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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    Doctors are being issued with new guidance for cases where children are repeatedly brought in when there is nothing wrong.
    The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) says cases where parents know there's nothing wrong are rare. Instead genuine, if misplaced, health anxieties are more common.
    They advise referring to "perplexing symptoms" instead of "fabricated or induced illness".
    Paediatricians say there has been a rise in cases where children are repeatedly brought in, despite nothing being found to be wrong. 
    The unexplained symptoms could be because a genuine condition has not yet been diagnosed. But there are cases where a parent or carer might make up or cause illness in their children - a rare form of abuse which used to be known as Munchausen's By Proxy Syndrome.
    But often, doctors say, it is genuine concerns - and they believe the rise may be fuelled by bad information online.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 2 March 2021
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    Care home residents and staff were put at risk of infection because personal protective equipment (PPE) was used wrongly, a health watchdog has said.
    Croft House, in Ossett, near Wakefield, has been put in special measures after being deemed "inadequate" by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors. The home was "not well-led", according to the inspectors who visited last year.
    The CQC report, which was published last week, highlighted a number of measures had not been taken, meaning staff and residents were exposed to the risk of infection transmission, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
    "Staff could not safely put on and take off PPE as this was stored in people's rooms. Staff needed to cross the room to collect the PPE," the report said. Meanwhile, there was no hand sanitiser in the corridors or bins to dispose of PPE and staff "were not effectively wearing PPE", it added.
    Residents at the home, which provides nursing and residential care for up to 68 people, were at "risk of missing medication or being given incorrect medication" because of how systems were managed, the report said.
    However, relatives spoke highly of staff at the home, with one family member describing an employee they knew as "accommodating and helpful", according to the report.
    Countrywide Care Homes, which runs the site, said improvements had been made since the inspection on 18 December.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 2 March 2021
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    Some 1 in 10 people still experience persistent ill health 12 weeks after having COVID-19, termed “long COVID” or post-COVID conditions. A new policy brief from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies documents responses to post-COVID conditions in different countries of the WHO European Region and looks at how sufferers, including medical professionals, are driving some of those responses.
    Written for decision-makers, this brief summarises what is known about the conditions, who and how many people suffer from them, diagnosis and treatment, and how countries are addressing the issue.
    Commenting on long COVID, WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge said, “COVID-19 has caused a great deal of suffering among people across the Region, with reports of long COVID an extra cause for concern. It’s important that patients reporting with symptoms of long COVID are included as part of the COVID-19 response to mitigate some of the longer-term health impacts of the pandemic. This policy brief makes clear the need for policy-makers to take the lead on this issue.”
    Read full story
    Source: WHO, 25 February 2021
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    The Royal College of GPs has called for an independent review of the link between poor Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection ratings and the ethnicity of GP partners.
    The college called for the regulator to commission the work in particular for those rated “requires improvement” and “inadequate” over the past five years, including practices which have since closed down. This will assess “if there is an association between the outcomes of inspections and ethnicity or country of qualification of the GP partners”, according to the RCGP.
    In addition, the RCGP wants to work with the regulator to discuss how the availability and transparency of this information can be improved to ensure minority ethnic GPs’ experiences are heard.
    Minority ethnic GPs shared their experiences of CQC inspections at an RCGP council meeting last week, where council members voted to support the above actions.
    Dr Howsam said: “The college’s BAME action plan commits us to delivering positive change for all our Black, Asian and minority ethnic members and we will continue to work constructively with the CQC towards an improved system of inspection that is supportive of GPs and keeps patients safe as we move away from the immediate crisis of the pandemic and into recovery.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 1 March 2021
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Scientists have warned that emerging data on Long Covid in children should not be ignored given the lack of a vaccine for this age group, but cautioned that the evidence describing these enduring symptoms in the young is so far uncertain.
    Recently published data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that 13% of under 11s and about 15% of 12 to 16 year olds reported at least one symptom five weeks after a confirmed COVID-19 infection. 
    Although children are relatively less likely to become infected, transmit the virus and be hospitalised, the key question is whether even mild or asymptomatic infection can lead to Long Covid in children, said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London.
