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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    A black NHS worker has launched legal action against the health service’s blood and transplant authority after witnessing years of alleged racism within the service.
    Melissa Thermidor, 40, from Bushey, Hertfordshire, has lodged an employment tribunal claim against NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and two executives who have since left the authority. Betsy Bassis and Millie Banerjee, who were the chief executive and chairwoman, have denied the allegations and intend to fight the tribunal claims.
    One colleague allegedly said: “White donors are more likely to shop at Waitrose and black donors at Tesco.” At subsequent meetings, the phrase “Tesco donors” was used. Staff also allegedly referred to “you people” when speaking to black members of the team.
    Thermidor claims she was constructively dismissed after whistleblowing about racism within NHSBT. The health authority, which supported 3,386 organ donations in the year to March last year as well as collecting blood from 761,000 donors, has been embroiled in allegations of bullying, racism and poor culture under Bassis and Banerjee’s leadership.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 21 August 2022
    Read NHS Blood and Transplant's response to the article.
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    Vaccine coverage continued to decline worldwide in 2021, with 25 million children missing out on lifesaving vaccines, according to data published by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
    "The largest sustained decline in childhood vaccinations in approximately 30 years has been recorded," the organisations have said.
    Between 2019 and 2021, there was a 5-point drop in the percentage of children who got three doses of DTP3, the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. This took the coverage down to 81%.
    DTP3 coverage is used as a marker for broader immunization coverage, WHO and UNICEF said.
    "As a result, 25 million children missed out on one or more doses of DTP through routine immunization services in 2021 alone. This is 2 million more than those who missed out in 2020 and 6 million more than in 2019, highlighting the growing number of children at risk from devastating but preventable diseases," they said. Eighteen million of these children didn't get a single dose of the vaccine, the majority of whom lived in low- and middle-income countries.
    Other decreases were seen in HPV, with which over a quarter of the coverage achieved in 2019 was lost, and measles, with which first-dose coverage dropped to 81% in 2021. WHO notes that this is the lowest level since 2008 and means 24.7 million children missed their first dose in 2021.
    Read full story
    Source: CNN, 14 July 2022

  3. Patient Safety Learning
    NHS nurses will wear “smart goggles" as part of efforts to see more patients under a £400,000 pilot scheme.
    Health chiefs said the virtual reality headsets would mean details of a consultation could be directly transcribed, reducing the amount of time spent filling in patients’ notes.
    The technology will also allow live footage to be streamed to hospital specialists for second opinions, so patients do not have to have extra appointments in hospitals.
    The intention is to give nurses more time for clinical duties such as checking blood pressure, dressing wounds and assessing a patient’s health needs.
    Dr Tim Ferris, NHS director for transformation, said: “These new smart glasses are the latest pioneering tech and really show us what the future of the NHS could look like.
    “They are a win-win for staff and patients alike, freeing up time-consuming admin for nurses, meaning more time for patient care.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Telegraph, 20 August 2022
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    Thousands of vulnerable people are suffering inadequate care as severe staffing shortages in previously good care homes push operators to break rules and put residents at risk.
    A wave of inspections has revealed the human impact of a worsening nationwide staffing crisis, with people being left in their rooms 24 hours a day, denied showers for over a week, enduring assaults from fellow residents, and left soaking in their own urine.
    Stretched staff have described scrambling to help residents with buzzers going off and fear the squeeze on their time is dangerous.
    Analysis by the Guardian revealed that staff shortages were identified as a key problem in three-quarters of all the care homes in England where the Care Quality Commission regulator had cut their rating from “good” before Covid-19 to “inadequate” this summer.
    A further 10% of homes whose rankings slumped had enough staff, but failed to recruit safely, either not taking references properly, carrying out criminal records checks, or training staff adequately.
    Families said the staffing shortages had reached “crisis point”.
