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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    Patients are being put at risk by NHS bosses launching “sham investigations” into whistleblowers to shut down concerns, a former hospital chief executive who won a £1.4m bullying claim has said.
    Dr Susan Gilby took over as chief executive at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2018 after it was rocked by the Lucy Letby case. She was awarded the payout – one of the biggest in NHS history – last month after a tribunal ruled she had been unfairly dismissed after raising concerns about alleged bullying and harassment by the chair of the hospital board.
    An employment judge found that board members of the hospital conspired to unfairly exclude her and deleted documents when she launched legal action.
    Speaking to the Guardian, Gilby said she had been “traumatised” by the experience and made to feel like a “pariah in the NHS” for refusing to drop her concerns in return for a “non-job”.
    “I feel desperately saddened that my NHS career has come to an end in the way it has. It’s had a really deep psychological impact [and] probably taken at least 10 years of working life away from me,” she said.
    “It’s been very isolating. People walk away when they realise you’re not willing to play by the NHS playbook and accept the offer to get you out of the situation. Doing that has resulted in being made to feel that I’m a pariah in the NHS.”
    Tribunal judges found that Ian Haythornthwaite, the chair of the Countess of Chester hospital NHS foundation trust, worked with three other senior figures to “engineer her dismissal” after Gilby raised a whistleblowing complaint about his “bullying and harassment”.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 1 February 2026
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    A fire at Southampton's main hospital has led to more than 200 patients being evacuated from wards and operations cancelled.
    A major incident was declared after the blaze broke out in the endoscopy unit, in the west wing of Southampton General Hospital, at about 05:30 GMT.
    The hospital said the fire had been contained and no-one had been injured, adding that patients in all affected areas were evacuated to safe areas elsewhere on the site.
    In a statement just after 16:30, the hospital said the impact was "significant" with a number of planned operations on Monday being cancelled.
    It said: "As part of the emergency response, our staff moved more than 200 patients to other areas of our hospital where they are being cared for.
    "Our focus continues to be safe patient care and moving them to other wards and departments across our site."
    The statement added: "The impact of the fire has been significant and will limit our ability to fulfil all planned activity tomorrow [Monday]."
    Patients were moved to safe areas, including inside the main entrance of the hospital.
    Some could be seen in their beds in the hospital's main lobby, which is usually busy with members of the public.
    Following the fire, the hospital said its emergency department was diverting patients away unless their condition was life or limb-threatening.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 1 February 2026
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    A former patient of Yaser Jabbar has spoken to the BBC about his experience with the limb reconstruction surgeon when he was just six years old.
    "We saw some mistakes on my leg and we realised something happened wrong", 12-year-old Vivaan Sharma said.
    An investigation, published by London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) into Jabbar, found widespread evidence of unacceptable practice in the botched operations he carried out.
    Jabbar worked at the hospital between 2017 and 2022, providing care to 789 children – 94 of them came to harm, GOSH's report concluded.
    "We had to have even more surgeries and more surgeries... this is stuck for life, I've got so many scars on my leg", Sharma shared.
    Watch video
    Source: BBC News, 31 January 2026
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    Cancer patients are being denied access to cutting-edge treatments on the NHS because of a “deadly postcode lottery” in access, doctors have warned.
    Patients in England are missing out on two innovative forms of radiotherapy that are known to be effective against several forms of the disease and are widely available in other countries, due to “red tape” and lack of funding.
    The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) and Radiotherapy UK want Wes Streeting to use the government’s new cancer plan, being published this week, to make them widely available.
    They are urging the health secretary to end what they say are “bureaucratic hurdles” that NHS England imposes, through its complex funding and commissioning policies, on hospitals that want to provide stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) and molecular radiotherapy (MRT).
    Unlocking the potential of the novel treatments would help improve cancer survival, which is poor in Britain by international standards, both organisations said.
    Dr Nicky Thorp, the RCR’s vice-president for clinical oncology, said: “A number of innovative cancer treatments exist and are known by cancer doctors to be effective, but they are in only limited use in the NHS in England.
