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Mark Hughes

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  1. Mark Hughes
    Breast cancer patients suffered unnecessary mastectomies, delayed diagnoses and a lack of compassionate care at an NHS Trust in north-east England, the BBC has learned.
    More than 200 cases are now being investigated at County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT) - 43 of these are reported to involve significant harm. One death is also being examined.
    Women have told the BBC that they were left feeling "butchered" by surgery, while a leading expert says that what went on at the trust was "a textbook example of how not to carry out breast cancer management".
    In addition, the BBC discovered that nearly £6m was paid out by the trust to clinics run privately by its main breast cancer surgeon.
    In total, medical records of nearly 1,600 patients treated since 2023 are now being examined following concerns about the service the trust offered.
    Read full article.
    Source: BBC News, 28 November 2025
  2. Mark Hughes
    When Kayleigh Griffiths lost her baby daughter, Pippa, in 2016 through maternity failings in Shropshire, she had no idea how many times she would have to retell her traumatic story at future medical appointments.
    She has worked to get a so-called "Ockenden alert" on her medical notes – an idea which came out of meetings with other traumatised families.
    Donna Ockenden is the senior midwife who led the 2022 review which found more than 200 babies and nine mothers in Shropshire could have survived with better care.
    Mrs Grifiths wants the alert to be offered to more affected families, and eventually to people nationally.
    She said it meant health workers "can see that alert and have a look at what that means for us".
    "And it might just mean that they take a bit of extra time to read our notes, to understand what our history is, so that we don't have to keep going over that same story at every single appointment because it is retraumatising," she added.
    Read full article.
    Source: BBC News, 28 November 2025
  3. Mark Hughes
    The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated Public Health Wales as a collaborating centre for digital health equity.
    The partnership will play a key role in shaping WHO’s work on digital health equity and strengthening collaboration and advocacy among regional stakeholders in this area.
    As a WHO collaborating centre, Public Health Wales will contribute to technical reviews, research and evidence-gathering to support WHO’s work on digital health equity at regional and global levels.
    Key areas of collaboration include supporting the implementation of the regional digital health action plan for the WHO European Region 2023–2030, identifying best practices and guiding inclusive digital health policy development.
    Read full article.
    Source: Digital Health, 28 November 2025.
  4. Mark Hughes
    Electronic patient record systems pose “persistent” risks to patients and have directly contributed to several incidents of harm, a national safety watchdog has found.
    The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) has today published the findings of its thematic review into patient safety issues associated with EPRs, which examined 112 of its investigations dating from 2018 to May this year.
    The review found EPRs have contributed to incidents where patient care was missed, delayed or incorrect, and that the risks were “persistent despite national recommendations and guidance”.
    Read full article (paywalled).
    Source: Health Service Journal, 27 November 2025.
    Related reading
    You can read Patient Safety Learning's response to this report here.
  5. Mark Hughes
    A monthly injection could enable severe asthma patients to stop taking daily steroid tablets without affecting their symptoms, a new trial has found.
    The drug, Tezepelumab (also known as Tezspir and made by AstraZeneca), works by binding to and blocking a protein that drives airway inflammation.
    The injection is recommended as an additional maintenance treatment for patients over 12 when usual medications have not proven effective enough.
    It was approved for NHS use by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 2023.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Independent, 27 November 2025.
  6. Mark Hughes
    An NHS trust has been fined £200,000 for failing to provide "safe care and treatment" for a 16-year-old girl who died on hospital grounds after fleeing her ward.
    Ellame Ford-Dunn, from Upper Beeding, West Sussex, died at Worthing Hospital in March 2022 where she had been admitted as a mental health inpatient.
    She ran into the grounds of the hospital and was not immediately followed by a nurse because of "confusion" and a lack of appropriate procedure in place, the court heard.
    Last month, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust (UHST) pleaded guilty to failing to provide safe care and treatment to Ellame which exposed her to a significant risk of "avoidable harm".
    Read full article.
    Source: BBC News, 26 November 2025.
  7. Mark Hughes
    The first details of the government’s new national maternity and neonatal taskforce have emerged in a letter sent to families, reports the New Statesman.
    The document confirms the group will be chaired by Wes Streeting MP, with Women’s health minister Baroness Merron as his deputy. The taskforce will have around 15 members in total and be up and running early in the new year. It will be tasked with turning the recommendations from the national maternity and neonatal investigation into a national action plan.
    Three of its 15 members will represent families, and each of those voices will be part of a wider “reference group” of 15-20 families. However, some have expressed concerns about the plans as not reflecting feedback sent by bereaved and harmed families back to the government in July.