    “Older people are paying a heavy price for these failings, as poor care robs them of their dignity, breaks their will and makes them feel unsafe in their own home,” said Helen Wildbore, director of the Relatives and Residents Association. “Older people need much more than empty slogans from the next prime minister about ‘fixing social care’.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 21 August 2022
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Mental health trusts continue to suffer much disruption after a cyber attack left them unable to access their electronic patient records.
    Several trusts which use Advanced’s CareNotes EPR are grappling with the system being down, although the company said on Friday some progress had been made to restore the EPR.
    One source at an affected mental health trust said there had been “not much in the way of improvements”, while another said they feared it could be “months” before they can fully access the EPR.
    NHS England’s mental health director Claire Murdoch is regularly raising issue nationally, HSJ was told, as response teams work with Advanced to investigate and restore IT systems, which were taken offline after the company was hit by a cyber attack two weeks ago.
    Hereford and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust has told its patients they might have to “provide more detail on your medical history to ensure clinicians have the most up-to-date information”, while Oxford Health Foundation Trust warned the technical issues could cause delays to patient care.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 21 August 2022
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    The families of any NHS and social care staff who died from Covid in the most recent waves will not be eligible for the Covid death assurance scheme launched at the start of the pandemic, it has emerged. 
    The scheme closed on 31 March, despite pleas from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to keep it open. Since it was set up in April 2020, it has paid out £60,000 lump sums to the estates of 688 workers. A further 42 cases have been declined and 29 applications are still being processed.
    The RCN wrote to then health and social care secretary Sajid Javid on 30 March, calling for the scheme to be extended. General secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen wrote: “The over-riding principle must be that no member of nursing staff who loses their life this year should be afforded any less respect and family support than one who died in 2020 or 2021…
    “With a distinct possibility of new variants at any point, staff deserve assurance that they and their loved ones will not go unnoticed should they contract and ultimately lose their life to covid.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 19 August 2022
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    A study of over 1,000 health and social care workers, conducted by Florence, the tech platform providing health & social care workers access to available shifts, found that almost a third of healthcare workers admit to feeling overwhelmed at least once a week, with 17% feeling burnt-out every day. A staggering 97% believe the cost-of-living crisis has caused further stress or burnout among healthcare professionals. 
    It comes after more than half of healthcare workers (56%) admit to working more than 2-3 times a week over their contracted hours, with 7% working overtime every day. Not having enough staff is causing the most pressure in their role (50%), followed by low pay (39%) and high workload (35%).   
    The study revealed nine in ten NHS and social care workers state chronic staff shortages are affecting the quality of care. Analysing this deeper, three quarters of respondents stated that the quality of care is already being ‘severely’ impacted as high vacancy rates sweep across the industry.  
    Dr Charles Armitage, Former NHS doctor and CEO and Founder of Florence, observed: “If you’ve got fewer people there on-shift to look after people, the quality of care decreases because the people that are there are overstretched, they’re trying to do too many things and are suffering from severe burnout. As a result, mistakes are made as they’re not able to just spend as much time with people and provide that really important patient-centred care.” 
    Read full story
    Source: Hospital Times, 17 August 2022
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    Nearly 38,000 vital follow-up appointments with mental health patients were missed at the time when they were most at risk of suicide, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has said.
    The medical body has called for “urgent action” to ensure more people are seen for follow-ups within 72 hours of their discharge from inpatient care, to prevent them from falling “through the cracks when they are so vulnerable”.
    The risk of suicide is highest on the second and third days after leaving a mental health ward, but 37,999 follow-up appointments with patients were not made within this timeframe in England between April 2020 and May 2022.
    According to NHS data, of the 160,430 instances when patients were eligible for follow-up care within 72 hours after discharge from acute adult mental health care, only three-quarters (76%) took place within that period.
    The Royal College of Psychiatrists is calling for more trained specialists to check on those perceived to be at risk, which they say requires more staffing and funding.
