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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    The Care Quality Commission’s follow-up of whistleblowing concerns from health and care staff has been poor and inconsistent, and there is a “widespread lack of competence and confidence” on dealing with race and racism at the organisation, two reviews have found.
    A “Listening, learning, responding to concerns” review was published by the Care Quality Commission, alongside a linked independent review into how the regulator failed Shyam Kumar, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the North West, who was also a CQC specialist professional adviser.
    The wider review looked at a range of issues including how the CQC deals with racism; how well it listens to whistleblowers in providers; and how it deals with its own staff, including as part of a recent restructure, and its internal “Freedom to Speak Up” process. It followed concerns bring raised, in addition to Mr Kumar’s case, about these issues.
    Scott Durairaj, a CQC director who joined it last year and led the review work along with a panel of advisers, reported there was “clear evidence, during the scoping, design phase and throughout the review, of a widespread lack of competence and confidence within CQC in understanding, identifying and writing about race and racism”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 29 March 2023
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    Serious concerns about maternity services at an NHS trust have been revealed by BBC Panorama.
    Midwives say a poor culture and staff shortages at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust have led to baby deaths that could have been avoided.
    A newborn baby died after the trust failed to take action against two staff, the BBC has been told.
    The trust says it is sorry for its failings and is determined to learn when things go wrong.
    Concerns about two staff members, both midwives, had been raised by colleagues at the Cheltenham Birth Centre after another baby died 11 months earlier.
    The birth centre allowed women with low-risk pregnancies the choice of giving birth there under the care of midwives - there were no emergency facilities in the centre.
    In the event of complications, women should have been transferred to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, which is part of the same trust and about a 30-minute drive away.
    But on both occasions, the two midwives did not get their patients transferred quickly enough.
    The two midwives on duty for both deaths are now being investigated by their regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 29 January 2024
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    Children came to “significant” harm due to chronically low staffing levels at scandal-hit mental health hospitals, whistleblowers have said.
    In a third exposé into allegations of poor care at private hospitals run by The Huntercombe Group, former employees have claimed that staffing levels were so low “every day” that patients were neglected, resulting in:
    Patients as young as 13 being force-fed while restrained. Left alone to self-harm instead of being supervised. Left to “wet themselves” because staff couldn’t supervise toilet visits. One staff member, Rebecca Smith, said she was left in tears after having to restrain and force-feed a patient.
    Following a series of investigations by The Independent and Sky News, 50 patients came forward with allegations of “systemic abuse” and poor care, spanning two decades at children’s mental health hospitals run by the organisation.
    The government has since launched a “rapid review” into inpatient mental health units across the country following the newspaper’s reporting.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 28 January 2023
     
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    Former staff at a Midlands acute trust have raised concerns over a ‘toxic management culture’ and ‘unsafe’ staffing levels within its maternity services, HSJ has learned.
    Two clinicians who recently worked within Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust’s maternity department have sent a letter to the Care Quality Commission outlining a series of concerns.
    The letter, seen by HSJ, claimed there was a “toxic management culture alongside poor leadership” within the trust’s senior midwifery team.
    It added: “This had led to 100 per cent turnover in staff within the middle management line… There is no confidence in the current leadership structure and no confidence that staff will be listened to and heard.”
    HSJ also understands there are also concerns around the service within the trust’s management.
    Although they do not raise direct patient safety concerns, the clinicians said the problems were “mostly long-standing” and had “deteriorated to the point where there is now a risk to patient safety”.
    They added: “We are raising these concerns now with the CQC as we feel we have not been listened to and changed effected in a timely manner.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 10 March 2021
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    NHS clinicians who were sacked after blowing the whistle about avoidable patient deaths say they fear lessons from the Lucy Letby murder trial have not been learned and the case will make no difference to their own claims for unfair dismissal.
    They say hospital bosses are still more concerned about reputation than patient safety, despite what emerged in the Letby case about the tragic consequences of ignoring consultants who first raised suspicions about her killing babies.
    Mansoor Foroughi is appealing against his dismissal by University Hospital Sussex NHS trust in December 2021 after raising concerns about patient deaths. 
    Mansoor Foroughi, a consultant neurosurgeon, was sacked by University Hospital Sussex NHS trust (UHST) in December 2021 for allegedly acting in bad faith when he raised the alarm about 19 deaths and 23 cases of serious patient harm that he said had been covered up in the previous six years. Those deaths and at least 20 others are now being investigated by Sussex police after allegations of medical negligence.
