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Patient-Safety-Learning

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News posted by Patient-Safety-Learning

  1. Patient-Safety-Learning
    It would take more than eight years for the NHS to see all adult patients waiting for ADHD assessments in many parts of the UK, a BBC investigation has found.
    Through Freedom of Information requests, the BBC has identified 24 services in that position, and nearly 200,000 people waiting.
    The Royal College of Psychiatrists said no-one should be made to wait years for life-changing care. The new Labour government says delays to ADHD diagnosis are part of a “broken NHS” - which it is working to fix.
    The long waits have been caused by rising demand - referrals have increased fourfold since 2019 - and three trusts have closed their waiting lists completely.
    The BBC found one trust, Sheffield, has a waiting list of more than 6,000 people and assessed only three patients last year. Only two providers look able to work through their backlogs in less than a year. All four governments in the UK say they are working to improve matters.
    There is no official list of adult ADHD service providers in the UK, but the BBC understands there are 70. Sixty-six responded to our request for information and 44 gave the BBC enough information to calculate their backlog.
    “We’re seeing more people than ever seeking support from ADHD services which are struggling to meet this demand,” the Royal College of Psychiatrists told the BBC.
    NHS England says it has “launched an independent expert taskforce which will investigate the challenges facing ADHD services and help them manage the rising numbers of referrals.”
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 25 July 2024
    Further reading on the hub: Long waits for ADHD diagnosis and treatment are a patient safety issue
  2. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Medical schools have been urged to protect students who face sexual assaults and “sinister” behaviour from senior doctors, who see them as easy targets, campaigners have warned.
    Scores of students have come forward with stories of doctors, groping them and making inappropriate comments while they are being trained in hospitals, according to the campaign group Surviving in Scrubs. The group, which aims to address sexual harassment facing medics in the NHS, has raised new concerns over vulnerable students who it says are facing abuse while on training placements in hospitals, It is urging NHS and university leaders to protect vulnerable trainees.
    Becky Cox, a GP and founder of Survivors in Scrubs, told The Independent: “When they’re out on placement qualified doctors will make inappropriate comments about their appearance and more sinister behaviours, there was a student who was sexually assaulted in the car on the way to the placement. The power dynamic is much greater for students. By and large, this is senior doctors perpetrating this. Medical students are right at the bottom of the food chain, and we feel they are specifically targeted and because the perpetrators know there is very little the students can do to challenge the behaviour, they’re unlikely to raise a concern.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 24 July 2024
  3. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Expectant mothers at a scandal-hit NHS trust have experienced “discriminatory and racist behaviour” including staff mimicking their accents and refusing to provide interpreters, according to the head of an inquiry into its failings.
    As part of the largest inquiry into a single service in the history of the NHS, Donna Ockenden’s team is conducting a review with more than 1,900 families who have experienced stillbirth, neonatal death, maternal death or babies diagnosed with brain damage at Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust (NUH).
    Ockenden, a senior midwife, said she had concerns about reports of racist behaviour uncovered during her interviews with families and 744 staff members who have come forward to participate in the review.
    “Both family and staff are reporting discriminatory and racist behaviour,” Ockenden told the Guardian. “Local women of Asian origin are reporting white women in the bed opposite being treated more kindly. They have had their accents mimicked, their facial movements mimicked, have been made fun of and seen staff laughing at them."
    Ockenden said women were often not able to give informed consent to difficult procedures as they were told they “understood enough” when they asked for an interpreter. She added that she had found women from the most deprived backgrounds, of all races, were “certainly reporting to me very negative experiences of maternity services.”
    Anthony May, the chief executive of NUH, said: “I want to apologise to these women and families for the shortcomings identified and pain caused. I also apologise to anyone who has experienced racism in our hospitals."
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 24 July 2024
  4. Patient-Safety-Learning
    An ongoing fault with an acute trust’s new pathology system has left GPs with ‘significant’ workload issues and ‘anxiety’ for patient safety. 
    At the start of this month, University Hospital Southampton (UHS) trust transferred to a new pathology IT system which resulted in issues with processing blood tests and communicating results. 
