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Patient-Safety-Learning

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News posted by Patient-Safety-Learning

  1. Patient-Safety-Learning
    An inquest jury has found there were “gross failings in care amounting to neglect” before a woman had a heart attack at a private mental health hospital due to complications from drinking excessive amounts of water.
    Lillian Lucas, 28, known as Lily to her family and friends, died in September 2022 after being found unresponsive in her room on Milton ward at the Cygnet hospital in Kewstoke, near Weston-super-Mare, where she had been an inpatient since June.
    An inquest jury at Avon coroner’s court found on Wednesday that opportunities were missed by staff to render care that would have prevented Lucas’s death, including a failure to monitor her worsening condition and inadequate response to her deterioration.
    On 8 September 2022 she was found unresponsive in her room after drinking excessive amounts of water and transferred to Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI), the jury heard. She died the following day. Postmortem examinations found she died of a heart attack and the impact of psychogenic polydipsia, when due to a mental disorder a person experiences an uncontrollable urge to drink water.
    The jury concluded on Wednesday that there were “gross failings in her care amounting to neglect”. In the record of the inquest, the jury said the Milton ward was “understaffed at a level deemed to be unsafe”.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 24 April 2024
  2. Patient-Safety-Learning
    An NIHR and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded study has revealed that Long Covid leads to ongoing inflammation which can be detected in blood. 
    This suggests that existing drugs which help treat conditions that affect the body’s immune system could be helpful in treating Long Covid, and should be investigated in future clinical trials. The study, which has been published in Nature Immunology, is from two collaborative UK-wide consortia, PHOSP-COVID and ISARIC-4C. These involve scientists and clinicians from universities across the UK, including Imperial College London and the Universities of Leicester, Edinburgh and Liverpool, among others.
    The research compared 426 people who were experiencing symptoms consistent with Long Covid with 233 people who were also hospitalised for Covid-19 but had fully recovered. The researchers took samples of blood plasma and measured a total of 368 proteins known to be involved in inflammation and immune system modulation.
    They found that, relative to patients who had fully recovered, those with Long Covid showed a pattern of immune system activation indicating inflammation of myeloid cells and activation of a family of immune system proteins called the complement system.
    Read full story
    Source: NIHR, 11 April 2024
  3. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has published updated professional standards to support pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy teams in responding to patient safety incidents.
    Created in collaboration with the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK) and the Pharmacy Forum Northern Ireland (PFNI), the Patient safety professional standards: responding to patient safety incidents are designed to support pharmacy professionals to meet regulatory standards.
    The standards, published on 24 April 2024, reflect new legislation and updated guidance from the General Pharmaceutical Council and NHS England, replacing the previous standards published in 2016.
    They also provide a framework for reflecting, reporting and recording incidents, and sharing learning, taking action and reviewing and evaluating incidents as part of a patient safety culture.
    Read full story
    Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal, 24 April 2024
  4. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Use of antipsychotic medications in patients with dementia is linked with a much wider range of serious harms than previously thought, say UK researchers.
    Although there have been safety warnings on use of the antipsychotics from regulators about increased risk of stroke and death, a large study has now found increased risks for pneumonia, venous thromboembolism, heart attack, heart failure, fracture, and acute kidney injury.
    Reporting the findings in the BMJ, researchers from the University of Manchester said it underscores the need for increased caution when prescribing. The analysis showed that antipsychotic use was associated with increased risks for all outcomes looked at with the exception of ventricular arrhythmia. Over the first six months of treatment, it was estimated that antipsychotic use was linked with one additional case of pneumonia for every nine patients treated, and one additional heart attack for every 167 patients treated.
    Professor Charles Marshall, professor of clinical neurology at Queen Mary University of London, said the study findings should prompt renewed efforts to reduce the prescribing of antipsychotics to people living with dementia. "There are rare circumstances where antipsychotics are genuinely required, and the benefits outweigh these risks, but for the majority of patients with behavioural symptoms that might lead to them being prescribed anti-psychotics, we should be focussing on much safer behavioural management approaches."
    Read full story
    Source: Pulse, 24 April 2024
  5. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The Biden administration set a first-ever minimum staffing rule for nursing homes Monday, making good on the president’s promise more than two years ago to seek improvements in care for the nation’s 1.2 million nursing home residents. 
