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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    Children have been left with debilitating conditions due to their treatment at a scandal-hit Glasgow hospital, their parents have told MSPs.
    The Scottish government has been urged to launch a probe into concerns children treated at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) are suffering from conditions including chronic stomach pain and incontinence after being given anti-infection treatments for too long.
    The families claim children were given prophylactic drugs due to infection risks at the hospital, but say they have been lied to by health chiefs.
    NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the treatment was an established method of preventing infections, and that the hospital is safe.
    First Minister John Swinney's spokesman said he was looking at the issues "as a matter of urgency".
    fter years of denials, the health board admitted last month that issues with its water system probably caused infections in child cancer patients at the QEUH campus, which includes the Royal Hospital for Children.
    A public inquiry is looking into how design, construction, and system failures led to safety issues, and whether these problems could have been prevented.
    Separately, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is looking at seven cases of patients who died, to establish if there is sufficient evidence of criminality such as corporate homicide or breaches of health and safety law.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 26 February 2026
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    The controversial Pathways trial assessing the effect of puberty blockers on young people with gender incongruence has been paused owing to “concerns related to the wellbeing of participants.”
    The UK medicines watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has written to King’s College London, which is leading the trial, “to discuss potential amendments that we believe will strengthen the trial protocol.”
    The move comes after a concerted effort by campaigners to stop the trial going ahead. In December the Bayswater Support Group, which represents 800 parents of children and young adults who identify as transgender, sent a pre-action letter to the MHRA threatening judicial review unless the study is halted.
    But the MHRA emphasised that the pause is related to scientific and wellbeing issues and not a direct result of the potential legal action.
    The Pathways study was set up after a review of gender services for children and adolescents by the paediatrician Hilary Cass in 2024 found extremely limited data on the harms of puberty blockers and recommended further research.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: BMJ, 24 February 2026
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    The chair of NHS England has told a patient safety event that the national body is “trying to avoid” telling every part of the country how to work.
    Penny Dash said there was a “reluctance” to mandate, dictate and measure from within NHSE.
    She said NHSE chief executive Sir Jim Mackey was “very, very antimandating” and that the term would “have many of her colleagues shaking”.
    Dr Dash pointed to resistance that officials had experienced from local authorities, health and wellbeing boards, and local authority commissioning services, adding: “They absolutely do not want us to mandate.”
    She was responding to a question about how NHSE could regulate effectively with a “mandate-averse philosophy”, while addressing the Public Policy Projects’ Patient Safety Forum on Wednesday.
    She said: “We are a national health service, there is quite rightly an expectation that there is some consistency in care, there is quite rightly an expectation that all of these things matter and that us, as NHS England, we should be mandating, dictating and then measuring.
    “I can completely see how we can get to that point, and yet, we then have a very, very, very strong view from many people, ‘no, no, no, devolve, devolve, devolve’, and it’s live, and it’s playing out an awful lot…” 
    She added: “It’s a really hard balance to strike, and we’re going to have to continue to work our way through it. We don’t want to be overly mandating – there are real negatives of mandating too much…”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 27 February 2026
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    NHS England is set to fall “well short” of a key target to ramp up GPs’ use of “advice and guidance” from specialists – and the model is “unlikely to be the silver bullet ministers hoped for” to help cut waiting lists, experts have warned.
    The warning comes in a Nuffield Trust analysis, shared exclusively with HSJ. It represents a blow for ministers and NHS leaders because reducing referrals through an expansion of A&G is one of the central planks of their elective recovery plan.
    The findings raise further questions about the NHS’s attempts to meet the government’s headline target of recovering 18-week performance back to the 92 per cent standard by 2029, which is already widely viewed to be off track.
    The A&G model, when working well, allows GPs to seek advice from hospital specialists on a patient’s condition before making a referral. And in around half of these cases, the GP can avoid referring the patient onto the waiting list. This is known as a “diversion” – although the report explains that some of these cases would never have resulted in referrals.
