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Patient Safety Learning

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  1. Patient Safety Learning
    One in four patients with secondary breast cancer had to visit their GP three or more times before they got a diagnosis, a survey suggests.
    The breast cancer charity, Breast Cancer Now, said there should be more awareness that the disease can spread to other parts of the body. In the UK, 35,000 people are living with the incurable form of the disease.
    GPs said they were doing their best for patients but symptoms could be difficult to spot.
    Breast Cancer Now said it was "unacceptable" that some people whose cancer had spread were not getting early access to treatments which could alleviate symptoms and improve their quality of life.
    Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, from the Royal College of GPs, called for GPs to have better access to the right diagnostic tools and training to use them.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 11 October 2019
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    A dramatic collapse in standards at a care home where a dozen people died from COVID-19 has been revealed by inspectors who discovered hungry and thirsty residents living with infected wounds in filthy conditions.
    Infection control was inadequate, residents with dementia were left only partially dressed and one family complained of finding their loved one smeared in dried faeces at Temple Court care home in Kettering, which is operated by Amicura, a branch of Minster Care which runs more than 70 homes in the UK.
    Amicura said the home had been “completely overwhelmed” by COVID-19 infections which it said arrived with 15 patients discharged from hospitals in the second half of March.
    They were overrun,” one relative told the inspectors. “They were short-staffed and then with the influx of people, they couldn’t cope.”
    Residents’ wounds had become necrotic and infected, requiring hospital treatment and several people had experienced falls, some of which resulted in injuries needing hospital treatment, the inspectors found.
    The conditions discovered by the Care Quality Commission on 12-13 May were so poor that surviving residents were moved out immediately. The CQC report into the service, published on Friday, found multiple breaches of the health and social care act. Northamptonshire police have launched an investigation to identify whether any offences may have been committed.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 26 June 2020
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    A coroner questioned the regulation of online pharmacies after a woman died as a result of her addiction to the painkiller codeine.
    Debbie Headspeath, 41, collapsed at home in Ipswich in 2017. The inquest heard she had been prescribed the opiate for back pain by her GP in 2008 and had later bought more online without his knowledge. The inquest found Mrs Headspeath died from pneumonitis caused by acute pancreatitis which in turn was caused by chronic codeine use. An investigation by the coroner's office found she had been prescribed codeine from 16 online companies spending more than £10,000 - on top of her prescriptions from her local NHS surgery.
    The Suffolk Coroner, Nigel Parsley, said he would ask the government to look at closing "regulatory gaps" in the system. He said Mrs Headspeath had been able to "manipulate" the system and he delivered a narrative conclusion that she died as a result of the "uncoordinated availability of codeine from multiple suppliers". The coroner said he would prepare a full prevention of future deaths report for the family and Department of Health.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 12 November 2019
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    A surgeon who may have infected two new mothers with herpes has been granted anonymity during the inquests into their deaths in an "unprecedented" ruling.
    Coroner Catherine Wood said she made the decision because the surgeon's "apprehension" about being named when he stands as a witness would "likely impede his evidence in court" and affect his health.
    Mid Kent and Medway Coroners is investigating the cases of Kimberly Sampson, 29, and Samantha Mulcahy, 32, who both died in 2018 after the same obstetrician conducted their caesareans. They were treated 6 weeks apart in hospitals run by East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust (EKHUT).
    On February 26 – the day before the inquest was due to begin and 16 months after it was first announced – EKHUT made a last-minute bid for anonymity covering the surgeon and a midwife also involved in both cases. The trust said they should not be named unless the inquest concluded they had passed on the infection, because of the "reputational damage" they would suffer, and because the surgeon's health was already being impacted by reports.
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 9 March 2023
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Urgent action is required to tackle hospital waiting times on both sides of the Irish border, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    A report into the primary healthcare systems of Ireland and Northern Ireland found that both jurisdictions are experiencing similar problems.
    These include workforce shortages and increasing expenditure.
    On hospital waiting times the problem is worse in Northern Ireland. 