    “This means that some cancer patients are missing out on treatments that cancer specialists know are effective and which could treat their cancer in fewer doses with fewer side effects.
    “Doctors want to do our best for our patients, so it is incredibly frustrating for us to be in a situation where some patients aren’t getting access to the full range of treatments that are proven to help tackle cancer.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 1 February 2026
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Tricia Monro places two thick folders on the table with pages of psychiatric evaluations, timelines and dozens of emails asking for help for her son. For years she had been trying to catch him as he fell through the cracks of the mental health system.
    She had been warned not to be alone with him, but relented when he asked to have a bath at her house in Hampshire in February last year. What she did not know was that he had just fatally stabbed her ex-husband, Peter, 73.
    She said she still “cannot believe” how the tragedy has torn her family apart. “I don’t for a moment excuse what he has done, and I accept that he has to be punished,” she said, adding: “It’s a very lonely place being the parent of a child whose mental health has been deteriorating.”
    In December Christopher “Kit” Monro, 30, of Oxford, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum 12-year term for the murder of his father.
    The family believe it could have been prevented if NHS Oxford mental health services and other authorities had better heeded their pleas for help. Instead, his mother says she was left in the dark about issues concerning her own safety and felt failed by those in charge of his care.
    Their intervention comes as a public inquiry into the Nottingham attacks in 2023 by Valdo Calocane continues to expose severe failings in the care of dangerous psychiatric patient.
    A report commissioned after the murder depicts Monro’s mother as “reluctant” to become involved in her son’s care. She is appalled by that characterisation, detailing her repeated attempts to warn the NHS about Monro’s mental state. “I was anxious, and a lot of times uncomfortable, but I stepped in because there was no one else,” she said.
    Monro's sister Lara described attempts to blame her mother, 70, who works for a charity, as “diabolical”. She said: “There was a series of red flags raised in the lead-up to this tragedy. My brother was let down by those whose job it was to support him.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 29 March 2026
     
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    A trust is investigating the work of one of its former consultants amid claims the cases of “significantly more than 50 patients” he treated at its main site and a local private hospital should be reviewed for potential harm, HSJ has learned.
    South Tyneside and Sunderland Foundation Trust said it had “liaised” with the nearby Spire Washington Hospital to review patients it may need to contact who were operated on by orthopaedic surgeon Leslie Irwin.
    Mr Irwin carried out work at both the trust and the local private hospital, where he also treated NHS-funded patients. The emergence of an investigation into Mr Irwin first emerged earlier this month.
    And a law firm acting for patients involved has now told HSJ that it believes “significantly more than 50” patients will need to be investigated.
    It said the vast majority of the patients involved were NHS-funded. HSJ understands that those cases treated at the private hospital were mostly referred in by STSFT and that a significant number of the relevant procedures were carried out at the trust.
    The firm, Slater and Gordon, said it had already received a “significant” number of enquiries, which were “increasing by the day”. In one case, a woman in her 40s underwent 30 procedures over two decades, the firm said.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 29 January 2026
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    The health secretary has said the government will approach integrating the NHS’s “successful” safety watchdog into the “failing” Care Quality Commission with “enormous care”.
    Speaking at the launch of the Global State of Patient Safety 2025 report in the House of Lords this week, Wes Streeting addressed the recommendations made by NHS England chair Penny Dash in her review of the regulatory bodies involved in patient safety. These included subsuming The Health Services Safety Investigations Branch into the CQC.
    Mr Streeting said: “I want to reassure everyone here and beyond that as we proceed with [the Dash review’s recommendations], particularly the integration of HSSIB into the CQC, that we will do so with enormous care.
    “The last thing I want to do is to take a successful organisation, merge it with a failing organisation, and to do so would be to the detriment of both.”
    HSSIB – originally styled the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch – was established in 2017 while Sir Jeremy Hunt was health secretary to conduct independent investigations into patient safety incidents across the NHS in England.