    But the analysis concludes that, while A&G requests have increased, the NHS will not deliver nearly enough requests overall, or “divert” enough referrals, to meet its ambitious targets.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 27 February 2026
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Hospitals and care homes in the UK face “an impending car crash”, experts have warned, as research shows the number of overseas nurses and carers has collapsed.
    Analysis of Home Office quarterly data reveals the number of overseas nurses granted entry to the UK has fallen by 93% over three years. Just 1,777 overseas nurses were granted entry in 2025, compared with 26,100 in 2022.
    Visas for workers in the caring personal service occupations category – which includes care workers, but also nursing auxiliaries, ambulance staff and dental workers – had the steepest decline in new workers from overseas in absolute terms.
    The figure fell from 107,847 workers granted entry in 2023 to just 3,178 in 2025, a 97% decline over two years. Only 23 overseas care workers were granted entry from October to December 2025.
    The study, by the charity Work Rights Centre, highlights the impact of the UK’s lurch to the right on migration, which some economists fear will compound skill shortages, inflation, tax rises and problems meeting the needs of an ageing population.
    Overall, the number of skilled worker visas issued has fallen for the ninth consecutive quarter to the lowest levels since 2021, as fewer migrant care workers, nurses, scientists, therapists, education professionals and tradespeople come to the UK, where visa conditions have been systematically tightened.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 26 February 2026
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    The influential MP who first proposed setting up a safety investigations watchdog for the NHS has warned health and social care secretary Wes Streeting that merging the body into the Care Quality Commission would be “fundamentally wrong”.
    Sir Bernard Jenkin, who says he has cross-party support from senior MPs and royal colleges on this, said the move would “destroy” confidence in the independence of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB).
    The long-standing MP and former committee chair delivered a highly critical verdict on the review by NHS England chair Penny Dash that proposed the merger – which he told HSJ “gets some things really badly wrong”.
    Sir Bernard told HSJ  that Dr Dash’s review highlighted many problems in the management of healthcare safety systems, but also “reveals a profound misunderstanding of safety system management and of the role of HSSIB”.
    He added: “It should remain an independent statutory body precisely because there must be a distinction between learning and regulatory enforcement.
    “Dash says that HSSIB has expanded its scope beyond what was intended. That is completely wrong. Dash says it’s meant to look at incidents of ‘severe harm’, not whole system investigations. That is completely wrong.
    “The remit of HSSIB is set out in the [Health and Care Act 2022], and it is doing precisely what the Air Accidents Investigation Branch would do in aviation or the Rail Accidents Investigation Branch would do in rail – making systemic recommendations from systemic investigations, and that is precisely why it is so effective.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 26 February 2026
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    Coroners should not rely on trusts’ safety reports as primary or sole evidence for an inquest, NHS England has said, amid concerns some deaths deemed “avoidable” are not even being investigated under the national safety framework.
    In an internal newsletter, seen by HSJ, understood to have been circulated to all coroners nationally, NHSE acknowledged “challenges” existed between its patient safety incident response framework (PSIRF) and coronial inquests.
    NHSE said in its newsletter that while PSIRF reports can “provide valuable context about wider circumstances and system changes,” they “should not be relied upon as the primary or sole evidence for an inquest”.
    It added that PSIRF reports “deliberately exclude activities such as apportioning blame”, determining liability, assessing whether a death is preventable, or identifying cause of death, and focus on systemic insights rather than direct causation.
    They also no longer routinely capture witness statements, something coroners have relied upon previously to inform decision-making.
    In contrast, coroners are legally required to answer four statutory questions, which often involve establishing causation and examining circumstances around a specific death.
    NHSE said: “Some coroners, accustomed to serious incident investigation reports that provided clear chronologies and root-cause analysis, now find that PSIRF outputs, while richer in systemic insight, are lacking the causation detail they expect.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 26 February 2026
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    NHS England is planning to dismantle the patient engagement portal supplier market in a bid to save £11m and directly integrate appointment management into the NHS App, HSJ can reveal.