    The president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Adrian James, said: “We simply can’t afford to let people fall through the cracks at a time when they are so vulnerable. It’s vital that our mental health services are properly staffed and funded to offer proper follow-up care and help prevent suicides.
    “Staff are working as hard as they can to provide high-quality care, but it’s clear that current resources are not enough to meet these targets. We need urgent action to tackle the workforce crisis and achieve the suicide prevention goals set out in the NHS long-term plan.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 22 August 2022
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    Rising numbers of people will fall sick and see their health worsen unless the government takes further action to limit energy price rises, the NHS says.
    The NHS Confederation said the UK was facing a "humanitarian crisis". The group, which represents health bosses, said many people would face the awful choice between skipping meals to heat their homes or having to live in cold and damp conditions.
    But ministers said action was already being taken and the NHS supported. This includes £400 payments to every household this autumn to help pay energy bills.
    However, in a letter to ministers, NHS leaders said that rapidly rising energy prices, along with other cost-of-living pressures, will still leave individuals and families facing impossible choices.
    They warn that if people are forced to live in cold homes and cannot afford nutritious food, then their health will quickly deteriorate and the NHS will be left to pick up the pieces.
    Cold conditions can lead to a rise in respiratory conditions, and in older people can also increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and falls.
    Cold homes are already linked to 10,000 deaths a year, the NHS Confederation said.
    The group warned the risk of ill-health linked to the energy crisis would come on top of what many expect to be one of the toughest winters on record because of the combination of flu, norovirus and Covid outbreaks.
    As well as leading to more sickness and illness, the NHS Confederation said it would also have a major impact on mental health and well-being.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 20 August 2022
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    GPs around England are to prescribe patients activities such as walking or cycling in a bid to ease the burden on the NHS by improving mental and physical health.
    The £12.7m trial, which was announced by the Department for Transport and will begin this year, is part of a wider movement of “social prescribing”, an approach already used in the NHS, in which patients are referred for non-medical activities.
    Minister for health, Maria Caulfield, said the UK is leading the way in embedding social prescribing in the NHS and communities across the country.
    “Getting active is hugely beneficial for both our mental and physical health, helping reduce stress and ward off other illness such as heart disease and obesity,” she said.
    Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, said he welcomed news of the extra investment, enabling the NHS to try new ways of supporting mental health, such as through social prescribing schemes.
    But, he added, prescribing exercise is not a miracle cure for treating mental health problems.
    “What we urgently need to see is proper investment into our country’s mental health services,” he said. “Only that will enable us to deliver support to the 1.6 million people currently sat on waiting lists, and the 8 million people who would benefit from mental health support right now but are deemed by the system not to be unwell enough to access it.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 22 August 2022
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    Some acute trusts have kept more than half of their executive directors over a five-year period – whereas others have seen all of them change, according to HSJ analysis of top-level managerial stability.
    HSJ looked at the number of executive directors who had been in place between April 2017 and April 2022, by examining annual reports and board papers.
    One trust – Southport and Ormskirk – had five CEOs during the five year period, and three other trusts had four.
    The national average was more than two different CEOs at each trust across the five years. Thirty-one trusts (out of 108 listed) had three different CEOs during the period, and just 23 trusts had one.
    NHS Providers interim chief executive Saffron Cordery said: “This analysis underlines the value of long-term investment in NHS trust leadership. It highlights too the danger of chopping and changing leaders amid longstanding financial, capacity, workforce and other structural pressures on the health system.
    “It is vital to invest in people alongside operational priorities. More must be done to guarantee a robust and diverse pipeline of leaders, equipped to take on crucial roles.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 22 August 2022
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    On Monday, September 20, 2021, Michael Wysockyj felt unwell and did what any gravely sick person would do: he put his life in the hands of the ambulance service. The 66-year-old from Norfolk was whisked by paramedics to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King’s Lynn at 6.28pm. Nearly four hours later, he was still trapped inside the vehicle. The hospital was too full to take him. He died at 4.42am.
