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Sam

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  1. Sam
    A vulnerable woman judged to be at medium risk of self harm was on a mental-health ward that catered for low-risk patients, an inquest heard.
    Zoe Wilson, 22, died on the Larch Ward at Bristol's Callington Road Hospital in June 2019 after being found unconscious in her room at 01.30 BST.
    She had previously told staff that voices were telling her to kill herself, her inquest heard.
    Healthcare assistant Sarah Sharma found her and immediately called for help. Addressing a jury inquest at Avon Coroners' Court, she said that "patients admitted to Larch should have all been low risk". 
    This meant they would "preferably" have hourly observations by staff and be able to take their medication without any issues. Many were ready to be discharged and they were there because something was holding them up, normally housing, she said.
    The experienced healthcare assistant said if the patient's risk increased they should be placed under "one to one" monitoring with a member of staff until they were moved to a more suitable unit.
    The inquest heard earlier that Ms Wilson had been judged to be medium risk and was placed on 30-minute observations on 18 June.
    Her risk level was re-assessed when she handed a belt to staff and informed them voices were telling her to kill herself.
    Ms Sharma told the court that she was on her first overnight shift in two and a half weeks that night, and was informed in a handover that Ms Wilson was at risk of self-harming.
    Having never met Ms Wilson - who had schizophrenia - she queried what kind of self-harm the patient was at risk of but said the nurse performing the handover told her he "didn't know".
    Ms Sharma told the inquest she was unaware of the belt incident or that Ms Wilson had not been sleeping well and had requested medication to calm her down.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 24 January 2022
  2. Sam
    Pfizer’s oral antiviral drug paxlovid significantly reduces hospital admissions and deaths among people with COVID-19 who are at high risk of severe illness, when compared with placebo, the company has reported.
    The interim analysis of the phase II-III data, outlined in a press release, included 1219 adults who were enrolled by 29 September 2021. It found that, among participants who received treatments within three days of COVID-19 symptoms starting, the risk of covid related hospital admission or death from any cause was 89% lower in the paxlovid group than the placebo group.
    Commenting on the announcement, England’s health and social care secretary, Sajid Javid, said, “If approved, this could be another significant weapon in our armoury to fight the virus alongside our vaccines and other treatments, including molnupiravir, which the UK was the first country in the world to approve this week.”
    Read full story
    Source: BMJ, 8 November 2021
  3. Sam
    A “very tense” behind-the-scenes row over how quickly hospitals in England can be expected to reduce the massive backlog of surgery has broken out between NHS bosses and ministers.
    The dispute has delayed publication of the government’s “elective recovery plan”, which Downing Street had indicated would be part of Boris Johnson’s “Operation Red Meat” political fightback this week.
    No 10, the Treasury and Department of Health and Social Care are pressing NHS England to ensure that hospitals do as many operations as they can, as quickly as possible, in order to tackle the backlog, which now stands at a record 6 million patients.
    They want to impose “stretching and demanding” targets on hospitals, sources with knowledge of the discussions said.
    However, NHS trust bosses say the ongoing impact of treating patients sick with Covid, due to the current Omicron surge, longstanding gaps in their workforce, exhaustion at the frontline and record levels of staff sickness, mean they need time to get back to doing as much surgery as they did before the pandemic.
    The Treasury is said to be frustrated with NHS England and privately believes it is “foot-dragging” over the targets. NHS bosses for their part fear the plan is being driven by “political expediency”, given the growing concern at the sheer number of people facing long delays for care.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 20 January 2022
  4. Sam
    Leading charities have spoken out against the government’s scrapping of COVID-19 measures warning that clinically vulnerable people have been made “collateral damage for political considerations.”
    Those representing thousands of clinically vulnerable people have warned the government’s decisions to scrap COVID-19 restrictions leaves people “marginalised” and warned there was a risk to 5-11 year old vulnerable children who are yet to be vaccinated.