    The final rule, proposed in September, requires a registered nurse to be on-site in every skilled nursing facility for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It mandates enough staff to provide every resident with at least 3.48 hours of care each day. And it beefs up rules for assessing the care needs of every resident, which will boost staff numbers above the minimum to care for sicker residents.
    For a facility with 100 residents, it translates to a minimum of two or three registered nurses and at least 10 or 11 nurse aides per shift, as well as two additional staffers who could be nurses or aides per shift, according to the administration’s interpretation of its new formula. Set to phase in over the next few years, the mandate will replace the current vague standard that gives operators wide latitude on how to staff their facilities.
    While the administration has said the rule will improve care, industry lobbyists have said it’s unworkable, with staffing goals that will be impossible to achieve because of a shortage of workers.
    The administration received 47,000 public comments on the rule since it was proposed last September. They included observations of people lying in their own filth for hours, not being fed appropriately and being left on the floor too long after falling, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said in an interview Monday.
    Read full story
    Source: Washington Post, 22 April 2024
  6. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Female survivors of breast cancer living in the most deprived areas have a 35% higher risk of developing second, unrelated cancers, compared with those from the most affluent areas, research shows.
    Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK, with about 56,000 people being told they have it each year. Improved diagnosis and treatments mean that five-year survival rates are now 86% in England. People who survive breast cancer have a greater likelihood of second primary (unrelated) cancer, but until now the exact risk has not been clear.
    A team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge analysed NHS data from almost 600,000 patients in England and found, compared with the general female population, women who had survived breast cancer had an increased risk of developing 12 other primary cancers. Compared with the most affluent, the least well-off female survivors of breast cancer had a 166% greater chance of developing lung cancer, a 78% higher risk of stomach cancer, more than 50% increased risk of bladder and oesophagus cancers, 48% higher risk of head and neck cancer and 43% increased risk of kidney cancer.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 24 April 2024
  7. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A bereaved father whose vulnerable son died after managing to escape from the Priory has called for a criminal inquiry into the mental health care group after the deaths of four more patients.
    Richard Caseby, who lost his son Matthew, has campaigned for three years against the privately run group after an inquest found his son’s death was contributed to by neglect. The 23-year-old was able to abscond from the hospital over a fence which had previously been identified as a risk. He was hit by a train just hours later.
    Now the Priory, one of the UK’s largest mental health providers, faces new scrutiny as coroners are set to examine the death of 20-year-old Amina Ismail, who died while at the Cheadle Royal Hospital in Stockport. Ms Ismail died in September 2023, a year after three other young women died at the same unit - Beth Matthews, 26, Lauren Bridges, aged 20, and 30-year-old Deseree Fitzpatrick.
    Mr Caseby, a former newspaper editor, told The Independent: “The Priory is a fundamentally dangerous company, one that persistently refuses to learn from its mistakes and neglect. The roll call of death and disgrace at its hospitals just gets longer.”
    Read full story
    Source: Independent, 25 April 2024
  8. Patient-Safety-Learning
    New figures have quantified what the pandemic has meant for cancer waiting lists—and the impact is stark. 
    Official data show that 15,971 cancer patients in the UK have had to wait more than 124 days, or four months, after diagnosis for their treatment to start since 2020 as the pandemic sends waiting lists soaring. The statistics show that the number of untreated patients has more than doubled since Covid began, with one patient waiting for more than two years, according to data released following a freedom of information request from the Liberal Democrats. This is despite an NHS target for patients to receive cancer treatments within two months of an urgent referral.
    Last year, 6,334 patients waited more than 124 days, compared to 2,922 in 2022, the figures show. Data was received from 69 out of 137 acute health trusts in the UK, meaning the true number of people waiting long periods for treatment is likely to be much higher. Over 1,100 cancer patients last year were left waiting more than six months to receive treatment, triple the NHS target time.
    Liberal Democrat Leader, Ed Davey, said: “Every single one of these figures is a tragedy. Long delays for treatment can have a devastating impact on cancer patients and their families, and in certain cases can even cost lives."
    Read full story
    Source: inews, 22 April 2024
  9. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Rishi Sunak has failed to deliver on his key promise to cut NHS waits, the health secretary has admitted, as new figures show that the overall waiting list now stands at 7.5 million.
