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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    Senior bosses have shared concerns about the closure of the NHS gender identity clinic for young people, leaked emails seen by BBC News reveal.
    Hospital executives voiced worry about the cancellation of appointments, patients lacking information and poor communication with the new services.
    In one email, the service's director, Dr Polly Carmichael, said cancellations could potentially put patients at risk.
    The controversial Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), which is run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, is due to close later this week.
    Its closure was announced in July 2022, after an independent review said a "fundamentally different" model of care for young people with gender-related distress was needed.
    It will initially be replaced by two new regional hubs; a London-based southern hub and a north of England hub. Additional hubs are expected to open in the coming years.
    However, BBC News has spoken to staff at the existing service who say, just days before the 31 March closure, they have been unable to answer basic questions from patients about the future of their care.
    They say they still do not have enough details about how the new services will operate or when some provisions will be fully operational in the new clinics.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 27 March 2024
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    The NHS is set to roll out artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the number of missed appointments and free up staff time to help bring down the waiting list for elective care.
    The expansion to ten more NHS Trusts follows a successful pilot in Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which has seen the number of did not attends (DNAs) slashed by almost a third in six months.
    Created by Deep Medical and co-designed by a frontline worker and NHS clinical fellow, the software predicts likely missed appointments through algorithms and anonymised data, breaking down the reasons why someone may not attend an appointment using a range of external insights including the weather, traffic, and jobs, and offers back-up bookings.
    The appointments are then arranged for the most convenient time for patients – for example, it will give evening and weekend slots to those less able to take time off during the day.
    The system also implements intelligent back-up bookings to ensure no clinical time is lost while maximising efficiency.
    It has been piloted for six months at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, leading to a 30% fall in non-attendances. A total of 377 DNAs were prevented during the pilot period and an additional 1,910 patients were seen. It is estimated the trust, which supports a population of 1.2 million people, could save £27.5 million a year by continuing with the programme.
    The AI software is now being rolled out to ten more trusts across England in the coming months.
    Read full story
    Source: NHS England, 14 March 2024
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    Doctors are being urged to reduce prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to dementia patients after the largest study of its kind found they were linked to more harmful side-effects than previously thought.
    The powerful medications are widely prescribed for behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia such as apathy, depression, aggression, anxiety, irritability, delirium and psychosis. Tens of thousands of dementia patients in England are prescribed them every year.
    Safety concerns have previously been raised about the drugs, with warnings to medics based on increased risks for stroke and death, but evidence of other dangers was less conclusive.
    New research suggests there are a considerably wider range of harms associated with their use than previously acknowledged in regulatory alerts, underscoring the need for increased caution in the early stages of treatment.
    Antipsychotic use in dementia patients was associated with elevated risks of a wide range of serious adverse outcomes, including stroke, blood clots, heart attack, heart failure, fracture, pneumonia and acute kidney injury, the study’s authors reported. 
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 18 April 2024
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    Children will no longer routinely be prescribed puberty blockers at gender identity clinics, NHS England has confirmed.
    The decision comes after a review found there was "not enough evidence" they are safe or effective.
    Puberty blockers, which pause the physical changes of puberty, will now only be available as part of research.
    It comes weeks before an independent review into gender identity services in England is due to be published.
    An interim report from the review, published in 2022 by Dr Hilary Cass, had earlier found there were "gaps in evidence" around the drugs and called for a transformation in the model of care for children with gender-related distress.
    Health Minister Maria Caulfield said: "We have always been clear that children's safety and wellbeing is paramount, so we welcome this landmark decision by the NHS.
    "Ending the routine prescription of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and is in the best interests of the child."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 13 March 2024
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    The amount of time doctors have to spend doing compulsory training will be cut as part of an NHS drive to improve medics’ working lives, the Guardian can reveal.
    Concern that doctors have too heavy a burden of mandatory training has prompted NHS England to commission a review, which it is expected to announce imminently.
    It is aimed at reducing the need for doctors to undertake what for some can be up to as many as 33 sessions of training every year, depending on what stage of their career they are at. Each lasts between 30 minutes and several hours and together take about a day to complete.
    NHS bosses have briefed medical groups and health service care providers on the plan, which they hope will address one of the many frustrations that some doctors – especially recently qualified doctors – have about working in the service, alongside pay, constant pressure and poor working environments.
    Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, confirmed the review. “While statutory and mandatory training provides NHS staff with core knowledge and skills that support safe and effective working, we know that needing to repeat the same training courses every year isn’t the best use of a clinician’s time. So it’s right that we look to find ways to cut back on this, while still considering our legal obligations,” he said.
    “Cutting red tape and ensuring this type of training is only carried out when necessary – for example, when junior doctors move between hospitals – will not only be better for our staff, who will spend less time worrying about training to adhere to legal requirements, but will also benefit patients by freeing up clinicians’ time for care and treatment."
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 22 April 2024
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    More than a dozen trusts have changed their maternity IT system – or are in the process of doing so – following a national patient safety alert.
    NHS England issued the alert  in December, after a fault was discovered with the Euroking maternity EPR, supplied by Magentus Software. It said information recorded in the EPR could overwrite previously recorded data, meaning the system could mislead clinicians.
    While no cases of patient harm have been reported, NHSE instructed trusts using the system to “consider if Euroking meets their maternity service’s needs” and “ensure their local configuration is safe” by June.
    A spokesperson for Euroking said: “We have identified a solution to the issues raised in the NPSA [alert], which has been shared with NHSE and with our customers. We’re now meeting each customer and are working with them individually to support the changes that need to be made based on their local configurations. We will continue working with the trusts to support them meeting the deadline outlined in the NPSA.
    “As the NPSA outlined, it has been issued as a precautionary measure and there is no evidence of harm being caused to patients.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 12 April 2024
    Related reading on the hub:
    NHS England warns electronic patient record could pose ‘serious risks to patient safety’: what can we learn?  
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether to restrict access to mifepristone, a commonly used abortion pill.
    It is considered the most significant reproductive rights case since the court ended the nationwide right to abortion in June 2022.
    The Biden administration hopes the court will overturn a decision to limit access to the drug over safety concerns raised by anti-abortion groups.
    The pill has been legal since 2000.
    The current legal battle in the top US court began in November 2022 when the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, an umbrella group of anti-abortion doctors and activists, filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA.
    The group claims that mifepristone is unsafe and further alleges that the federal agency unlawfully approved its use in September 2000 to medically terminate pregnancies through seven weeks gestation.
    Mifepristone is used in combination with another drug - misoprostol - for medical abortions, and it is now the most common way to have an abortion in the US.
    Medical abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023, up from 53% in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
    In total, more than five million US women have used mifepristone to terminate their pregnancies.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 26 March 2024
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    There is huge regional variation in the rate at which health systems are preventing patients joining the elective waiting list through “advice and guidance” to GPs, according to analysis by HSJ.
    Some systems – including Northamptonshire – have managed to ramp up these “diverts” to such an extent that they now report around one A&G case to every 3.5 cases cleared from the waiting list through treatment or seeing a consultant.
    This contrasts with others, such as Lancashire and South Cumbria, which only reports one A&G case for every 16 cleared from the waiting list.
    Advice and guidance involves GPs consulting specialists before making direct referrals and around half the time this results in a referral being avoided. The model is set to be a cornerstone of NHS England’s new outpatient transformation strategy, which is due imminently.
    Victoria Tzortziou-Brown, vice chair of the Royal College of GPs, said the analysis “confirms reports we’ve heard from our members – that there is too much regional variation in the use of the ‘advice and guidance’”.
    She added: “Some GPs report that when advice and guidance is properly resourced and well implemented, it can be a helpful tool for improving communications with their colleagues in secondary care.
    “[But] it is clear that more time, funding and capacity needs to be dedicated to allow clinicians to communicate efficiently and effectively whilst respecting professionalism.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 9 April 2024
    Related reading on the hub:
    Rejected outpatient referrals are putting patients at risk and increasing workload pressure on GPs 
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    The British government was willing to risk infecting NHS patients to get “lower-priced” blood products, according to a document that campaigners claim proves state and corporate guilt in one of the country’s worst ever scandals.
    A public inquiry into the deaths of an estimated 2,900 people infected with conditions such as HIV and hepatitis will publish its final report in May, four decades after the NHS started prescribing blood and blood products – including from drug users, prisoners and sex workers – sourced from the USA.