    “The answer is that it certainly can, and the Long Covid support groups contain a not insignificant number of children and teens,” Altmann said.
    Frances Simpson, a lecturer in psychology at Coventry University and co-founder of the Long Covid Kids group, said she was very worried about the emerging data on Long Covid in children. “We just think that there should be a much more cautious and curious approach to long Covid rather than a kind of a sweeping generalisation that children are OK, and that we should just let them all go back to school without any measures being put in place.”
    One issue, she said, is the sizeable gap between acute infection and Long Covid kicking off. Some children are initially asymptomatic or have mild symptoms but then it might be six or seven weeks before they start experiencing long Covid symptoms, which can range from standard post-viral fatigue and headaches to neuropsychiatric symptoms such as seizures, or even skin lesions."
    At the moment there is no consensus on the scale and impact of long Covid in adults, but emerging data is concerning. For children, the data is even more scarce.
    Recent reports from hospitals in Sweden and Italy have generated concern, but this data is not from national trials – they are single-centre studies – and include relatively small patient numbers, said Sir Terence Stephenson, a Nuffield professor of child health at University College London.
    Stephenson was awarded £1.36m last month to lead a study investigating Long Covid in 11- to 17-year-olds. “I don’t have a scientific view on what long Covid is in young people is – because frankly, we don’t know,” he said.
    Preliminary results are expected in three months.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 2 March 2021
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    Elderly and vulnerable people could be forced to move out of their own homes into institutional care unless the chancellor invests billions of pounds to shore up social services and reform England’s broken care model, The Independent has been told.
    In an exclusive interview ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Budget on Wednesday, James Bullion, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), warned the care system risked “catastrophic failure in some areas” without urgent changes to the way vulnerable people, including younger disabled people, are looked after.
    He warned the number of people needing care had doubled in some parts of the country since March, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
    Ministers are planning to bring forward reforms to social care later this year, but Mr Bullion, who leads social services in Norfolk, said the system needed at least £4bn over the next two years “just to keep the show on the road”.
    He warned the sector had been rocked by more than 30,000 deaths in care homes from Covid, with a 40% turnover in staff, higher sickness, and more than 100,000 vacancies on top of rising costs.
    “We’ve got social care providers who are very much more fragile and at risk than they were a year ago. We were able to pay premiums to providers to keep going, but we've now reached the point where the revenue consequences of the last year will come home to roost. And we're very worried about the impact on the social care market and whether it will still be there for us in a way that it’s been in the past year if we take that support away.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 1 March 2021
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    A woman with dementia was effectively left housebound for the last eight years of her life due to surgical delays, an investigation found.
    The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales said the individual worried about being "caught short" due to incontinence and it affected her family relationships.
    Her son complained about the care she received at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Denbighshire, in particular. Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has since apologised to the family.
    Ombudsman Nick Bennett said it was clear there was "significant injustice" in the case of the individual, who was identified in the report findings as Mrs B.
    The patient's son complained there had been surgical delays for a rectal prolapse issue dating back to 2011, concerns over inpatient medical care provided by an elderly care consultant, and a delayed diagnosis of terminal ovarian cancer during a hospital stay.
    The ombudsman found that clinical decision-making by colorectal surgeons "was not in keeping with accepted clinical practice".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 2 March 2021
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    A single shot of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid jab reduces the chance of needing hospital treatment by more than 80%, an analysis in England shows.
    The Public Health England (PHE) data showed the effect kicked in three to four weeks after vaccination. It was based on people aged over 80 who were the first to receive the jab.
    Government scientists hailed the result, but stressed that two doses were needed for the best protection.
    It comes after similar findings were published by Scottish health authorities last week, which they hailed as "spectacular".
    The PHE data, which has not been peer reviewed, also suggested the Pfizer vaccine, which started being rolled out a month before the AstraZeneca vaccine, leads to an 83% reduction in deaths from Covid. This was based on people over the age of 80 who had died.
    The data also showed vaccination cuts the risk of people over 70 developing any Covid symptoms by around 60%, three weeks after an initial dose.
