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Clive Flashman

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  1. Clive Flashman
    Like most women affected by incontinence, 43-year-old Luce Brett has her horror stories. As a 30-year-old first time mum she recalls wetting herself and bursting into tears in the “Mothercare aisle of shame”, where maternity pads and adult nappies sit alongside the baby nappies, wipes and potties.
    But, she adds, these isolated anecdotes don’t really do justice to what living with incontinence is really like. “It’s every day, it’s all day. People talk about leaking when you sneeze or when you laugh, but for me it was also when I stood up, or walked upstairs. It was always having two different outfits every time I left the house to go to the shops. Incontinence robbed me of my thirties; it made me suicidally depressed,” Luce explains.
    “Everyone kept telling me it was normal to be leaky after a vaginal birth. It took quite a long time for me to find the courage or the words to stop them and say: ‘Everybody in my NCT (National Childbirth Trust) class can walk around with a sling on, and I can’t do that without wetting myself constantly’,” she adds.
    Read full article here.
  2. Clive Flashman
    I fell sick on 25 March. Four months later, I’m still dealing with fever, cognitive dysfunction, memory issues and much more
    I just passed the four-month mark of being sick with Covid. I am young, and I had considered myself healthy.
    My first symptom was that I couldn’t read a text message. It wasn’t about anything complex – just trying to arrange a video call – but it was a few sentences longer than normal, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It was the end of the night so I thought I was tired, but an hour later I took my temperature and realized I had a fever. I had been isolating for 11 days at that point; the only place I had been was the grocery store.
    My Day 1 – a term people with Long Covid use to mark the first day of symptoms – was 25 March.
    Four months later, I’m still dealing with a near-daily fever, cognitive dysfunction and memory issues, GI issues, severe headaches, a heart rate of 150+ from minimal activity, severe muscle and joint pain, and a feeling like my body has forgotten how to breathe. Over the past 131 days, I’ve intermittently lost all feeling in my arms and hands, had essential tremors, extreme back, kidney and rib pain, phantom smells (like someone BBQing bad meat), tinnitus, difficulty reading text, difficulty understanding people in conversations, difficulty following movie and TV plots, sensitivity to noise and light, bruising, and petechiae – a rash that shows up with Covid. These on top of the CDC-listed symptoms of cough, chills and difficulty breathing.
    Read the full article here.
  3. Clive Flashman
    Doctors and surgeons’ leaders have issued a warning that the NHS must not shut down normal care again if a second wave of Covid-19 hits as that would risk patients dying from lack of treatment. Here, one patient tells her story.
    Marie Temple (not her real name) was distraught when her MRI was cancelled in March, shortly after the UK went into lockdown and Boris Johnson ordered the NHS to cancel all non-urgent treatment.
    Temple, who lives in the north of England, was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour last year after suffering seizures and shortly afterwards had surgery to remove it. She had been promised a follow-up MRI scan in late March to see if the surgery had been a success, but she received a letter saying her hospital was dealing only with emergency cases and she didn’t qualify.
    Read the full article here.
  5. Clive Flashman
    Lawyers acting for whistleblowers have told MPs and peers that they can feel intimidated to raise concerns over non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) because of the threat of retaliation.
    Whistleblowers themselves have also accused employers’ law firms of using underhand tactics in employment tribunal cases, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Whistleblowing said it would move on to look in more detail at the role of lawyers.
    The findings came in the group’s first report – focusing on ‘the voice of the whistleblower’ – which found that, although the UK “remains a leading authority on whistleblowing legislation”, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) needed “a radical overhaul”.
    Read the full article here.
  6. Clive Flashman
    A healthy population is one of any nation’s most important assets. We have known for a long time that not everyone has the same opportunity to access the things they need to lead a healthy life, such as good quality work and safe secure stable housing. Now we can see that the COVID-19 pandemic is replicating and exacerbating deep-rooted health inequalities. Without concerted action, this health crisis will also become a health inequalities crisis.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has brought health inequalities into sharp focus. While every part of the population has been affected by the current crisis, some communities have been hit much harder both by the virus itself and by the measures taken to control its spread.
    Evidence is starting to emerge, for example, of the unequal impact of the shutdown of the economy. For example a recent survey of UK households found that the lowest earners have been worst hit by loss of earnings, with the most severe losses for single parents.
    The uneven impact of COVID-19 has also highlighted the inequalities faced by Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Recent data shows that some ethnic groups are at much higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than the rest of the population (e.g. Black men are four times more likely to have died of COVID-19 than their White peers).
    Read full article here.
  7. Clive Flashman
    New analysis by the Health Foundation reveals the devastating impact the pandemic has had on social care in England. The independent charity says the findings provide further evidence that the government acted too slowly and did not do enough to support social care users and staff, and that protecting social care has been given far lower priority than the NHS.
    The Health Foundation finds that policy action on social care has focused primarily on care homes and that this has risked leaving out other vulnerable groups of users and services, including those receiving care in their own homes (domiciliary care). It also notes that the shortcomings of the government’s response have been made worse by longstanding political neglect and chronic underfunding of the social care system.