    So great were the concerns of the coroner, Jacqueline Lake, that she took the unusual step of issuing a “prevention of future death” notice. “The emergency department was busy at the time and unable to offload ambulances,” she said in her report. “An x-ray cannot be carried out in an ambulance and must wait until the patient is in [the emergency department].”
    This episode should be an anomaly in the failure of emergency services. It is not.
    The crisis is “heartbreaking”, according to Dr Ian Higginson, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. “If you call for an ambulance and you’re waiting many hours for one and you have a serious condition, that is going to have an impact on your outcome. It would be reasonable to assume the long delays that patients are subjected to waiting for ambulances at the moment will filter through into excess mortality.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 21 August 2022
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    The NHS is to launch a campaign urging the public to avoid A&E in an echo of appeals to protect the health service during the Covid pandemic.
    The head of the NHS has instructed hospitals to prepare a public awareness campaign calling for people to “minimise” pressures on urgent and emergency services.
    Such an instruction has never been issued so early in the year, and comes amid concerns that hospitals and ambulance services are already facing strains usually seen in the depths of winter.
    People suffering a genuine emergency will still be encouraged to go to A&E, but on Friday night there were warnings that the campaign risks exacerbating the problems caused by patients staying away from the health service during Covid.
    Prof Carl Heneghan, an urgent care doctor and professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford, said the NHS needed to be very careful about trying to dissuade the public from using services.
    “The NHS seems to be the only business I know that doesn’t know how to deal with demand, and work with the needs of its customers,” he said.
    “As an urgent care doctor, I need to be in front of the patient to do my job. It’s often too difficult for the new mum to know when it’s appropriate to turn to emergency services. These decisions are difficult – it’s the job of a doctor.
    “Too often I see elderly patients who apologise for taking my time and I say ‘don’t apologise – you could have been 24 hours away from death’.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Telegraph, 19 August 2022
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    All patients should be able to choose the hospital with the shortest waiting times, a former health secretary has said.
    Alan Milburn, the Labour health secretary under Tony Blair from 1999 to 2003, called for urgent reforms and warned that the NHS was “close to breaking point” and “in the worst state I have ever seen”.
    A record 6.7 million people are now on waiting lists, with the numbers waiting in Accident and Emergency departments for at least 12 hours surging by more than a third in a month.
    Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Milburn called for urgent reforms to give patients more choice and control while preventing a “tsunami” of chronic diseases fuelled by unhealthy lifestyles.
    In recent months, ministers have promised that those facing the longest waits will be offered treatment further away and offered travel and accommodation costs, but only around 140 patients were booked in for such surgery by June.
    Mr Milburn called for the option to be offered to all patients, urging health officials to use the NHS app as a way for people to chose the hospital with the shortest wait. So far, officials have promised to ensure that the app allows patients to check the average waiting time at their local hospital for their condition and compare it with others.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Telegraph, 17 August 2022
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    A 90-year-old woman waited 40 hours for an ambulance after a serious fall.
    Stephen Syms said his mother, from Cornwall, fell on Sunday evening and an ambulance arrived on Tuesday afternoon.
    She was then in the vehicle for 20 hours at the Royal Cornwall Hospital. It comes as an ambulance trust warns lives are at risk because of delays in patient handovers.
    It was also reported a man, 87, who fell, was left under a makeshift shelter waiting for an ambulance.
    South Western Ambulance Service said it was "sorry and upset" at the woman's wait for an ambulance.
    Mr Syms, from St Stephen, told BBC Radio Cornwall: "We are literally heartbroken to see a 90-year-old woman in such distress, waiting and not knowing if she had broken anything.
    "The system is totally broken."
    He said it took nine minutes before his 999 call was answered.
    "If that was a cardiac arrest, nine minutes is much too long, it's the end of somebody's life," he said.
