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Patient-Safety-Learning

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News posted by Patient-Safety-Learning

  1. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A mum suffered a perforated bowel and sepsis after being told she was anxious and should take constipation medication and drink peppermint tea.
    Farrah Moseley-Brown was in "agonising pain" after having her second son, Clay, but the hospital sent her home.
    Because of the delay in treating her, Ms Moseley-Brown, 28, of Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, now has a stoma.
    Cardiff and Vale health board admitted failures in her care and gave its "sincere apologies".
    Since the error, Ms Moseley-Brown has turned to TikTok to inform people about the dangers of sepsis and has had 15 million views one one video alone.
    She was booked into University Hospital Wales, Cardiff, for a Caesarean on 7 May 2020. After Clay was born, Ms Moseley-Brown lost about two-and-a-half pints of blood and needed further surgery to stem the bleeding.
    "I felt really unwell and I said this to the nurses and the staff at the hospital which they didn't listen to. They kept saying it was after-pain but it was just agonising," Ms Moseley-Brown said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 25 August 2023
  2. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Covid cases in England have almost doubled in a month after the rise of two new variants.
    According to the most recent government statistics available, 875 cases were logged in England on August 11, compared to just 449 a month earlier. Hospital admissions have also risen by a fifth in a week.
    UKHSA statistics show Covid cases in England rose from a seven-day rolling average of 373 on July 8 to 879 as of August 8. Also, 589 out of 6,500 neighbourhoods in England had detected at least three Covid cases in the week to August 12.
    The uptick comes after reports of a new variant called Eris which makes up one in four new cases. Also, another strain nicknamed Pirola is quickly spreading globally. 
    The US is also seeing an increase in hospital admissions with coronavirus, its first significant uptick since December 2022.
    The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said they are unsettled by the variant and suggested the rapid spread could suggest an international transmission.
    Christina Pagel, a member of the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies that advises on the virus, said: "Without ramping up surveillance, and in the face of waning immunity, we are travelling into winter more vulnerable and with blinkers on."
    Prof Pagel predicted the new wave could cause extreme pressure on the health service, with a repeat of last winter’s “unprecedented” NHS crisis of Covid, flu and respiratory virus that came all around the same time.
    Read full story
    Source: Independent, 24 August 2023
  3. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Top young cancer researchers are leaving the UK in a “brain drain” fuelled by the continuing failure to reach an agreement over the EU’s study programme, scientists warn.
    The two-and-a-half-year delay in joining the £85bn Horizon Europe scheme, the largest collaborative research programme in the world, has “damaged the UK’s reputation” and made it more difficult to attract and retain the brightest researchers into the nation’s labs.
    Cancer Research UK (CRUK) surveyed 84 cancer specialists about Horizon Europe and found that three-quarters of respondents favoured association with the programme compared with only 11% who wanted the UK to go it alone with the government’s plan B, known as Pioneer.
    Prof Julian Downward, head of the Oncogene Biology Lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said: “We need Horizon Europe very badly. The current situation is damaging UK science every day. We are losing top junior faculty regularly who decide to move to EU countries so they can take up European Research Council grants.”
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 25 August 2023
  4. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Thirty families are starting legal action against the government, care homes and several hospitals in England over the deaths of their relatives in the early days of the Covid pandemic.
    The families argue not enough was done to protect their loved ones from the virus.
    They are claiming damages for loss of life and the distress caused.
    The government says it specifically sought to safeguard care home residents using the best evidence available.
    The legal claims focus on the decision in March 2020 to rapidly discharge hospital patients into care homes without testing or a requirement for them to isolate.
    The cases follow a 2022 High Court judgement that ruled the policy was unlawful - as it failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable care home residents of asymptomatic transmission of the virus.
    One of the cases is being brought by Liz Weager, whose 95-year-old mother Margaret tested positive for the virus in her care home in May 2020 and died later in hospital. "What was happening in the management of those care homes? What advice were they having?" Liz asks. "It goes back to the government. There was a lack of preparedness, which then translated down to the care home."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 25 August 2023
  5. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The use of surgical mesh to treat a common childbirth injury is now suspended in New Zealand because of safety concerns.
    The extraordinary step, which follows a similar move in the United Kingdom, was announced today by Te Whatu Ora.