    Read full article.
    Source: The New Statesman (21 November 2025)
  8. Mark Hughes
    New rules that force general practices in England to accept online queries from patients during core working hours are already risking harm to patients and increasing GPs’ workload and stress, a survey indicates.
    More than half (55%) of general practices polled in a BMA survey said online consultations were having a negative effect on patient care.
    Some 1341 practices responded to the survey, around 22% of England’s total number. Together, those practices represent almost 14 million registered patients.
    The Department of Health and Social Care dismissed the data, saying the survey involved a “small minority of GP practices” and did not reflect the national picture.
    Read full article (paywalled).
    Source: BMJ (20 November 2025)
  9. Mark Hughes
    A new at-home injection has been approved for use on the NHS offering a significant breakthrough for approximately 1,500 individuals in England and Wales living with a rare heart condition.
    Vutrisiran will be available for patients suffering from transthyretin amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), a debilitating illness where the liver-produced protein transthyretin misfolds, leading to deposits that stiffen the heart. Without intervention, this progressive condition can tragically culminate in heart failure.
    Vutrisiran, sold under the brand name Amvuttra and made by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, works by binding to, and stifling messenger RNA (mRNA) to reduce the amount of transthyretin made by the liver.
    The injection, taken every three months by patients in their own home, has been recommended by Nice as a treatment option for some adults with ATTR-CM.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Independent (21 November 2025)
  10. Mark Hughes
    A trust under fire for quality and governance failures has been reprimanded by a watchdog for withholding information about a meeting of its senior leaders over maternity failures.
    The row relates to a meeting of the CEO, chief medical officer and chief nurse of Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust with the chair and director of corporate governance at Swansea Bay University Health Board in February this year.
    Swansea has, like Leeds, been subject to major concerns about maternity and neonatal care failures in recent years, and in the summer was criticised in an independent review.
    The online meeting was held weeks after LTHT admitted that the deaths of 56 babies and two mothers may have been preventable, as its maternity and neonatal services came under increased scrutiny.
    Read full article (paywalled).
    Source: Health Service Journal (21 November 2025)
  11. Mark Hughes
    Barcode errors on medicines “pose critical patient safety risks” and could have “potentially fatal consequences,” Henrietta Hughes has warned.
    The Patient Safety Commissioner for England’s warning comes as a petition has been launched by pharmacists report growing problems with barcode data errors and missing 2D barcodes on UK medicine packs.
    The issue has been highlighted by several ‘Class 4 medicines defect notifications’ during 2025 that were linked to barcode or labelling problems, including fexofenadine hydrochloride tablets in August 2025, and simvastatin tablets in July 2025.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal (20 November 2025)
  12. Mark Hughes
    Wes Streeting has promised to overturn the “jaw-dropping” and “indefensible” inequality in the NHS compensation scheme for babies brain-damaged at birth that means wealthy parents get higher payouts than poorer families.
    The health secretary said he was “determined” to change the system for dealing with clinical negligence in maternity care, which links the level of damages paid to the parents’ income and background.
    The existing longstanding compensation scheme includes a payment for future “loss of earnings”, based on what a child might have been expected to earn over the course of their life had they not been harmed at birth.
    Under a bizarre anomaly, highlighted by The Observer this month, this is calculated by looking at the child’s background, including their parents’ earnings and education. Other “relevant factors” such as the achievements of their siblings can also be taken into account.
    It means that children of wealthy parents can receive higher damages than those from less privileged backgrounds. The largest packages are typically given to the richest families.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Observer (20 November 2025)
  13. Mark Hughes
    NHS doctors will be able to use AI tools to help them spot growths which can turn into bowel cancer after the technology was given the green light for use in the health service.
    Growths in the bowel called polyps are not cancerous, but certain types of polyps can develop into cancer if they are not found and removed early. These can be spotted during a camera test to look inside the bowel, known as a colonoscopy.
    The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has conditionally approved five new AI tools, which it said can act as a “second pair of eyes” during these examinations. Nice made the draft recommendations after reviewing evidence which suggests they can help doctors find more polyps during bowel examinations.
    The AI technologies can be used in the NHS while more evidence is collected on them over the next four years, Nice said.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Independent, 20 November 2025.
  14. Mark Hughes
    Up to 50,000 nurses could quit the UK over the government’s immigration proposals, plunging the NHS into its biggest ever workforce crisis, research suggests.
    Keir Starmer has vowed to curb net migration, with plans to force migrants to wait as long as 10 years to apply to settle in the UK instead of automatically gaining settled status after five years.
