Mark Hughes

Surgeons' News is a magazine for surgical, dental and allied healthcare professionals. Published quarterly by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, it features comment and opinion from leading professionals, plus reviews and reports on subjects relevant to all career levels. In an article in the June issue (page 22), Patient Safety Learning's Helen Hughes talks about how Patient Safety Learning and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh are working together on a new wave of education, resources and support to empower surgical teams to embed safety into every aspect of their practice.

On the 19 March 2025 the Department of Health launched a consultation on the introduction of a new Regional Framework for Learning and Improvement from Patient Safety Incidents and supporting documentation to replace the current Serious Adverse Incident (SAI) Procedure in Northern Ireland. As part of this process, the Patient & Client Council held a public engagement event on this issue. This included members of the public with lived experience of the current SAI process, those with a general interest, members of the voluntary and community sector, health and social care staff and leaders, healthcare regulation and Patient & Client Council members. This report summarises the views expressed in this event and follow-up written responses shared with Patient & Client Council. They heard from a range of views and experiences, and we have collated these under key themes arising from the engagement conversations. Some of these themes were reflected in the answers to more than one question.

At the start of 2025, the NHS Race and Health Observatory sponsored an infographic, explaining how healthcare professionals can spot the signs of jaundice in babies with dark skin tones. This infographic below, designed by Dr Helen Gbinigie and Dr Oghenetega Edokpolor, in collaboration with FiveXMore and Bliss, serves as a guide for parents' for recognising jaundice in Black and Brown babies, including where and how to seek help.

‘The Month’ is a new publication from NHS England which provides a strategic update for health and care leaders. This edition includes details of the 100 day plan for Sir Jim Mackey’s first few months as NHS England Chief Executive, information about the new Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26 and highlights of other recent healthcare publications and developments.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regulates medicines, medical devices and blood components for transfusion in the UK. This roundup provides a summary of their latest safety advice for medicines and medical device users. It includes details of medicine recalls, medical device field safety notices and details of how to report drug reactions and device incidents.

Prioritising patient safety is a quarterly blog series from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). Each month, PHSO publishes between 70 to 100 of their casework decisions as a way to share learning that will help organisations improve their service and prevent mistakes happening again. This blog highlights how the PHSO is working with NHS England to improve NHS imaging services and looks at cases that show how organisations are making complaints count by listening, learning and putting things right.

Each year since May 2023 the Sands & Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit have published an annual report setting out the extent of pregnancy and baby deaths across the UK. This year’s report argues that progress made to date falls short of what is needed to stop babies dying every day in the UK, and that unacceptable inequalities in pregnancy and baby loss persist despite continued calls for change. It estimates that at least 2,500 fewer babies – the equivalent of around 100 primary school classrooms - would have died since 2018 if the government had achieved its ambition of halving the 2010 rates of stillbirth, neonatal and maternal deaths in England. The report draws on the latest data from MBRRACE-UK, which shows that the gap continues to grow between neonatal death rates in the most deprived areas and those in the least deprived areas of the UK. It highlights that the stillbirth rate among babies of Asian ethnicity has risen sharply, and Black babies are still twice as likely as White babies to be stillborn. It includes 10 key actions for policymakers Renew commitments to save babies’ lives. Specifically, a stillbirth rate of 2.0 stillbirths, and a neonatal mortality rate of 0.5 neonatal deaths for babies born at 24 weeks’ gestation and over (per 1,000 live births). A preterm birth rate of 6.0%. Count miscarriages in the UK. The number and rate of miscarriages are not reported across the UK or for any individual nation. All UK governments should set up routine data collection on miscarriage. Take coordinated and meaningful action to eliminate inequalities. There are a range of policy areas where specific action is needed, including: understanding whether current efforts to reduce inequalities are working, and a comprehensive review of translation and interpreting services in maternity and neonatal care. Strengthen national leadership to make progress on the safety of maternity and neonatal services. Clarify the workforce needed to deliver safe care. Future development of the workforce must move away from a binary debate focussed on whether we do or don’t have enough staff and focus on the staffing requirements needed to deliver safe care, in line with nationally-agreed standards. Put the resources needed in place to deliver safe care. More investment is needed to improve the safety and quality of services if the government is going to deliver on its commitments to reduce rates of stillbirth and neonatal death and eliminate inequalities. Make informed choice a reality. Everyone should receive personalised care, know what they are entitled to, such as their birth choices, and services need the resources and operational capacity to provide this. Address unwarranted variation in care. Too often babies are dying because of care that is not in line with nationally-agreed standards. We need clarity on how national guidance is applied and clear national standards to improve the consistency of service provision. Ensure lessons are learned when babies die. The NHS is still not properly learning lessons when babies die or listening to the experiences of bereaved families to improve care in the future. There must be more robust oversight of the implementation of actions that are identified by reviews and investigations. Prioritise pregnancy and baby loss in research. This requires a broad range of research topics, the involvement of bereaved parents and communities, and a strong connection with policy and practice.