    It is being celebrated by a woman who spearheaded a campaign to highlight the harrowing mesh injuries suffered by her and many other Kiwi women. “It is an acknowledgement that their concerns were not just in their heads,” Sally Walker told the Herald. “It will give us some hope.”
    About 100 women around the country who are on waiting lists for urogynaecological surgeries involving mesh are being contacted by doctors to tell them their operations for stress urinary incontinence are on hold.
    The Director-General of Health Dr Diana Sarfati said the Surgical Mesh Roundtable (MRT), an oversight and monitoring group chaired by the Ministry of Health, had been investigating a “pause” since earlier this year.
    The group’s assessment was that the balance of benefit and harm from the procedure would be improved by the series of additional measures already planned, and it recommended a pause until those measures were substantively in place.
    “After considering the MRT’s assessment, I have decided to support a pause to allow the following steps to be put in place to reduce the harms linked to the procedure as much as possible,” said Sarfati.
    Read full story
    Source: NZ Herald, 22 August 2023
  6. Patient-Safety-Learning
    NHS England could have gone further to insist that errors and failures by senior NHS leaders are disclosed to future employers, according to the leading barrister who reviewed the NHS’s fit and proper person test (FPPT).
    Tom Kark KC’s review of the FPPT was delivered to government five years ago and made public the following year, and changes were finally proposed by NHSE earlier this month. 
    In an interview with HSJ, Mr Kark said he broadly welcomed the plans, and that the revised framework should provide greater consistency across NHS boards “if applied correctly”; and could “strengthen the hand” of chairs and chief executives.
    Part of the purpose of the regime is to prevent senior managers and other board members who make big errors in one role, from keeping this secret from a future employer.
    Mr Kark told HSJ he had heard evidence that when “someone leaves under a cloud, they pop up somewhere else, and the information is lost.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 16 August 2023
  7. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The Government must provide the health service with more support to fulfil its ambition of extending healthy life expectancy and reducing premature death, an expert has warned.
    It comes after the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) published an interim report on its Major Conditions Strategy, a 5-year blueprint to help manage six disease groups more effectively and tackle health inequality.
    The groups are cancer, cardiovascular disease – including stroke and diabetes – musculoskeletal conditions, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health conditions and dementia. The Government said the illnesses "account for over 60% of ill health and early death in England", while patients with two or more conditions account for about 50% of hospital admissions, outpatient visits, and primary care consultations. By 2035, two-thirds of adults over 65 are expected to be living with two or more conditions, while 17% could have four or more.
    Sally Gainsbury, Nuffield Trust senior policy analyst, said the Government is right to focus on the six conditions, but "will need to shift more of its focus towards primary prevention, early diagnosis, and symptom management". She added: "What's less clear is how Government will support health and care systems to do this in the context of severe pressures on staff and other resources, as well as a political culture that tends to place far more focus on what happens inside hospitals than what happens in community healthcare services, GP practices and pharmacies. This initiative is both long overdue and its emphasis has shifted over time. The Major Conditions Strategy is being developed in place of a White Paper on health inequalities originally promised over 18 months ago."
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 16 August 2023
  8. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Roughly three in 10 adults have been addicted to opioids or have a family member who has been, and less than half of those with a substance use disorder have received treatment, according to a new survey conducted by KFF, a health policy research group.
    The survey, which polled more than 1,300 adults in July, underscores the broad and often harmful influence of opioid addiction across the nation, which recorded around 110,000 fatal drug overdoses last year alone.
    And the findings suggest that some proven medications for helping curb drug cravings, such as buprenorphine and methadone, are still not getting to those who need them. Only 25 percent of participants in the poll who said they or someone in their family had an opioid addiction reported receiving medication for themselves or family members.
    Mollyann Brodie, the executive director of KFF’s polling program, said that the numbers might be an undercount, as some survey participants might have been hesitant to share histories of opioid addiction.
    Addiction cuts across class, race and geography, the KFF researchers found. Rural and white Americans were the likeliest to report personal or family opioid addiction, but significant percentages of Black, Hispanic, urban and suburban families did, as well. White families were more likely than Black or Hispanic families to say that they had received treatment. Overdose fatality rates among Black Americans have climbed substantially in recent years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a study last year.