    The removal of COVID-19 restrictions next week will mean masks are no longer mandatory and the government will no longer ask people to work from home. Blood Cancer UK has called for the government to do more to support immunocompromised people such as giving them priority testing.
    Alzheimer's Society has said it is too early to drop basic measures, such as mask wearing, which help protect vulnerable members of society.
    Charlotte Augst, chief executive for the charity National Voices said clinically vulnerable people had now become “collateral damage in political considerations.”
    She said: “The pandemic has obviously been difficult for everyone, but it’s been the most difficult for people who are vulnerable to the virus, and some of these people have never really come out of 22 months of lockdowns.
    “There are obviously infection control measures that are harmful to society and lockdown is one of them - it causes harm. But there are some infection control measures which are not and which enable people to get on with their lives - wearing masks, improving ventilation.
    “Why would we not do this? When we understood that dirty water caused illness, we cleaned up the water. It cannot be a political statement to say we should clean up the air this is just fact-based decision making, but the situation] has now become all about politics.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent. 21 January 2022
  5. Sam
    Hundreds of nurses, paramedics, health and care workers have been disciplined over allegations of sexual assault, including incidents involving child sexual abuse, The Independent can reveal.
    It comes as the government begins a year-long inquiry into the sexual abuse of dead patients by “morgue monster” David Fuller.
    Charities claim the true scale of the issue is likely to be hidden by “vast underreporting” while safeguarding experts say there is no “uniformity” in how NHS trusts handle such cases.
    The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), which regulates just under 300,000 workers including paramedics, occupational therapists, psychologists and physiotherapists, has taken action on 154 occasions following 293 investigations carried out into allegations of sexual assault or abuse since 2012, according to figures obtained by The Independent.
    Fifty-three clinicians were struck off, 20 were cautioned and a further 29 were either suspended, had restrictions placed on their practice or agreed to be removed from registration. More than half of the actions followed allegations of sexual abuse of a child patient.
    Separate data from Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which has more than 700,000 registered nurses and midwives. shows action was taken 113 times in the past four years against nurses and midwives who did not maintain professional boundaries; in more than 80 per cent of those cases, the clinician was struck off.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 21 January 2022
  6. Sam
    A cervical cancer patient has been treated with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI) for the first time in the UK.
    Emma McCormick, 44, was treated at the St Luke's Cancer Centre in Guildford, Surrey.
    The Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust treated Ms McCormick, who is from West Sussex, using adaptive radiotherapy.
    The AI technology uses daily CT scans to target the specific areas that need radiotherapy.
    This helps to avoid damage to healthy tissue and limit side-effects, the hospital said.
    Patients are given treatments lasting between 20 and 25 minutes, although Ms McCormick's was slightly longer as she was the first patient, a hospital spokesman said.
    Ms McCormick received five AI-guided treatments per week for five weeks before having a further two weeks of brachytherapy.
    She said: "If it works for me, and they get information from me, it can help somebody else. It definitely worked and did what it was meant to do and so hopefully that helps others."
    Dr Alex Stewart, who treated Ms McCormick, said one of the benefits of the treatment was that it allowed for more precision, meaning there were fewer side-effects for the patients.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 21 January 2022
  7. Sam
    Patient safety in the NHS in England is being put at “unacceptably high” risk, with severe staff shortages leaving hospitals, GP surgeries and A&E units struggling to cope with soaring demand, health chiefs have warned.
    The health service has hit “breaking point”, the leaders say, with record numbers of patients seeking care.
    Nine in 10 NHS chief executives, chairs and directors have reported this week that the pressures on their organisation have become unsustainable. The same proportion is sounding “alarm bells” over staffing, with the lack of doctors, nurses and other health workers putting lives of patients at risk.
    Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has come under fire for recently claiming, at a No 10 press conference, that he did not believe the pressure on the NHS was unsustainable.
    But the survey of 451 NHS leaders in England finds the health service already at “tipping point”. The results of the poll, conducted by the NHS Confederation, which represents the healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, show that 88% of the leaders think the demands on their organisation are unsustainable, and 87% believe a lack of staffing in the NHS as a whole is putting patient safety and care at risk.
    Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Almost every healthcare leader we’ve spoken to is warning that the NHS is under unsustainable pressure, and they are worried the situation will worsen, as we head into deep midwinter, unless action is taken. They are also sounding alarm bells over risks to patient safety if their services become overwhelmed, on top of a severe workforce crisis."
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 10 November 2021
  8. Sam
    London’s fragmented children’s cancer services will finally be reformed following a decade of delays and allegations of cover-up by senior officials.
    NHS England has said it will adopt recommendations that will see the capital’s services brought up to standards already common across the rest of the country, with children’s cancer centres needing to be based in hospitals with full paediatric intensive care units.
    The changes will be imposed “with no exceptions or special arrangements permitted,” it said in a letter yesterday.
    This means the Royal Marsden’s children’s service at its base in Sutton, south London, will have to move to a new hospital. Currently sick children who deteriorate at the Marsden’s site have to be rushed by ambulance to St George’s Hospital 40 minutes away.
    More than 330 children were transferred from the Marsden to other hospitals between 2000 and 2015 and in one year 22 children were transferred for intensive care a total of 31 times, with some experiencing at least three transfers individually.
    The changes will also affect cancer care at University College London Hospital which links with Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.
    The world-renowned Royal Marsden trust, whose chief executive Dame Cally Palmer is also NHS England’s national cancer director, was at the centre of a cover-up scandal before the COVID-19 pandemic.
    In 2019, the Health Service Journal revealed a major report, commissioned by NHS bosses in London following the deaths of several children, had been “buried” by NHS England.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 12 November 2021
  9. Sam
    Pakistanis and Bangladeshis over the age of 30 experience the same level of poor health as their white counterparts that are 20 years older.
    Those from the subcontinent face stark ethnic health inequalities across the population, according to a new study.
    It means the group has the worst health out of any ethnicity.
    London-based Aideen Young, Senior Evidence Manager at the Centre for Ageing Better, has called on the Government to do more to address these inequalities.
    She said: “This study reveals really shocking health inequalities between different ethnic groups, with some groups experiencing the rates of poor health that White people typically see at much older ages.
    “It’s also depressing to see that these inequalities haven’t changed for the last 25 years. In the wake of the pandemic, we risk seeing them widen – so it’s vital that government makes tackling health inequality a priority in the recovery.
    “To properly address the problem we need much better data, which is why we are calling for ethnicity data reporting to be mandatory for all official data monitoring.
    Read full story
    Source: My London, 11 November 2021
  10. Sam
    Giving repeated booster doses of existing CovidD-19 vaccines in developed countries is not a sustainable global strategy for tackling the pandemic, the World Health Organization has said.
    Instead, WHO argues that the focus should shift towards producing new vaccines that work better against transmission of emerging variants.
    In a statement, published on 11 January, the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition said, “A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable.”
    The expert group, which is assessing the performance of Covid-19 vaccines, said that to deal with emerging variants such as omicron, new vaccines needed to be developed that not only protect people against serious illness but against infection. “Covid-19 vaccines that have high impact on prevention of infection and transmission, in addition to the prevention of severe disease and death, are needed and should be developed,” the group said.
    Vaccines also need to be more effective at protection against infection, “thus lowering community transmission and the need for stringent and broad reaching public health and social measures,” the group said.
    Read full story
    Source: BMJ, 17 January 2022
  11. Sam
    Swedish expert has praised Scotland for leading work in improving patient safety, with a decade-long programme which is now expanding into social care.
    Dr Pelle Gustafson (below), chief medical officer, of Swedish patient insurer Löf, said he was “particularly impressed” by the work in Scotland over the past 10 years during a meeting of the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee.
    The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP), which has been in existence for around 13 years, was set up to make patient safety a priority in NHS Scotland, drawing on lessons from the airline industry such as introducing checklists.