    Prof Van-Tam, England's deputy chief medical officer, said the decision to give the AstraZeneca vaccine to older people was "clearly vindicated".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 1 March 2021
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    The government has been called on to take action over the national “backlog” for a specialist mental health service after a woman died after a substantial wait to access treatment. 
    Carole Mitchell, who died by suicide on 22 November 2019, waited almost seven months for a first appointment after being referred to Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust for psychology services.
    In a prevention of future deaths report, published earlier this month, coroner Alison Mutch said the inquest was told waits had since increased and “someone in Mrs Mitchell’s position today would be more likely to wait nine months”. 
    The coroner added evidence heard suggested the delay experienced was “reflective of both the regional and national backlog for appointments”. The report has been sent to both the Department of Health and Social Care and Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 1 March 2021
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    Delays due to the COVID-19 crisis have created tens of thousands of year-long waiters for ophthalmology treatment, and a surgery backlog which experts say may never be recovered.
    NHS England provisional data shows the number of people waiting 52 weeks or longer for ophthalmology treatment increased to more than 23,000 in December, up 57,580% on just 40 the year before. 
    Experts say ophthalmology procedures have been hit particularly hard by the cancellation of elective work due to COVID-19 pressures. On average, roughly 130,000 ophthalmology patients completed treatment per month in England in 2019, most of which would likely have been cataract surgeries.
    Royal College of Ophthalmologists professional standards chair Melanie Hingorani told HSJ that many in the discipline feared “traditional” ways of working were too “fragmented” to address the size of the challenge. She said that without a “much more innovative” approach it would be “really difficult” to deal with the surgery backlog on ophthalmology and that clearing it could take “two years, maybe longer”.
    There remained a danger, however, she added that: “Maybe we never catch up”. 
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 1 March 2021
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    More than 34,000 people with dementia are estimated to have died from coronavirus in the UK since the start of the pandemic, according to new figures.
    The condition has been identified in just over a quarter of all deaths due to COVID-19, partly due to the large number of deaths in care homes. Nearly 12,000 care home residents have died since January alone.
    A coalition of charities, including Alzheimer's Society, Dementia UK, John's Campaign and Together in Dementia Every Day (tide), are now calling for introduction of universal social care – free at the point of use like the NHS – as a legacy of COVID-19.
    It comes as new figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that deaths of care home residents, where around 70% of people have dementia, are 30%t higher than previously thought. Nearly 12,000 have died since January alone.
    The charities also revealed the result of a survey of 1,001 people who care for someone close to them with dementia, demonstrating that the toll of the pandemic reaches further than simply deaths from the virus. More than nine in ten (92%) said the pandemic had accelerated their loved one's dementia symptoms, with a third (31%) reported a more rapid increase in difficulty speaking and holding a conversation, and a quarter (25%) in eating by themselves.
    Nearly a third (32%) of those who lost a loved one during the pandemic thought that isolation/lack of social contact was a significant factor in that loss.
    The Alzheimer Society and Dementia UK said their helplines had been flooded with calls from relatives reporting how quickly their loved ones were deteriorating.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 1 March 2021
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    Women aged 70 or over are receiving substandard care to tackle ovarian cancer with one in five patients in their seventies getting no treatment whatsoever, a new study has found.
    A report from Ovarian Cancer Action revealed almost half of patients in their 70s do not undergo surgery to treat the disease, even though it provides the best long-term prognosis for one of the most common types of cancer in women.
    In total, around one in five (22%) of ovarian cancer patients aged 70 to 79  and three in five women with ovarian cancer who were over 80 years old were given no treatment for the disease.
    The inadequate healthcare given to older ovarian cancer patients causes a disproportionately high short term death rate for them, the study found.
    The study found older patients are substantially less likely to be referred by their GP for diagnostic tests such as ultrasounds when ovarian cancer symptoms surface.
    Dr Susana Banerjee, a consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden, said: “With an ageing population, many more patients with ovarian cancer are over the age of 70, so there is an urgent need to understand the best way to effectively treat older women."
    “Optimising patients for treatment through frailty assessments and interventions, sharing best practice across cancer centres and representing older patients in clinical trials are important steps towards ensuring equal access to effective and tolerable treatment that could help more women live beyond their diagnosis, with a good quality of life, no matter their age.”