    The proportion of people on the waiting list in Northern Ireland for more than one year increased from 20% to 60%. In the Republic of Ireland, during the same period between 2017 and 2021, the figure increased from 12% to 20%.
    A key distinction between the healthcare systems is the absence of a universal healthcare system in Ireland, write the authors.
    That means in Northern Ireland, all residents are entitled to a wide range of free health care services, while in Ireland, the majority pay to see their GP and for other services.
    But despite this key difference, both systems are currently facing similar challenges, including shortages in key areas of the workforce and long waits for a range of healthcare services.
    Cross-border collaboration in healthcare across the island is an interesting but contentious issue. At present, according to the ESRI report, that work is relatively limited.
    It points to a 2011 report which identified the potential benefits to be gained from increased co-operation in healthcare including collaboration in cystic fibrosis, ear, nose and throat surgery, paediatric cardiac surgery and acute mental health services.
    However, this 2022 report concludes that despite some notable exceptions such as the Congenital Heart Disease Network and the North West Cancer Centre at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry, "collaboration has been relatively limited".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 10 March 2022
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    Accident and emergency staff at Bristol Royal Infirmary do not feel equipped to deal with the violence they face from the public, inspectors have found.
    Health watchdog The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated the department as "requires improvement" following an inspection in February. It said "urgent action" must be taken to protect staff and patients.
    University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust said it was working on improvements.
    Amanda Williams, CQC's head of hospital inspections, said: "We were... particularly concerned to find high levels of violence and aggression against staff from patients in the department and to learn that staff did not feel adequately trained to deal with this."
    "Staff need to be given the appropriate training and support to ensure they feel safe and to enable them to defuse tension and prevent violence from escalating."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 17 March 2021
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    A child was twice given double the "safe" dose of a rapid tranquilizer at a hospital run by a troubled NHS trust.
    The child was put at "significant risk of harm" at Telford's Princess Royal Hospital, said inspectors.
    Rating children's services inadequate, they said Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) must halt seeing under 18s for acute mental health needs. The trust, in special measures, was working to "urgently address concerns".
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out a targeted inspection on 24 February prompted by "concerning information" about treatment at the service run by SaTH.
    The trust is currently at the centre of the largest ever inquiry into NHS maternity care.
    Staff told inspectors they had seen an increase in the number of young people with "significant mental health issues" and learning disabilities over the past year.
    But the services, which were rated as "requiring improvement" in November 2019, were deemed "inadequate" in four of five areas tested - for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News. 19 April 2021
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    The mothers of two teenage boys who died after failures in their care have called on the government to make "urgent improvements" to how children with disabilities are assessed.
    Sammy Alban-Stanley, 13, and 14-year-old Oskar Nash both died in 2020. Inquests for both boys recorded they had received inadequate care from local authorities and mental health services.
    The calls were made in an open letter to the secretaries of state for health and social care, and education.
    Patricia Alban and Natalia Nash asked Sajid Javid and Nadim Zahawi to make fundamental changes to several care areas to prevent future deaths.
    The pair said they both experienced problems with support for disabled children and families.
    Services lacked understanding of neurological conditions like autism, they said.
    The pair also pointed to a lack of access to children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), and failure to assess or review the severity of a child's developing needs.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 16 June 2022
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    Hospitals are still banning patients from having bedside visitors in ‘immoral’ Covid restrictions. 
    Last night, MPs, patient groups and campaigners criticised the postcode lottery that means some frail patients are still denied the support of loved ones. 
    Nine trusts continue to impose total bans on any visitors for some patients, The Mail on Sunday has found. 
    Almost half of trusts maintain policies so strict that they flaunt NHS England’s guidance that patients should be allowed at least two visitors a day. 
    Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust and Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust are among those continuing total bans on visiting for some of their patients. 
    University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) has even been imposing its draconian restrictions on disabled patients who need special help for their care – only allowing visits on three days a week for a maximum of an hour each time. 