    This month, NHSE has told suppliers of PEPs – who have been the intermediary between hospital IT systems and patients for appointment booking for years – that within the next three years they would no longer be required to provide core appointment features through the NHS App.
    Instead, trusts will move towards direct integration into the NHS App through their electronic patient record, known as Wayfinder direct integration.
    It comes as the government pushes for the NHS App – which in December had more than 13 million log-ins – to be the single front door for patients.
    The five core features NHSE wants to bring in-house are: viewing appointment details, completing pre-appointment questionnaires, accessing documents, managing or cancelling appointments, and receiving notifications.
    Hospital patient administration systems (PAS) and EPRs – which hold appointment booking and scheduling data – will share that data with the NHS App.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 25 February 2026
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    Hospitals are having to update more than 100,000 patients’ pacemakers – and replace hundreds of the devices – after the manufacturer discovered their batteries run down years early, HSJ has learned.
    Medical device manufacturer Boston Scientific issued a field safety notice to trusts in December 2024, which stated that around 13% of its Accolade pacemakers manufactured before September 2018 have a battery flaw.
    It means they are more likely to suddenly switch into a limited, back-up “safety mode”, which can be fatal for some patients who are fully reliant on their pacemaker.
    Estimates of the numbers affected in the UK have never been issued, but the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has now told HSJ that 13,969 devices affected by the flaw were sold to 153 hospitals in the UK.
    In addition, last autumn, Boston Scientific issued a software update for the problem, which it said should be made via in-person appointments. The MHRA said this means a further 97,557 devices across 308 UK hospitals, in addition to the initial 13,969, should be updated.
    Acute trusts are now in the process of calling in the patients affected, HSJ has learned.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 26 February 2026
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    An interim report into maternity and neonatal services across England has uncovered shocking allegations of racism, bullying, crumbling infrastructure, and births in undignified circumstances.
    Some families said that baby deaths were being misclassified to prevent further investigation.
    Baroness Amos, who is leading a national investigation into maternity care, said: "Maternity and neonatal services in England are failing too many women, babies, families, and staff."
    Investigators spoke to hundreds of harmed families and staff across 12 NHS trusts in England, many of whom shared shocking accounts of their experiences.
    Some families alleged in the report that their babies were designated stillborn instead of dying after birth.
    "They felt the system incentivised the recording of deaths as stillbirths as this prevents the case from being investigated by a coroner," the report said.
    Jack and Sarah Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn, were not part of the Amos investigation, but have fought to get a separate inquiry launched for bereaved and harmed families in Nottingham.
    Jack said: "We have met a number of people and heard reports from a number of people whose babies they say were born alive and who the hospital say were born dead.
    "And that is a horrific position, a horrific thing to say, and yet of course we believe the victims, not the NHS, who have shown themselves to be sparing with the truth around some of these issues."
    Read full story
    Source: Sky News, 26 February 2026
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    The trusts where Black women and those from the most deprived communities are facing “unacceptable” disparities in outcomes against a range of maternal care metrics have been identified in a new NHS England dashboard.
    HSJ’s analysis of the new dataset, the publication of which was mandated by health and social care secretary Wes Streeting in June, comes as Baroness Valerie Amos is due to publish the next stage of her report of maternity services later this month.
    The data suggests that those identifying as Black and living in the “most deprived” communities experienced higher rates of pre-term birth nationally last year – with rates almost three times as high as white and less deprived women at some providers.
    Pre-term birth rates for Black and “most deprived” women were nearly three times as high as white and “least deprived” women at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals Foundation Trust, which had one of the highest overall rates nationally. 
    And although Homerton Healthcare and Kingston and Richmond FTs had low overall pre-term birth rates, Black women receiving care there had rates twice as high as white women.
    Black women also experienced higher rates of postpartum haemorrhage nationally, according to the data. 
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 17 February 2026
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    Nearly a quarter of parents in the United States say at least one of their children is not receiving the mental health care they need, according to Harvard researchers, exposing critical gaps to access around the country.
