Jump to content
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    211

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Clive Flashman

Administrators

 Content Type 

News posted by Clive Flashman

  1. Clive Flashman
    ·        Trusts told to identify actions to “immediately stop all delays” ·        Letter calls for issue to be discussed at every board meeting ·        It follows concern over harm to patients from delays Trusts and integrated care systems are being told by NHS England and Improvement to take urgent action to ”immediately stop all delays” to ambulance handovers, which will require “difficult choices”.
    A letter yesterday from NHS England’s medical director, director for emergency and elective care, and its regional directors was sent to all local chief executives and chairs yesterday.
    It also says they should discuss the issue of ambulance handovers at every board meeting they hold, warns that “corridor care” is “unacceptable as a solution”, and says ambulances should not be used as “additional ED cubicles”.
    The move comes amid signs of large numbers of very long handover delays, and concern about the risk to patients from this and the knock-on damage to ambulance response times.
    Read the full article here (paywalled)
    Original source: Health Service Journal
  2. Clive Flashman
    Many feared that the UK leaving the EU would cause shortages and limitations to the medicine supply throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now ten months on from Brexit are we finally seeing the short fallings?
    Ninety percent of the UK's medicines are imported from abroad meaning disruptions caused by the outcomes of Brexit and a lack of HGV drivers has caused a significant problem in transporting drugs into the country.
    Leaked Department of Health and Social Care documents revealed two hundred and nine medicines had supply “issues” in 2019, more than half of these remained in short supply for over three months. Drugs such as hepatitis vaccines and anti-epileptic drugs, faced “extended” problems.
    A document published by the NHS Nottinghamshire Shared Medicines Management Team compiled a list of shortages and disruptions to supply due to COVID.
    The following 5 products had long-term manufacturing issues:
    AstraZeneca’s Zyban (bupropion, anti-smoking drug) Par’s Questran (colestyramine, a bile acid sequestrant) Diamorphine (a painkiller, used for cancer patients) Metoprolol (used for high blood pressure) Co-Careldopa (given to people with Parkinson’s disease) A further thirty medicines had short-term manufacturing issues, including end of life medicines such as morphine and anti-vomiting drug, levomepromazine.
    NHS Scotland and NHS Wales have published lists of drugs in low supply which are available to view on their NHS websites. NHS England consider this to be ‘sensitive information’ and have not published any shortfalls.
    An amendment to The Human Medicines Regulations 2019 legislation has added a ‘Serious Shortage Protocol’ (SSP). This allows for pharmacists and contractors to supply patients with a ‘reasonable and appropriate substitute’ if their prescription has an active SSP.
    Currently, shortages on Fluxoetine, (anti-depressive drug) and Estradot patches, (hormonal replacement therapy) have active SSP’s according to the NHS Business Service Authority.
    Original source: National Health Executive
  3. Clive Flashman
    Over the past few months, we have been living in unprecedented and uncertain times as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Lockdown measures, school closures and social distancing have all had a substantial impact on the way we live our lives.
    But, what have been the experiences of children, young people and their families during this time? And how has children’s well-being been affected?
    Our well-being research
    Every year we (The Children's Society) measure the well-being of children in the UK through a regular survey, with the findings presented in our Good Childhood Report. This research has shown how, since 2009, children’s well-being in this country has been in decline.
    In our 2020 survey, we included a number of questions to gauge the impact of Covid-19 and the resulting social distancing/lockdown measures on children’s lives. The survey was completed between April and June, when the UK was in lockdown.
    Our latest briefing, Life on Hold, brings together the findings of these survey questions about Covid-19, together with children’s own accounts. 
    Read the full article and findings here.
  4. Clive Flashman
    Health Education England (HEE) has announced that its new £10 million training programme, intended to ‘boost’ the critical care workforce, will be rolled out this autumn.
    According to HEE, the funds it secured earlier this year will provide nurses and Allied Health Professionals with a ‘nationally recognised pathway’ to further their careers in Adult Intensive Care Units (ICUs).
    Specialist training, delivered through a ‘blended learning package’ could help to strengthen the ICU workforce across England and will offer around 10,500 nursing staff the chance to undertake courses and ‘further their careers’.
    There will be a focus on flexible training – enabling participants to balance family and caring commitments, as well as taking into account those who are unable to travel, when the roll-out of the programme begins.
    The learning will be delivered by higher education institutions, Critical Care Skills Networks and acute trusts, and it is expected to take participants up to 12 months to receive the standardised qualification. It’s hoped that the programme could lead staff to career opportunities such as becoming a shift leader or clinical educator, or to lead on research.
    Read full article here
    Original source: Leading Healthcare News
  5. Clive Flashman
    Findings from the Care Quality Commission's (CQC’s) latest annual survey of people who stayed as an inpatient in hospital show that most people had confidence in the doctors and nurses treating them and felt that staff answered their questions clearly. However, just over a third (40%) of patients surveyed left hospital without written information telling them how to look after themselves after discharge (up from 38% in 2017), and of those who were given medication to take home, 44% were not told about the possible side effects to watch out for. 
  6. Clive Flashman
    Leeds Teaching Hospitals has launched a support fund for patients, their relatives and volunteers who may be struggling financially due to the coronavirus pandemic.