    Tory MP Alicia Kearns said: ‘It is utterly unforgivable and immoral. There is no scientific evidence for any remaining inhumane restrictions on visiting. Trusts are breaching the rights of families. 
    'Visitors save lives, they advocate and calm their loved ones. When will this madness end?’ 
    Read full story
    Source: MailOnline, 1 May 2022
    You may also be interested in:
    Visiting restrictions and the impact on patients and their families: a relative's perspective It’s time to rename the ‘visitor’: reflections from a relative  
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    Anti-vaccine Facebook groups in the United States have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.
    Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with COVID-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.
    Some people in groups that formed recently to promote the false cure ivermectin, an anti-parasite treatment, have claimed extracting Covid patients from hospitals is pivotal so that they can self-medicate at home with ivermectin. But as the patients begin to realize that ivermectin by itself is not effective, the groups have begun recommending a series of increasingly hazardous at-home treatments, such as gargling with iodine, and nebulizing and inhaling hydrogen peroxide, calling it part of a “protocol.”
    The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave.
    Those concerns echo various local reports about growing threats and violence directed toward medical professionals in the US. In Branson, Missouri, a medical center recently introduced panic buttons on employee badges because of a spike in assaults. Violence and threats against medical professionals have recently been reported in Massachusetts, Texas, Georgia and Idaho.
    Read full story
    Source: NBC News, 24 September 2021
     
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    Georgina Day works as an A&E nurse in a London hospital. Every shift, her team of just over 20 starts four nurses short because there are posts it cannot fill.
    "It can be worse - if people are sick or agency staff don't turn up. It makes providing good patient care difficult."
    She says the demands are huge - her department sees more than 400 patients a day. But the shortages mean patients face delays or have to be given care, such as intravenous antibiotics, in corridors instead of in cubicles.
    She says that can make patients angry, recounting the experience of one father shouting at her and saying she didn't care about his sick son.
    "I care massively," she says. "When patients are angry it makes me really sad. I want more for them."
    Georgina's experience is not unique. A survey by the Royal College of Nursing found six in 10 nurses felt they could not provide the level of care they wanted to.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 2 December 2019
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    The effects of the Supreme Court's proposed overrule of Roe vs Wade will touch health systems nationwide — leading some clinicians to urge industry leaders to start preparing for potential fallout prior to the decision. 
    "Health systems that view abortion exclusively as a political or partisan issue, perhaps one they'd like to avoid, will soon bear witness to the reality that abortion care, or lack thereof, is a healthcare and health equity issue," Lisa Harris, MD, PhD, wrote in a 11 May for The New England Journal of Medicine. "Avoiding the issue will not be possible, short of abandoning care and equity missions altogether. Thoughtful preparation is needed now."
    Four leaders at three systems share there insights.
    Read full story
    Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 23 June 2022
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    More than 38,000 patients were put at risk of harm during March – more than 4,000 of them seriously – while they waited in an ambulance outside hospital, according to estimates shared with HSJ.
    The number of hour-plus delays to handing over patients from ambulances to emergency departments in March was the highest ever recorded, following steep increases since last summer.
    Figures collected by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), and shared with HSJ, reveal that one trust recorded a delay of 23 hours during March. 
    Based on its detailed information about the length of handover delays, AACE has produced an estimate of the likely number of patients harmed while waiting to he handed over, using a model initially developed in research published last year. This found 85 per cent of those who waited more than an hour could have suffered potential harm.
    The AACE report said that patients who waited the longest were at greatest risk of some level of harm and the risk of severe harm tripled for those waiting for more than four hours compared with waiting for 60 to 90 minutes.
    AACE managing director Martin Flaherty told HSJ: “We expect the situation to be no better when we collate our figures for April.
    “The most significant problem remains hospital handover delays which continue to increase exponentially, with tens of thousands of ambulance hours being lost due to hospital handover delays, causing enormous knock-on effects out in the community, where delays in people receiving the ambulance resource they need are the obvious result.