    At least one child needed mental health care in one in five of the 173,000 households included in the new survey.
    “Among these parents, 24.8% reported an unmet need, 16.6% reported difficulty in accessing care and 21.8% cited such difficulty as the reason their children did not receive care,” the researchers said in a study analysing the 2023-2024 data.
    The burden was disproportionately felt in households with homeschooled children. More than 30 percent of children in those homes had an unmet need for care.
    “Our analysis provides timely evidence that, despite the increasing awareness of youth mental health needs, access to necessary mental health care remains a challenge for a large number of U.S. households,” Hao Yu, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 16 February 2026
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    Patients, relatives and whistleblowers have described a culture of abuse at a mental health hospital, while 15 staff members have been arrested following allegations of rape, ill-treatment and neglect.
    St Andrew's Healthcare in Northampton, which provides specialist care for about 600 people with complex mental health needs, is the subject of three police investigations following alleged assaults and the deaths of two patients.
    The charity that runs the private hospital said it had dismissed several staff members and was delivering an urgent action plan to address the issues.
    St Andrew's Healthcare said it was committed to "full transparency" and took a "zero-tolerance approach to any allegation of harm or poor practice".
    Anne, whose name has been changed, told the BBC she was horrified by the injuries sustained by her daughter while she was a patient at St Andrew's Healthcare.
    "They were restraining her with four adults and on one occasion she was knelt on by a male member of staff," she said.
    "She was waking up every night for months and was obviously in a severe amount of pain with her ribs," she added.
    Anne said her daughter had "lost half her body weight" and showed "all the symptoms of being malnourished".
    "She lost the use of her hand while in long-term segregation" and on two occasions she had suffered severe burns from coffee, she added.
    Anne has made a series of safeguarding referrals to West Northamptonshire Council, but said she had not gone to the police due to the lack of witnesses and CCTV.
    "It's traumatic. Something's got to change and the only way things can change is by people now speaking out," Anne said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 17 February 2026
     
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    Children are at risk of measles because the NHS is “clearly failing” to ensure they get the MMR vaccine and its system needs an urgent overhaul, MPs and health experts have warned.
    Calls are growing for major reform of how MMR jabs are delivered as it emerged that vaccination rates in some parts of England are now on a par with those in Afghanistan and Malawi.
    More outbreaks of measles like the one in north London are inevitable, public health specialists believe, given that fewer than 60% of five-year-olds in some places have had both the recommended doses of MMR.
    In Enfield, where 60 children have recently contracted measles, of whom 15 have been hospitalised, the MMR vaccination rate is only 64.3%. That is lower than the 69.3% rate in Malawi and just above Afghanistan’s 62% rate. The World Health Organization advises a 95% rate.
    The outbreak in Enfield has reignited public and medical anxiety about unvaccinated children getting measles, which can damage the brain and lungs and in some cases lead to meningitis, blindness or even death. Five “catch-up clinics” have been set up in local community centres to vaccinate children who got either one or no doses of MMR when it was offered to their parents.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 16 February 2026
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    As we mark two years since the publication of the Hughes Report, a Westminster Hall debate was held that gave a stern warning to government – do not cruelly give women false compensation hope.
    Following the debate, Wes Streeting was interviewed by ITV, where he made a statement saying he intends to be the Health Secretary who finally delivers on the Hughes Report.
    For many women, this was the first time in years they felt a glimmer of real political commitment. Words alone are not enough – but they matter. They set expectations. And we will hold him to that promise.
    MPs from across the House once again highlighted the cost of delay and called for an urgent full, fair compensation scheme, proper psychological support for affected families and an end to the the systemic failings that allowed these women’s health scandals to unfold.
    The Hughes Report in 2024 followed on from the Fist Do No Harm report in 2020 – both of which called for non adversarial financial for women harmed by pelvic mesh, including rectopexy mesh, sodium valproate, and Primodos. Sadly, Primodos families have been dropped from compensation scheme talks.