    Within the thousands of documents disclosed to the inquiry, internal company minutes have emerged that campaigners say provide the final compelling piece of evidence of the commercial greed and state negligence that destroyed thousands of lives.
    In November 1976, Immuno AG, an Austrian company that was a major supplier to the Department of Health, was seeking a licence change to allow it to supply a blood product from those paid to donate in the US rather than donors without a financial incentive in Europe.
    According to the minutes of a meeting of medics in the company, it had been “proven” that there was a “significantly higher hepatitis risk” from a concentrate known as Kryobulin 2 made from US plasma compared with that from Austria and Germany.
    The company had concluded there was a “preference” in the UK for the cheaper US option. The memo of the meeting said: “Kryobulin 2 will be significantly cheaper than Kryobulin 1 because the British market will accept a higher risk of hepatitis for a lower-priced product. In the long-term, Kryobulin 1 will disappear from the British market.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 14 April 2024
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    Many people with breast cancer are being “systematically left behind” due to inaction on inequities and hidden suffering, experts have said.
    A new global report suggests people with the condition are continuing to face glaring inequalities and significant adversity, much of which remains unacknowledged by wider society and policymakers.
    The Lancet Breast Cancer Commission highlights a need for better communication between medical staff and patients, and stresses the importance of early detection.
    It also highlights the need for improved awareness of breast cancer risk factors, with almost one in four cases (23%) of the disease estimated to be preventable.
    The Lancet Commission’s lead author, Professor Charlotte Coles, department of oncology, University of Cambridge, said: “Recent improvements in breast cancer survival represent a great success of modern medicine.
    “However, we can’t ignore how many patients are being systematically left behind.
    “Our commission builds on previous evidence, presents new data and integrates patient voices to shed light on a large unseen burden.
    “We hope that by highlighting these inequities and hidden costs and suffering in breast cancer, they can be better recognised and addressed by healthcare professionals and policymakers in partnership with patients and the public around the world.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 15 April 2024
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    Urgent government action is needed to stop preventable asthma deaths, a leading charity has said.
    More than 12,000 people in the UK have died from asthma attacks since 2014, according to Asthma and Lung UK.
    It said the figures meant "shockingly little" had changed since a major report a decade ago which found two thirds of asthma deaths could have been avoided with better care.
    People with asthma should get an annual condition review, a written action plan and inhaler technique checks.
    But the charity said people with asthma were being "failed", with seven out of 10 not receiving basic care, partly because healthcare workers were over-stretched.
    Asthma and Lung UK said 31% of asthmatics were "disengaged" with managing their condition, putting them at higher risk, according to its research.
    Ministers in England and Wales said they were trying to improve services.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 24 April 2024
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    At least 50,000 people will die from pancreatic cancer over the next five years unless the government gives more funding to improve how quickly the condition is diagnosed and treated, a major charity has warned.
    Pancreatic Cancer UK hit out at 50 years of “unacceptably slow progress” compared to other types of cancer as it warned that thousands of lives will be lost unless £35m of “urgent” investment is put towards improving survival rates of the disease.
    The charity predicted that pancreatic cancer – described by experts as the “quickest-killing cancer” – is expected to kill more people each year than breast cancer by 2027, which would make it the fourth-biggest cause of cancer deaths in the UK.
    The charity has also called for a commitment to treat everyone diagnosed with the cancer within 21 days, which it says would double the number of people getting treatment in time.
    Figures show that, compared to the 52.5% survival rate across the 20 most common cancers in the UK, those with pancreatic cancer have just a 7% survival rate.
    Around 10,500 people are diagnosed with the disease each year, with 9,558 deaths a year, according to Cancer Research UK, with more than half of people dying within three months of diagnosis.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 12 March 2024
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    NHS staff including ambulance workers, porters, nurses and cleaners have been shown pornographic images, offered money for sex, and assaulted at work, according to new research.
    The widespread incidents of sexual harassment are revealed in a wide-ranging survey published by the Unison union on the first day of its annual health conference in Brighton.
    In the study of more than 12,200 health workers, one in 10 reported unwanted incidents including being touched or kissed, demands for sex in return for favours, and derogatory comments.