    “However, the human cost, in terms of direct harm that is being caused to patients through these combined delays at hospitals and in the community, as well as to the health and wellbeing of our ambulance crews, is substantial."
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 29 April 2022
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    America is facing an intensified push to pass stalled federal legislation to address the US’s alarming maternal mortality rates and glaring racial disparities which have led to especially soaring death rates among Black women giving birth.
    Maternal mortality rates in the US far outpace rates in other industrialised nations, with rates more than double those of countries such as France, Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany. Moms in the US are dying at the highest rates in the developed world.
    Overall maternal mortality rates in the US spiked during the pandemic. Maternal deaths in the US rose 40% from 861 in 2020 to 1,205 in 2021, a rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. For Black women, these maternal mortality rates were significantly higher, at 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021.
    These racial disparities in maternal health outcomes have persisted and worsened for years as the number of women who die giving birth in the US has more than doubled in the last two decades.
    The CDC noted in a review of maternal mortalities in the US from 2017 to 2019, that 84% of the recorded maternal deaths were preventable.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 23 July 2023
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    A Guardian analysis has found that as many as one in three hospital beds in parts of England are occupied by patients who are well enough to be discharged, with a chronic lack of social care meaning many do not have suitable places to go. 
    Barry Long's 91-year-old mother has Alzheimer’s and was admitted to Worthing hospital on 30 May after a minor fall. She was a bit confused but otherwise unhurt, just a bit shaken. Whilst in hospital, she caught Covid and had to be isolated, which she found distressing, and became increasingly disoriented.
    She was declared medically fit to be discharged but no residential bed could be found for her. Then, in August, she was left unsupervised and fell over trying to get to the toilet and she fractured her hip, which required surgery. 
    Her hip was just about healed when she caught her shin between the side bars and the frame of the bed, cutting her shin so badly that she is being reviewed by a plastic surgeon to see if it needs a skin graft.
    "Since the operation, my mum is pretty much bedbound and lives in a state of confusion and anxiety", says Barry. "Her physical health and mental wellbeing have deteriorated considerably in the almost five months she has spent in the care of the NHS. She spends all day practically trapped in bed, staring into space or with her eyes shut, just rocking to and fro. She has little mental stimulation."
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 13 November 2022
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    The Government’s “blanket erasure” of older people with learning disabilities is leaving a growing population unsupported and piling further pressure on family carers, new research will warn.
    Byline Times has seen early findings from a forthcoming national study which outlines the urgent need to avoid a crisis by creating a government strategy for this unacknowledged community.
    With around 1.5 million people with learning disabilities in the UK, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU)’s ‘Growing Older Planning Ahead‘ research lays bare the Government’s short-sighted approach to learning disability support. 
    The study estimates around 81,000 over-50s within this population in England alone, many of whom are not in contact with services. In addition, figures show that between 2012 and 2030 in England, the number of learning disabled people needing social care will have increased by almost 70% (from more than 140,000 to 235,000).
    Sara Ryan, MMU Professor of Social Care who led the three-year project, said: “Ageing opens up all sorts of different things, you turn down the dial on some things and up on others. If you’re lucky enough, you have a lot to look forward to – but for people with learning disabilities, there’s a blanket erasure of age.”
    Read full story
    Source: Byline Times, 3 May 2023
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    As the NHS turns 75, it is under unprecedented pressure: record waiting lists, demand for care and delays in discharging patients who are well enough to go home are putting all parts of the health service under immense strain. 
    Sickness absence is at record levels, while nearly 170,000 NHS workers in England quit their jobs last year. Recent strikes by nurses, ambulance staff and junior doctors, coupled with the historic decision by consultants and radiographers to strike, too, show the depth of anger.
    Five experts spell out what’s needed to make the health service thrive again.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 3 July 2023
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    About 2 million people die a year as a result of a core group of fungi, and the WHO is concerned we are unprepared for the future.