    Dr. David Fiellin, an addiction physician at the Yale School of Medicine, said the survey showed the need for a stronger federal response to substance use disorders, akin to the one for AIDS. He said, “There’s often a misunderstanding of what treatment actually looks like and what it is—people often look to a quick fix,” he said, referring to a detox strategy. “Effective treatment tends to be much more long term and requires addressing the denial that can be part of the condition.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: New York Times, 15 August 2023
  9. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Young people who vape are more at risk of bronchitis and shortness of breath, research has suggested, even if they also smoke cigarettes.
    Researchers from the US tracked the respiratory health of young people in the Southern California Children’s Health Study between 2014 and 2018.
    They conducted surveys which asked about people’s vape and cigarette use in the last 30 days. Researchers also included questions on bronchitic symptoms, such as a daily cough for three months in a row, as well as wheezing and shortness of breath.
    The study found the odds of wheezing were 81 per cent more likely among past 30-day e-cigarette users than among “never users”. The odds of bronchitic symptoms were twice as likely, while those of shortness of breath were 78 per cent more likely after accounting for survey wave, age, sex, race and parental education.
    The researchers said their findings contribute to “emerging evidence from human and toxicological studies that e-cigarettes cause respiratory symptoms that warrant consideration in regulation of e-cigarettes.”
    Jon Foster, policy manager at Asthma + Lung UK, said it is “interesting” the study found a link between vaping and lung conditions in young people, but pointed out the regulation around the amount of nicotine and chemicals used in e-cigarettes is “much tighter” in the UK than the US. “More research would be needed to find out if the situation in the UK is the same,” he added. “However, given that we still know little about long-term effects, the growing popularity of vaping among children and young people is concerning.”
    Read full story
    Source: Independent, 16 August 2023
  10. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Updated Covid vaccines are expected to become available in the US next month as alarm grows over a new variant dubbed Eris.
    Healthcare providers are grappling with a rise in hospitalisations stemming from Covid infections. Eris or EG.5.1, a subvariant of Omicron that originally emerged in late 2021, now accounts for around 17per cent of current COVID cases, according to the CDC.
    Symptoms of the new variant include a runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing and a sore throat. In the week of 30 July to 5 August, the latest period that data is available for, hospitalisations spiked by more than 14per cent, while deaths rose 10per cent compared to the previous week.
    It comes as providers and pharmacies prepare to roll out an updated vaccine designed to combat Omicron — but experts are not very optimistic that the greater majority of Americans will opt to be vaccinated.
    Fewer than 50 million people in the US got the shot last fall, compared to 250 million, or 73 per cent of the country’s population, when the vaccine was first made available in 2021, according to the agency.
    Read full story
    Source: Independent, 16 August 2023
  11. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Record numbers of people have been hospitalised with heart attacks in the wake of the pandemic, official figures show.
    On Tuesday, health chiefs will launch a campaign urging those with symptoms to seek help, with fears that too many cases are being detected too late. The new figures for England show that more than 84,000 patients were admitted to hospital because of a heart attack in 2021/22 – a rise of more than 7,000 in a year. It follows warnings that heart deaths have risen by more than 500 a week since the first lockdown, with a fall in the numbers prescribed vital medication amid struggles to access GP care.
    Health officials are afraid that people are still failing to come forward, adding to the collateral damage caused by the pandemic.
    From this week, an NHS advert will encourage people to call 999 as soon as they experience symptoms of a heart attack, such as squeezing across the chest, sweating and a feeling of uneasiness, so people have the best chance of survival.
    Prof Nick Linker, a cardiologist and NHS national clinical director for heart disease, said: “Cardiovascular disease causes one in four deaths across the country, so it is vital that people are aware of the early signs of a heart attack. Every moment that passes during a heart attack increases heart muscle damage, and nearly all of the damage takes place within the first few hours, so if you experience symptoms such as a sensation of squeezing or tightness across the chest alongside sweating, nausea, or a sense of unease, please call 999 so you have the best chance of a full recovery”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Telegraph, 15 August 2023
  12. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Patients with cancer symptoms could bypass their GP in the future and go straight for a scan, the health secretary has suggested, in the latest “radical” attempt by the government to cut huge NHS waiting lists.
    The suggestion, which comes as the government is expected to reduce the number of NHS cancer waiting time targets, could form part of proposals to “design out bottlenecks” in the NHS system, Steve Barclay said in an interview.
    Health department officials are reportedly working on proposals that would mean some patients experiencing cancer symptoms could go straight to an NHS diagnostic centre – or “one-stop shop” – without a GP referral.