    Foroughi, whose appeal against his dismissal is due to be held in the coming months, told the Guardian: “I don’t think mine or anyone’s chances of success has increased [after Letby], and only a change in the law will do that.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2023
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) has expressed its support for the Whistleblowing Bill launched in Parliament last week, with its first reading in the House of Commons by Mary Robinson MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Whistleblowing.
    DAUK urged people to tweet their MP to show their support for the Bill.
    DAUK Chair Dr Jenny Vaughan said: "Healthcare staff need to be able raise patient safety issues all of the time. We’re trained to do that, expect it, point this out as best we can. But sometimes poor safety arises because of the way we are told to work. Then, it can be just as hard for staff to speak up as it is for anyone else, because we can also be threatened, sanctioned, isolated, ignored and bullied.
    "Blowing the whistle for us means saving lives, in the end. But we stand to lose as much as anyone. DAUK has supported many doctors who have been made to suffer because they spoke out, and there are many more who feel they should but are afraid to.  That is why this Bill is so important. For all staff within healthcare. And most of all, for patients  - the public. Stopping the greater harm for the greater good.”
    The most important changes in the private members bill, led by Baroness Kramer would:
    Require disclosures to be acted upon and whistleblowers protected. Provide criminal and civil penalties for organisations and individuals failing to do so. Establish a fully independent parliamentary body on whistleblowing, and provide easy access to redress. Read full story
    Source: Medscape UK, 26 April 2022
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    A campaigning whistleblowing surgeon who wrote two books about his experiences has decided to leave the medical profession out of fear that he is being “hunted” by the NHS.
    Peter Duffy, a consultant urologist, is quitting work several years earlier than planned and intends to remove his name from the medical register. After a two year investigation the General Medical Council has decided to take no action against him. But he told The BMJ that he is worried that, after several investigations into his conduct, he remains vulnerable as long as he stays on the register.
    Duffy, 61, who blew the whistle on patient safety issues at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust’s urology department, left the NHS nearly seven years ago. He claimed he was forced to resign from the trust for his own protection and won a claim for unfair constructive dismissal in 2018, when the trust was ordered to pay him £102 000 in compensation.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: BMJ, 12 June 2023
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    White applicants remain 54% more likely to be appointed from NHS job shortlistings compared to ethnic minority candidates, a metric that has hardly budged since 2016, a NHS England report has revealed.
    The 2022 NHS workforce race equality standard report, revealed a significant rise in the proportion of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds. And while there had been progress on some key targets since last year, others have stagnated.
    NHSE’s report showed ethnic minority staff comprise 24.2% of the workforce in 2022, up from 22.4% last year and from 17.7% six years ago.
    However, it also revealed the likelihood of white applicants being appointed from shortlists was 1.54 in 2022 than minority ethnic applicants – only a very small improvement on 1.57 in 2016, when WRES began
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 22 February 2023
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    White doctors applying for medical posts in London are six times more likely to be offered a job than black applicants, figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show.
    The new data also show that white doctors are four times more likely to be successful than Asian candidates or candidates from a mixed ethnic background.
    The figures were uncovered by Sheila Cunliffe, a senior human resources professional who works in workforce transformation across the NHS and the wider public sector. Cunliffe sent freedom of information requests to all 18 NHS acute trusts in London asking for a breakdown by ethnicity for 2020-21 of the numbers of applicants for medical jobs, shortlisted candidates, and candidates offered positions. 
    Twelve of the 18 trusts shared their full unredacted data with The BMJ on all grades of job applications. Across these 12 trusts, 29% (4675 of 15 853) of white applicants were shortlisted in 2020-21, compared with 13% (2041 of 15 515) of black applicants, 14% (8406 of 59 211) of Asian applicants, and 15% (1620 of 10 860) of applicants of mixed ethnicity.
    Overall, 7% (1148) of white applicants were offered jobs, compared with 1% (188) of black applicants, 2% (1050) of Asian applicants, and 2% (188) of applicants of mixed ethnicity.
    Cunliffe said that the findings were just one indicator of the barriers that applicants from ethnic minorities faced. “The racism some of these results point to will be replicated in the day-to-day lived experience of staff working within the trust,” she said. “NHSEI [NHS England and NHS Improvement] need to look at data in a more detailed way and, where needed, set out to trusts their clear expectations and targets for improvement.”
    Read full story
    Source: BMJ, 13 October 2021
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    A global alert has been issued over four cough syrups after the World Health Organization (WHO) warned they could be linked to the deaths of 66 children in The Gambia.
    The syrups have been "potentially linked with acute kidney injuries and 66 deaths among children", it said.
    The products were manufactured by an Indian company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, which had failed to provide guarantees about their safety, the WHO added.