    Gustafson was asked by Tory MP Dr Luke Evans which country he would hold at the “very top of the pillar” for preventative work during an evidence session on NHS litigation reform last week.
    He responded: “If you take all preventive work as regards patient safety, I would say that I am personally very impressed by Scotland.
    “In Scotland, you have a long-standing tradition of working. You have development in the right direction.
    “You have a system that is fairly equal all over the place and you also have improvement activities going on. I am very impressed by Scotland.”
    He added: “I am particularly impressed by the Scottish work over the last 10 years. There are a lot of things that we, in the Nordic countries, can learn from Scotland too.”
    Read full story
    Source: The National, 16 January 2022
     
     
     
     
  12. Sam
    There are serious concerns over the standards of specialist care being provided to patients with the most complex mental health needs, a BBC investigation has found.
    Patients sent by the NHS to stay in mental health rehabilitation units say they have been placed in unsafe environments, often far from home, with untrained staff.
    Experts say not enough is being done to regulate the sector, which costs the NHS half a billion pounds a year.
    Lissa had spent years struggling with her mental health, having experienced traumatic life events. She was diagnosed with mixed personality disorder, depression and high-functioning Asperger's. So when the NHS sent her to a unit in Coventry run by Cygnet Health Care for a specialist talking therapy, she agreed.
    The hospital, however, was in special measures. There had been two deaths in the previous 20 months. In both cases there was found to be a failure to follow the patient's care plan and carry out observations correctly. Lissa says staff failed to treat her with dignity and respect.
    The system in England is regulated by the Care Quality Commission, (CQC). Some rehabilitation wards haven't been inspected for four or more years.
    John Chacksfield, who was a CQC inspector until late 2020, says greater scrutiny is needed.
    "Sometimes the private sector provides really excellent service, but there are certain units that really do need regular inspections just to make sure staff are being trained enough, or are having enough clinical supervision. It does worry me," he says.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 18 January 2022
  13. Sam
    One in four doctors in the NHS are so tired that their ability to treat patients has become impaired, according to the first survey to reveal the impact of sleep deprivation on medics during the coronavirus pandemic.
    Growing workloads, longer hours and widespread staff shortages are causing extreme tiredness among medics, leading to memory problems and difficulty concentrating, according to the report by the Medical Defence Union (MDU), which provides legal support to about 200,000 doctors, nurses, dentists and other healthcare workers.
    The survey of more than 500 doctors across the UK, carried out within the past month and seen by the Guardian, uncovered almost 40 near misses as a direct result of exhaustion. In at least seven cases, patients actually sustained harm.
    Despite encouraging signs the Omicron wave may be fading, doctors admitted the constant pressure of the past 22 months spent fighting coronavirus on the frontline was taking a toll on their technical skills and even their ability to make what should be straightforward medical decisions. Medics admitted for the first time sleep deprivation was causing real harm to patients in the NHS.
    Almost six in 10 doctors (59%) reported their sleep patterns had worsened during the pandemic. More than a quarter (26%) of medics admitted being so tired that their ability to treat patients was “impaired”. Of these, one in six (18%) said a patient was harmed or a near miss occurred as a result.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 17 January 2022
    Read MDU press release
  14. Sam
    Around 80% of adolescents who died by suicide or who had self-harmed had consulted with their GP or a practice nurse in the preceding year, shows new research.
    The large study of 10 to 19-year-olds between 2003 and 2018, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, also puts forward a series of proposals to deal with the problem.
    The study, funded by the NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC), a partnership between The University of Manchester and The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA).
    It showed that 85% who later took their own lives consulted with their GP or a practice nurse at least once in the preceding year; the equivalent figure was 75% for those youngsters who harmed themselves non-fatally.
    Lower than expected rates of diagnosis of psychiatric illness, around a third in both groups, were probably down to a lack of contact with mental health services, rather than an absence of psychiatric illness, argue the research team. Depression was by far the commonest of the examined conditions among both groups, accounting for over 54% of all recorded diagnoses.