    Maternity investigations were removed from HSSIB’s remit in 2023 and put into the CQC, as the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations programme.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 30 January 2025
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    More than 75 health systems sent a letter to federal officials calling for stronger oversight of nationwide data sharing networks, flagging issues with "bad actors" gaining access to patients' medical information.
    The health systems, including AdventHealth, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, The MetroHealth System, NYU Langone, UMass Memorial Health, Stanford Health Care and Sutter Health, are calling for more centralized oversight and governance for the nationwide health data exchange frameworks, including the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) and Carequality.
    The letter, addressed to The Sequoia Project CEO Mariann Yeager and Steve Posnack, deputy assistant secretary for technology policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), calls for stepped-up safeguards for data sharing include more rigorous oversight and governance of who gets access to patients' medical information, better monitoring for fraud and more transparency into network activity.
    The organizations argue that self-attestation and decentralised oversight, which is the current process, is not sufficient to safeguard patient data. Health systems want more established rules of the road and stronger protections to prevent fraud on the networks. 
    Read full story
    Source: Fierce Healthcare, 29 January 2026
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    Patients on weight-loss jabs and diabetes injections should be aware there is a small risk of developing severe acute pancreatitis, the UK medicines regulator has said.
    About 1.6 million adults in England, Wales and Scotland used GLP-1 medication, such as semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro), between early 2024 and early 2025 to lose weight, according to recent research.
    Patient information leaflets for Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro list pancreatitis as an “uncommon” reaction, affecting about one in 100 patients.
    Acute pancreatitis occurs when the pancreas, a gland located behind the stomach that aids in digestion, becomes suddenly inflamed. Symptoms include severe pain in the abdomen, nausea and fever, with patients often ending up in hospital.
    While acknowledging that pancreatitis is rare, on Thursday the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) updated its guidance, after an increase in reports of acute pancreatitis to the agency’s yellow card scheme, which monitors any adverse reactions to medications and medical devices in the UK.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 29 January 2026
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    The use of artificial intelligence in breast cancer screening reduces the rate of a cancer diagnosis by 12% in subsequent years and leads to a higher rate of early detection, according to the first trial of its kind.
    Researchers said the study was the largest to date looking at AI use in cancer screening. It involved 100,000 women in Sweden who were part of mammography screening and were randomly assigned to either AI-supported screening or to a standard reading by two radiologists between April 2021 and December 2022.
    The AI system worked by analysing the mammograms and assigning low-risk cases to a single reading and high-risk cases to a double one by radiologists, as well as highlighting suspicious findings to support radiologists.
    Mammography screening supported by AI reduced cancer diagnoses in the years after a breast screening appointment by 12%, according to the research, published in The Lancet. There were 1.55 cancers per 1,000 women in the AI-supported group compared with 1.76 cancers per 1,000 women in the control group.
    More than four in five cancer cases (81%) in the AI-supported mammography group were detected at the screening stage, compared with just under three quarters (74%) in the control group, and there were also almost a third (27%) fewer aggressive sub-type cancers in the AI group compared with the control.
    Dr Kristina Lång, from Lund University in Sweden and the lead author of the study, said that AI-supported mammography could help detect cancers at an early stage, but that there were caveats.
    “Widely rolling out AI-supported mammography in breast cancer screening programmes could help reduce workload pressures among radiologists, as well as helping to detect more cancers at an early stage, including those with aggressive subtypes,” Lång said.
    “However, introducing AI in healthcare must be done cautiously, using tested AI tools and with continuous monitoring in place to ensure we have good data on how AI influences different regional and national screening programmes and how that might vary over time.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 29 January 2026
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    One in four UK students leaves high school without the protection of the HPV vaccine, putting them at higher risk of several cancers, experts have warned.
    The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)’s latest data for the 2024/25 academic year shows that although uptake has remained steady since last year, a quarter of students are still missing the jab that can give vital protection against cervical, mouth and throat cancers.
    The report found that year 10 students in England had an HPV uptake of 75.5% for girls and 70.5% for boys, well below the pre-pandemic rates of around 90%.