    Mr Syms said paramedics were "absolutely incredible people".
    He added: "The system is not deteriorating, it's totally broken and needs to be urgently reviewed."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 19 August 2022
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    Almost a third of acute trusts have been identified by NHS England as being ‘at risk’ of missing key targets for electives and cancer recovery, with some facing “periodic calls between ministers and CEOs”, HSJ can reveal.
    NHS England has identified 39 acute trusts at the most risk of missing the targets of having no patients waiting 78 weeks or more for elective treatment by April 2023, and returning the 62-day cancer waiting list to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023.
    HSJ can reveal the full lists of 19 trusts placed in “tier one” – the most at-risk category – and 20 in “tier two” (see lists below). 
    The “at risk” trusts represent 31% of the acute providers in England, with many of them among the lowest performers in the country for elective and cancer recovery.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 19 August 2022
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    Britain is in the grip of a new silent health crisis. For 14 of the past 15 weeks, England and Wales have averaged around 1,000 extra deaths each week, none of which are due to Covid. 
    If the current trajectory continues, the number of non-Covid excess deaths will soon outstrip deaths from the virus this year.
    Experts believe decisions taken by the Government in the earliest stages of the pandemic – policies that kept people indoors, scared them away from hospitals and deprived them of treatment and primary care – are finally taking their toll.  
    Prof Robert Dingwall, of Nottingham Trent University, a former government adviser during the pandemic, said: “The picture seems very consistent with what some of us were suggesting from the beginning.
    “We are beginning to see the deaths that result from delay and deferment of treatment for other conditions, like cancer and heart disease, and from those associated with poverty and deprivation. 
    “These come through more slowly – if cancer is not treated promptly, patients don't die immediately but do die in greater numbers more quickly than would otherwise be the case.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Telegraph, 18 August 2022
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    Dentists in the UK should be encouraged to give antibiotics to patients at high risk of life-threatening heart infection before invasive procedures, a study has found.
    Research suggests bacteria from the mouth entering the bloodstream during dental treatment could explain 30% to 40% of infective endocarditis cases. The rare but life-threatening condition occurs when the inner lining of the heart chambers and valves become infected.
    Antibiotics could limit the number of cases and reduce the risk of heart failure, stroke and premature death in high-risk patients, the study says.
    Current guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) advise against the routine use of antibiotics before invasive dental procedures for those at risk of infective endocarditis.
    “Ours is the largest study to show a significant association between invasive dental procedures and infective endocarditis, particularly for extraction and surgical procedures,” said Prof Martin Thornhill from the University of Sheffield, who led the study.
    Nice should review its guidelines advising against antibiotic prophylaxis, the researchers said.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 19 August 2022
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    Five East Midlands trusts are working with the country’s largest independent mental health provider in a bid to improve service quality, amid concerns patient safety would have been put at risk if they had not stepped in.
    This move follows the Care Quality Commission (CQC) placing conditions on the registration of St Andrew’s Healthcare in Northampton in July and August last year after inspectors found patients were not given appropriate care in a safe environment.
    The service could not admit any new patients into forensic, long-stay rehabilitation wards and the wards for people with a learning disability at the women’s service and to the wards for people with a learning difficulty at the men’s service, without consent from CQC following the inspection report. This restriction was lifted in May this year. 
    Following the inspection, five local community and mental health trusts have “buddied up” to provide “targeted support” to improve the care quality provided by the charity provider. The programme is being co-ordinated by Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust.
    Angela Hillery, chief executive of NHFT and Leicestershire Partnership Trust, told HSJ there was an “overwhelming” agreement amongst the pre-existing East Midlands alliance of trusts that they should work with St Andrew’s, which “clearly had an improvement journey to make”.
    Ms Hillery said: “If we were not going to help, the risk was to our patients. [The initiative] was driven from us to say, ‘these are our patients and why wouldn’t we want to support each other as I know St Andrew’s would support us in the same situation.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 18 August 2022
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    Questions are being asked why the government is sticking to its cap on medical and dentistry places.