    Also, while suicide was more common in boys, non-fatal self-harm was more common in girls. Two-thirds of adolescents who died by suicide had a history of non-fatal self-harm.
    And while self-harm risk rose incrementally with increasing levels of deprivation, suicide risk did not.
    Read full story
    Source: The University of Manchester, 7 December 2021
  15. Sam
    A trust will not face a second prosecution over the death of a baby seven days after a chaotic birth at one of its hospitals, unless new evidence emerges.
    Kent police had been looking into incidents at the maternity services department of East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust. These incidents include the death of Harry Richford, who was born at Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Hospital in November 2017. A coroner found a string of failures in his care amounted to neglect.
    The trust pleaded guilty to failing to meet fundamental standards of care and was fined £733,000 in a case brought by the Care Quality Commission earlier this year.
    But detective chief superintendent Paul Fotheringham, head of major crime at Kent Police, said: “After careful consideration and following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, we took the decision that a criminal investigation would not be undertaken at this time as there is no realistic prospect of conviction against any individual or organisation based on the evidence currently available."
    In a statement, Harry’s family said: “We are disappointed that Kent Police, in collaboration with the CPS special crime unit in London, have not been able to take forward a charge of corporate manslaughter for Harry at this time. They have assured us that they will keep an open mind on this matter, and any other appropriate charges as and when new evidence is brought before them.
    “We believe that the Kirkup inquiry and investigation may allow them to revisit a raft of charges on behalf of harmed babies in east Kent in due course. Only when senior leaders are properly held to account, will there be lasting change.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 9 December 2021
  16. Sam
    Incidents including a cardiac arrest where an ambulance took more than an hour to arrive and the patient died have prompted trust chiefs to suggest they cannot prevent patient harm under their current funding levels.
    A report to the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) said patients suffering harm due to delayed ambulance response times “is a continuing theme due to the unprecedented demand the service is currently experiencing”.
    The report said the trust is trying to secure additional funding from commissioners, which would “reduce the likelihood of a similar incident for other patients in future”.
    NEAS has upheld several recent complaints made by families or patients about the harm being caused by delayed response times, but suggested the levels of demand on the service meant there was nothing it could have done differently.
    In one example, a woman in her 50s died from a cardiac arrest shortly after arrival to hospital after NEAS took 62 minutes to respond to a 999 call. NEAS had designated the woman, who had a history of heart attacks, a category two response – which should aim to arrive within 18 minutes on average.
    "All ambulance trusts have been seeing significant patient harm and the mainstream press have been strangely silent about this."
    "That it has got the stage where patients are routinely dying and being harmed while the resources are available, but tied up waiting outside hospitals, is truly maladministration on a grand scale."
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 9 December 2021
  17. Sam
    Vacancies for nurses and midwives in Scotland have increased by almost 20% in just three months, new figures show.
    Official figures revealed that at the end of September the whole time equivalent (WTE) of 5,761.2 posts were unfilled across the NHS – a rise of 18.9% from the WTE total of 4,845.4 that was recorded at the end of June.
    The rise in vacancies comes at the same time as health service staffing reached a record high, with the NHS employing the equivalent of 154,307.8 full-time workers as of September 30 – 5.2% higher than a year ago.
    However, opposition leaders warned the health service, which is coming under ongoing pressure as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, is facing a “staffing crisis” this winter.
    Scottish Labour health spokeswoman and deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “Across our NHS services are on the brink of collapse, and things will only get worse as the cold weather bites.
    “This staffing crisis at the heart of this catastrophe has unfolded entirely on Nicola Sturgeon’s watch and will jeopardise the ability of services to remobilise and cope with demand.
    “Looking at the state of services in Scotland, we can all only hope we don’t get sick this winter.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 8 December 2021
  18. Sam
    "You hear his heartbeat and the next thing you know, you've got nothing."
    A woman whose son was stillborn has said she wants to change the law to enable an inquest to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.