    An extra 300,000 patients are waiting for hospital care compared with January last year, when the prime minister pledged that, under his government, “NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly” .
    Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, admitted that Sunak had failed to deliver on his promise but argued: “I don’t think anyone could have thought that it was an easy promise to make and it was going to be easy to achieve.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 11 April 2024
  10. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The headline A&E target was missed in March despite NHS England’s controversial last-ditch attempts to deliver it.
    Four hours A&E performance was 74.2 per cent in March—1.8 percentage points lower than NHSE’s 76 per cent threshold—but up from 71.5 per cent in the same month last year.
    NHSE’s attempts to improve four hours performance ahead of a year-end deadline—which included new cash incentives, asking directors to sign personal commitments, and encouraging trusts to focus on less sick patients—saw March performance 3.3 percentage points higher than 70.9 per cent in February.
    Around a third of acute trusts (38 of 119) met the 76 per cent target in March–more than double the number of trusts above the threshold in February (15).
    An interim ambulance response time for category 2 incidents, set at 30 minutes, was also missed in 2023-14—despite some improvement, and despite the government providing significant extra funding.
    The average response time across the year was 36m 23s—better than 2022-23 when it was 50m—but much worse than the pre-covid average of 21m 47s in 2018-19 and 23m 50s in 2019-20.
    Many ambulance trusts have continued to struggle with delays in handovers to A&E departments and South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust – which has seen some of the worst delays over the winter—averaged 45m 54s for category 2 incidents in March.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 11 April 2024
  11. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A woman who feared she was having a heart attack said she spent nine days in a hospital staff room because of a shortage of beds. Zoe Carlin, 23, was admitted to Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry in March after experiencing severe chest pain.
    She said she spent more than a week in a “locker room” where she had to use a hand bell to call staff during what she described as a “dehumanising” ordeal. The Western Health and Social Care Trust (WHSCT) said it faced "extreme pressures" in its hospital emergency departments but could not comment on individual cases due to confidentiality.
    “For the full nine days I was in this alcove,” she told BBC Radio Foyle’s North West Today programme. “It’s basically the nurses' locker room. You can see the nurses’ lockers with their names on them. They [staff] just said there’s not enough beds,” she added. A privacy screen did not fully cover the room’s doorway and she had no access to a private bathroom. She said she was forgotten about at meal times on three occasions.
    A spokesperson for WHSCT said, "We are acutely aware of the continuing challenges and extreme pressures not just in our emergency departments but across both of our acute hospital sites with full escalation of beds on all wards and departments. In the Western Trust, when we learn of examples where care falls below the standard we expect, we review the circumstances and explore ways to improve care in the future."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 11 April 2024
  12. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Adult transgender clinics in England are facing a Cass-style inquiry into how they treat patients after whistleblowers raised concerns about the care they provide.
    NHS England has announced that it is setting up a review of how the seven specialist services operate and deliver care after past and present staff shared misgivings privately during a previous investigation.
    As a first step, NHS England will send “external quality improvement experts” into each of the clinics to gather evidence about how they care for patients, to help guide the inquiry’s direction.
    The move follows the publication on Wednesday of a landmark review by Dr Hilary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which recommended sweeping changes in the way that the health service treats under-18s who are unsure about their gender identity.
    In a letter responding to Cass’s report, which NHS England sent on Tuesday to the seven trusts that host adult gender dysphoria clinics (GDCs), it told them: “We will be launching a review into the operation and delivery of the adult GDCs, alongside the planned review of the adult gender dysphoria service specification.”
    Robbie de Santos, director of campaigns and human rights at Stonewall, an LGBT rights charity, said: “Gender healthcare for adults in the UK is, simply put, not fit for purpose. Many trans adults are being forced to go private at great personal expense to avoid waiting lists in excess of half a decade. We would welcome a review aimed at tackling this unacceptable state of affairs and building capacity into the system.”
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 10 April 2024
  13. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A statutory inquiry into deaths of mental health patients will now cover fatalities that took place as late as December 2023.
    The inquiry’s investigations are focused “on the trusts which provide NHS mental health inpatient care in Essex”. This includes: “Essex Partnership University Foundation Trust, and the North East London Foundation Trust and their predecessor organisations, where relevant.”
    NELFT was not specifically mentioned in the original terms of reference although the inquiry told HSJ it had been within the original scope. The inquiry will also now cover deaths of NHS patients from Essex who died when under the care of private sector providers.