    Regionally, the uptake for year 10 students was the lowest in London (with 61% for girls and 56.9% for boys) and the highest in east England (82.8% for girls and 78.2% for boys).
    Dr Sharif Ismail, UKHSA consultant epidemiologist, said: “The HPV vaccine is one of the most effective cancer-preventing vaccines available. Now, just a single dose given in school, it protects against cervical cancer and several cancers caused by HPV that affect both boys and girls, helping to save thousands of lives and the terrible stress on families.”
    Health minister Stephen Kinnock said: “Every child deserves protection against cancers caused by HPV, and it's concerning that too many young people are leaving school without this vital vaccine.
    “I'd urge any parent whose child has missed their HPV vaccine not to wait – speak to your GP or local NHS service today.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 29 January 2026
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    A hospital trust has seen "widespread improvements" in its maternity and emergency care after being told to improve by inspectors.
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out unannounced visits to check on improvements it told the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust to make previously.
    Inspectors visited maternity services at Furness General Hospital, Westmorland General Hospital and Royal Lancaster Infirmary, and urgent and emergency services at Furness General Hospital and Lancaster Royal Infirmary.
    All maternity services were rated "good" with staff providing "exemplary care", going "above and beyond to ensure women and their babies were well cared for", they said.
    In maternity services, inspectors said women were given the opportunity to speak to staff at Royal Lancaster Infirmary about their birthing experience, especially if the experience was not what they had wanted or expected.
    Maternity staff at Westmorland General Hospital actively listened to information about women who were most likely to experience inequality in care outcomes and supported their treatment, the CQC said.
    People attending A&E at Furness General Hospital scored above average in the national patient survey for how staff communicated with people and how they were treated with dignity and respect.
    Chris Storton, CQC deputy director of operations in the north-west of England, said: "We were encouraged to see widespread improvements across maternity care.
    "We saw staff providing exemplary care who went above and beyond to ensure women and their babies were well cared for.
    "Leaders and staff should feel proud of the changes they've made and the positive impact these changes have had on people using services."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 30 January 2026
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    Illegal fillers worth up to £4m have been seized by the medicines watchdog after dermatologists warned they could cause “disfigurement and infection”.
    More than 27,000 units of unlicensed dermal fillers have been confiscated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) since January 2020.
    The MHRA has warned that using these fillers could “put your health at risk” as there are “no safeguards to ensure it meets our quality and safety standards”.
    Dermal fillers are injectable substances commonly used to target wrinkles and smooth or “rejuvenate” the skin, but if used incorrectly, they can pose serious health risks.
    Dr Emma Wedgeworth, consultant dermatologist and British Skin Foundation spokesperson, told The Independent: “Counterfeit fillers are potentially incredibly dangerous. They are not subject to regulations which are essential to prevent potentially devastating complications. Using these can put people at risk of disfigurement and infection, which can cause huge health issues.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 29 January 2026
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    Medical negligence in the NHS keeps harming and killing patients because governments and health service bosses have not acted on 24 years’ worth of warnings, MPs have said.
    In a scathing report published on Friday, the public accounts committee (PAC) excoriates the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England for allowing the cost of mistakes to balloon to £3.6bn a year.
    Between them, the two bodies have failed to take “any meaningful action” to address the problem in England, despite four PAC reports from as early as 2002 advising them to do so, the committee says.
    “It feels impossible to accept that, despite two decades’ worth of warnings, we still appear to be worlds away from government or [the] NHS engaging with the underlying causes of this issue,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the influential cross-party committee.
    He cited “unacceptable stasis” surrounding maternity care as an example of inaction that is persistently harming patients and costing ever larger sums of taxpayer funding. Reports have been published since 2015 into maternity scandals in Morecambe Bay, East Kent, and Shrewsbury and Telford. Another inquiry is continuing into childbirth care in Nottingham.
    Last year, acute concern about maternity care across the NHS in England prompted Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to order an inquiry, led by Valerie Amos, into maternity care.
    “The PAC finds that, as government’s liability for clinical negligence quadrupled over 20 years (£60bn in 2024-25), the [Department of Health and Social Care] is unable to show any meaningful action taken to address this and the NHS has not done enough to tackle the underlying causes of patient harm,” it said.