    Katie Wood's son Oscar was stillborn on 29 March 2015, but under law in England and Wales, inquests for stillborn babies cannot take place.
    A consultation was put out by the UK government in March 2019, but the findings have yet to be published. The UK government said it would set out its response in due course, but this delay was criticised by the House of Commons justice committee in September.
    Katie and her family said they have never received satisfactory answers about why Oscar died.
    Her pregnancy, while challenging, had not given any serious cause for concern.
    An investigation by the Aneurin Bevan health board found a number of failings in Katie's care.
    A post-mortem examination suggested a condition known as shoulder dystocia, where the baby's shoulder becomes stuck during birth, may have contributed, but this is rarely fatal.
    The health board said it conducted a serious incident investigation into Oscar's death and added: "Whilst we seek to find answers during any investigation, in some cases, a full understanding around the cause of death may not always be achieved and we accept the unavoidable distress this may pose for families."
    Clinical negligence and medical law specialist, Mari Rosser, says allowing coroners to look into the reasons for a baby's death is long overdue.
    "Currently parents who suffer a still birth can have the circumstances investigated, but the circumstances are investigated by the health board and of course that's less independent," she said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 9 December 2021
  19. Sam
    Health experts have expressed fears over the impact tighter Covid restrictions in England could have on cancer patients as alarming new figures reveal that the number taking part in clinical trials plummeted by almost 60% during the pandemic.
    Almost 40,000 cancer patients in England were “robbed” of the chance to take part in life-saving trials during the first year of the coronavirus crisis, according to a report by the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), which said COVID-19 had compounded longstanding issues of trial funding, regulation and access.
    Figures obtained from the National Institute for Health Research by the ICR show that the number of patients recruited on to clinical trials for cancer in England fell to 27,734 in 2020-21, down 59% from an average of 67,057 over the three years previously. The number of patients recruited for trials fell for almost every type of cancer analysed.
    Health experts said the relentless impact of Covid on the ability of doctors and scientists to run clinical trials was denying many thousands of cancer patients access to the latest treatment options and delaying the development of cutting-edge drugs.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 9 December 2021
  20. Sam
    A vulnerable man detained for 10 years was failed by a system meant to care for him, an independent NHS investigation has found.
    Clive Treacey, a man who lived his life in the care of NHS and social care authorities, experienced an “unacceptably poor quality of life”, and was not kept safe from harm before his death at just 47.
    The findings of the independent review, The Independent and Sky News can reveal, have concluded Mr Treacey’s death was “potentially avoidable” and comes after years of his family “fought” for answers.
    His family are now pursuing a second inquest into his death after the review found a pathologist report and post-mortem used by coroners did not follow guidelines, along with new CCTV footage from the night he died.
    NHS England commissioned the review, under the Learning Disability Mortality Review Programme, in January 2020 – three years after Mr Treacey’s death and after his family was initially denied a review.
    In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Mr Treacey’s sister, Elaine Clark said: “We have fought on because Clive deserved nothing less. He spent his entire life being incarcerated and so did we, his entire family. He didn’t matter. His voice didn’t matter. His human rights didn’t matter. His life choices didn’t matter. The system and its people believed he did not matter and nobody in it had enough ambition to do anything differently."
    “Well Clive did matter. It matters what happened to him. It matters that it’s still happening to other people. And it matters that nothing seems to be changing we are one family but there are many others like us.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 9 December 2021
  21. Sam
    The first new sickle-cell treatment in 20 years will help keep thousands of people out of hospital over the next three years, NHS England has said.
    Sickle-cell disease is incurable and affects 15,000 people in the UK.
    And the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence said the hope of reducing health inequalities for black people, who are predominantly affected and often have poorer health to start with, made the drug worth recommending.
    It called it "an innovative treatment".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 5 October 2021
  22. Sam
    Dying patients are going without care in their own homes because of a collapse in community nursing services, new data shared with The Independent reveals.