    Since March there have been more than 30,500 excess deaths* among care home residents in England and 4,500 excess deaths among people receiving domiciliary care. While high numbers of excess deaths of people living in care homes have been well reported, the analysis shows there has been a greater proportional increase in deaths among domiciliary care users than in care homes (225% compared to 208%). And while deaths in care homes have now returned to average levels for this time of year, the latest data (up until 19 June) shows that there have continued to be excess deaths reported among domiciliary care users.
    The Health Foundation says that decades of inaction by successive governments have meant that the social care system entered the pandemic underfunded, understaffed, and at risk of collapse.
    Read full article here.
  8. 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.
  9. Clive Flashman
    NHS People Plan provides a stop-gap but leaves glaring omissions
    'Two years after it was first promised, the NHS is still waiting for a long-term workforce plan. Some of the measures announced in today’s People Plan are positive. As the plan acknowledges, it is important to learn from the impressive changes made by NHS staff during the pandemic. And improving support for people from black and minority ethnic communities – who make up one fifth of the NHS workforce – is rightly a top priority. 
    'But there are glaring omissions. The NHS went into the pandemic with a workforce gap of around 100,000 staff, yet the plan does not say how this will be addressed in the medium term. This is particularly concerning at a time when our recruitment of nurses from abroad has dropped dramatically. These details are missing because the NHS is still waiting on government to set out what funding will be available to expand the NHS workforce – without which the NHS cannot recruit and retain the doctors, nurses and other staff it needs. 
    'While this plan at least provides a stop-gap to help get the NHS through the winter, there is no equivalent plan for social care – a sector suffering from decades of political neglect and the devastating impact of COVID-19 on care users and staff. A comprehensive workforce plan for both the NHS and social care is needed now more than ever'.
  10. Clive Flashman
    Hospital trust ‘truly sorry that mistakes were made in care’ of Luchii Gavrilescu, who died after being sent home from hospital with undiagnosed tuberculosis.
    An NHS trust investigated over maternity care failings has apologised after a six-week-old child was found to have died due to mistakes at one of its hospitals.
    East Kent Hospitals University Trust was embroiled in a major scandal after The Independent revealed the trust had seen more than 130 babies over a four-year period suffer brain damage as a result of being starved of oxygen during birth. A report into the trust concluded in April that there had been “recurrent safety risks” at its maternity units.
    Read full article here.
  11. Clive Flashman
    Health and social care secretary Matt Hancock delivered a ‘future of healthcare’ speech to the Royal College of Physicians on Thursday and laid out seven lessons from the health and care response to Covid-19 that he wants to see retained. If followed through, some of his points would mark significant shifts in policy and Conservative thinking. However, Hancock said it was important to “build better” in the way that London was built better after the Great Fire in 1666.

    Hancock’s seven points were: the NHS must value people and ‘bust bureaucracy’ that gets in their way; the future is “collaboration not competition”; “better technology means better healthcare”; the NHS must be open to other sectors; planning and funding will be “system first”; and social care and public health need more attention. On tech, Hancock said consultations will be digital first, and there will be a new focus on interoperability and data sharing.
  12. Clive Flashman
    More than one in five GP partners said they removed practice staff away from face-to-face care due to ethnicity during the pandemic, a Pulse survey has revealed. 
    The survey in June revealed that 84 of the 378 respondents said that ‘ethnicity was a crucial factor in removing anyone in your practice away from face-to-face assessments’.
    Around 70% of respondents said they had been counting ethnicity as a factor when risk assessing staff.
    See full article here
  13. Clive Flashman
    All GP appointments should be done remotely by default unless a patient needs to be seen in person, Matt Hancock has said, prompting doctors to warn of the risk of abandoning face-to-face consultations.
    In a speech setting out lessons for the NHS and care sector from the coronavirus pandemic, the health secretary claimed that while some errors were made, “so many things went right” in the response to Covid-19, and new ways of working should continue. He said it was patronising to claim that older patients were not able to handle technology.
    The plan for web-based GP appointments is set to become formal policy, and follows guidance already sent to GPs on having more online consultations. But the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) hit back, saying it would oppose a predominantly online system on the grounds that both doctors and patients benefited from proper contact.
    Read full article here
  14. 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
    "We are the NHS: People Plan 2020/21 – action for us all, along with Our People Promise, sets out what our NHS people can expect from their leaders and from each other.  It builds on the creativity and drive shown by our NHS people in their response, to date, to the COVID-19 pandemic and the interim NHS People Plan. It focuses on how we must all continue to look after each other and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, as well as take action to grow our workforce, train our people, and work together differently to deliver patient care.