    The fund is intended to assist (but is not limited to):
    Bereaved relatives facing immediate financial pressures until their personal financial affairs are sorted eg having weekly bills to meet and no immediate access to bank accounts Patients isolating for 14 days in advance of admission to hospital and suffering income loss, excess cost or other financial hardship as a result Patients, their immediate families or volunteers who have experienced significant household income loss as a result of the pandemic and are struggling with financial obligations Those experiencing significant increases in costs as a direct result of the pandemic, eg increased childcare costs Read the full article here
  7. Clive Flashman
    The Nursing Times has just broken a story about the importance of safe nurse staffing levels, which has been underlined in an international white paper that calls on countries around the world to take action to ensure they have enough nurses.

    The paper – launched at the International Council of Nurses’ annual conference – states evidence for a clear link between nurse staffing levels, patient safety and the quality of care is now “overwhelming and compelling”.
  8. Clive Flashman
    Bristol Children’s hospital tried to ‘deceive’ Ben Condon’s parents about his death, NHS ombudsman says
    An eight-week-old baby died after “a catalogue of failings” in his treatment at a children’s hospital, which then tried to “deceive” his parents about his death, an official inquiry has found.
    Doctors failed to spot that Ben Condon was suffering from a deadly bacterial infection and did not give him antibiotics until an hour before he died, the NHS ombudsman said.
    “We found that Ben and his family suffered serious injustice in consequence of the failings we found in his care and treatment,” the parliamentary and health service ombudsman said in a report that contained damning criticisms of Bristol Children’s hospital. The errors were all “lost opportunities” to help Ben recover from his illness and so increased the risk of him dying.
    Read the full article here
    Source: The Guardian
    Also covered in the Independent
  9. Clive Flashman
    Patients Know Best has launched an education programme which can be used by medical schools. 
    Among the first to use the programme are undergraduate Pharmacy students at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).
    The Patients Know Best platform, which recently became the first personal health record to be fully integrated into the NHS App, has been incorporated into the curriculum to facilitate simulated interactions between patients and pharmacists.
    This has involved training the students to use Patients Know Best to enable their use of the platform to interact and collaborate with each other.
    Read the full article here.
  10. Clive Flashman
    Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust will work with Omnicell to develop a European technology-enabled inventory optimisation and intelligence service which will be initially implemented across South East London Integrated Care System (ICS). This partnership will encompass all six acute hospital sites within the South East London ICS, including Guy’s & St Thomas’, Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust.
    The project will have the following goals:
    Develop analytics and reporting tools with a goal of improving patient safety, achieving increased operational efficiency and cost efficiencies Utilize the analytics and reporting tools with a goal of achieving agreed efficiencies and cost reductions Demonstrate the impact of managing clinical supplies and medicine spend together at scale Build a service model for the ICS which can be scaled up and adopted by other hospital groups in the UK Read the full article here
  12. Clive Flashman
    The country’s largest clinical study is being launched in Greater Manchester to investigate the best gap between first and second Covid-19 vaccine doses for pregnant women.
    Led by St George’s, University of London, the Preg-CoV study will provide vital clinical trial data on the immune response to vaccination at different dose intervals – either four to six weeks or eight to 12 weeks. This data will help determine the best dosage interval and reveal more about how the vaccine works to protect pregnant mothers and their babies against Covid-19.
    Pregnant women are more likely to develop severe Covid-19 or die from the disease but are excluded from clinical trials with new vaccines. This means there are currently very limited clinical trial data on the immune response and side effects caused by the vaccines for these women.
    Read the full story here
    Source: National Health Executive
  13. Clive Flashman
    This week, Public Health England (PHE) Chief Executive's message covers the social care sector's management of COVID-19 outbreaks and the exemplary work in Hammersmith and Fulham Council, PHE's Better Health campaign, new reports on greenspaces and global disaster risk reduction, and our studies to support musicians and artists during the pandemic.
    Read full article here.
  15. Clive Flashman
    Every pharmacist must report adverse drug reactions using the yellow card scheme, says chair of the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group, Janice Perkins
    Polypharmacy, when different medications are used by an individual at the same time, is becoming increasingly common because people are living for longer and with multiple different illnesses. One study, published in 2018 by the Oxford University Press, found that over half (54%) of those aged 65 years and above who took part in the study had two or more long-term conditions, for which they could have been taking a range of medicines.
    Read full story
    Source: Community Pharmacy News, 17 February 2020
  16. Clive Flashman