    In October, the World Health Organization released its fungal priority pathogens list, the first global effort to create a mycological “most wanted” list of the 19 fungi most dangerous to humans . “Despite posing a growing threat to human health, fungal infections receive very little attention and resources globally,” the report said. “This all makes it impossible to estimate the exact burden of fungal infections, and consequently difficult to galvanise policy and programmatic action.”
    Fungi are the most populous life form on the planet, with an estimated 12 million species existing worldwide. Only a fraction of these species infect humans, but they are responsible for roughly a billion infections each year. “Most of those are superficial things like athlete’s foot, that no one’s particularly bothered about, but there is a core group that causes life-threatening infections, and particularly in susceptible populations such as the very old or young, and those with immune systems that don’t work properly,” says Mark Ramsdale, an associate professor of mycology at the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology in Exeter.
    About 1.5 million people die a year as a result of these infections, says Ramsdale – although that may be an underestimation, because fungi predominantly infect people who already have major health problems. “The primary cause of death will probably be leukaemia or heart transplant, or whatever,” he says. “But the thing that actually kills the patient is a fungal infection, so there is a strong element of underreporting going on.”
    Underestimating them would be a mistake.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 10 February 2023
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    Harry Miller was a popular teenager, appreciated for his sharp humour, ability to get on with anyone and eagerness “for the next adventure”.
    In the autumn of 2017, he was struggling with difficult thoughts and feelings of anger. Harry, who was 14 and lived in south-west London, confided his inner turmoil to friends and family.
    “I’m just having these anger rages,” he told his mother one day. “It’s like I just go crazy suddenly and I can’t control it. I don’t know what’s going on.”
    Two years previously, Harry had been prescribed the drug montelukast for his asthma. Unbeknown to his parents, a range of psychiatric reactions had been reported in association with montelukast treatment, including aggression, depression and suicidal thoughts.
    Harry’s parents, Graham and Alison Miller were not properly warned of the potential side effects.
    Their son was referred to the NHS child and adolescent mental health services in January 2018, but he missed an appointment because it was sent to the wrong person.
    On 11 February 2018, Harry was found dead in the family home, with an inquest later recording a verdict of suicide. He was described in a tribute by friends at St Cecilia’s Church of England school in Southfields, south-west London, as a “super star burning brightly”.
    Two years after his death, his father read an online warning about the adverse reactions involving montelukast by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It said these could very rarely include suicidal behaviour. Graham Miller said: “It is an absolute outrage that parents are being given psychoactive substances to give to their children without proper warning of the risk.”
    This weekend, the MHRA has confirmed that the drug is under review. A montelukast UK action group is calling for more prominent warnings of the drug’s possible side effects.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 3 March 2024
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    A scheme handing payments to those affected by the contaminated blood scandal will be announced this week, as ministers scramble to help those harmed by the “historic wrong”.
    Whitehall sources confirmed that a programme handing interim payments will be confirmed in the coming days, once officials have ironed out issues to ensure that victims are not taxed on the payments or have their benefits affected by them. It is thought that ministers accept recent recommendations that infected people and bereaved partners should get “payments of no less than £100,000”.
    More than 4,000 people are in line for the payment. Kit Malthouse, the cabinet office minister, has been prioritising the scheme in the last week to ensure payments are made as soon as possible.
    “The infected blood scandal was a tragedy for everyone involved, and the prime minister strongly believes that all those who suffered so terribly as a result of this injustice should receive compensation as quickly as possible,” said a No 10 source. “He has tasked ministers with resolving this issue so that interim payments can be made to all those infected as soon as possible, and we will set out the full details later this week.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 6 August 2022
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    The spread of the Omicron variant, which is racing through the population at a staggering speed, has brought renewed focus to the value and reliability of the at-home lateral flow test (LFT).
    These rapid testing devices were initially viewed with caution by some scientists, who were concerned that the LFTs simply weren’t effective enough in detecting infections.
    But as more data has accumulated over the past year, the consensus around the devices has shifted and become far more positive.