    Read full story
    The Source: The Guardian, 30 January 2026
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    Christina Brown was 18 years old the first time she had to correct a doctor when advocating for health.
    Breast cancer runs in her family, so she had been taught early by relatives how to examine her own body – what was normal, what wasn’t and when something warranted attention. When she found a lump in her breast in September 2014, she didn’t hesitate. She went to a doctor.
    At each appointment, Brown, a 30-year-old content creator in New York City, said she explained the same concern, pointed to the same spot, and was met with the same response. They told her they couldn’t feel anything. That there was no lump. That she was wrong.
    “I literally had to grab their hands and show them where the lump was, and they would be surprised and then just pass me to the next doctor to do the exact same thing,” Brown said. It took four rounds of this before anyone agreed to schedule a biopsy. By then, months had passed.
    That experience reshaped how Brown approached medical care: it taught her that knowing her body better than the experts is vital. Additionally, it prompted her to seek out Black doctors whenever possible because she figured a Black physician would be more likely to believe her the first time around. A 2023 survey found that Black patients who have more visits with Black healthcare providers report having more positive medical experiences.
    Brown’s story is not unique. Across gynecology, primary care, and reproductive health, many Black women describe navigating medical care as a nightmare. “To be a Black woman in America is to have an adverse experience at the doctor’s office, and with her health,” Brown said. “It’s one where you are constantly feeling dismissed, misunderstood, gaslit, downplayed and straight up lied to.” Whether through relentless self-advocacy, intimate knowledge of their own bodies, or the deliberate choice to seek out Black physicians, many Black women move through medical settings strategically, as a means of survival.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 27 January 2026
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have revealed a full timetable for merging their functions.
    An update to staff late on Tuesday, seen by HSJ, says the organisations are aiming for the legal abolition of NHSE to be complete by April 2027, although it requires legislation to pass in time.
    The prime minister first announced that NHSE would be abolished in March last year.
    A new “target operating model” is being developed and is expected to be published by the end of May (see timeline chart left).
    The DHSC plans to launch a 45-day consultation from October on the “detailed design proposals for the new DHSC and on any potential future downsizing”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 27 January 2026
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    British medics will “turn their backs on the NHS” if they are not prioritised for specialty training, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has warned.
    Mr Streeting warned the health service must “break our over-reliance on international recruitment”, as he unveiled plans to give UK and Irish medical graduates precedence for these vital training places.
    Specialty training marks the final stage of a doctor’s qualification, focusing on a specific medical field or general practice.
    The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill, due for Commons discussion on Tuesday, would also see British and Irish graduates prioritised for foundation training.
    Setting out the bill, the health secretary said: “We’ve known for years that the treatment of resident doctors is often totally unacceptable and the very real fears about their futures are wholly justified.
    “Every time I’ve met a resident doctor, either formally or informally, they tell me, without fail, how their careers are blocked because there are far too many applicants for training places.
    “Not only do I think they have a legitimate grievance, I agree with them.”
    Mr Streeting warned that if they do not deal with the issue, “the resentment it causes will just get worse” and British medics will “turn their backs on the NHS”.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 28 January 2026
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    A newborn baby died after hospital staff failed to wake his mother for "potentially lifesaving observations" before his birth, an investigation has found.
    Sonny Taylor was left "distressed for a significant amount of time" before a delayed emergency Caesarean at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor, and died three days later from a severe brain injury caused by sepsis and lack of oxygen.
    His parents Eve and Thomas said he was "badly let down when he needed help the most".
    Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board accepted the report's findings and apologised "unreservedly" for the failures in care.
    Sonny's mother, Eve, 29, had been admitted to hospital after her waters broke at 36 weeks. Later that afternoon she was taken to the maternity ward after signs of potential infection were identified.
    At 18:00 GMT, her observations and Sonny's heart rate were recorded as normal.