    This plan sets out practical actions for employers and systems, as well as the actions that NHS England and NHS Improvement and Health Education England will take, over the remainder of 2020/21. It includes specific commitments around:
    Looking after our people – with quality health and wellbeing support for everyone Belonging in the NHS – with a particular focus on tackling the discrimination that some staff face New ways of working and delivering care – making effective use of the full range of our people’s skills and experience Growing for the future – how we recruit and keep our people, and welcome back colleagues who want to return The arrival of COVID-19 acted as a springboard, bringing about an incredible scale and pace of transformation, and highlighting the enormous contribution of all our NHS people. The NHS must build on this momentum and continue to transform – keeping people at the heart of all we do."
  16. Clive Flashman
    The redeployment of health visitors to support the national coronavirus response has left remaining staff with increased workloads, worsened mental health and fears that the needs of children are being missed, a new survey has revealed.
    In the wake of Covid-19, University College London (UCL) gathered the views of 663 health visitors in England to find out how the pandemic had affected their work. Overall, 60% of respondents reported that at least one member of their team had been redeployed between 19 March and 3 June. Of teams that had lost staff, 41% reported that between six and 50 colleagues had been moved elsewhere during that period.
    The combination of increased caseloads and limited face-to-face contacts left “widespread concern” among health visitors that the needs of many children would be missed in the peak of the outbreak, found the survey. Study authors raised concerns about the “significant negative impacts” that increased workload and pressures had on staff wellbeing and mental health.
    Read the full article here.
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. Clive Flashman
    People are being warned to familiarise themselves with the symptoms of sepsis after a study found that as many as 20,000 COVID-19 survivors could be diagnosed with the condition within a year.
    One in five people who receive hospital treatment for the coronavirus are at risk, according to the UK Sepsis Trust.
    Sepsis is triggered when the body overreacts to an infection, causing the immune system to turn on itself - leading to tissue damage, organ failure and potentially death. If spotted quickly, it can be treated with antibiotics before it turns into septic shock and damages vital organs.
    Read the full article here.
  20. 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.
  21. Clive Flashman
    A dedicated team of 32 volunteers are hitting the roads across North Wales assisting the Welsh Ambulance Service in dealing with fallers.
    Based out of the Ambulance headquarters in St Asaph, the Community First Responder Falls Team was launched on 30 April this year and has already assisted almost 250 people.
    The team was created to use the talents and experience of the familiar Community First Responders (CFRs) who had to be stood down from their normal duties at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
    Read the full article here.
  22. Clive Flashman
    Lego could be used as a practical tool to train doctors in anesthetic skills according to new research that has shown a simple task using the building bricks can help improve technical skills—a finding that could improve medical training and patient safety.
    Scientists from the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology and School of Medicine developed a task where people copied shapes using bricks that they could see in a mirror. They found this simple training improved student performance in an ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia task. The results of the study have been published in British Journal of Anesthesia
    Read the full article here
  23. Clive Flashman
    In the largest independent randomized controlled trial (RCT) of its type, a multimodal digital therapy program for patients with non-specific chronic low back pain has outperformed standard-of-care treatment across all medical outcomes.
    Results of the study, published in the Journal of Pain Research, show that patients using Kaia, the back pain management app developed by leading digital therapeutics company Kaia Health, reduced pain levels, anxiety, depression, stress, and improved wellbeing and body functionality significantly more compared to standard-of-care treatments, e.g. pain killers, surgeries, physical therapy.
    “This large-scale study demonstrates the significant benefits for people managing low back pain when using Kaia to deliver a multimodal treatment through a digital device, such as a smartphone,” says Thomas R. Toelle, M.D., Ph.D., Head of the Pain Center of the Technical University Munich, Germany. “These results add to the growing body of medical evidence that supports the use of digital multimodal treatments for chronic conditions, such as back pain.”
    Low back pain is one of the leading causes of global disability, with an enormous cost for healthcare systems worldwide. 1,2 According to a 2018 report on the impact of musculoskeletal pain on employers, chronic pain, including back pain, accounts for 188.7 million lost work days, and $62,4 billion in lost productivity cost.3
    Kaia is an app-based, multimodal digital therapy program for chronic back pain, which focuses on Physical therapy, Relaxation exercises, and Medical education.
  25. Clive Flashman
    One of the world’s foremost virus experts has said survivors will be living with the effects of Covid-19 for “years to come” after he was struck down by a severe infection, and called for added support for those who have recovered from the disease. 
    Professor Peter Piot, who as director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been at the forefront of the academic response to the pandemic, has spent his entire career studying viruses such as Ebola and HIV. 
    Prof Piot spent a week at the Royal Free Hospital in London in early April after contracting the disease. “I spent a week in isolation on a ward with three other men. I couldn’t leave the room. When I came out the thing I remember most is seeing the sky. London was deserted - it was in acute lockdown,” he said.
    The fever and splitting headache he had felt before being admitted were gone and apart from chronic exhaustion he was feeling better, he said. Getting out of bed was a struggle and he had to take rests when going up the many flights of stairs of his tall Georgian townhouse. But a week later he took a turn for the worse - he became breathless and his heart rate shot up to over 100. 
    Read the full article here

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