    “We are very much looking at those patient pathways,” Barclay told the Daily Telegraph. “Where there are bottlenecks in the system of referral from the GP, is there scope to go direct to the relevant diagnostic test or to the clinician? Breast cancer is a good example because almost always the GP refers on … and therefore there’s an opportunity to design out bottlenecks in the system.”
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 16 August 2023
  13. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Women who struggle with their mental health have an almost 50% higher risk of preterm births, according to the biggest study of its kind.
    The research, published on Tuesday in the Lancet Psychiatry, examined data from more than 2m pregnancies in England and found about one in 10 women who had used mental health services had a preterm birth, compared with one in 15 who did not.
    The study also found a clear link between the severity of previous mental health difficulties and adverse outcomes at birth. Women who had been admitted to psychiatric hospital were almost twice as likely to have a preterm birth compared with women who had no previous contact with mental health services. And women with history of mental health difficulties faced a higher risk of giving birth to a baby that was small for its gestational age (75 per 1,000 births compared with 56 per 1,000 births).
    The study recommends that when pregnant women are first assessed by doctors and midwives they should be sensitively questioned in detail about their mental health. One of the reports authors, Louise Howard, professor emerita in women’s mental health at King’s College London, said such screening would help identify “clear red flags for a possible adverse outcome”.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 14 August 2023
  14. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The government has announced £250m in funding to provide an extra 5,000 NHS hospital beds in England this winter. Ministers say 900 new beds should be ready by January, with the remainder to follow soon after, boosting capacity and helping lower record waiting lists.
    The increase will mean nearly 100,000 permanent beds on wards and in A&E, available at the busiest time of the year - a 5% rise on current levels. NHS Providers said the extra capacity was needed "before winter begins".
    Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said trusts would welcome the support but cautioned any new beds would need to be staffed. She added that, since winter is the busiest time of the year for urgent and emergency care, trust leaders would be concerned that the promised extra capacity is only expected to be in place by January. "For the best results, trusts would need these new beds before winter begins," she said.
    Pat Cullen, from the Royal College of Nursing, added: "The elephant in the room is who will staff these additional beds? Nursing staff are already spread too thinly over too many patients."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 15 August 2023
  15. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Ministers have named the 30 trusts which will receive a share of a £250m fund to increase urgent and emergency care capacity.
    The £250m pot is part of commitments made earlier this year in the NHS urgent and emergency care recovery plan, which pledged £1bn for 2023-24 to increase capacity (see full list of schemes in table below).
    Trust leaders welcomed the funding but raised concerns about the announcement, stating that much of the extra capacity would not be in place until January and also raised questions about how extra beds would be staffed.
    The funding will go towards creating 900 “new” hospital beds ahead of winter, which includes more than 60 intermediate care beds, improving assessment spaces and cubicles in accident and emergency departments, and developing or expanding urgent treatment centres and same day emergency care services.
    NHS England expected the “majority” of these schemes will be completed by January, the announcement said.
    This article contains a list of the schemes and how much funding each will receive.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 15 August 2023
  16. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Vanderbilt University Medical Center is facing a federal civil rights investigation after turning the medical records of transgender patients over to Tennessee’s attorney general, hospital officials have confirmed. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ investigation comes just weeks after two patients sued VUMC for releasing their records to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti late last year.
    “We have been contacted by and are working with the Office of Civil Rights,” spokesperson John Howser said in a statement late Thursday. “We have no further comment since this is an ongoing investigation.”
    VUMC has come under fire for waiting months before telling patients in June that their medical information was shared late last year, acting only after the existence of the requests emerged as evidence in another court case. The news sparked alarm for many families living in the ruby red state where GOP lawmakers have sought to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth and limit LGBTQ rights.
    The patients suing over the release of their information say VUMC should have removed personally identifying information before turning over the records because the hospital was aware of Tennessee authorities’ hostile attitude toward the rights of transgender people. Many of the patients who had their private medical information shared with Skrmetti’s office are state workers, or their adult children or spouses; others are on TennCare, the state’s Medicaid plan. Some were not even patients at VUMC’s clinic that provides transgender care.
    “The more we learn about the breadth of the deeply personal information that VUMC disclosed, the more horrified we are,” said attorney Tricia Herzfeld, who is representing the patients. “Our clients are encouraged that the federal government is looking into what happened here.”
    Read full story
    Source: NBC News, 10 August 2023
  17. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A new symptom of long Covid has been revealed by scientists at the University of Leeds.