    Royal College of Nursing chief nurse Professor Nicola Ranger said: “These figures paint an incredibly disturbing picture."
    In the survey, sexual assault was reported by 29% of respondents who had experienced harassment, while half said they have been leered at or been the target of suggestive gestures.
    One in four who had been harassed said they have suffered unwelcome sexual advances, propositions or demands for sexual favours.
    Half the staff had not reported sexual harassment to their employer, amid concerns of being considered “over-sensitive” or feeling complaints would not be acted on.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 8 April 2024
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    Hospital patients who are treated by women doctors are less likely to die and to be readmitted, a new study has found.
    Research, by UCLA, discovered the health of female patients is more advantaged by treatment from women doctors than it is for men.
    The study, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, found the mortality rate for female patients was 8.15 per cent when treated by women physicians in comparison to 8.38 per cent when the doctor was male - which researchers deem a “clinically significant” difference.
    Meanwhile, the mortality rate for male patients treated by female doctors was 10.15 per cent - less than the 10.23 per cent rate for male physicians. Researchers unearthed the same pattern for hospital readmission rates.
    Professor Yusuke Tsugawa, one of the authors, said patient outcomes between male and female physicians would not be different if the professionals practiced medicine in the same way.
    “What our findings indicate is that female and male physicians practice medicine differently, and these differences have a meaningful impact on patients’ health outcomes,” he said.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 22 April 2024
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    Medicine shortages have increased and are “around double what they were a year ago”, it has been claimed.
    Speaking to the Health and Social Care Committee on Monday, Mark Samuels, chief executive of the British Generic Manufacturers Association (BGMA), said they have been highlighting the medicine shortage risk to ministers since July 2021 and the BGMA is “very concerned about it”.
    He said: “We’ve been monitoring it for several years now, and as you saw in the written evidence, shortages have increased.
    “They’re around double what they were a year ago. We have them at 101 shortages in February this year.”
    We've just been hearing devastating stories from people about the emotional toll it's sort of taking on them not being able to access vital medications.
    The shortage of certain medications “continues to be challenging”, Dr Rick Greville, director of distribution and supply at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), told the committee.
    But when asked if the shortage is getting better or worse, he said it is “difficult to know as to whether it is increasing significantly, but certainly it’s a long-standing issue”.
    Meanwhile, there is “serious concern” about the potential harm to people with diabetes due to a shortage of medication, the committee was told.
    Read full story
    Source: Evening Standard, 20 February 2024
    Have you (or a loved one) ever been prescribed medication that you were then unable to get hold of at the pharmacy? 
    To help us understand how these issues impact the lives of patients and families, please share your experience and insights in our community thread on the topic: 
    Medication supply issues: have you been affected?
    You'll need to register with the hub first, its free and easy to do. 
    We would also like to hear from pharmacists working in community or hospital settings, and others who have insights to share on this issue. What barriers and challenges have you seen around medication availability? Is there anything that can be done to improve wider systems or processes?
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    Measles cases in the US are rising, as major health organizations plead for increased vaccination rates and experts fear the virus will multiply among unvaccinated populations.
    Most notably, this year’s tally of measles cases has now outpaced last year’s total.
    On Thursday, there were 64 confirmed cases in 17 states, compared with 58 cases in the entirety of last year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By Friday, the tally in Chicago grew by two to a total of 17.
    “Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to man,” said Dr David Nguyen, an infectious disease specialist at Rush University Medical Center.
    Experts say that these incidents could approach the outbreak that spanned 31 states in 2019, when 1,274 patients got sick and 128 were hospitalized in the worst US measles outbreak in decades.
    “Every measles outbreak can be entirely preventable,” said Dr Aniruddha Hazra, associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.
    The American Medical Association has issued an appeal to increase vaccination rates, while the CDC released a health advisory urging providers to ensure all travelers, especially children over six months, receive the MMR vaccine. 
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 26 March 2024
     
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    A hacker group is in possession of at least a “small number” of patients’ data following a cyber-attack, NHS Dumfries and Galloway has said.
    Reports emerged on Wednesday of a post by the group Inc Ransom on its darknet blog, alleging it was in possession of three terabytes of data from NHS Scotland.