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    People whose spouse or partner died as a result of the contaminated blood scandal are to receive financial help. Annual payments of up to £33,500 will be given to those whose loved one died after contracting HIV or hepatitis C having been given infected blood.
    About 5,000 people, including 99 from Northern Ireland, were infected by what has been described as "the worst scandal in the history of the NHS".
    The health minister said those who had been bereaved had not been forgotten.
    Robin Swann added: "I have listened to their experiences of how contaminated blood has impacted on their lives and the sacrifices they have had to make.
    "I sincerely hope this annual financial support will provide some long-term financial certainty as well as recognition for those bereaved through contaminated blood."
    The contaminated blood scandal resulted in people who had haemophilia being treated with blood infected with hepatitis C or HIV in the 1970s and 1980s. 
    At the time the UK was struggling to keep up with demand for the Factor VIII blood clotting treatment, so supplies were imported from the US. But much of the human blood plasma used to make it came from donors such as prison inmates and drug-users who sold their blood. Those groups were at higher risk of blood-borne viruses.
    Victims have campaigned for decades, saying the risks were never explained to them and the scandal was covered up.
    An ongoing public inquiry has been hearing harrowing stories from people across the UK about how lives had been destroyed by the blood.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 1 March 2021
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    The NHS's "insufficient" critical care capacity has been laid bare by the pandemic, with the UK having one of the lowest number of beds per head in Europe, NHS Providers has said.
    The group, which represents trusts in England, is calling for a review of the health service's capacity.
    The UK has 7.3 critical care beds per 100,000 people, compared to Germany's 33.8 and the US's 34.3, analysis found.
    The government said it was investing £72bn in the next two years in the NHS. 
    "The UK is towards the bottom of the European League table for critical care beds per head of population," NHS Providers said.
    The group added that the UK had comparatively fewer critical care beds than France, Italy, Australia and Spain.
    "It's neither safe nor sensible to rely on NHS hospital trusts being able to double or triple their capacity at the drop of a hat as they've had to over the last two months, with all the disruption to other care and impossible burdens on staff that involves."
    Seeking a review into critical care capacity in England, the organisation said it wanted the government to commit to providing additional finances in areas where it was needed.
    "There have been too many reviews of NHS capacity in the past where huge amounts of time have been wasted because the government has not been willing to fund the results of what's been found," the group said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 1 March 2021
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    East Kent University Hospitals Foundation Trust reported 1,955 mixed sex accommodation breaches in November, the month before the new variant of the virus caused a huge increase in covid admissions across the county.
    Such breaches occur when patients share sleeping accommodation with the opposite sex.
    The trust, which struggled last summer to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in its wards, has recorded 7,249 such breaches in the last 12 months. This is a year-on-year increase of 1,112 per cent – according to the trust’s latest board papers.
    East Kent FT’s board papers stated COVID-19 had “contributed” to the high number of breaches, and that it was “imperative that we review and act on this”.
    According to the papers, the trust’s interim chief nurse and chief operating officer have a “plan to address” the problem.
    In a statement to HSJ the trust said: “Our hospitals are very busy as a result of increased patients with COVID-19.
    “To keep covid and non-covid patients separate and as safe as possible we have sometimes needed to care for both male and female patients in a bay. This is always done in discussion with the patients affected.”
    Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association, told HSJ they had “long supported” moves to abolish mixed sex accommodation breaches, which she described as “an affront to patients’ dignity”.
    But she said she understood why NHS providers might choose mixed sex accommodation if it was a “viable route to saving lives, whether of COVID-19 patients or others urgently needing treatment”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 27 January 2021
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    Pregabalin may be associated with serious breathing problems in patients with compromised respiratory systems, according to a drug safety alert from the medicines regulator.
    Elderly patients, patients with neurological disease, renal impairment and those who are taking antidepressant medication are also at increased risk of breathing problems from the drug, the Medicines Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said (18 February).
    Pregabalin is a medication that has increasingly been prescribed to treat chronic pain, however, it is also used to treat epilepsy, fibromyalgia, restless leg syndrome, and generalised anxiety disorder.