    Wessex LMCs said the trust has shown a ‘distinct lack of understanding’ of general practice, which has caused ‘large issues’ and ‘an enormous associated workload’ for GPs.
    GPs in the area told Pulse that there was immediately a ‘massive backlog’ from 1 July, as blood test requests were sent using the ‘old forms’ which the lab could not process quickly enough. 
    However, one GP partner, who wished to remain anonymous, said there was ‘absolutely no communication with primary care’ to clarify that the old forms should not be used. 
    As a result of this backlog, UHS introduced a ‘temporary measure’ which told GP practices they could only request ‘urgent blood tests’, meaning all routine blood tests were suspended.
    This restriction was lifted last week, and UHS has since cleared the initial backlog, however GPs told Pulse that they are still not receiving blood test results, and those they do receive are often not in the correct format. 
    Another Southampton GP partner, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that on top of the initial backlog – caused by slow processing of old forms – there has also been a ‘significant proportion of path results that aren’t coming into GP systems’. 
    In one surgery, around 70% of bloods requested in one week had not yet received results. The GP partner said that "results are being processed at the hospital" but GPs "can’t see them" as a result of faults with the system.  She continued: "We are trying to make clinical decisions based on results and we’re not seeing them […] It’s causing a significant degree of anxiety and concern for patient safety."
    Read full story
    Source: Pulse, 23 July 2024
  5. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Record numbers of people in England are being diagnosed with dementia, new figures have revealed.
    The data from NHS England, which cover people of all ages, showed that 487,432 people were diagnosed with dementia in June this year. This was almost 5% more than the figure of 465,516 for the same time last year, and 0.65% more than the figure of 484,277 for May 2024.
    Dementia diagnosis rates are currently the highest they have been since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to NHS England. It acknowledged that the NHS has more to do to meet its ambition to diagnose 66.7% of the total number of people estimated to be living with some form of the disease.
    However, dementia diagnosis rates have yet to return to prepandemic levels. The estimated dementia diagnosis rate fell by 5.4% between March 2020 and February 2023, from 67.4% to 62%.
    Dr Jeremy Isaacs, national clinical director for dementia, NHS England said, "NHS staff have worked hard to recover services with the number of people with a diagnosis rising significantly over the last year, and now at a record level."
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 23 July 2024
  6. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Cancer patients could be spared the devastating consequences of their tissue samples being lost thanks to a new tracking system being tested in the NHS.
    The loss of tissue samples can mean vulnerable patients are forced to redo biopsies, therefore delaying diagnosis and treatment. Lost samples cost the NHS an estimated £157m in claims every year.
    However, losing samples could soon be a thing of the past in the NHS, as one of the UK’s largest health trusts tests a new tracking system its inventors hope will lead to a rollout in hospitals worldwide.
    Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which deals with tens of thousands of cancer cases every year, will trial a real-time tracking system for cancer tissue samples.
    The system is based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology that is widely used in the retail and logistics industry to track assets and has been specially adapted to help improve treatment for people with serious and life-threatening conditions.
    Dil Rathore, the trust’s biomedical scientist and pathology innovation lead said, "The stress and anxiety felt by patients awaiting a potential cancer diagnosis can be made much worse if they are told their sample has been lost. Unfortunately, this ‘never-event’ happens more often than is acceptable. That’s why we came up with a real-time system to track the precise location of each sample and its movement through our histopathology department. The interpretation of changes in tissue forms the foundation of successful cancer treatment.”
    Read full story
    Source: inews, 21 July 2024
  7. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The NHS’s finances are so dire that the whole health service may break unless it receives a massive cash injection, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has warned.
    Years of underfunding have left the NHS in England so cash-strapped that it cannot treat patients quickly enough, and the rising tide of ill-health will make matters worse, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
    The NAO does not specify how much extra funding the health service needs to get it back on its feet and ensure trusts that provide care can balance their books. But a leading thinktank recently put that figure at £38bn more a year by the end of this parliament.
    Its grim conclusions raise serious questions about whether Keir Starmer’s government can fulfil its ambitious pledges to rescue the NHS, and again meet key waiting time targets on surgery and A&E care, without spending significantly more money.