    The agency is now showing disease incidence among unvaccinated people, as well as those who received Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna vaccines.
    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published information on its COVID Data Tracker about rates of cases and deaths among fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people.  In August, according to the data, unvaccinated people had a 6.1 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19, and an 11.3 times greater risk of dying from the disease.  
    Interestingly, the agency also breaks out case and death rates by vaccine product. In mid-August, at the peak of the latest wave, unvaccinated people made up the greatest percentage of COVID-19 cases, at an incident rate of 736.72 cases per 100,000 people.  Johnson & Johnson had the second-highest incidence rate, at 171.92 cases per 100,000.  Pfizer had the third-highest, at 135.64.  And Moderna had the lowest rate, at 86.28 cases per 100,000 people.  
    The death rate mirrored the breakdown in terms of vaccine product and frequency, although the numbers were far lower across the board.  Again, at the peak in mid-August, the death rate among unvaccinated people was 13.23 in 100,000 people.   Rates for vaccinated people were dramatically reduced, at 3.14, 1.43 and 0.73 for Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna, respectively.  
    When it came to age groups, peak case rates were highest among unvaccinated 12-17 year olds, followed by unvaccinated 30- to 49-year-olds. And 30- to 49-year-olds also had the highest case incidence among vaccinated people when broken down by age group, followed by fully vaccinated 18- to 29-year-olds.   Those older than 80 had the highest death rates among both unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals.  
    The COVID Data Tracker site also includes integrated county views, forecasting and hospitalizations by vaccination status.  
    Read the full article here
    Original source: Healthcare IT News
  17. Clive Flashman
    Over-55s are not being recommended useful health technology as GPs presume they cannot use a smartphone, say researchers
    Older patients are being excluded from beneficial health technology because “ageist” doctors presume they cannot work a smartphone, research has suggested. Experts have accused doctors of “stereotyping” older people as being incapable of using technology and warned patient safety was being put at risk by a failure to support them in using appropriate online health tools.
      GPs typically recommend NHS-approved health apps to about one in 10 patients aged under 35 to help them manage their conditions between appointments, such as by reminding them to take medications or monitoring their symptoms. However, doctors recommend the same apps to just one in 25 patients over 55 and one in 50 patients over 65, according to research by the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA), which assesses apps for the health service. The same research found 55 per cent of over-55s would be happy to try using a health app if it was recommended, while nine in 10 over-55s and eight in 10 over-65s who have used a health app felt satisfied or very satisfied with the experience.
      The NHS Long Term Plan states that patients should have access to “digital tools” to manage their health and studies have shown NHS-approved health apps can have clinical benefits. Older people ‘will benefit from digital products’
    However, Helen Hughes, the chief executive of the charity Patient Safety Learning, suggested ageist assumptions about older people’s technological ability meant they were missing out.
      “The data suggests that older people maybe being stereotyped, with assumptions they won’t be computer literate,” she said. “Plenty of older people are tech savvy – or at least willing to learn – and will really benefit from being able to manage their health from home, using digital products. Older patients need to be offered technology solutions with support on how best to use them, if this is needed.”
      She warned there was also “a significant patient safety issue” with the failure to advise patients about NHS-approved apps, as it left older patients at risk of inadvertently downloading one of the thousands of unreliable health apps available. To read the full article (paywalled), click here
    Original Source: The Telegraph
  18. Clive Flashman
    The number of women in the UK who have not had vital NHS breast screening, which can stop people dying from breast cancer, has risen by an estimated 50% - to nearly 1.5 million women - since services resumed, the leading UK breast cancer charity warns during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  
    Breast Cancer Now reveals an alarming increase of around half a million women who haven’t been screened since services restarted in summer 2020, estimating that around 1,480,000 fewer women in the UK had breast screening between March 2020 and May 2021, compared to pre-pandemic levels. This comes a year after the charity reported that almost one million women had missed breast screening due to COVID-19 seeing services paused.
    According to the charity, nearly 12,000 people in the UK could have been living with undiagnosed breast cancer at the end of May 2021, due to the impact of the pandemic on breast screening services and fewer women being referred to specialists with possible symptoms of the disease since March 2020 – a frightening prospect when early detection can stop people dying from the disease.
    Full article here
    Source: Breast Cancer Now
    Also covered in the Independent
  19. Clive Flashman
    Antibiotic resistance is an increasing challenge for modern medicine as more naturally occurring antimicrobials are needed to tackle infections capable of resisting treatments currently in use.