    The inquiry’s previous terms of reference covered a period ending in 2020. However, the inquiry’s chair, Baroness Kate Lampard, proposed extending the inquiry’s scope last year due to “ongoing concerns” over services at EPUFT. 
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Lampard Inquiry: Terms of reference
    Source: HSJ, 11 April 2024
  14. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The ambition to diagnose cancer in its earliest stages in England is “seriously off target”, according to a new report by QualityWatch, a research programme by the Nuffield Trust and The Health Foundation
    A rise in urgent referrals in recent years has contributed to delays, along with patients finding it difficult to raise concerns about cancer with GPs. Inequalities in diagnosis, particularly among young people, those in deprived areas, and patients from ethnic minorities, was also highlighted by researchers.
    Experts said that while family doctors are “highly trained” to identify cancers, the issue remains a challenge in primary care because some symptoms can be vague.
    The NHS Long Term Plan said the health service is aiming to diagnose 75% of cancer patients when the disease is in its early stages by 2028.
    However, analysis of NHS data by QualityWatch said “our current course shows we are seriously off target”.
    More than 320,000 people in England were diagnosed with cancer in 2021 – the equivalent of some 900 a day – the report said, with the number of urgent cancer referrals rising since 2009 to more than two million in 2020/21.
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 24 April 2024
  15. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The European Commission is recommending measures EU countries should adopt to increase the uptake of two vaccines that prevent viral infections that can cause cancer, it said on Wednesday.
    The two vaccines are against the human papillomaviruses (HPV) that can cause many cancers, including cervical cancer, and against hepatitis B (HBV), which can lead to liver cancer.
    As part of Europe's Beating Cancer Plan, the European Union wants member countries to reach HPV vaccination of 90% for girls by 2030 and significantly increase the rate for boys.
    "Many Member States are well below 50% HPV vaccination coverage for girls with limited data available for boys and young adults, and there is a significant lack of data on HBV vaccination rate," the Commission statement said, adding it was as low as 1% in some countries.
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape UK, 31 January 2024
  16. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A major review into a mental health unit abuse scandal has found a catalogue of failings, including repeated missed opportunities to act on concerns, and a board “disconnected” from the realities faced by patients and staff.
    The independent review into failings at Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust was published today, commissioned after BBC Panorama revealed a “toxic culture of humiliation, verbal abuse and bullying” at Edenfield Centre in Prestwich in September 2022.
    The trust’s then chair, Rupert Nichols, resigned in November 2022, and CEO Neil Thwaite stepped down in spring last year.
    Review chair Professor Oliver Shanley, a former mental health trust CEO and chief nurse, describes in his report how the trust’s culture and leaders’ “insufficient curiosity” contributed to the “invisibility” of the deterioration in care quality. He says its board was focused on “expansion, reputation and meeting operational targets”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Read the report of the Independent Review into Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
    Source: HSJ, 31 January 2024
  17. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Mental health services are failing to keep patients safe from suicide and harm after leaving hospital, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has warned.
    It also identified failings around planning and communication when patients are discharged, and has urged the Government to strengthen the Mental Health Act.
    The warning comes after the Department for Health and Social Care was forced to announce a Care Quality Commission (CQC) rapid review into mental health services in Nottingham following the killings of students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, both 19, and school caretaker Ian Coates, 65, in June last year, by Valdo Calocane.
    Knifeman Calocane had paranoid schizophrenia and had been a regular patient of Highbury Hospital with mental health problems. In a report last week, The Independent revealed separate investigations into Highbury Hospital which have led to the suspension of more than 30 staff over allegations of falsifying records and harming patients.
    The latest report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), following a report in 2018, looked at more than 100 complaints between 2020 and 2023 where it had identified failings in mental health care. 
    Lucy Schonegevel, director of policy and practice at the charity Rethink Mental Illness, said: “Someone being discharged from a mental health service, potentially into unsafe housing, financial insecurity or distanced from family and friends, is likely to face the prospect with anxiety and a sense of dread rather than positivity. Mistakes or oversights during this process can have devastating consequences. This report puts a welcome spotlight on how services can improve the support they offer people going through the transition back into the community, by improving communication and the ways in which different teams work together to provide essential care.”