    The NAO said: “When we consider how the health needs of the population look set to increase, we are concerned that the NHS may be working at the limits of a system which might break before it is again able to provide patients with care that meets standards for timeliness and accessibility. There is a wider question for policymakers to answer about the potential growing mismatch between demand for NHS services and the funding the NHS will receive. Either much future demand for healthcare must be avoided, or the NHS will need a great deal more funding, or service levels will continue to be unacceptable and may even deteriorate further.”
    A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said, “Not only has this government inherited the worst economic circumstances since the second world war, but also an NHS in deficit. Getting the NHS back on its feet is our priority, but it will take time."
    Read the National Audit Office report NHS financial management and sustainability 2024 on the hub
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 23 July 2024
  8. Patient-Safety-Learning
    An ambulance trust with a long history of cultural problems saw the proportion of staff reporting being bullied or harassed increase in 2023.
    The survey by East of England Ambulance Service Trust found 35 per cent of staff who responded said they had experienced bullying or harassment over the last 12 months—up from 32 per cent in 2022, and 25 per cent in 2020.
    The work commissioned by the trust also found that many staff who had experienced or seen bullying, or racial or sexual harassment, did not report it, with fear of retaliation being a key factor in their decision. Less than 40 per cent said they would speak to a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian about concerns.
    The trust—which has made high-profile efforts to address cultural issues in recent years—said it was normal to see a rise in complaints as staff became aware poor behaviour would not be tolerated, and felt safer to speak out.
    Hein Scheffer, the trust’s director of strategy, culture and education, said: “Bullying, harassment and poor behaviour have no place in our organisation and we regularly survey our people’s experience of workplace behaviours to help us root this out. We are working hard to improve our culture and we are among the most improved NHS organisations in England for staff feeling confident in speaking out – with 63% describing the trust as supportive."
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 12 June 2024
  9. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A national study is examining whether a treatment for premature babies could cause harm, amid concerns about the deaths of four infants last year, it has emerged.
    HSJ has learned a national study into the use of prophylactic low-dose hydrocortisone steroids, also known as “premiloc”, is being carried out at the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit, part of the Imperial College London Medical School.
    Meanwhile, University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust confirmed that four children died in January and February 2023 last year, having been transferred from UCLH to nearby Great Ormond Street Hospital, after receiving the treatment.
    They had been given hydrocortisone steroids at UCLH to reduce the risk of developing a lung condition called bronchopulmonary dysplasia.
    UCLH said its own internal investigations “did not confirm a direct link” between the deaths and the drug, “but concern remained” so they were reported to the regional neonatal network. UCLH noted that the national study at Imperial was now under way, although the Imperial team told HSJ it was not specifically aware of the UCLH/GOSH deaths last year.
    A report from GOSH’s safety team last year, seen by HSJ, said: “In all four deaths the mortality review group identified modifiable/potential modifiable factors around the administration of premiloc prior to admission to GOSH. Administration of premiloc (hydrocortisone steroids) to these babies may have been associated with the subsequent perforations. A series of incidents of perforations was flagged to the UCLH neonatal unit who reviewed data and have stopped the administration of premiloc.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 5 June 2024
  10. Patient-Safety-Learning
    More hospital patients with learning disabilities will die if politicians do not tackle the “devastating collapse” in specialist nurse numbers, a leading charity and a union have warned.
    The number of specialist learning disability nurses working in the NHS has dropped by 44 per cent over the course of the Conservative party’s time in government, a new analysis by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has revealed.
    The nursing union found a 36 per cent drop in applicants for specialist nursing degrees, while applicants are so low some universities have stopped funding courses altogether, according to a report shared exclusively with The Independent.
    The RCN and the charity Mencap have warned specialist nurses are vital in keeping patients with learning disabilities in hospital safe, as they are trained to spot life-threatening illnesses, such as sepsis, which can present differently.
    Dan Scorer, head of policy at Mencap, said: “Learning disability nurses have that in-depth training and understanding about the complexity of how people with a learning disability can present, and about how they will show they are experiencing pain. They’ve got vital expertise and insights to make sure that we don’t miss things.”