    The use of pregabalin combined with central nervous system depressants such as opioids has been associated with an increased risk of respiratory failure, coma, and deaths since 2018, said the MHRA. However, a recent review of the safety of the drug has found that the use of pregabalin alone can also cause ‘severe’ respiratory depression.
    "The review identified a small number of worldwide cases of respiratory depression without an alternative cause or underlying medical conditions. In these cases, respiratory depression had a temporal relationship with the initiation of pregabalin or dose increase. Other cases were noted in patients with risk factors or underlying medical history. The majority of cases reviewed were reported in elderly patients," the alert said.
    Health professionals have been advised to consider adjustments in dose or dosing regimen are necessary for patients at higher risk of respiratory depression.
    The alert also told them to report suspected adverse drug reactions associated with the use of pregabalin via the Yellow Card website.
    Existing advice asks healthcare professionals to check the patient for a history of drug abuse before prescribing pregabalin and to observe patients who have been prescribed the drug for signs of drug abuse and dependence.
    Read full story
    Source: Pulse, 23 February 2021
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    Shortages of oxygen are endangering the lives of more than half a million COVID-19 patients every day in the world’s poorest nations, new research has shown.
    Despite being vital for the effective treatment of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus, sustained access to oxygen has proven difficult in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to cost, infrastructure and logistical barriers.
    According to Unitaid, a global health agency, more than half a million people in LMICs currently need 1.1 million cylinders of oxygen per day, with 25 countries currently reporting surges in demand, the majority in Africa.
    Supplies of oxygen were already constrained prior to COVID-19 and have been exacerbated by the pandemic, Unitaid says.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 25 February 2021
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    Bereaved families have been left feeling like their efforts to improve patient safety have been ‘in vain’ as progress of a government programme instigated by Jeremy Hunt appears to have ‘stalled’.
    The Learning from Deaths programme board, which was set up in 2017 to develop guidance for trusts working with families on investigations of deaths, has not met since June 2019.
    Josephine Ocloo and David Smith, two bereaved family members who were on the board, have written to HSJ, saying the programme’s progress has “stalled”.
    They added many of the issues it was set up to consider have not yet been addressed, including the need for a national inquiry into unresolved historical cases, the independence of the NHS’ investigatory systems, lack of effectiveness of the duty of candour, and the disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities and those with mental ill-health or learning disabilities.
    They said: “We now have serious concerns that what these families went through [in November 2017] in recalling — and effectively reliving — their experiences, in order to ensure the terrible things that happened to them could not happen to others, was in vain…
    “If [the issues] are not to be addressed by the new board, the families will have every right to feel betrayed and to feel as if they have been used as pawns in a political game. Once again, harmed and let down by a system that has used us and then cast us aside.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 26 February 2021
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    Almost half of people with potential cancer symptoms did not contact their GP during the first wave of the pandemic, a survey suggests.
    Symptoms left unchecked included coughing up blood, lumps and changes to the appearance of moles.
    NHS figures showed a fall in referrals to cancer services last spring. However, this study, of almost 8,000 people, captures the fall in people contacting their GP in the first place.
    The team that carried out the study, from Cardiff University and Cancer Research UK, said this raised concerns that people could be diagnosed later - and so be less likely to be treated successfully and recover.
    They surveyed a representative sample of people across the UK and found that of 3,025 people who said they had experienced at least one symptom which could be a warning sign of cancer, 45% did not seek help.
    They also found that:
    31% did not seek help after coughing up blood 41% did not seek help for an unexplained lump or swelling 59% did not seek help after noticing changes to the appearance of a mole. Some of the reasons given by people who did not contact their GP were not wanting to waste doctors' time or put extra strain on the NHS; not wanting to be seen as someone who made a fuss; and fear of catching Covid at appointments.
    But people who did contact their GP reported feeling "safe" and "secure" when attending face-to-face appointments.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 25 February 2021
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    Senior doctors are leading a programme of work to review deaths caused by hospital-acquired covid in the North West, which has had disproportionately high rates of nosocomial infections over the last three months.