    New research from the University of Warwick has investigated natural remedies to fill the gap in the antibiotic market, taking their cue from a 1,000-year-old text known as Bald's Leechbook. Read the full article here.
  20. Clive Flashman
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published State of Care. The report, which draws on the experiences of care people have shared with Healthwatch England, has found that health and social care services face some highly concerning challenges, including:
    A workforce drained in terms of resilience and capacity, especially in social care, where the staff vacancy rate has risen; A rising number of people seeking emergency care, leading to unacceptable waiting times; and Tackling the health inequalities that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated. The report welcomes the additional funding that the Government has allocated to help the NHS and social care address their challenges. However, CQC has called for the extra investment to be used to:
    Develop new ways of working and don’t just prop up existing approaches and plug demand in acute care; and Improve the training, career development and terms and conditions of social care workers to help attract and retain more staff. CQC has also recommended that the short-term funding - currently in place to help discharge patients who are no longer in need of hospital care but may still require care services - be extended. 
    The HealthWatch response
    Responding, Sir Robert Francis QC, Chair of Healthwatch England said:
    “During the pandemic, people have told us about the challenges they have faced. Whether this not being able to access dental care, problems using online GP services or being discharged from the hospital without the proper support. It’s great to see this report drawing so much on the experiences people have shared with us. 
    “We urge Government to act on this report. The health and care system upon which we all depend is facing a hard winter, but, as this report makes clear, the longer-term picture is also challenging.
    “The steps the CQC are recommending, like extending the extra funding to help people leave hospital safely and ensuring there is enough dental capacity, will help give services the breathing space they need to get through this winter.
    “However, come spring we need to grasp the opportunity to build a better NHS and social care system. A system that tackles heath inequalities head-on, ensuring that no matter who you are or where you live, you can access high-quality care that meets your needs. A system that is sustainable, is designed round the needs of people and breaks perennial cycle of winter crises.”
    Original source: HealthWatch
    CQC report here
  21. Clive Flashman
    Most people in England, about 30 million, are to be offered a free flu vaccine this year, the government says.
    It is to prepare for a winter that could see the annual flu season coincide with a surge in coronavirus.
    The traditional flu programme will include all over-50s for the first time, as well anyone on the shielding list and the people they live with.
    Also for the first time, children in their first year of secondary school will all be offered the vaccine.
    Plans for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have not yet been announced.
    Read full article here
  22. Clive Flashman
    The Doctors’ Association UK has compiled stories from 602 frontline doctors which expose a startling culture of bullying and overwork in the NHS.
    The stories include:
    a pregnant doctor who fainted after being forced to stand up for 15 hours straight and being denied water. The junior doctor was subsequently shouted at in front of colleagues and patients on regaining consciousness and told it was her choice to be pregnant and that ‘no allowances would be made’. a doctor who told us that a junior doctor hung themselves in a cupboard whilst on shift and was not found for 3 days as no-one had looked for them. His junior doctor colleagues were not allowed to talk about his suicide and it was all ‘hushed up’. a doctor who was denied a change of clothes into scrubs after having a miscarriage at work despite her trousers being soaked in blood. Full press release  
  24. Clive Flashman
    Initial data from the COVID-19 Infection Survey. This survey is being delivered in partnership with IQVIA, Oxford University and UK Biocentre.
    Full article here
    Table of contents in the report:
     
    1.       Main points
    2.       Number of people in England who had COVID-19
    3.       Regional analysis
    4.       Incidence rate
    5.       Test sensitivity and specificity
    6.       COVID-19 Infection Survey data
    7.       Collaboration
    8.       Glossary
    9.       Measuring the data
    10.    Strengths and limitations
    11.     Related links
  25. Clive Flashman
    Action must be taken now if the NHS is to avoid an even worse winter crisis next year, the chief inspector of hospitals has warned.
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said the use of corridors to treat sick patients in A&E was “becoming normalised”, with departments struggling with a lack of staff, poor leadership and long delays leading to crowding and safety risks. Professor Ted Baker said: “Our inspections are showing that this winter is proving as difficult for emergency departments as was predicted. Managing this remains a challenge but if we do not act now, we can predict that next winter will be a greater challenge still. “We cannot continue this trajectory. A scenario where each winter is worse than the one before has real consequences for both patients and staff.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 18 February 2020
     
     
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.

 Accept Cookies  Reject Cookies