    The WHO identified the medicines as Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup.
    The four products had been identified in The Gambia, but "may have been distributed, through informal markets, to other countries or regions", the WHO added, in the alert published on its website.
    It warned that their use may result in serious injury or death, especially among children.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 6 October 2022
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    Millions of patients are harmed each year due to unsafe health care worldwide resulting in 2.6 million deaths annually in low-and middle-income countries alone.  Most of these deaths are avoidable. The personal, social and economic impact of patient harm leads to losses of trillions of US dollars worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) is focusing global attention on the issue of patient safety and launching a campaign in solidarity with patients on the very first World Patient Safety Day on 17 September.
    Read full story
    Source: WHO, 13 September 2019
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    Long Covid is “devastating” the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of people, and wreaking havoc on health systems and economies, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned as he urged countries to launch “immediate” and “sustained” efforts to tackle the “very serious” crisis.
    The world has never been in a better position to end the Covid-19 pandemic, but it is also “very clear” that many of those infected by the virus, which first emerged in China in late 2019, are still experiencing “prolonged suffering”, the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said.
    With the absence of evidence about how best to treat it, Long Covid is turning people’s lives upside down, and many face “often lengthy” and “frustrating” waits for support or guidance, Tedros said. The large numbers of those cruelly affected by the long tail of Covid is also having a dangerous impact on health systems and economies still reeling from waves of infections.
    “While the pandemic has changed dramatically due to the introduction of many lifesaving tools, and there is light at the end of the tunnel, the impact of long Covid for all countries is very serious and needs immediate and sustained action equivalent to its scale,” Tedros said, writing for the Guardian.
    Countries must now “seriously ramp up” both research into the condition and access to care for those affected if they are to “minimise the suffering” of their populations and protect their health systems and workforces.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 12 October 2022
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    Almost 15 million people have died as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic around the world, new figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) reveal.
    Estimates from the WHO show that the number of excess deaths associated directly or indirectly with the pandemic between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 was approximately 14.9 million – 13% more deaths than normally expected over a two-year period.
    Excess mortality is calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic, based on data from earlier years.
    WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems."
    Most of the excess deaths (84%) are concentrated in southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas, the WHO said, while some 68% of excess deaths are concentrated in just 10 countries globally.
    It also found that middle-income countries account for 81 per cent of the 14.9 million excess deaths (53% in lower-middle-income countries and 28% in upper-middle-income countries) over the 24-month period, with high-income and low-income countries each accounting for 15% and 4%, respectively.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 5 May 2022
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    A leading figure in the World Health Organisation Foundation has criticised the UK’s move to dismantle its Covid testing programme as the disease surges in other parts of the world.
    Mr Anil Soni, chief executive of the WHO Foundation, said in an interview with The Independent that maintaining surveillance over Covid-19 was “incredibly important” and the “dismantling of the testing infrastructure here strikes me as very worrying.”
    The WHO Foundation chief warned people were “looking the other way” from counties where there is low vaccine coverage to maintain the hope that Covid is over.
    He warned low vaccine coverage is a “petri dish” for future variants to breed and that the acute phase of the pandemic could not be over until this is addressed.
    When asked about the UK’s plans to end its NHS Test and Trace programme Mr Soni said: “I’m very concerned about it.
    “What we’ve seen is, it’s incredibly important to maintain surveillance, and countries in southern Africa should be applauded for detecting Omicron as quickly as they did. Those surveillance systems need to be in place around the world.
    “We also want to make sure that testing is widely available so that people, when they become infectious, can be aware of their status and keep others safe. For testing not to be available and for us to be moving too quickly to normalcy creates risk.”
    Mr Soni said the world’s position with Covid was “precarious” and highlighted the surge being seen in Hong Kong, where “health centres are at the verge of collapse, because of how many people are sick”.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 10 March 2022
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    The World Health Organization has said it will temporarily drop hydroxychloroquine — the malaria drug Donald Trump said he is taking as a precaution — from its global study into experimental coronavirus treatments after safety concerns.
    The WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in light of a paper published last week in the Lancet that showed people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of death and heart problems than those who were not, it would pause the hydroxychloroquine arm of its solidarity global clinical trial.
    “The executive group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the solidarity trial while the safety data is reviewed by the data safety monitoring board,” Tedros said on Monday. “The other arms of the trial are continuing,”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 25 May 2020
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    WHO has launched a messaging service with partners WhatsApp and Facebook to keep people safe from coronavirus.