    Read full story
    Read PHSO report Discharge from mental health care: making it safe and patient-centred (PHSO, 1 February 2024)
    Source: Independent (1 February 2024)
  18. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The NHS is in such a dire state the next government should declare it a national emergency, experts are warning, as it emerged that record numbers of patients are being denied timely cancer treatment.
    It is facing an “existential threat” because of years of underinvestment, serious staff shortages and the demands of the ageing population, according to a group of leading doctors and NHS leaders.
    Whoever wins power after the general election will have to “relaunch” the health service and ask the public to do what they can to help save it and preserve its founding principles, they say.
    The call, by a commission of experts assembled by the BMJ medical journal, comes as new figures show that since 2020 more than 200,000 people in England have not received potentially life-saving surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy within the NHS’s supposed maximum 62-day wait. Professor Pat Price, a leading NHS oncologist who helped analyse NHS cancer care data, said that the UK was facing “the deepest cancer crisis” of her 30-year career treating cancer patients. 
    The acute concern about the NHS’s ability to cope with the rising tide of illness deepened last night when A&E doctors claimed that a government plan launched a year ago to relieve the strain on overcrowded emergency departments had made no difference. A&E remains in “permacrisis” while care in units is “as unsafe, or more unsafe, than at this time last year”, despite Rishi Sunak hailing his “ambitious and credible plan to fix it”.
    Although 5,000 more hospital beds have been created, the “half-baked” plan has “made little real difference to the experience of patients and the working conditions of health care professionals”, said Dr Ian Higginson, the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 31 January 2024
  19. Patient-Safety-Learning
    One of the biggest challenges facing clinicians who treat Long Covid is a lack of consensus when it comes to recognising and diagnosing the condition. But a new study suggests testing for certain biomarkers may identify Long Covid with accuracy approaching 80%. 
    Effective diagnostic testing would be a game-changer in the Long Covid fight, for it’s not just the fatigue, brain fog, heart palpitations, and other persistent symptoms that affect patients. Two out of three people with Long Covid also suffer mental health challenges like depression and anxiety. Some patients say their symptoms are not taken seriously by their doctors. And as many as 12% of Long Covid patients are unemployed because of the severity of their illness and their employers may be sceptical of their condition.
    Researchers at Cardiff University School of Medicine in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom, tracked 166 patients, 79 of whom had been diagnosed with Long Covid and 87 who had not. All participants had recovered from a severe bout of acute Covid-19.
    In an analysis of the blood plasma of the study participants, researchers found elevated levels of certain components. Four proteins in particular—Ba, iC3b, C5a, and TCC—predicted the presence of Long Covid with 78.5% accuracy.
    "I was gobsmacked by the results. We’re seeing a massive dysregulation in those four biomarkers," says study author Wioleta Zelek, PhD, a research fellow at Cardiff University. "It’s a combination that we showed was predictive of Long Covid.." 
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 29 November 2023
  20. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A 45-year-old mother who almost died after injecting herself with a life-threatening amount of insulin she thought was Ozempic is calling on the Government and social media companies to crack down on the online counterfeit weight-loss jab trade.
    Michelle Sword, a receptionist from Carterton, Oxfordshire, first took Ozempic without any issues after she was prescribed it by a legitimate online pharmacy in early 2021. Ms Sword said she completed an online questionnaire and gave a false BMI that she knew would qualify her the drug. “I just told them what they wanted to hear,” she said.
    Ms Sword said she takes responsibility for her actions, but criticised rogue sellers for taking advantage of people with insecurities and selling a product that “can kill you”.
    She also wants the Government and social media companies to step in to tackle the trend. “I think the drug was in such infancy in what we knew about it that they weren’t able to “police” who got it, who took it, who sourced it. I think they [the Government] need to look at that.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: inews, 26 November 2023
  21. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A 10-year-old boy with severe asthma died as a result of multiple failings by healthcare professionals amounting to neglect, a coroner has concluded.
    William Gray, from Southend, died on 29 May 2021 from a cardiac arrest caused by respiratory arrest, resulting from acute and severe asthma that was “chronically very under controlled”. His death has led to calls to improve asthma treatment for children nationwide.
    The court heard that William’s death was a “tragedy foretold” having previously suffered a nearly fatal asthma attack on 27 October, 2020, which he survived.