    The post included a “proof pack” of some of the data, which has been confirmed by the board to be genuine.
    The chief executive of the NHS board, Jeff Ace, said in a statement: “We absolutely deplore the release of confidential patient data as part of this criminal act.
    “This information has been released by hackers to evidence that this is in their possession. We are continuing to work with Police Scotland, the National Cyber Security Centre, the Scottish government and other agencies in response to this developing situation.”
    Patients whose data has been leaked will be contacted by the board, he said, while patient-facing services would continue as normal.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 27 March 2024
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    The shocking number of patients who are dying while under the care of stretched community mental health services can be revealed for the first time after a major NHS report was leaked to The Independent.
    More than 15,000 people are estimated to have died in a single year while being cared for by community mental health teams – as trusts scramble for staff and funding while the demand for care is at an all-time high.
    The figures, which relate to deaths between March 2022 and March 2023, can be revealed after a concerned insider handed the secret report to this publication. Health officials admitted the statistics had been collated for the first time last year in a bid to reduce deaths – but have not made them public.
    The leaked report reveals that:
    At least 137 women died between 2022 and 2023 while under the care of services for pregnant women at one unnamed trust. Nearly one in 10 of the patients treated by a crisis service – designed to help those with the most severe mental health conditions – died while under that care. One unnamed mental health trust recorded more than 500 deaths in that year-long period. Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 22 April 2024
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    Poor mental health cost society £300 billion in 2022 – the equivalent of double the NHS budget, according to new research.
    The figure covers economic costs such as sickness absence, human costs including reduced quality of life and wellbeing, and health costs such as care, the Centre for Mental Health said.
    The NHS Confederation’s mental health network, which commissioned the centre to carry out the research for the year 2022, said it shows that a failure to invest in early mental health help is a “false economy” which is making the country poorer and “causing unspoken anguish” to those affected.
    The report’s authors said the majority of costs stemming from mental ill-health fall on sufferers and their families – amounting to some £175 billion.
    The researchers said their study incorporates for the first time some of the wider costs, including the impact of presenteeism – whereby someone experiencing mental health difficulties attends work but is less productive due to impaired cognitive function and emotional distress.
    The report stated: “While it is impossible to fully assess the extent of the problem, and a pound sign is admittedly an imperfect proxy for some of the impacts, there is nevertheless value in estimating the economic cost of mental ill-health.
    “It helps us to appreciate the significance of mental ill-health as an issue deserving of policy attention, investment and reform.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 27 March 2024
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    Kara Dilliway was just three years old when she came down with a common ear infection in October 2022.
    She recovered quickly, as was expected, but just days after the infection cleared her parents found she was struggling to hear and talk.
    “We’d noticed she’d just started to say yes and no to things, that’s when we thought something is going on,” says her mother Sam Dilliway, a 41-year-old community care worker from Basildon, Essex. Doctors said she could have glue ear, a common condition in children – fluid build-up had started to cause problems with her hearing, and would need draining.
    But what should have been a minor ailment has turned into a never-ending ordeal for the family. What was a simple case of glue ear could now leave her with hearing loss for up to two years as she awaits routine treatment.
    It comes after data released in January found that over 10 million people have been left on NHS waiting lists for basic ear care services.
    Dr Aymat says that the long-term effects of such conditions being left untreated in children can be severe. While glue ear is unlikely to leave permanent damage, there is always a small risk of permanent hearing loss. However, the developmental effects are far more likely and potentially long-lasting.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 1 April 2024
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    This is a sick country, getting sicker. NHS waits will take years to clear, if at all. While people wait, they get sicker. When more and more people slip into absolute poverty – a fifth of people now – they get even sicker. More sicken as they age, and that peak has not yet been reached. Every part of the NHS feels at the sharp end, coping mostly because, amazingly, they just do, even with no end in sight to the stress.
    NHS data released last week on people waiting more than 18 weeks with serious heart problems suggests some will probably die before they get treatment. When waiting patients have heart attacks and strokes they call an ambulance – so there’s been an astonishing 7% rise in those category 1 calls.