    While Eve was asleep at 22:00, midwifery staff did not wake her to carry out further observations or listen to Sonny's heart rate, despite this being required, an internal investigation report found.
    "When I awoke Sonny was not moving as much and I immediately knew something wasn't right," she said.
    A registrar confirmed the foetal heart rate was abnormal, but Eve was wrongly transferred to the labour ward, causing further delay before Sonny was delivered by emergency Caesarean at 02:03.
    Tests later showed Sonny "had been distressed for a significant amount of time" and should have been delivered earlier, the report said.
    Investigators said that if Sonny's heart rate had been identified as abnormal earlier, "this would likely have changed the outcome".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 27 January 2026
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    A high-profile inquiry into mental health deaths will not be complete until at least 2028, after its chair announced a delay to its timeline.
    The Lampard inquiry, set up to examine at least 2,000 deaths over a 23-year period, was made statutory in 2023. Closing hearings had originally been expected to take place, with recommendations issued in 2027.
    However, chair Baroness Kate Lampard today announced final hearings will now take place in June 2027, with findings pushed back to 2028.
    In a statement, she said hearings planned for April would be “vacated… to permit sufficient time to undertake [the inquiry’s] investigative work and collate related evidence”.
    Baroness Lampard said the inquiry had experienced delays to obtaining witness statements and documents, particularly from the main provider, Essex Partnership University Foundation Trust. The FT was a “clinical service with competing priorities”, she said.
    The delays in receiving information had “impacted the ability of the inquiry to progress investigations and other work as quickly as I would like”.
    Recent statements from lawyers for families involved have also accused the inquiry of being “inexcusably silent” on its timetable and being at risk of failing in its duties.
    Read full story
    Source: HSJ, 28 January 2026
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    Five trusts with unusually high levels of surgical infections, which experts called “largely preventable” harm, have been identified by the UK’s health security agency.
    The UKHSA briefing issued last month said the acute providers had rates of surgical site infections (SSIs) that fell above 95th percentile thresholds for certain orthopaedic categories in 2024-25.
    The group of “statistical high outliers” were Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals trusts, identified for repair of neck and femur. North Tees and Hartlepool FT were identified for reduction of long bone fractures, and North Bristol Trust for hip replacement.
    Infection Prevention Society vice president Kerry Holden toldHSJ: “Reducing surgical site infections is fundamental because they are largely preventable harms that have a significant impact on patients, including increased morbidity, prolonged recovery, and avoidable readmissions, as well as substantial cost pressures on the healthcare system.”
    She added that an outlier trust would be expected to review practices such as theatre discipline, skin preparation, and treatments or action taken to prevent disease, as well as develop targeted quality improvement interventions with clear leadership oversight.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 27 January 2026
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    Human rights groups and charities have hit out at the decision by Donald Trump's administration to extend the US policy that bars groups receiving foreign aid from promoting abortion — even using their own money — in what has been called a "disastrous and deadly" move.
    Known as the "Mexico City policy" or by critics as the "global gag rule," the policy was reinstated by Trump when he returned to the White House last year. That followed a tradition for Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan introduced the policy in 1984. Democratic presidents have repeatedly dropped it.
    In what Vice President JD Vance has called “a historic expansion of the Mexico City Policy”, the U.S. will stop funding any organization working on diversity and transgender issues abroad. Mr Vance says the change will make the policy “about three times as big as it was before... and we’re proud of it because we believe in fighting for life”.
    In response, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy policy and campaigns, Erika Guevara-Rosas, said: “The expansion of the Global Gag Rule is an assault on human rights. By targeting organizations that support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and recognise gender diversity, the Trump administration is deliberately deepening inequality and putting the lives of millions around the world at risk.
    “The Global Gag Rule is a disastrous and deadly US policy. It strangles healthcare systems, censors information and violates the rights to health, information, and free expression... Doubling down on this policy is cruel, reckless and ideologically driven. Expanding it to international and U.S.-based organizations will impact the poorest and marginalised first and hardest," she added.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 26 January 2026
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    Trans people are increasingly travelling abroad to countries such as Thailand to undergo gender-reassignment surgeries (GRS), with lengthy NHS backlogs resulting in some patients waiting up to 20 years for treatment.