    This easy-to-use messaging service has the potential to reach 2 billion people and enables WHO to get information directly into the hands of the people that need it.
    From government leaders to health workers and family and friends, this messaging service will provide the latest news and information on coronavirus including details on symptoms and how people can protect themselves and others. It also provides the latest situation reports and numbers in real time to help government decision-makers protect the health of their populations.
    The service can be accessed through a link that opens a conversation on WhatsApp. Users can simply type “hi” to activate the conversation, prompting a menu of options that can help answer their questions about COVID-19.
    The WHO Health Alert was developed in collaboration with Praekelt.Org, using Turn machine learning technology.
    Read full story
    Source: World Health Organization, 20 March 2020
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    Seven million people in England are currently waiting for treatment on the NHS.
    That's more than the entire populations of some countries, including Denmark and New Zealand.
    Just under half of those referred to a specialist will have been in the queue for longer than 18 weeks — the maximum target set in 2004 by the Government. And more than 360,000 of them will have been waiting a year or more.
    It's a deeply troubling state of affairs that has been thrown into sharp focus by the impact of the junior doctors' strike.
    However, 'treatment delays existed long before the doctors' strike — and also the Covid-19 pandemic,' Danielle Jefferies, a senior analyst with independent think-tank The King's Fund, told Good Health.
    Indeed, while the impact of the virus may have worsened the bottlenecks, the problem of rising patient demand is of longer standing. And the potential consequences are terrifying.
    Studies show that for each month patients with breast, bowel or head and neck cancers have their treatment delayed, the chances of them dying from the disease increase by 6 to 13%.
    Meanwhile, eye specialists fear some people may suffer permanent sight loss because they cannot get to a specialist in time to prevent the worsening of serious conditions such as glaucoma, which affects around 700,000 people in Britain.
    Read full story
    Source: MailOnline, 19 April 2023
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that a batch of contaminated India-made cough syrup has been found in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.
    The WHO said that the tested samples of Guaifenesin TG syrup, made by Punjab-based QP Pharmachem Ltd, showed "unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol".
    Both compounds are toxic to humans and could be fatal if consumed.
    The WHO statement did not specify if anyone had fallen ill.
    The latest alert comes months after the WHO linked other cough syrups made in India to child deaths in The Gambia and Uzbekistan.
    Sudhir Pathak, managing director of QP Pharmachem, told the BBC that the company had exported the batch of 18,346 bottles to Cambodia after getting all due regulatory permissions. He said he didn't know how the product had reached the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 26 April 2023
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    New weight loss drugs such as Wegovy will not be a “silver bullet” in tackling obesity, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
    Francesco Branca, WHO director of food and nutrition safety, said weight loss drugs must be used alongside a healthy diet and exercise.
    Ms Branca’s comments come as the health body conducts its first review of obesity management guidelines in two decades.
    Semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy by drugmaker Novo Nordisk, is an appetite suppressant drug that has been approved by the UK medicines regulator and described by some as a “game changer” in helping people to shed weight.
    People will only be given Wegovy on prescription as part of a specialist weight management service involving input from several professionals and for a maximum of two years.
    Some experts described the decision as a “pivotal moment” for the treatment of people living with obesity but others warned that the drug is not a “quick fix”.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 12 May 2023
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    Climate change presents one of the most significant global health challenges and is already negatively affecting communities worldwide. Communicating the health risks of climate change and the health benefits of climate solutions is both necessary and helpful. To support this, the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with partners has developed a new toolkit designed to equip health and care workers with the knowledge and confidence to effectively communicate about climate change and health.
    The toolkit aims to fill the gaps in knowledge and action among health and care workers – all those who are engaged in actions with the primary intent of enhancing health, as well as those occupations in academic, management and scientific roles. Despite their recognized trustworthiness and efficacy as health communicators, many health and care workers might not be fully equipped to discuss climate change and its health implications. This toolkit seeks to change that narrative.
    “Health and care workers play a key role in addressing climate change as a health crisis. Their unique position enables them to raise awareness, advocate for policy changes, and empower communities to mitigate and adapt to climate change,” said  Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health. “By engaging in dialogue and action, health and care workers can catalyse efforts to safeguard human health as well as ensuring a resilient and sustainable future for all.”
    Read full story
    Source: WHO, 22 March 2024
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    The World Health Organization has published its first ever list of lethal fungal infections that represent a threat to public health.
    Experts have noticed an increase in deadly fungal disease, with drug-resistant bacterial infections now responsible for roughly 1.27 million deaths every year.
    “Fungal pathogens are a major threat to public health as they are becoming increasingly common and resistant to treatment,” WHO said.