    A shortage of doctors and other medical staff has been described as the biggest challenge facing the NHS. But the number of places at UK medical schools are capped - in England this year there are 7,500 places.
    England's Education Secretary James Cleverly told the BBC that you can't just "flick a switch" to increase the capacity to train more doctors.
    Medicine is one of a handful of courses where numbers are limited by the government, because the cost is heavily subsidised.
    In 2020 and 2021 the government lifted the cap on numbers, which last year led to more than 10,000 places being accepted. But this year the cap in England is being reintroduced.
    Mr Cleverly told the BBC that the nature of highly technical, vocational courses like medicine meant increasing the number of places was far from straightforward.
    "To increase those numbers you would also need to increase the capacity in training institutions, both in universities and in hospitals.
    "It is not something you can just flick a switch and significantly increase the capacity to train.
    "The increases have got to be funded, they are technical and expensive courses and we need to understand the balance of requirements between these courses and other courses that the government is supporting financially."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 18 August 2022
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    A grieving family has welcomed new guidance to try to prevent a common surgical procedure from going wrong and causing deaths.
    Oesophageal intubation occurs when a breathing tube is placed into the oesophagus, the tube leading to the stomach, instead of the trachea, the tube leading to the windpipe.
    It can lead to brain damage or death if not spotted promptly.
    Glenda Logsdail died at Milton Keynes University Hospital in 2020 after a breathing tube was accidentally inserted into her oesophagus. The 60-year-old radiographer was being prepared for an appendicitis operation when the error occurred.
    Her family welcomed the guidance, saying in a statement: “We miss her terribly but we know that she’d be happy that something good will come from her tragic death and that nobody else will go through what we’ve had to go through as a family."
    Oesophageal intubation can occur for a number of reasons including technical difficulties, clinician inexperience, movement of the tube or “distorted anatomy”.
    The mistake is relatively common but usually detected quickly with no resulting harm.
    The new guidance, published in the journal Anaesthesia, recommends that exhaled carbon dioxide monitoring and pulse oximetry – which measures oxygen levels in the blood – should be available and used for all procedures that require a breathing tube.
    Experts from the UK and Australia also recommended the use of a video-laryngoscope – an intubation device fitted with a video camera to improve the view – when a breathing tube is being inserted.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent,18 August 2022
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    The Joint Commission Resources (JCR) has announced the appointment of two world-class and leading healthcare experts to serve as international outside directors on its board of directors: Abdulelah M. Alhawsawi and Sangita Reddy.

    As international outside directors, Dr. Alhawsawi and Ms. Reddy will provide their global expertise and direction to improve safety and quality of healthcare in the United States and abroad. They will be full voting members of the 13-person board of directors, which serves as JCR’s governing body. The board includes healthcare professionals, business executives and quality experts from around the world. 
    “Dr. Alhawsawi and Ms. Reddy have dedicated their lives to transforming healthcare globally, and we are thrilled to welcome them to Joint Commission Resources’ Board of Directors,” says Jonathan B. Perlin, president and chief executive officer, The Joint Commission. “These board appointments bring unique international expertise and perspective on healthcare policy and the challenges and opportunities to advance quality and safety worldwide.” 

    “We are so pleased that Dr. Alhawsawi and Ms. Reddy are joining Joint Commission Resources’ Board of Directors,” says Jean Courtney, interim president and chief executive officer, and chief operating officer, JCR. “They each bring in-depth and unparalleled international healthcare expertise. This will be invaluable as JCR continues to expand its mission to improve patient safety and quality of care around the globe.”
    Read full story
    Source: Joint Commission Resources, 16 August 2022
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    At 34 years old, Dawn Jaxson had two young daughters. Since going through childbirth she had been experiencing a prolapsed bladder and urinary incontinence. Her doctors recommended she have a vaginal mesh fitted to treat the problem, and she didn’t question their advice.
