found that 60% of women with the disorder have struggled to get a diagnosis, while 95% said they had encountered problems trying to access NHS support.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 3 June 2024
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    Predatory staff who target vulnerable adults in care homes are free to move jobs unchallenged, The Independent can reveal, as almost 10,000 incidents of sexual abuse have been recorded in the last three years.
    The fact that abusers can move from home to home emerged in an independent review sparked by complaints made three decades ago by the family of a man with learning disabilities.
    Clive Treacey was allegedly groomed and sexually abused at the age of 23 in a private care home in Cheshire and then moved to Staffordshire where his abuser was able to access him again, it was claimed. Both Mr Treacey and his alleged abuser have since died.
    His story was first reported by The Independent in 2021 and the review into his care – carried out by the most senior safeguarding expert in England Professor Michael Preston-Shoot and seen exclusively by this publication – showed huge failures in dealing with concerns raised by his family.
    It warned that vulnerable adults across the country could still be at risk of harm with no national guidance for officials on how to respond to allegations of abuse of adults by care home staff in positions of trust.
    Read full story
    Read the Discretionary Safeguarding Adults Review into Clive's case
    Source: The Independent, 18 April 2024
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    Women have been told to avoid using weight-loss drugs to help them get pregnant, as doctors report a rise in surprise “Ozempic babies”.
    Some women struggling with infertility have unexpectedly become pregnant after being prescribed semaglutide, which is used to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic.
    However, scientists have now issued a warning that the weight-loss injections may cause birth defects and should not be used by anyone hoping to become pregnant.
    Professor Tricia Tan, from the department of metabolism, digestion and reproduction at Imperial College London, said: “Women need to know that these drugs should not be used during pregnancy. You can also see that most of the clinical trials have not included women who are intending to become pregnant. Animal studies did show that the animal babies born to animals who were given these medications had problems.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 23 April 2024
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    Urgent government action is needed to stop preventable asthma deaths, a leading charity has said.
    More than 12,000 people in the UK have died from asthma attacks since 2014, according to Asthma and Lung UK.
    It said the figures meant "shockingly little" had changed since a major report a decade ago which found two thirds of asthma deaths could have been avoided with better care.
    People with asthma should get an annual condition review, a written action plan and inhaler technique checks.
    But the charity said people with asthma were being "failed", with seven out of 10 not receiving basic care, partly because healthcare workers were over-stretched.
    Asthma and Lung UK said 31% of asthmatics were "disengaged" with managing their condition, putting them at higher risk, according to its research.
    Ministers in England and Wales said they were trying to improve services.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 24 April 2024
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    Patients needing urgent treatment for life-threatening illness such as strokes or heart attacks waited more than 24 hours for an ambulance response, new figures show.
    New data shows the crisis facing NHS ambulance services resulted in every region missing vital NHS targets to respond to some of the most critically unwell patients last year.
    Despite improvements compared to 2022, figures obtained by the Liberal Democrat party show ambulance services continued to struggle with response times to category two patients, which may include those who have suffered a stroke or heart attack and should receive a response within 18 minutes.
    In two cases patients needing this level of response, in Warrington and Staffordshire, waited more than 25 hours for an ambulance.
    Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive at NHS Providers, which represents all NHS trusts, called for “urgent” investment and warned that “rising demand, limited resources and vast staff shortages are piling pressure on an already-stretched service, further driving up ambulance waiting times.”
    He said NHS hospital and ambulance leaders are working to reduce delays and responses at a time “when demand has never been higher.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 23 April 2024
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    Ethnic minorities and young people require more visits than other people to the GP before being diagnosed with cancer, according to new analysis.
    On average, one in five people across England require three or more GP interactions before being diagnosed with cancer. But for people from ethnic minority backgrounds, the figure rises to one in three, according to analysis of the NHS cancer patient experience 2022 survey by QualityWatch, a joint programme from the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation.
    For young people aged between 16 and 24, about half needed at least three GP visits before being diagnosed, with 20% needing at least five visits. Despite this, young people were still more likely to be diagnosed at an early stage in their cancer.
    Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, said that identifying cancer symptoms in young people could be challenging as the risk for the group was generally much smaller.
    Hawthorne said: “Ensuring patients receive timely and appropriate referrals for suspected cancers is a priority for GPs – and to this end, they are doing a good job, making more urgent referrals and ensuring more cancers are being diagnosed at an early stage than ever.
    “Whilst GPs are highly trained to identify cancers, this remains challenging in primary care, not least and particularly with some cancers, because the symptoms are often vague and typical of other, more common conditions.”
    Dr Liz Fisher, senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust, said: “Delays to a cancer diagnosis pose real risks for people and an early diagnosis plays a pivotal role in determining the treatments available to people and determining outcomes.
    “The NHS has set an ambitious goal to dramatically increase early detection of cancer, but performance in this area has stubbornly stalled in recent years. Everyone’s experience of cancer diagnosis is different but the risks to delays aren’t felt equally, with younger people and those from minority ethnic groups requiring more visits to health professionals to secure a diagnosis.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 24 April 2024
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    Medical device companies are paying millions of pounds to hospitals in the UK to fund staff places, as well as training and awareness campaigns, while pushing sales of their products, including implants, heart valves and diagnostic equipment, a new report reveals.
    An analysis of disclosures by medical device companies found that between 2017 and 2019 they reported €425m (£367m at today’s rates) in payments to healthcare organisations in Europe, according to the study in the journal Health Policy and Technology.
    The businesses reported paying more than €37m to hospitals and other healthcare bodies in the UK over the three-year period. The disclosures include payments to some of the biggest hospital trusts in England.