    Charities have warned that difficulties in accessing healthcare in the UK harm patients’ mental health and create a “desolate experience” for the trans community.
    As a result, there has been a rise in recent years of trans people taking increasingly drastic action by paying thousands to travel to countries such as Thailand, Poland, Spain and Turkey for speedier treatment.
    The damning Levy Review, which was published in December, found that waiting times for a first appointment at an NHS adult gender dysphoria clinic are projected to reach 15 years unless there are improvements.
    Dr David Levy found that long waiting lists were also driving people to self-source hormone drugs from high-risk online providers abroad, while there was “virtually no other data” available from adult clinics beyond the waiting times.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 26 January 2026
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    Google’s search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month.
    The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are “reliable” and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic.
    However, a study that analysed responses to more than 50,000 health queries, captured using Google searches from Berlin, found the top cited source was YouTube. The video-sharing platform is the world’s second most visited website, after Google itself, and is owned by Google.
    Researchers at SE Ranking, a search engine optimisation platform, found YouTube made up 4.43% of all AI Overview citations. No hospital network, government health portal, medical association or academic institution came close to that number, they said.
    “This matters because YouTube is not a medical publisher,” the researchers wrote. “It is a general-purpose video platform. Anyone can upload content there (eg board-certified physicians, hospital channels, but also wellness influencers, life coaches, and creators with no medical training at all).”
    Google told the Guardian that AI Overviews was designed to surface high-quality content from reputable sources, regardless of format, and a variety of credible health authorities and licensed medical professionals created content on YouTube. The study’s findings could not be extrapolated to other regions as it was conducted using German-language queries in Germany, it said.
    The research comes after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading health information in Google AI Overviews responses.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 24 January 2026
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    The UK has lost its status as a measles-free country after a rise in deaths from the disease and fall in the proportion of children having the MMR jab in recent years.
    The World Health Organization (WHO) said it no longer classified Britain as having eliminated measles because the disease had become re-established.
    The UK is one of six countries in Europe and central Asia that the WHO says is no longer measles-free, the others being Spain, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
    The WHO had adjudged the UK to have eliminated the disease between 2021 and 2023, but recent increases in the number of recorded cases – there were 3,681 in 2024 – and rises in the number of outbreaks and deaths has led to a rethink.
    Doctors, public health experts and local councils said the WHO’s decision reflected the country’s diminishing uptake of the MMR vaccination, which they linked to vaccine hesitancy and parents’ difficulty in getting appointments for their child to be immunised.
    Dr Simon Williams, a public health researcher at Swansea University, said: “It’s sad to see the UK losing its measles elimination status, although it’s not surprising given outbreaks in recent years. Measles is an eminently preventable disease but vaccine coverage of MMR has declined. We are seeing vaccine hesitancy growing in the UK, as in many countries, and social media-based conspiracies about MMR are a factor.”
    He said the decision by the UN health body “is a wake-up call that more needs to be done” to get rates of MMR in children in the UK back up to the 95% that the organisation says is needed to eliminate measles, mumps and rubella altogether through herd immunity.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 26 January 2026
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    Trusts have been scrambling to make reviews of babies’ deaths more “fair and transparent”, after a new national requirement for independent input.
    Maternity providers are required to review all perinatal deaths, and it has long been a national recommendation that they should involve at least one external, independent reviewer.
    However, in April 2024, it became a formal requirement from NHS Resolution to have an external reviewer in at least half of the cases.
    Figures obtained by HSJ show that at least 19 trusts did not meet this benchmark overall in 2024.
    NHSR, which runs the NHS clinical negligence indemnity scheme, said the requirement “ensures that reviews are conducted with fairness and transparency built on open, honest conversations and free from any internal bias”.
    One trust did not use external reviewers at all to look at late miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal deaths, while others only used them for a small fraction of cases. The external reviewer is required to be a relevant senior clinician who is not part of any trust involved in the case.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 26 January 2026

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