    The types of fungal infections listed often affect severely ill patients and those with significant underlying problems with their immune system, including people with cancer, HIV or AIDs, organ transplants, chronic respiratory disease or tuberculosis.
    “Emerging from the shadows of the bacterial antimicrobial resistance pandemic, fungal infections are growing, and are ever more resistant to treatments, becoming a public health concern worldwide,” said Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO assistant director-general, antimicrobial resistance, said.
    In its new report, the WHO warns that there is only limited access to quality diagnostics and treatment for these developing fungal diseases. Medicines are often unavailable in low and middle income countries, leading to increased deaths among these populations.
    One deadly fungal pathogen, Candida auris, which is resistant to multiple drugs, is particularly difficult to eradicate from hospitals - even with intensive infection prevention measures, the WHO said.
    This means hospital wards often have to be shut down for prolonged periods of time when Candida auris is detected.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 26 October 2022
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    The offices of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the Quality of Health Care and Patient Safety will be located in Athens, Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias and the WHO Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge, announced on Friday after their meeting in Copenhagen.
    "The choice of Greece is a recognition of the work by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Ministry of Health and the Greek government in managing the pandemic and implementing public health policies, such as the successful implementation of the anti-smoking law, and promoting important reforms, such as passing the law for the establishment of the National Organisation for Quality Assurance in Health," the health ministry said in a statement.
    "Greece has recently led important developments in the field of health, such as legislation banning smoking in public places, the launch of the National Anti-Smoking Action Plan and reforms in the field of primary health care."
    "All the above, in combination with the excellence of the Greek health institutions and the leading researchers in the field of health and wellness, indicate a strong leadership within the European Region and beyond. In addition, they create an ideal framework for the creation of a much-needed centre of excellence in the field of quality healthcare and patient safety."
    Read full story
    Source: The National Herald, 16 October 2020
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    The World Health Organization’s (WHO) new Mental Health Atlas paints a disappointing picture of a worldwide failure to provide people with the mental health services they need, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting a growing need for mental health support.
    The latest edition of the Atlas, which includes data from 171 countries, provides a clear indication that the increased attention given to mental health in recent years has yet to result in a scale-up of quality mental services that is aligned with needs. 
    Issued every three years, the Atlas is a compilation of data provided by countries around the world on mental health policies, legislation, financing, human resources, availability and utilization of services and data collection systems. It is also the mechanism for monitoring progress towards meeting the targets in WHO’s Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan.
    “It is extremely concerning that, despite the evident and increasing need for mental health services, which has become even more acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, good intentions are not being met with investment,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “We must heed and act on this wake-up call and dramatically accelerate the scale-up of investment in mental health, because there is no health without mental health.”
    Read full story
    Source: WHO, 8 October 2021
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    One in three prisoners in Europe suffer from mental health disorders, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said in a new report.
    While European prisons managed adequate COVID-19 pandemic responses for inmates, concerns remain about poor mental health services, overcrowding and suicide rates, the report stated.
    “Prisons are embedded in communities and investments made in the health of people in prison becomes a community dividend,” said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, regional director of the WHO regional office for Europe. “Incarceration should never become a sentence to poorer health. All citizens are entitled to good-quality health care regardless of their legal status.”
    The second status report on prison health in the WHO European region provides an overview of the performance of prisons in the region based on survey data from 36 countries, where more than 600,000 people are incarcerated. Findings showed that the most prevalent condition among people in prison was mental health disorders, affecting 32.8% of the prison population.
    The report drew attention to several areas of concern, including overcrowding and a lack of services for mental health, which represents the greatest health need among people in prison across the region.
    The most common cause of death in prisons was suicide, with a much higher rate than in the wider community, the report found.
    Read full story
    Source: United Nations, 14 February 2023
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    The World Health Organization’s new pandemic preparedness treaty is being watered down and stripped of the key stipulations needed to prevent another global health disaster, say leading international health experts and civil society groups.
    WHO’s 194 member states agreed in December 2021 to draw up a new convention to ensure that the world would be prepared for future global health threats and to prevent the “catastrophic failure” seen during the covid pandemic.
    The “zero draft” of the accord, published in February, had excited observers because its scope went beyond the closest existing legally binding framework, the International Health Regulations. That draft stipulated strong obligations for information sharing and the importance of having a strong health workforce and universal healthcare, among other requirements.
    The latest 42 page document, leaked during the World Health Assembly, has revealed that many passages that experts regard as key to improving global health have been weakened or made optional, meaning that they could be removed in the final draft.
    Read full story
    Source: BMJ, 31 May 2023
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