    Though most people who contract Covid recover within a few days or weeks of experiencing initial symptoms, some people can experience longer, more persistent symptoms – termed Long Covid or post Covid-19 syndrome by the NHS.
    Until now, the most commonly identified symptoms have included extreme tiredness, loss of smell, muscle aches and shortness of breath. Others include memory problems, chest pain, insomnia, heart palpitations, dizziness, joint pain, tinnitus and depression and anxiety. Now, a new study has revealed a previously unidentified symptom of long Covid.
    Published in The Lancet medical journal, the research detailed a new symptom of the condition after a 33-year-old man was referred to the specialists’ clinic.
    The patient had a six-month history of what the authors describe as a “rapid purple discolouration” on his legs. When standing, he remarked that they would feel progressively heavier and become “tingly, itchy and dusky” in colour. He added that a rash would occasionally appear on his feet, but that the mysterious symptoms would disappear when laying down. The disorder is known as acrocyanosis or persistent and extreme blue or cyanotic discolouration. It typically occurs in the hands and feet but can also appear across the nose and ears.
    “This was a striking case of acrocyanosis in a patient who had not experienced it before his Covid-19 infection”, said co-author Dr Manoj Sivan, associate clinical professor and honorary consultant in rehabilitation medicine at the University of Leeds.
    “Patients experiencing this may not be aware that it can be a symptom of Long Covid and dysautonomia, and may feel concerned about what they are seeing. Similarly, clinicians may not be aware of the link between acrocyanosis and Long Covid. We need to ensure that there is more awareness of dysautonomia [malfunctioning of the nervous system] in Long Covid so that clinicians have the tools they need to manage patients appropriately.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 15 August 2023
  18. Patient-Safety-Learning
    The mother of a woman who took her own life weeks after being discharged from a mental health ward fears a "culture of cover up" within the NHS trust.
    Hannah Roberts, 22, died by suicide in 2018 and her mother Sally said there were "discrepancies" in the accounts of the talented musician's discharge. She feels an ongoing internal review into all Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) suicides since 2017 should be independent.
    CPFT did not respond to her comments.
    The trust's chief executive Anna Hills previously said the internal review into 63 suicides would "be an important piece of work".
    Its announcement came after the trust was accused of adding to the records of Charles Ndhlovu, 33, the day after he took his own life to, in his mother's words, "correct their mistakes".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 15 August 2023
  19. Patient-Safety-Learning
    HSJ has published an interactive map of local NHS waits around England in June 2023, showing the pressures, with links to all the details by organisation and specialty.
    It shows the local picture on 18-week referral to treatment taken from the latest Referral to Treatment (RTT) waiting times data released by NHS England.
    View the map
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 14 August 2023
  20. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Measures for avoiding medication errors with the injectable agents used routinely in anaesthesia care have been recommended in new guidelines from the Association of Anaesthetists.
    The guidelines, published in Anaesthesia, the journal of the Association of Anaesthetists, were drawn up "in response to requests for guidance from members in view of continuing incidents of medication errors and patient harm."
    The working party of UK anaesthesia experts that drew up the guidance emphasised the potential safety benefits of using prefilled and labelled syringes, as well as aids such as colour-coded medication trays. It highlighted that these were not yet in widespread use within the NHS.
    The group noted that unlike many healthcare workers, anaesthetists usually undertook medication preparation (transfer from labelled ampoules into unlabelled syringes) in a solo capacity, and that there could be an average of 10 medication administrations per anaesthetic procedure. Labelling errors have been reported in around 1–1.25% of peri-operative administrations, and medication substitutions in 0.2% of administrations during anaesthesia.
    The working party, chaired by Dr Mike Kinsella, honorary consultant in the Department of Anaesthesia at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston, said it aimed "to provide pragmatic safety steps" for use within operating theatres, as well as goals for the development of "a collaborative approach to reducing errors" as a basis for "instilling good practice."
    "It is important to acknowledge that every practitioner is open to error," the authors said, noting that the risk could increase over time during a case, especially if an anaesthetist's performance was diminished by fatigue. 
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 10 August 2023
  21. Patient-Safety-Learning
    At-home smear tests should be introduced in Wales, campaigners say. Love Your Period campaigners said self-sampling at home would encourage more people to have the tests.