    The measures, which also include plans to raise foreign workers’ skills requirements to degree level and raise the standards of English language required for all types of visa, including dependents, are seen as an attempt to combat the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. A public consultation on the plans is expected imminently, sources said.
    A survey conducted by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), seen by the Guardian, found the plans have sparked profound distress among foreign NHS and social care staff.
    There are more than 200,000 internationally educated nursing staff, about 25% of the UK’s total workforce of 794,000. The government’s proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain (ILR) have triggered alarm, with many now considering leaving the UK for good, the survey suggests.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Guardian (20 November 2025)
  15. Mark Hughes
    Two further cases of patients absconding from hospital and taking their own lives have been highlighted at a trust which is being prosecuted for a similar case.
    University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust last month admitted a charge brought by the Care Quality Commission in relation to 16-year-old Ellame Ford-Dunn, who died in February 2022 after absconding from a ward at Worthing Hospital.
    Now two further similar cases have emerged, resulting in coroners issuing warnings.
    Read full article (paywalled).
    Source: Health Service Journal (20 November 2025)
  16. Mark Hughes
    The advice given by coroners in England and Wales to help prevent maternal deaths is not being acted upon, research suggests.
    A study by academics at King’s College London looked at prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports issued by coroners in cases of pregnant women and new mothers who died between 2013 and 2023. They found these reports were not being “systematically used nationally”.
    NHS organisations, like other professional bodies, are legally required to reply to the coroner within 56 days, but the study found only 38% of PFDs had published responses from the organisations they were sent to.
    Two-thirds of deaths occurred in hospitals, with more than half of the women dying after giving birth. The most common causes of death were haemorrhage, complications during early pregnancy and suicide.
    Concerns raised by coroners most frequently included failing to provide appropriate treatment or to escalate cases, and lack of training.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Guardian (19 November 2025)
  17. Mark Hughes
    Launched on International Men’s Day, the first Men’s Health Strategy for England is being published today. The plan sets out comprehensive action to tackle the physical and mental health challenges men and boys face every day.
    Suicide is one of the biggest killers of men under 50 and three quarters of all suicides are men. As part of this plan, the Government will invest £3.6 million over the next three years in suicide prevention projects for middle-aged men in local communities across areas of England where men are at most risk of taking their own lives, including some of the most deprived areas in the country. This comes on top of expanding mental health teams in schools to ensure an additional 900,000 pupils have access to support by April 2026.
    The focus on suicide prevention includes a partnership on the Premier League’s Together Against Suicide initiative with the Samaritans, which looks to help tackle the stigma around men’s mental health and embed health messaging into the matchday experience. 
    Men with prostate cancer will also benefit from improved care through the strategy, including the development of home prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing for those being monitored for the disease. From 2027, subject to clinical approval, men diagnosed with prostate cancer which is being actively monitored or treated – will be able to order and complete PSA blood tests at home, or book an in-person blood test, locally, via the NHS App.  
    Other key commitments in the Men’s Health Strategy include: 
    Investing £3 million into community-based men’s health programmes, designed to reach those most at risk and least likely to engage with traditional services Men’s health training for healthcare professionals through new e-learning modules and resources Workplace health pilots with EDF Energy through the Keep Britain Working Vanguard Programme to support male workers in male-dominated industries Enhanced lung disease support for former miners, with increased investment in the Respiratory Pathways Transformation Fund in areas with significant former mining communities Funding research to help prevent, diagnose, treat and manage the major male killers and causes of unhealthy life years in men A £200,000 trial of new brief interventions to target the rise in cocaine and alcohol-related CVD deaths, particularly among older men  Read full article.
    Source: Department of Health and Social Care (19 November 2025)
  18. Mark Hughes
    The UK is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle the rising numbers of infections that have become resistant to treatment.
    The project - a collaboration between the Fleming Initiative and the pharmaceutical company GSK - is a battle between superbugs and supercomputers. The collaboration will spend £45m on six fields of research.
    It aims to speed up the discovery of fresh antibiotics and deliver new ways of killing other threats, including deadly fungal infections. Overusing antibiotics drives bacteria to evolve resistance to infections, which means new drugs are a priority.
    Read full article.
    Source: BBC News, 18 November 2025
     
  19. Mark Hughes
    Hospitals are at risk of becoming overwhelmed due to a significant rise in people needing urgent help with lung conditions, a charity has warned.