    The coroner said that William’s death was avoidable, his symptoms were treatable, and he should not have needed to use 16 reliever inhalers over 17 months, but instead his condition should have been treated with preventer medications and should have been controlled.
    Julie Struthers, a solicitor at Leigh Day who represented the family, said, “In an inquest involving concerns with medical treatment it is rare for a coroner to find neglect, and even rarer for a coroner to find Article 2, a person’s right to life, to be engaged. This reflects the real tragedy of what happened to William, the substantial number of failures by multiple healthcare professionals in his care, and the importance of improving asthma treatment for children nationwide.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: inews, 22 November 2023
  22. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Pregnant women are being forced to wait days longer than expected for “urgent” inductions of labour as NHS staff shortages and a lack of beds lead to severe delays.
    New mothers told i the delays, which the health watchdog has found can last up to five days, increased the anxiety they felt during labour.
    One first-time mother, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that her ordeal has put her off having any more children. The woman, who gave birth to a son in August, said she was “pushed” to book an induction when her waters broke and her baby was almost two weeks overdue. Despite being told by multiple healthcare professionals she needed to “give birth within 24 hours” due to a risk of infection, she did not end up delivering her baby for another 49 hours – without being induced.
    A birthing expert told i she has “never seen a crisis in maternity” like it during her almost 10 years working in the sector.
    It comes after it was revealed that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) watchdog has issued warnings to seven hospitals due to delays to the induction of labour since last year.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: inews, 5 November 2023
  23. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The leadership of a specialist trust in Liverpool is set to be taken over by the chief executive of the city’s main acute provider.
    A message to staff seen by HSJ said James Sumner, who leads Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, will also become interim CEO of Liverpool Women’s FT at the end of the year when Kathryn Thomson steps down.  Ms Thomson announced her retirement in May.
    There have been long-standing ambitions to move Liverpool Women’s standalone hospital to the new Royal Liverpool Hospital site in the city centre, run by LUHFT, with a possible merger of the organisations.
    The relocation remains the ambition, although the trusts are focusing on service integration in the short term.
    The message to staff, sent this afternoon by chair Robert Clarke, said: “We have been clear for some time about our preferred future direction of travel for the trust, namely a closer collaboration with the large acute provider of services in the city as we believe this will support the long term clinical and financial sustainability of services for the benefit of women, babies and others who access our services.
    “Liverpool Women’s has secured agreement with NHS Cheshire & Merseyside on our ambition to move to a shared CEO model…This is a positive step in providing ongoing stability for Liverpool Women’s.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 30 August 2023
  24. Patient-Safety-Learning
    In the most deprived areas of England and Scotland, the nearest 24/7 accessible defibrillator is on average a round trip of 1.8 km away—over a mile—according to a pioneering study supported by the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
    The researchers, led by Dr Chris Wilkinson, senior lecturer in cardiology at Hull York Medical School, used data from national defibrillator network The Circuit to calculate the median road distance to a defibrillator with unrestricted public access across Great Britain's 1.7 million postcodes.
    Among the 78,425 defibrillator locations included, the median distance from the centre of a postcode to a 24/7 public access defibrillator was 726.1 metres – 0.45 miles. In England and Scotland, the more deprived an area was, the farther its average distance from a 24/7-accessible defibrillator – on average 99 metres more in England, and 317 metres farther in Scotland for people living in the most compared with the least deprived areas. There was no link between defibrillator location and deprivation in Wales.
    The researchers said they hoped the findings, presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress in Amsterdam and published in the journal Heart, would lead to more equal access to defibrillators. They noted that there were over 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) annually in the UK; in England nearly 30% happened at weekends, and 40% between 6pm and 6am. 
    Read full story
    Read research study: Automated external defibrillator location and socioeconomic deprivation in Great Britain (28 August 2023)
    Source: Medscape, 29 August 2023
  25. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The NHS workforce plan will cost £50 billion and result in the health service employing half the public sector by the 2030s, analysis concludes today.
    Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has in effect “stolen more than a decade’s worth of budgets” from his successors by setting out plans to hire almost a million extra NHS staff without a clear way to pay for them, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says.
    Hunt has been urged to use his autumn statement to start setting out whether tax rises, borrowing or cuts elsewhere will be used to fund the “massive spending commitment”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 30 August 2023
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