    For women aged 25 to 64 a smear test is an effective way of detecting human papillomavirus (HPV) and preventing cervical cancer. According to Public Health Wales data, cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women under the age of 35, with regular screening helping to reduce the risk of getting cervical cancer by 70%.
    The Welsh government said it followed advice from the UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC), which is yet to make a recommendation on self-sampling. However, it said Public Health Wales (PHW) was considering how the tests could be implemented in Wales. Currently, women in Wales are invited for a screening to check for the presence of high-risk HPV every five years.
    Campaigner Jess Moultrie said tests should be made available to those who have experienced trauma and find the process of in-hospital smears triggering. "Being able to do it at home gives you that power, you can be a little bit more relaxed, it's not as intimidating."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 14 August 2023
  22. Patient-Safety-Learning
    A Scottish research firm set up by a dementia expert who quit the NHS because of insufficient “infrastructure” has developed a blood test to allow doctors to identify Alzheimer’s disease earlier.
    Scottish Brain Sciences, based in Edinburgh, announced it will collaborate with Roche Diagnostics on a series of projects, which the former’s founder, Craig Ritchie, said could have “big impacts”. Ritchie, who has led dozens of drug trials and pilots a European network on preventing Alzheimer’s, had been advocating the need to create new brain health centres across Scotland.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: The Times, 14 August 2023
  23. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Medics have welcomed clarification from health officials over when the upcoming flu and Covid-19 vaccination programme will begin.
    NHS England had been criticised for pushing back the start date a month with pharmacists saying the change of plan would likely “catch patients off guard”. While school-aged children will be able to receive the flu shot from 1 September, adults were not expected to start getting flu and Covid jabs until October, a month later than recent years.
    Officials briefed that the later start time was so sites can co-administer both vaccines wherever possible, to make it more convenient, and to ensure protection in later winter months – typically when viruses are more likely to spread. But NHS England was criticised for a lack of transparency and communication, as healthcare teams had been preparing to provide the service as usual from September.
    NHS England said to maximise and extend protection during the winter and through the period of greatest risk in December and early January 2024, care home residents and care home staff must start receiving their jabs from 2 October, and other eligible flu and Covid cohorts from 7 October. However, in updated guidance officials said that as some firm commitments and appointments have already been made, any patient wishing to receive their vaccination in September will be allowed to do so. Most people are still likely to have their vaccines in October, officials believe.
    Responding to news that NHS England will, if needed, now allow practices to deliver both vaccination programmes from September rather than October, Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of GPC England at the British Medical Association (BMA), said: “This news is very welcome, coming after the BMA made clear yesterday to NHS England that shifting the entire programme at the last minute to October would not only cause widespread confusion, but also serious disruption as flu clinics would have to be rearranged to fit the new timetable."
    Read full story
    Source: inews, 11 August 2023
  24. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Two-thirds of NHS cancer waiting time targets are expected to be scrapped in England, in a move the health service says aims to catch cancers earlier.
    NHS bosses want to reduce the number of targets, most of which have been routinely missed in recent years, from nine to three. They say the plan is backed by leading cancer experts and will simplify the "outdated" standards.
    But some are concerned about the move. Pat Price, oncologist, visiting professor at Imperial College London and Head of the charity Radiology UK, said current performance was "shockingly bad", and while too many targets could be disruptive, "the clear and simple truth is that we are not investing enough in cancer treatment capacity".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 14 August 2023
  25. Patient-Safety-Learning
    Almost 780,000 Scots found themselves on an NHS waiting list for an appointment, treatment, or test, new figures show.
    Statistics published on Tuesday by Public Health Scotland show a rise in the number of people waiting, from 772,887 on December 31 to 779,533 as of March 31. Some 479,725 people were waiting for an outpatient appointment on March 31, an increase of 0.5% (2,617) from December 31 and 14.5% higher than the same date last year.
    Since March 2020 – the beginning of lockdowns in response to the pandemic in the UK – the waiting list has grown by 87%. A Scottish Government target aims to ensure 95% of patients are seen within 12 weeks. Of those waits, 31,498 people had been waiting longer than 1 year for their procedure, the figures show.
    Humza Yousaf, Scotland's First Minister said: "There’s going to be a long way to go. The recovery plan is purposely a 5-year recovery plan because we know that recovery from the pandemic—which was the biggest shock the NHS faced for almost 75 years—is going to take us not weeks or months, but years to recover from."
    Read full story
    Source: Medscape, 31 May 2023
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