    Across England a third of district nurses say they are now being forced to delay visits to end of life care patients because of surging demand and a lack of staff. This is up from just 2% in 2015. The situation means some patients may have to wait for essential care and pain medication to keep them comfortable.
    Other care being delayed includes patients with pressure ulcers, wounds which need treating and patients needing blocked catheters replaced.
    More than half of district nurses said they no longer have the capacity to do patient assessments and psychological care, in an investigation into the service.
    Professor Alison Leary, director of the International Community Nursing Observatory, said her study showed the country was “sleepwalking into a disaster,” with patients at real risk of harm.
    She said the situation was now so bad that nurses were being driven out of their jobs by what she called the “moral distress” they were suffering at not being able to provide the care they knew they should.
    “People are at the end of their tether. District nurses are reporting having to defer work much more often than they did two years ago. What they are telling us is that the workload is too high. This is care that people don’t have time to do.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 29 November 2021
  23. Sam
    One hundred people with learning disabilities and autism in England have been held in specialist hospitals for at least 20 years, the BBC has learned.
    The finding was made during an investigation into the case of an autistic man detained since 2001. Tony Hickmott's parents are fighting to get him housed in the community near them.
    Mr Hickmott's case is being heard at the Court of Protection - which makes decisions on financial or welfare matters for people who "lack mental capacity".
    Senior Judge Carolyn Hilder has described "egregious" delays and "glacial" progress in finding him the right care package which would enable him to live in the community. He lives in a secure Assessment and Treatment Unit (ATU) - designed to be a short-term safe space used in a crisis. It is a two-hours' drive from his family.
    This week, Judge Hilder lifted the anonymity order on Mr Hickmott's case - ruling it was in the public interest to let details be reported. She said he had been "detained for so long" partly down to a "lack of resources".
    Like many young autistic people with a learning disability, Mr Hickmott struggled as he grew into an adult. In 2001, he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He is now 44.
    In addition to the 100 patients, including Mr Hickmott, who have been held for more than 20 years - there are currently nearly 2,000 other people with learning difficulties and/or autism detained in specialist hospitals across England.
    In 2015, the Government promised "homes not hospitals" when it launched its Transforming Care programme in the wake of the abuse and neglect scandal uncovered by the BBC at Winterbourne View specialist hospital near Bristol. But data shows the programme has had minimal impact.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 24 November 2021
  24. Sam
    NHS bosses have warned the high prevalence of long Covid among staff is adding to rising healthcare pressures, amid growing concern that the new omicron variant could further drive infections and absences in the workforce.
    Some 40,000 (3.26%) of healthcare workers in the UK are estimated to have long Covid, according to the Office for National Statistics. This figure has risen by 5,000 since July.
    Many will be unable to work, though others are continuing to work despite their debilitating symptoms, experts say.
    “Trust leaders have told us they are concerned about the prevalence of long Covid amongst health and care staff,” said Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers.
    “Staff who are unwell need time to recover with support. But this may worsen unavoidable absences and sickness levels in the NHS at a time when pressures on the health service are mounting.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 9 December 2021
  25. Sam
    A young NHS patient suffering a sickle cell crisis called 999 from his hospital bed to request oxygen, an inquest into his death was told.
    Evan Nathan Smith, 21, died on 25 April 2019 at North Middlesex Hospital, in Edmonton, north London, after suffering from sepsis following a procedure to remove a gallbladder stent.
    The inquest heard Smith told his family he called the London Ambulance Service because he thought it was the only way to get the help he needed.
    Nursing staff told Smith he did not need oxygen when he requested it in the early hours of 23 April, despite a doctor telling the inquest he had “impressed” on the nurses he should have it.
    Smith’s sepsis is thought to have triggered the sickle cell crisis – a condition that causes acute pain as blood vessels to certain parts of the body become blocked.
    Barnet Coroner's Court heard Smith, from Walthamstow in east London, might have survived if he had been offered a blood transfusion sooner but the hospital’s haematology team were not told he had been admitted.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 3 April 2021
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