    He said the government must increase the number of training places available, and warned some universities have stopped courses altogether. He added: “I think the government removing bursaries for nurse training was pretty devastating. The impact of that was really significant, and whilst that’s been partially reversed, it significantly impacted the undergraduate training capacity that was available.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 4 June 2024
  11. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Families have warned a health board that more patients could die if lessons about poor mental health care are not learned.
    A report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists found less than half of 84 recommended improvements to a hospital trust’s mental health department have been made.
    In the past 10 years, four separate reviews have outlined changes to be implemented by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. Patient watchdog Llais said people had continued to die during this time.
    At a meeting in Llandudno on Thursday morning, the health board, which runs the NHS in north Wales, apologised to families and said it was committed to improving.
    Problems with mental health services at the health board first became public in December 2013 when the Tawel Fan dementia ward at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd near Rhyl was closed. A report said elderly patients there were treated "like animals in a zoo".
    Before that, the board was aware of problems at Hergest mental health unit at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor. An investigation found a culture of bullying and low morale, which meant patient safety concerns were not addressed.
    During the meeting earlier, Phill Dickaty, who’s mother Joyce Dickety died on Tawel Fan in 2012, told the board families felt “let down again".
    "As things stand, despite the passage of time and false reassurances offered by BCUHB, the Tawel Fan families have a real and significant concerns over the lack of progress," he said. "Be it patient or otherwise, nobody should ever have to endure a situation like Tawel Fan and the atrocities that took place. As well as the disappointment felt at the lack of progress, the risk of history repeating itself again in the future weighs heavily in the minds of Tawel Fan families."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 29 May 2024
  12. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A nine-year-old boy died of sepsis eight days after he was discharged from hospital with influenza and sent home with painkillers, an inquest has been told.
    Dylan Cope was admitted to Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, South Wales, with abdominal pain but was discharged after a medic “dismissed any concern” about his appendix.
    Days later the boy had a ruptured appendix and sepsis diagnosed, and he died at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff on December 14, 2022.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 21 May 2024

  13. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Jersey politicians have voted to approve plans to allow assisted dying for those with a terminal illness "causing unbearable suffering".
    The States Assembly has been debating two routes through which people who have lived in Jersey for longer than a year, are 18 or over and have decision-making capacity could apply for assisted dying. A total of 32 members voted in favour while 14 voted against route one.
    The second route, for those who are not terminally ill but who have an incurable medical condition causing unbearable suffering, was rejected by a majority of 27 to 19.
    Plans for legalising assisted dying were voted on in principle by the assembly in 2021, but the aim of the vote was to decide how it could work in practice.
    With a decision now made, the process for drafting a law could take about 18 months, with a debate then taking place by the end of 2025.
    If a law is approved, it is expected a further 18-month implementation period would then begin, meaning the earliest for it to come into effect would be summer 2027.
    Speaking after the debate, Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham said "robust safeguards" would be "enshrined in law." He thanked the assembly for a "thoughtful, respectful and considered" debate.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 22 May 2024
  14. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The number of people sent out of their home area for a mental health bed – in some cases hundreds of miles away – has increased to a five-year high, despite national ambitions to eliminate the practice.
    A 2021 date to stop “inappropriate out of area placements” was initially set by government and NHS England in 2016 but, despite initial reductions, the target was missed, with hundreds of patients still affected each month.
    Demand and bed pressures in the wake of covid appeared to make it more difficult and numbers have been rising.  
    Analysis of the latest NHS Digital data this month shows 825 active inappropriate placements in February 2024 following a steady rise from December 2023, when there were 700 (see chart).
    The year on year increase from February last year is 15 per cent, but there has been a 46 per cent rise since a low of 565 just 14 months previously, in December 2022. 
    Being sent out of area can disrupt the patient’s care, make it less likely patients will be visited, harder for them to return home and to community support, and is also often very expensive as places are bought at short notice from independent providers.
    NHSE acknowledged pressures on OAPs in 2024-25 planning guidance but asked systems to “work towards” eliminating them, saying they are “detrimental to patient safety, experience and outcomes.” National mental health director Claire Murdoch last month told HSJ they represented “poor care at relatively high costs.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 23 May 2024
  15. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Patients taking antidepressants are being warned to beware of side-effects that could leave them 'asexual' even after they stop using them - a problem that could affect millions of Brits.
    Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the most common class of antidepressant drug in the UK, are relied upon by one in eight Brits - 8.6million in all - who are dealing with mental health issues like anxiety and depression.
    Common SSRIs prescribed in the UK include citalopram, fluoxetine and sertraline, sometimes known by brand names Cipramil, Prozac and Lustral - but their use has been linked to long-term and even permanent sexual dysfunction by researchers.
    The NHS has warned that side effects such as a loss of libido and achieving orgasm, lower sperm count and erectile dysfunction 'can persist' after taking them - and patients have described feeling 'carved out', relationships wrecked, from their use.
    Men and women say SSRI side-effects have hampered their sex lives, even after coming off of the medications - a condition known as Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), which is not officially recognised by UK health authorities.
    For millions, antidepressants can be a life-saving drug - but the authors of a US petition urging more warnings to be applied to the drugs say it can be 'impossible... to weigh the benefits of treatment against the harms'.
    Read full story
    Source: Daily Mail, 23 May 2024
    Read this opinion piece on the hub by someone who suffers from post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) after he was prescribed a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. The author calls for widespread recognition, improved risk communication and better support for sufferers. 
    If you have experience of PSSD, you can also share your insights in our community discussion.
  16. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Having an epidural during labour can reduce the risk of serious childbirth complications by 35%, according to research that suggests expanding access to the treatment may improve maternal health.
    An epidural is an injection in the back to stop someone feeling pain in part of their body. Making them more widely available and providing more information to those who would benefit from one was even more important than previously thought, researchers said.
    The study by the University of Glasgow and the University of Bristol involved 567,216 women who were in labour in Scottish NHS hospitals from 2007 and 2019, and went on to give birth vaginally or by an unplanned caesarean section. Of the total, 125,024 of the women had an epidural.
    Researchers analysed the rate of serious complications, including heart attacks, eclampsia, and hysterectomies during childbirth. Having an epidural cut the risk of these events by 35%, the study found. 
    The lead author, Prof Rachel Kearns, of the University of Glasgow, said: “This finding underscores the need to ensure access to epidurals, particularly for those who are most vulnerable – women facing higher medical risks or delivering prematurely. “By broadening access and improving awareness, we can significantly reduce the risk of serious health outcomes and ensure safer childbirth experiences.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 22 May 2024
  17. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Patients could be put at risk by plans to allow local NHS bodies to oversee the quality of health screening programmes for diseases such as breast and bowel cancer, experts have suggested.
    At the moment, NHS England runs the Screening Quality Assurance Service (SQAS) to make sure local organisations comply with national standards, are safe and can be subject to inspections. There are 11 national screening programmes in England, including those for breast, cervical and bowel cancer, plus antenatal and newborn screening, abdominal aortic aneurysm and diabetic eye screening. At the moment, screening programmes must report all safety incidents to the SQAS and the SQAS inspectors visit local sites to pick up urgent issues and make recommendations.
    Now, a report in the British Medical Journal questions plans by NHS England to allow local bodies to have more control.
    Sue Cohen, former national lead of screening quality assurance at Public Health England, told the BMJ that devolving responsibility for SQAS to local organisations would be a “retrograde” step. She pointed to previous issues, such as in Kent where a lack of oversight of a cervical screening programme led to women with cancer not being picked up.
    She said: “If you don’t have a quality assurance service that is properly resourced and has that ability to keep a national view, you will simply not have the oversight of the system and there is a bigger risk of incidents going undetected.”
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape News, 22 May 2024
  18. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Children with mental health illnesses are forced to stay in wards not fit to care for them with patients warning these hospital stays are like a “form of torture”, an NHS safety watchdog has found.
    Children with mental health conditions were admitted to general hospital wards, not intended for mental health care, nearly 44,000 times in 2021 and 2022, the Health Services Safety Investigation Body has warned.
    These wards which are “noisy, busy and brightly lit” are not often appropriate for these children who require mental healthcare and are unable to keep them safe, HSSIB said in a report on Thursday.
    The watchdog is calling for new guidance for hospitals on how to adapt their general paediatric wards for children who have mental health support needs.