    At an ambulance dispatch centre in Kent, Polly Toynbee listens in to calls like this at the South East Coast Ambulance Service dispatch centre in Gillingham, north Kent, covering Surrey, Sussex and Kent. She sat with D, a seasoned and sympathetic emergency medical adviser, call handler and life-and-death decider.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 17 April 2024
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    Leaders of an integrated care system in the Midlands have warned they cannot make the scale of staffing cuts required to balance the books without putting patients at risk.
    Indicative analysis produced by Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board also found its provider trusts would have to cut 10 per cent of their workforce to break even.
    This would equate to 2,300 posts across University Hospitals North Midlands, Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust and North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare, while the ICB would have to cancel a “very high proportion” of third-sector contracts.
    The document says this “would bring our teams below safe staffing levels” and have a “profound effect on our ability to deliver safe services”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 23 April 2024
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    The Government is inviting views on how well GP practices and other NHS organisations are complying with their legal duty of candour when things go wrong.
    Patients and health professionals are being asked whether the statutory duty is well understood and adequately regulated by the CQC.
    Under the statutory duty of candour, introduced for all CQC-registered providers in 2015, GP practices must be open and honest with their patients when something goes wrong and has caused harm. 
    In December, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced a review into whether healthcare providers are following the duty of candour rules.
    This was in response to concerns that the duty is not always being met and that there is variation in how the rules are being applied. 
    The DHSC has published its ‘call for evidence’ to gather views on how well the duty of candour obligation is working for both patients and health professionals. 
    Patients have been asked whether GP practices and other providers ‘demonstrate meaningful and compassionate engagement’ with patients who have been affected by an incident. 
    The call for evidence also asks for views on whether the criteria for triggering the duty are appropriate and well understood by staff.
    Read full story
    Source: Pulse, 16 April 2024
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    Private hospitals are caring for a record number of patients paying through their own savings or private medical insurance, according to figures from the Private Healthcare Information Network. 
    Helen, a semi-retired frontline worker in south-east England, spent nearly £50,000 of her retirement savings on major spinal surgery to get her life back after two years of debilitating pain.
    Helen, 56, began experiencing extreme lower back pain and leg pain in September 2021, triggered by a dog colliding with her leg in the park. Though it was not caused by the trigger, she was diagnosed by the NHS with spondylosis in November 2021, and then a pars defect (a condition affecting the lower spine), and offered scans and physiotherapy. She said six months of physiotherapy, beginning in early 2022, resulted in no improvement, and she was offered pain management and a steroid epidural, which she said also did not help.
    “I rarely ventured out in these two years … due to the extreme pain I was in when sitting, standing or walking. Life effectively stopped in 2021,” she said. Desperate, she booked a consultation in May 2023 with a neurosurgeon and was told she needed an operation.
    Helen asked whether it would be possible for the neurosurgeon, who also works within the NHS, to do it on the NHS rather than privately. A referral could be made, she was told – but the surgery was likely to involve a waiting time of 18 months to two years. “My husband and I discussed it, and he said: you’ve already had no life for the last two years, do you really want to wait another two?”
    She had the spinal surgery in August 2023 and is now managing her pain with over-the-counter medication, rather than the stronger painkillers she was on before. It cost her a staggering £48,345.
    The financial hit has been huge. “I was absolutely gutted to have to go private. This has knocked us both; we didn’t see us in our lives having to pay for something like this. We’ve managed our finances carefully and always saved where we can. But that lump sum [that we] can access when we retire … That lump sum has just gone now.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 8 March 2024
     
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    Some people having a lung transplant on the NHS will receive a skin patch graft from their donor too as a way of spotting organ rejection sooner.
    Rejection could show as a rash on the donated skin patch, say experts, allowing early treatment to stop problems escalating.
    The trial, by University of Oxford and NHS Blood and Transplant, will enrol 152 patients in England.
    It follows earlier success with some other transplant patients, including Adam Alderson, 44, who received a donor skin graft on his abdomen in 2015 when he had eight organs replaced – including a pancreas, stomach and spleen – after treatment for a rare cancer.
    He says the graft has already helped guide his treatment a few times to prevent his body rejecting his many new organs.
    He said: "It's a really comforting thing to have - I feel safer knowing that I have a tool available to tell if something is going wrong before it becomes too serious. It's almost like an oil warning light on your car. Plus, having that visible reminder of how lucky I am is really special."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 16 April 2024
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