    But more than 15 years later, she wishes she had. “As soon as I’d actually had it fitted, I felt discomfort,” says Jaxson, now 50. “Then the pain just didn’t go.” After years of almost constant pelvic pain and “countless” medical appointments, Jaxson says: “This little tiny piece of tape is still ruining my life.”
    “I can literally be sat down and then out of nowhere, it will be like somebody is shoving a red-hot poker through my bladder,” she tells iNews. “Being intimate with somebody is just impossible. Sex is no joy. Imagine your worst period pain you could possibly have, and that’s what it’s like on a daily basis.”
    NHS Digital records show that between April 2008 and March 2017, 100,516 patients had a tape insertion procedure for stress urinary incontinence. A further 27,016 patients had a mesh procedure for pelvic organ prolapse. But the surgery was suspended in Scotland in 2014 and across the rest of the UK by 2018 following complaints about complications – and a review ordered.
    The review panel, overseen by Baroness Julia Cumberlege, spoke to more than 700 affected individuals and concluded that pelvic mesh procedures had caused “anguish, suffering, and many ruined lives”.
    In 2020, the panel set out nine recommendations to help the thousands of women affected, including the creation of specialist centres, so patients could have their mesh removed or receive further treatment. But two years on from that landmark report, women say they are still suffering debilitating symptoms and struggling to access the help they so desperately need.
    Kath Sansom, the founder of the campaigning group Sling the Mesh, has heard many similar stories from among the group’s 9,700 members. 
    “The lack of action on financial redress is the biggest disappointment for women,” she says. “Pelvic mesh caused lifelong damage, and worse, the majority of us were not given any information on the risks. It’s not our fault this happened to us."
    “Some women have been left disabled in wheelchairs or walking with sticks. Others have had organs removed where mesh has turned brittle and sliced into them. Seven in 10 have lost their sex life. Everyone suffers chronic pain in varying degrees. Women have lost jobs, marriages, homes, and their quality of life.”
    Read full story
    Source: iNews, 18 August 2022
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    Two years after having Covid-19, diagnoses of brain fog, dementia and epilepsy are more common than after other respiratory infections, a study by the University of Oxford suggests.
    But anxiety and depression are no more likely in adults or children two years on, the research found.
    More research is needed to understand how and why Covid could lead to other conditions.
    This study looked at the risks of 14 different disorders in 1.25 million patients two years on from Covid, mostly in the US. It then compared them with a closely-matched group of 1.25 million people who had a different respiratory infection.
    In the group who had Covid, after two years, there were more new cases of:
    dementia, stroke and brain fog in adults aged over 65 brain fog in adults aged 18-64 epilepsy and psychotic disorders in children, although the overall risks were small. Some disorders became less common two years after Covid, including:
    anxiety and depression in children and adults psychotic disorders in adults. The increased risk of depression and anxiety in adults lasts less than two months before returning to normal levels, the research found.
    Read full story
    Source BBC News, 18 August 2022
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    There is an urgent need to develop evidence based clinical guidelines for managing cases of monkeypox, scientists said, after finding that existing guidance frequently lacked detail and was based on poor research.
    They urged establishing a 'living guideline' for infectious disease to ensure that up-to-date information, based on robust research, was available globally and in any setting.
    The study, published in BMJ Global Health, also called for investment to back research into optimal treatments and prophylaxis strategies.
    The study authors wrote: "The lack of clarity between guidelines creates uncertainty for clinicians treating patients with MPX [monkeypox] which may impact patient care."
    They concluded: "Our study highlights a need for a rigorous framework for producing guidelines ahead of epidemics and a recognised platform for rapidly reviewing and updating guidance during outbreaks, as new evidence emerges."
    Current global concern over the spread of monkeypox was an opportune time to act, they argued.
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 17 August 2022

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