    According to internal NHS England papers seen by HSJ, a number of common themes have been identified as driving the infections in the region, including “breaches in the basic tenets of infection prevention control”, insufficient numbers of cleaning staff at some trusts, and a lack of consistent testing.
    The papers say there is also evidence that covid occupancy rates above 20 per cent drives nosocomial transmission. Occupancy rates in the North West have been near or above this level since the start of December, but have still been significantly lower than other areas, such as London.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 24 February 2021
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    Around 40% of NHS staff reported feeling anxious during the recent coronavirus surge, but results were 10 percentage points worse for minority ethnic workers, according to NHS England’s surveys.
    Prerana Issar, NHSE chief people officer, highlighted national data from the health service’s ‘people pulse’ survey during a Commons health and social care committee hearing.
    The survey was launched last July to help gauge how the health service’s workforce was coping with the pressures of the pandemic, asking questions such as whether they felt supported, motivated, or anxious and what made the biggest difference to their experience at work. It involves findings from 114 local NHS organisations.
    Ms Issar said the percentage of staff who reported they were feeling supported “was at a high of 68% during the first few months and started dipping from November onwards to 62%. It is still at 62%”.
    Meanwhile, the share of those “feeling anxious” was at a “low” of 29% during the summer and autumn but has since increased to 40%.
    The 40% finding may seem surprisingly low to many, considering the enormous impact of the winter surge of coronavirus demand, the very widespread extra asks of staff, potential health risks, and redeployment of roles.
    Ms Issar added: “We have seen ‘feeling supported’ come down a little bit and ‘feeling anxious’ go up, and we used that feedback to then augment our offer and communication.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 24 February 2021
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    A Care Inspectorate report shows many homes are still failing to maintain infection control safety standards in Scottish care homes. Infection prevention was weak or unsatisfactory in half of the Scots care homes most recently checked by government regulators.
    Almost a year on from the start of the pandemic, the latest round of inspection reports highlighted poor practice in 11 out of 22 care homes.
    Read report
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    One in five people hospitalised with COVID-19 experienced hair loss within six months of first being infected with the virus, a cohort study of patients found.
    A team of Chinese experts looking into the long-term health consequences of the disease surveyed patients who had been discharged from Jin Yin-tan Hospital in Wuhan last year.
    Of the 1,655 people who took part 359 (22%) reported losing hair.
    Fatigue or muscle weakness, difficulty sleeping, smell disorder, anxiety and depression were some of the other most commonly reported symptoms, with a higher percentage of these reported among women.
    The long-term consequences of Covid-19 after six months remained "largely unclear", the study concluded.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 23 February 2021
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    The NHS is set to miss a major national target to eliminate inappropriate out of area placements within mental health by the end of March, HSJ can reveal.
    At least eight of the 52 English NHS mental health trusts surveyed by HSJ are predicting they will miss the national deadline of getting rid of their inappropriate OAPs by the end of next month.
    The national target was one of the headline mental health pledges set out in  2014’s Five Year Forward View. The pledge was also in 2019’s long-term plan.
    Inappropriate OAPs refer to people being sent out of their region to an inpatient mental health bed if no beds are available within their area. Patients are regularly sent hundreds of miles away from their homes.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 23 February 2021
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    Paramedics in London have started wearing body cameras after a 34% jump in the number of violent attacks on ambulance crews.
    A trial of the technology is being rolled out across the capital in areas where workers are thought to be more at risk based on past incidents.
    Paramedics can press a button to start recording if patients or the public become aggressive or abusive towards them.
    London Ambulance Service told The Independent there had been an increase in physical assaults in recent years. Attacks jumped from 468 in the financial year 2018-19 to 625 in the year 2019-20, a 34% rise.
    Gary Watson, based at Croydon Ambulance Station, will be one of the first staff members to wear a camera. He was violently assaulted by a drunk patient three years ago.
    He said: “We need these cameras. We get up every day to help people, not to be severely beaten.
    “Wearing these cameras should act as a deterrent and if it doesn’t then at least there will be evidence which will hopefully mean tougher sentences for criminals.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 23 February 2021
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