    Asthma and Lung UK said that over the last two years alone, there has been a 23 per cent increase in emergency hospital admissions for respiratory conditions – such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
    The charity said patients are not getting “consistent” care throughout the year and warned of a spike in people needing emergency help during the winter. It said there are now “regular” winter crises due to “dismal” delivery of routine care for patients with these conditions.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Independent, 18 November 2025
  20. Mark Hughes
    A woman killed herself after a south London psychiatric unit failed to search her possessions adequately, a coroner has concluded.
    Michelle Sparman, a personal trainer and call dispatcher for the Metropolitan police from Battersea, south-west London, died on 28 August 2021 at Kingston hospital, four days after trying to take her own life.
    The assistant coroner, Bernard Richmond KC, concluded that Sparman, 48, died of a hypoxic brain injury, determining she had died by “suicide whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed, contributed to by neglect”.
    Richmond will subsequently produce a prevention of future deaths report looking at a need for mental health wards to introduce a centralised record of all dangerous items that are on the ward, which he plans to submit to NHS England given its potential national implications.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Guardian, 17 November 2025
  21. Mark Hughes
    The national maternity safety inquiry launched by the Government in June this year will “not investigate failing trusts or apportion blame”, its leader has said – drawing criticism from campaigning families.
    In a private briefing, Baroness Valerie Amos told the 12 trusts involved in the review that “she’s not investigating ‘failing’ trusts and she’s not in the business of apportioning blame”, according to one of the trusts involved.
    This is despite Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Steeting Streeting alluding to “failures in the system” when launching the review in June. The terms of reference for the review also make repeated promises of “accountability”, including “help[ing] bereaved and harmed families to receive justice and accountability in the future”.
    Read full article (paywalled).
    Source: Health Service Journal, 17 November 2025
  22. Mark Hughes
    One in 10 mental health patients who attended A&E in England last month stayed for more than 24 hours – and this figure rose to more than one in three in some departments, new data suggests.
    NHSE labelled the data as “experimental”, because no quality checks were performed after it was received. However, they are the first official figures on the size of this long-standing problem.
    In total, 173 acute hospital sites with a major type 1 or specialist type 2 A&E recorded attendances of mental health patients, and 118 of these recorded stays of 24 hours.
    Read full article (paywalled).
    Source: Health Service Journal, 14 November 2025
  23. Mark Hughes
    Doctors have developed an AI tool that could reduce wasted efforts to transplant organs by 60%.
    Thousands of patients worldwide are waiting for a potentially life-saving donor, and more candidates are stuck on waiting lists than there are available organs.
    Recently, in cases where people need a liver transplant, access has been expanded by using donors who die after cardiac arrest. However, in about half of these donations after circulatory death (DCD) cases, the transplant ends up being cancelled.
    That is because the time between the removal of life support and death must not exceed 45 minutes. If the donor does not die within the timeframe needed to preserve organ quality, surgeons often reject the liver because of the increased risk of complications to the recipient.
    Now doctors, scientists and researchers at Stanford University have developed a machine learning model that predicts whether a donor is likely to die within the timeframe during which their organs are viable for transplantation.
    The AI tool outperformed the judgment of top surgeons and reduced the rate of futile procurements – which occur when transplant preparations have begun but the donor dies too late – by 60%.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Guardian (13 November 2025)
  24. Mark Hughes
    Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust will establish a Secure Data Environment (SDE) for mental health research to improve understanding of mental health conditions and treatments.
    The trust is working in partnership with the University of Liverpool through the Merseyside-based Mental Health Research for Innovation Centre (M-RIC) and has received more than £2.7 million funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
    The funding allows Mersey Care to work with DATAMIND, the UK’s national data infrastructure for mental health research, to establish a SDE for NIHR’s Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (MH-TRC).
    The secure data platform will receive, store and analyse patient data from the MH-TRC, and support linkage of MH-TRC data with other health-related datasets such as the NHS SDE networks (regional NHS research hubs), making it easier for researchers to access data to better understand mental health conditions and improve treatments.
    Read full article.
    Source: Digital Health (13 November 2025)
  25. Mark Hughes
    Thousands of resident doctors have begun strike action across England in a dispute over pay.
    The five-day action, which began at 7am on Friday, is the 13th walkout by doctors since March 2023 and health leaders have warned that the NHS may have to cut frontline staff and offer fewer appointments and operations if the strikes continue.
    The NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, which represent health trusts, said continued action was piling pressure on already-stretched budgets. The last industrial action in July was estimated to have cost the health service £300m.
    Read full article.
    Source: The Guardian (14 November 2025)

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