    Read full story
    Source: Sling the Mesh, 12 February 2026
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MNSI) have announced a second pilot programme of their innovative assessment tool designed to examine the impact of organisational culture on safe care.
    The initial pilot of the MNSI tool, called COMPASS – Culture of Organisations and its iMpact on PAtientS’ Safety ­­– ran in spring 2025 with 12 NHS Trusts.
    The tool is based on a literature review by the Patient Experience Library which analysed more than 10 years of avoidable harm inquiry reports and identified recurring ‘cultural red flags’ that compromise patient safety.
    Feedback from the first pilot included:
    Almost all Trusts agreed that COMPASS added insight into the impact of organisational culture on patient safety A majority indicated that they would take actions based on their COMPASS results Half reported that the process had a positive effect on the relationship between MNSI and their Trust Most respondents felt that regular use of COMPASS would be of benefit, with some expressing interest in using the tool independently. The second pilot will test tool refinements made in response to feedback and further explore its value for Trusts and the wider maternity and neonatal system.
    The work will include up to six months of collecting observations of organisational culture, analysis of collected data and presentation of findings to hospital maternity leadership teams to provide external insight. Trust staff will be invited to share feedback on their experience and the value of COMPASS to their organisation.
    Read full story
    Source: MNSI, 16 February 2026
    Related reading on the hub:
    Evidencing the impact of culture on patient safety – a new tool from MNSI (a blog by Chris McQuitty)
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    "I was told by the midwife to shut up," says Tenisha, "and then she put her hand over my mouth... "
    Shakira asked if alternative medication to morphine was possible after her C-section.
    "The nurse got angry," she says. "She threw the morphine away, and I was then left alone for hours."
    And when Kadi was recovering from a fourth-degree vaginal tear, she lay alone in her hospital bed crying her eyes out.
    Stories from three separate women who were cared for in three different hospitals, but they all shared a similar experience - their pain was ignored, their concerns were dismissed, and they believe their race played a part in the treatment they received.
    The government says tackling disparities in maternity care is a priority, calling the fact that black women are twice as likely to die during childbirth an "absolute outrage".
    But behind the statistics are real women, living with the consequences.
    "I haven't felt supported, I haven't felt safe, I haven't felt like my pain was taken seriously," says Tenisha Howell, 33, who has five children.
    "I have a lot of experiences that I can draw from, and it's sad to say that a lot of them have been quite negative," she says.
    Tenisha says her most recent birth was "probably one of the most traumatic experiences" she has ever had.
    She was screaming in agonising pain as the gas and air she was given was beginning to wear off. The response from her midwife?
    "She told me to shut up multiple times and then she put her hand over my mouth to basically say, 'be quiet'," Tenisha explains.
    Dr Michelle Peter, co-author of the Five X More Black Maternity Experiences Report, says: "This kind of dismissal of black women's pain and refusal to provide adequate pain relief when it's requested is a common experience amongst the black women who have shared their experiences with us."
    The Black maternal experiences report gathered responses from 1,164 black and mixed-heritage women across the UK who had been pregnant between July 2021 and March 2025.
    Of these women, 54% said they experienced challenges with healthcare professionals, while almost a quarter reported not receiving pain relief when it was requested.
    "This is kind of linked to historical, but also ongoing, racialised assumptions about black people's tolerance to pain, their vulnerability or their strengths," says Dr Peter.
    "It was a horrifying experience, to be in so much pain, to be asking for help and nobody listening to you."
    Read full story
    Source: Sky News, 16 February 2026
    Further reading on the hub:
    Five X More campaign: Improving maternal mortality rates and health outcomes for black women
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    None of the neighbourhood contracts proposed in the 10-Year Health Plan will go live until at least April 2027, HSJ understands.
    A “model neighbourhood” document is still due to be published this month, asking local organisations to continue the planning and development of neighbourhood health. However, anticipated details of the new contracts will not be published until at least the summer.