    In a new investigation, the watchdog said it found in some hospitals patients were placed in rooms with “little or no consideration of therapeutic elements” which are “stripped of everything” including window blinds and shower curtains. In one hospital, staff said even the mattresses are removed.
    Between 2021 and 2022 11.7 per cent, or 39,926 admissions to paediatric wards, for physical health, were for children who had a mental health condition.
    Read full story
    Read HSSIB investigation report – Keeping children and young people with mental health needs safe: the design of the paediatric ward (23 May 2024)
    Source: The Independent, 23 May 2024
  19. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Dental graduates in England could be forced to work in the NHS to help tackle the crisis in access that has left millions struggling to get their teeth repaired.
    Under the government’s plan they would have to undertake NHS work for “several years” after leaving university or face paying back some of the £200,000 cost of training them.
    A fall in the number of dentists doing NHS work has helped create “dental deserts”, where patients cannot get treatment, and prompt some people to turn to “DIY dentistry”, including pulling their own teeth out.
    However, the British Dental Association (BDA), which represents dentists, claimed ministers were seeking to “shackle graduates to a service facing collapse” and said the plan would do little to improve access to NHS care.
    Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, said: “Taxpayers make a significant investment in training dentists, so it is only right to expect dental graduates to work in the NHS once they’ve completed their training.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 23 May 2024
  20. Patient-Safety-Learning
    An artificial intelligence (AI) system that sends text messages to alert hospital physicians about the high risk for mortality in their patients reduces the number of deaths, according to a study published in Nature Medicine.
    Chin-Sheng Lin, PhD, associate professor of cardiology at the Tri-Service General Hospital of the National Defense Medical Center in Taipei, Taiwan, and his colleagues have developed an AI system that identifies patients with a high risk for mortality on the basis of a 12-lead ECG. The system is intended to identify patients who would benefit from intensified care.
    "It is widely acknowledged that providing intensive care to critically ill patients reduces mortality. Delays in providing intensive care for critically ill patients result in catastrophic outcomes. Most in-hospital cardiac arrests are potentially preventable; however, the early signs of deterioration might be difficult to identify," wrote the researchers.
    The authors emphasized that exactly how the AI warning messages lead to a decrease in overall mortality must still be clarified. But the results suggest that they help in detecting high-risk patients, triggering timely clinical care, and reducing mortality, they wrote.
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 21 May 2024
  21. Patient-Safety-Learning
    England's patient safety commissioner says her calls for changes following failings highlighted in three health scandals are "falling on deaf ears".
    Dr Henrietta Hughes made the comments at a meeting in Westminster on Tuesday of MPs and campaigners of medical scandals.
    It comes after Sir Brian Langstaff's highlighted a decades-long "subtle, pervasive, chilling" cover-up by successive governments and the NHS in the conclusion of his report on the infected blood scandal.
    Like the victims of that scandal, those affected by epilepsy drug Valproate, as well as vaginal mesh implants, and the hormone pregnancy test Primodos, are also waiting on the government to implement a redress scheme. The three campaign groups have already had a combined review. In July 2020, the Cumberlege review found similar failings to the blood scandal: damaging products, poor regulatory decisions, and one government after another refusing to accept wrong had been done.
    In February this year, the patient safety commissioner set out her "blueprint" of a redress scheme for victims.
    However, Ms Hughes, who attended the First Do No Harm All Parliamentary group meeting, said on Tuesday: "I'm itching to get the changes that are needed, but I feel my words are falling on deaf ears."
    Read full story
    Source: Sky News, 21 May 2024
  22. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Attacks on health workers, hospitals and clinics in conflict zones jumped 25% last year to their highest level on record, a new report has found.
    While the increase was largely driven by new wars in Gaza and Sudan, continuing conflicts such as Ukraine and Myanmar also saw such attacks continue “at a relentless pace,” the Safeguarding Health in Conflict coalition said.
    Researchers recorded more than 2,500 incidents of “violence against or obstruction of healthcare” in 2023, including the killing or kidnapping of health workers and the bombing, looting and occupation of hospitals.
    The coalition called for national and international prosecutions of “war crimes and crimes against humanity involving attacks on the wounded and sick, health facilities and health workers.”