    Research from University College London, published in October, suggested that LFTs are likely to be more than 80 per cent effective at detecting Covid, and up to 90 per cent effective for those who are most infectious.
    However, the emergence of Omicron has changed the conversation. Its rapid acceleration throughout the UK, with more than a million infections expected by next week, has placed the country’s key testing routes – both at-home (LFT) and lab-based (PCR) – under immense strain.
    “Testing capacity will almost certainly fail to keep up with Omicron,” said Dr Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “Even with best efforts we can scale supply linearly, but demand will grow exponentially.”
    Experts have called on the government to temporarily drop the reliance on PCR lab testing, which typically takes 24 hours or more to return a result but is seen as more reliable, in favour of the lateral flow devices. These can be taken from the comfort of your own home and give a result in a matter of minutes.
    “LFT will be good enough, especially on people showing symptoms,” said Alan McNally, a professor of microbial evolutionary genomics at Birmingham University.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 17 December 2021
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    Avoiding GP referrals by providing ‘advice and guidance’ will contribute significantly towards NHS performance on the government’s elective care targets, according to draft NHS plans seen by HSJ.
    Under the elective recovery plan, hospital specialists are being asked to offer more advice when GPs are deciding whether to refer a patient for an outpatient appointment, which would avoid some patients being added to waiting lists.
    This is aimed at reducing instances where GPs may want to be risk averse and refer a patient when they might be unsure whether a secondary referral is needed.
    New documents seen by HSJ, shared in draft by NHSE last week, reveal this avoided activity will be counted in assessing if the service or individual trusts have hit key government targets to increase activity.
    NHS England has agreed with government to carry out 10% more ‘clock-stop’ activity in 2022-23 than was taking place pre-covid, but this is “after accounting for the impact of an improved care offer through system transformation, and advice and guidance”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 28 February 2022
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    NHS England has launched a “very aggressive campaign” to ensure all acute trusts give patients the ability to make appointments and receive messages online. 
    Details of the new “national requirement” which must be met by the end of 2023-24 were sent by NHS England to acute trust chief information officers on Friday.
    NHSE wants all trust portals to integrate with the NHS App to enable patients to manage outpatient appointments and respond to messages through a single channel. 
    Under NHSE’s requirements, the portals must:
    Enable patients to view their outpatient appointments; Enable the trust to send a waiting list validation questionnaire to patients; Provide patients with a single point of access to contact the provider, for example to cancel appointments; and Enable patients to access their correspondence from the trust. Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 31 March 2023
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    Progress to cut the number of women dying in pregnancy or childbirth has stalled or even reversed in recent years, with a death recorded every two minutes, the United Nations has said.
    Years of gains had begun to plateau even before the pandemic and there had been “alarming setbacks for women’s health,” according to a new report from several UN agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO).
    Maternal mortality rates had fallen widely in the first 15 years of the century, but since 2016, they had only dropped in two UN regions: Australia and New Zealand, and in Central and Southern Asia.
    The rate went up in Europe and North America by 17% and in Latin America and the Caribbean by 15%. Elsewhere it stagnated.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Telegraph, 23 February 2023
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    Some 6.8% of American adults are currently experiencing long Covid symptoms, according to a new survey from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), revealing an “alarming” increase in recent months even as the health agency relaxes Covid isolation recommendations, experts say.
    That means an estimated 17.6 million Americans could now be living with long Covid.
    “This should be setting off alarms for many people,” said David Putrino, the Nash Family Director of the Cohen Center for Recovery From Complex Chronic Illness at Mount Sinai. “We’re really starting to see issues emerging faster than I expected.”
    When the same survey was conducted in October, 5.3% of respondents were experiencing long Covid symptoms at the time.
    The 1.5 percentage-point increase comes after the second-biggest surge of infections across the US this winter, as measured by available wastewater data.
    More than three-quarters of the people with long Covid right now say the illness limits their day-to-day activity, and about one in five say it significantly affects their activities – an estimated 3.8 million Americans who are now experiencing debilitating illness after Covid infection.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 15 March 2024
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