    James Larkin, one of the authors of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said the filings did not include consultancy fees for medical staff and many companies did not register their payments. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “There is a huge number of payments that are not being disclosed. The descriptions for payments which are disclosed are very vague and it is not completely clear what they are for.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 20 April 2024
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    A failure to share medical information between IT systems contributed to the death of a man in prison custody, a coroner has concluded.
    In a newly published report on the death of Finlay Finlayson at HMP Lewes in 2019, the coroner highlighted “information sharing” problems and “permissions issues” between the prison IT system and that of the man’s GP surgery. 
    Mr Finlayson died from blood clots in his lungs, having suffered from multiple long-term health conditions including cancer during his life. At the time of his death in 2019, health services at HMP Lewes were provided by Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust, though they are now provided by the Practice Plus Group.
    According to the Prevention of Future Deaths report issued last month, coroner Laura Bradford heard evidence that Mr Finlayson’s care was affected by “confusion and uncertainty about his medical conditions caused by information sharing and permissions issues with SystmOne”.
    It appears the GP practice had not enabled sharing of the data, which would have been required for it to be accessed in the prison.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 22 April 2024
    Further reading on the hub:
    NHS England warns electronic patient record could pose ‘serious risks to patient safety’: what can we learn? The digitalising of patient records — why patients MUST be involved
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    Hospital patients who are treated by women doctors are less likely to die and to be readmitted, a new study has found.
    Research, by UCLA, discovered the health of female patients is more advantaged by treatment from women doctors than it is for men.
    The study, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, found the mortality rate for female patients was 8.15 per cent when treated by women physicians in comparison to 8.38 per cent when the doctor was male - which researchers deem a “clinically significant” difference.
    Meanwhile, the mortality rate for male patients treated by female doctors was 10.15 per cent - less than the 10.23 per cent rate for male physicians. Researchers unearthed the same pattern for hospital readmission rates.
    Professor Yusuke Tsugawa, one of the authors, said patient outcomes between male and female physicians would not be different if the professionals practiced medicine in the same way.
    “What our findings indicate is that female and male physicians practice medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes,” he said.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 22 April 2024
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    The government has been accused of “deprioritising women’s health” as analysis shows that almost 600,000 women in England are waiting for gynaecological treatment, an increase of a third over two years.
    There are 33,000 women waiting more than a year for such treatment, an increase of 43%, according to Labour analysis of data from the House of Commons library.
    It found that there is no region in England that meets the government’s target for cervical cancer screening of 80% coverage, with just over two-thirds of women (68.7%) having been screened in the past five and a half years.
    Also, one in four women (26%) with suspected breast cancer waited more than a fortnight to see a specialist in the year to September 2023.
    Under two-thirds (66.4%) of eligible women have been screened for breast cancer in the last three years, with just two English regions meeting the 70% coverage target.
    The NHS target in England is that 92% of patients have a referral-to-treatment time of less than 18 weeks.
    The figures come after the government pledged to end decades of gender-based health inequalities through a new women’s health strategy for England.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 22 April 2024
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    Leaders of an integrated care system in the Midlands have warned they cannot make the scale of staffing cuts required to balance the books without putting patients at risk.
    Indicative analysis produced by Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board also found its provider trusts would have to cut 10 per cent of their workforce to break even.
    This would equate to 2,300 posts across University Hospitals North Midlands, Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust and North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare, while the ICB would have to cancel a “very high proportion” of third-sector contracts.
    The document says this “would bring our teams below safe staffing levels” and have a “profound effect on our ability to deliver safe services”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 23 April 2024
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    The shocking number of patients who are dying while under the care of stretched community mental health services can be revealed for the first time after a major NHS report was leaked to The Independent.
    More than 15,000 people are estimated to have died in a single year while being cared for by community mental health teams – as trusts scramble for staff and funding while the demand for care is at an all-time high.
    The figures, which relate to deaths between March 2022 and March 2023, can be revealed after a concerned insider handed the secret report to this publication. Health officials admitted the statistics had been collated for the first time last year in a bid to reduce deaths – but have not made them public.
    The leaked report reveals that:
    At least 137 women died between 2022 and 2023 while under the care of services for pregnant women at one unnamed trust. Nearly one in 10 of the patients treated by a crisis service – designed to help those with the most severe mental health conditions – died while under that care. One unnamed mental health trust recorded more than 500 deaths in that year-long period. Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 22 April 2024
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    The amount of time doctors have to spend doing compulsory training will be cut as part of an NHS drive to improve medics’ working lives, the Guardian can reveal.
    Concern that doctors have too heavy a burden of mandatory training has prompted NHS England to commission a review, which it is expected to announce imminently.
    It is aimed at reducing the need for doctors to undertake what for some can be up to as many as 33 sessions of training every year, depending on what stage of their career they are at. Each lasts between 30 minutes and several hours and together take about a day to complete.
    NHS bosses have briefed medical groups and health service care providers on the plan, which they hope will address one of the many frustrations that some doctors – especially recently qualified doctors – have about working in the service, alongside pay, constant pressure and poor working environments.
    Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, confirmed the review. “While statutory and mandatory training provides NHS staff with core knowledge and skills that support safe and effective working, we know that needing to repeat the same training courses every year isn’t the best use of a clinician’s time. So it’s right that we look to find ways to cut back on this, while still considering our legal obligations,” he said.
    “Cutting red tape and ensuring this type of training is only carried out when necessary – for example, when junior doctors move between hospitals – will not only be better for our staff, who will spend less time worrying about training to adhere to legal requirements, but will also benefit patients by freeing up clinicians’ time for care and treatment."
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 22 April 2024
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