    Its report highlighted cases of attacks on children’s hospitals and sites running immunisation campaigns, leaving people vulnerable to infectious diseases. It also warned of a new trend in which drones armed with explosive weapons are used to target health facilities.
    Leonard Rubenstein, of the Johns Hopkins school of public health, who chairs the coalition, said violence inflicted on healthcare workers and facilities had “reached appalling levels”. The report included examples where workers had been deliberately targeted, and others where combatants were reckless or indifferent to the harm caused, he said. “The lack of restraint we are seeing, from the beginning of conflicts, suggests to me that the law on protecting healthcare has had no meaning to combatants.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 22 May 2024
  23. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A former Team GB rower claims a treatment she underwent for long Covid leaves participants feeling "blamed" for being ill.
    Oonagh Cousins was offered a free place on a course run by the Lightning Process, which teaches people they can rewire their brains to stop or improve long Covid symptoms quickly.
    Ms Cousins, who contracted Covid in March 2020, said it "exploits" people.
    However, the programme's founder denied it blames patients for their illness, saying that was completely at odds with the concepts of the programme
    Ms Cousins had reached a career goal many athletes can only dream of - being selected for the Olympics - when she developed long Covid. By the time the cancelled 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo were rescheduled for 2021, Ms Cousins was too ill to take part.
    When she went public with her struggles, she was approached by the Lightning Process. It offered her a free place on a three-day course, which usually costs around £1,000.
    "They were trying to suggest that I could think my way out of the symptoms, basically. And I disputed that entirely," the former rower said. "I had a very clearly physical illness. And I felt that they were blaming my negative thought processes for why I was ill." She added: "They tried to point out that I had depression or anxiety. And I said 'I'm not, I'm just very sick'."
    Prof Danny Altmann, a leading long Covid researcher, says such behavioural approaches disregard the "mass" of underlying damage in patients that can be measured in tests.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 21 May 2024
  24. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The chief executive of an acute trust operating in one of the country’s most troubled healthcare economies has admitted his organisation is struggling to get the most from its top of the range electronic patient record system three years after rollout. 
    Royal Devon University Healthcare Foundation Trust implemented the Epic EPR in October 2020, but the system is still causing problems with reporting performance. 
    In an interview with HSJ, chief executive Sam Higginson described Epic as a “Rolls-Royce of an EPR”, but he added: “For lots of different reasons we’re still driving it a little bit like it’s a Ford Focus.
    He added: “We assumed by installing an EPR that basically it would have a sufficient level of functionality that we could switch off pretty much everything else. But then you find actually it doesn’t quite have the functionality you thought it did, or you don’t quite know how to use it.”
    However, Mr Higginson said the trust’s use of the EPR was improving “every month”, and the trust is testing a new cancer reporting module which it hopes will resolve the reporting problems.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 21 May 2024
  25. Patient-Safety-Learning
    More than 30 of the most common antidepressants used in the UK are to be reviewed by the UK’s medicines regulator, as figures point to hundreds of deaths linked to suicide and self-harm among people prescribed these drugs.
    The medicines, which include Prozac and are prescribed to millions of patients, will all be looked at by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
    It follows concerns raised by families in Britain over the adequacy of safety measures in place to protect those taking the drugs, such as warnings about potential side effects.
    The regulator will look into the effectiveness of the current warnings, according to a letter from mental health minister Maria Caulfield, which has been seen by The Independent.
    There has been a huge rise in the use of antidepressants in England, with 85 million prescriptions issued in 2022-23, up from 58 million in 2015-16, according to NHS figures.
    Nigel Crisp, a crossbench peer and chair of the Beyond Pills all-party parliamentary group, told The Independent: “Overprescribing of antidepressants has an enormous cost in terms of human suffering, because so many people become dependent and then struggle to get off them – and it wastes vital NHS resources.”
    The review comes as it emerged that:
    More than 515 death alerts linked to these drugs, involving suicidal ideation and self-harm, have been made to the MHRA since the year 2000 (these alerts don’t directly confirm the cause of a person’s death) Some antidepressants have been given to children as young as four, and the total cost of the medication to the NHS in 2022-23 was more than £231m Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 11 May 2024

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