    Officials have now decided they need to hold a public consultation on the purpose of single neighbourhood provider (SNP) and multiple neighbourhood provider (MNP) contracts. After that has taken place, findings will feed into development of future annual GP contracts and NHS standard contract. The very earliest they could be implemented is 2027-28.
    No firm timeline had been promised before, but many of those involved had expected quicker progress, and the 10-Year Health Plan said: “We will introduce two new contracts, with rollout beginning next year.” Earlier draft proposals had suggested SNPs may go live from April this year, HSJ understands.
    The publication of the model neighbourhood, and details of how SNPs, MNPs and integrated health organisations will work together, have been subject to several months of delays as government struggled to agree the details.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 12 February 2026
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    UK law firms are considering legal action on behalf of women who developed brain tumours after using the contraceptive injection Depo-Provera.
    Depo-Provera is a high-dose synthetic progesterone, prescribed for contraception and other menstrual symptoms, administered via injection every three months. According to UN calculations, 74 million women worldwide and 3.1% of UK women aged 15-49 use injectable contraception.
    Multiple studies have shown that women who take Depo-Provera have a much higher relative risk of developing meningiomas, though the overall risk remains low. Not normally cancerous, these benign tumours can cause seizures, blindness, hearing loss, headaches and memory problems.
    Now several law firms are hoping to take legal action against Pfizer in the UK. Austen Hays told the Guardian it had some potential clients, Fletchers’ website is actively seeking clients and Leigh Day said it is in the early stages of considering the legal basis for any case.
    Chaya Hanoomanjee, a partner at Austen Hays, said: “We have been approached by at least 30 women who have developed meningiomas following prolonged use of Depo-Provera.
    “Their lives have been considerably impacted due to having brain tumours, with consequences such as loss of vision and, in one case, a woman having to terminate her pregnancy. The duty here lies with Pfizer to ensure a drug is safe and to update warnings and contraindications as soon as new risks become known.
    “We are looking into the legal merits of each case, with a view to bringing a claim in the UK.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 11 February 2026
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    A family say their mother was let down in the worst possible way when she died after being sent home from hospital with a blood clot on her lungs.
    Sue Howell, from Bilston, died from a pulmonary embolism, a clot in the blood vessel connecting the heart with the lungs.
    An inquest heard test results were available which would have alerted medical staff, but they were not acted upon.
    The Black Country assistant coroner Helena Gallagher gave a narrative conclusion, noting the 73-year-old's death was contributed to by neglect in the medical treatment she received at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.
    In evidence, a doctor told the inquest she did not know the D-Dimer test had been requested and it was not in the patient's notes, despite the result being available several hours before the mother was sent home.
    In a statement, the hospital apologised for "not providing the standard of care we strive for" and said an investigation since the patient's death had led to "several actions".
    Related reading on the hub:
    Jenny, and why we must learn from her misdiagnosis of pulmonary embolism Patient Safety Spotlight Interview with Beverley Hunt, Professor of Thrombosis and Haemostasis and founder of Thrombosis UK Pulmonary embolism misdiagnosis – a systemic problem  
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    A person died while waiting on a trolley in a hospital corridor, while diabetic patients were left for hours without food, a damning review into NHS corridor care has revealed.
    Other sick patients were left on broken beds in pitch-black corridors for 24 hours with no privacy, according to a review of patient care in emergency departments in December by the group Healthwatch England.
    They made up just some of the more than 2.3 million A&E visits, with about 400,000 people admitted to hospital, in December, when 19,000 resident doctors went on strike for five days, putting hospitals under even greater pressure than usual.
    One in four people (137,763) in December waited for more than four hours between admission and staff finding them a bed, while one in 10 (50,775) waited more than 12 hours. That’s almost 50,000 more patients than the NHS target for a maximum of 22% of people waiting over four hours.
    Among those who said they had waited – on chairs, trolleys, or even the floor in non-clinical areas when no beds were available – was a patient from Essex with a chronic lung condition. They said they had a 24-hour wait in A&E for a bed on a ward, but were given a “broken bed in a pitch-black corridor”.
    Another patient, in a wheelchair with osteoporosis, said they had “no buzzer” and discharged themselves at 5am following the “traumatising” experience.
    An elderly patient, from Havering, told Healthwatch that the person next to them died while they were waiting for 40 hours on a trolley in a corridor, adding that they had “no dignity” and found it “very scary”.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 11 February 2026
    Related reading on the hub:
    Corridor care and patient safety Corridor care guidance needs to move beyond what “should” happen and grapple honestly with why it isn’t (a blog by Claire Cox) The crisis of corridor care in the NHS: patient safety concerns and incident reporting
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    A new initiative promises faster diagnoses and improved treatments for children living with rare diseases across the UK.
    The KidsRare platform will provide researchers with access to data from various hospitals on young patients with rare conditions.
    It is being developed by Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) and LifeArc, in collaboration with the Children’s Hospital Alliance (CHA).
    Organising this information is hoped to lead to more breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating rare conditions, which are estimated to affect over three million people nationwide.
    Dr Sam Barrell, chief executive of LifeArc, said: “Thousands of children are diagnosed every year with a rare disease, and the vast majority currently have little hope of a treatment, let alone a cure.
    “Key to changing this stark reality is harnessing the comprehensive data we have in our amazing NHS hospitals to turbocharge research and position the UK as a global leader in rare disease research and care.
    “We need to act today to transform the system for the millions of people living with a rare disease.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 12 February 2026
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    Cultural issues persist at a large teaching trust, despite “substantial progress” at board level, according to an external review it commissioned.
    Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust ordered the review to assess change since it was rated “inadequate” for leadership by the Care Quality Commission in 2024, amid leadership and culture problems.
    It praised “renewed leadership that has driven significant, positive change from the top”, a “cohesive, professional and collegiate board” and a “clear focus on board visibility”.
    Despite the board improvements, the review, by advisory firm Grant Thornton UK, said an “overwhelming majority” of complaints raised by staff still involved “inappropriate attitudes” and “behaviours” – particularly in incidents with line managers.
    It recommended NUTH should continue work to improve culture and leadership, because progress made at the top had not been “embedded” throughout the rest of the organisation.
    Specifically, the trust should improve the quality of its line management, bolster trust in a revised “freedom to speak up” process, and promote “greater diversity and inclusion”, it said.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 11 February 2026
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    Some people suffering from long Covid may experience symptoms similar to those seen in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.
    Recent findings from New York University Langone Health suggest that changes in the brain caused by Long Covid — symptoms of the illness that linger for more than three months, according to the CDC — may result in long-term fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, loss of smell or taste, depression, and other symptoms.
    Some 20 million Americans have been diagnosed with long Covid, according to Yale Medicine.
    “Our work suggests that long-term immune reactions caused in some cases after an initial COVID infection may come with swelling that damages a critical brain barrier in the choroid plexus,” senior study author Dr. Yulin Ge, a professor in the Department of Radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in a statement.
    “It is currently unknown whether these changes are reversible. We are actively analyzing their follow-up data to address this question,” Dr Ge said.
    Senior study author Dr. Thomas Wisniewski of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine said in a statement that the team's next steps will be to monitor the patients to see if “the brain changes we identified can predict who will develop long-term cognitive issues.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 11 February 2026
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    Using artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to help seek medical advice can be "dangerous", a new study has found.
    The research found that using AI to make medical decisions presented risks to patients, external, due to its "tendency to provide inaccurate and inconsistent information".
    It was led by researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute and the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, and published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine.
    Dr Rebecca Payne, who co-authored the study, said it found that "despite all the hype, AI just isn't ready to take on the role of the physician".
    "Patients need to be aware that asking a large language model about their symptoms can be dangerous, giving wrong diagnoses and failing to recognise when urgent help is needed," Dr Payne, who is also a GP, added.
    "These findings highlight the difficulty of building AI systems that can genuinely support people in sensitive, high-stakes areas like health," Dr Payne said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 10 February 2026

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