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Sam

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News posted by Sam

  2. Sam
    Dr Max Pemberton, columnist for the Daily Mail, gives his opinion of the app that offers patients a GP consultation via their mobile phone. In theory, it sounds great: the patient can dial up, speak to and (via phone camera) see a doctor, who could be anywhere. However, how effective can such consultations be?  "I have been able to test this service for myself — and what I have experienced left me worried", says Dr Pemberton.
    Read full story
    Source: The Spectator, 20 July 2019
  3. Sam
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has been found guilty of maladministration over its handling of a fit and proper person test complaint which led to a £200,000 investigation by an NHS trust. A Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) investigation identified “several instances of maladministration” in the CQC’s handling of a complaint by former consultant paediatrician David Drew. 
    Ombudsman Rob Behrens has now written to the Health Secretary, NHS England, Chair of the Commons Health Committee Sarah Wollaston, and Chair of the Parliamentary and Constitutional Affairs Committee Bernard Jenkin with a copy of the PHSO investigation. In his letter. Mr Behrens said: “I believe this case exemplifies the damaging impact that poor handling of allegations can have on people’s faith in the ability of the CQC to identify and act on misconduct when whistleblowers come forward. This underlines the need for reform to the [fit and proper person] system and the recommendations from the Kark review to be swiftly implemented.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 24 July 2019
  4. Sam
    In a recent interview in The Times, former Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Harry Burns considers the symptoms of the country’s drug deaths epidemic. The total of 1,187 fatalities in 2018 represents 218 drug deaths per million of the population and a 27% year-on-year rise. The death rate is three times higher than in the UK as a whole and worse than that of the United States. Politicians should listen to people working on the front line to tackle rising deaths, according to Sir Harry. The trouble is, he says, “public policy tends to be made because someone has a clever idea which then gets picked up by a politician. Very few outcomes in society are determined by one thing.” He believes that health and social benefit on a national scale comes with incremental change over an extended period of time. 
    When asked what one thing would you do to improve the health of the nation, Sir Harry said "Scotland has made enormous strides in improving patient safety using the concepts of improvement science in which front line staff have tested many different ideas and applied at scale the changes which they have seen work. It’s the principle of marginal gains that has been successful in sport. I would use this approach to improve wellbeing across society."
    Read full interview
    Source: The Times, 20 July 2019
  5. Sam
    The Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP), has launched the AfPP Perioperative Audit Tool; 2019 Edition, a robust audit tool that will assist both private sector and NHS theatre practitioners in creating a safer perioperative environment.
    The tool comprises peer-reviewed standards and recommendations for safe perioperative practice and forms a ‘gold standard’ framework for operating theatre departments to examine service performance and identify potential improvements in patient care.
    As the UK’s leading membership organization for operating theatre practitioners who put patient safety at the heart of all they do, AfPP created the tool for the theatre practitioners to review their current policies and processes to invest in the safety of their patients.
    Read full story
    Source: News Medical Life Sciences, 19 July 2019
  7. Sam
    NHS patients could be sent text messages or emails urging them to call their doctor if X-rays or scans show abnormal results. Under plans put forward to prevent delays in treatment, patients with worrying results would receive an automated message saying they need to speak to their GP. The idea is that this would act as a safety net in case results go missing in NHS systems, or if a doctor fails to act on results.The move comes after the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) investigated a case where a 76-year old woman had a chest X-ray showing possible lung cancer which was not followed up. Her findings were sent to two hospital departments as well as her GP, but nobody acted on them. She died just over two months later but could have received treatment earlier.
    Read full story
    Read HSIB report
    Source: Yahoo UK, 18 July 2019
  8. Sam
    The Leapfrog Group, an independent national healthcare watchdog organisation, today released Safety In Numbers: The Leapfrog Group’s Report on High-Risk Surgeries Performed at American Hospitals. The report analyses eight high-risk procedures to determine which hospitals and surgeons perform enough of them to minimise patient harm or death, and whether hospitals actively monitor to assure that each surgery is necessary. Findings on these measures pointed to alarmingly poor performance across the board and red flags for patient safety. The voluntary survey found that the vast majority of participating hospitals do not meet The Leapfrog Group’s minimum hospital or surgeon volume standards for safety. Rural hospitals are particularly challenged in meeting the standards. 
    Read full story
    Source: The Leapfrog Group, 18 July 2019
  9. Sam
    Patients treated at US hospitals that earned 'D' or 'F' grades when it comes to patient safety face a 92% higher risk of death from avoidable medical errors than at hospitals with an 'A' grade, according to a new report from The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit healthcare watchdog. In Leapfrog's Annual Hospital Safety Grades, about 32% of the 2,600 hospitals evaluated received an 'A' grade for safety, 26% earned a 'B' grade and 36% earned a 'C' grade. The hospital safety group awarded a 'D' or an 'F' grade to about 7% of the hospitals it examined. Patients at hospitals with a "C" grade when it came to safety were 88% more likely to die from an avoidable error compared with patients treated at hospitals that received an 'A'.
    "It was pretty shocking to us and should be pretty sobering to hospitals that are not getting an 'A.' It's really time to take this seriously. You know you can do better," said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group.
    Read full story
    Source: FierceHealthcare, 15 May 2019
  10. Sam
    People have been put at risk because the NHS has stopped funding the automatic investigation of all killings by mental health patients, according to psychiatrists and victims’ families. Experts who had looked into every such homicide for 20 years had to stop doing so last year after NHS England stopped paying the £100,000-a-year cost involved, the Guardian has reported.
    Previously, for 26 years until last year, researchers from Manchester University had looked into the mental health history and NHS care received by the perpetrator of every such homicide to try to identify patterns and flaws which could be tackled to reduce the risk of similar attacks in the future. Their findings had led to improved care of potentially dangerous mental health patients.
    “This is a risky and reckless decision.... It’s outrageous,” said Julian Hendy, the founder of Hundred Families, a charity that helps bereaved families. 
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 17 July 2019
  12. Sam
    In June 2019, the Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), established by NHS England in 2013 and re-licensed from April 2018 to operate as the key innovation arm of the NHS, invited comment on its proposed patient safety strategy. The strategy aims to demonstrate the added value that AHSNs and Patient Safety Collaboratives can bring to patient safety by working much more collaboratively.
    Chief Executive of Patient Safety Learning, Helen Hughes, has responded to the strategy. Helen comments: "We see the potential of the AHSNs: the capability and expertise, the desire to make a real difference and a belief in collaboration. We want to see this potential realised, and Patient Safety Learning wants to help."
    See Helen's response in full
    AHSN will launch its strategy at NHS Expo in September.
  13. Sam
    The Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019 are here!
    The Patient Safety Learning Awards publicly acknowledge and celebrate important work in patient safety, while sharing learning and successes to improve patient safety. This year, our Awards are inspired by our latest report, A Blueprint for Action. A Blueprint for Action sets out actions needed to progress towards a patient-safe future. These address six foundations of safer care for patients - one of these foundations is shared learning.
    The Awards this year have six different categories, based on our foundations for safer care:
    shared learning for patient safety leadership for patient safety professionalising patient safety patient engagement for patient safety data and insight for patient safety patient safety culture. A seventh award, the Patient Safety Learning Award, will be made to the individual, team or organisation who our judges believe has gone above and beyond. Each winning entry will receive a cash prize to enable them to visit another team or organisation to learn more about patient safety. As well as this prize, winners will receive two complimentary tickets to our annual conference, awards and drinks reception, held in London on 2 October 2019.
    Enter now
    The deadline for entries is midnight on Friday 30 August.
  14. Sam
    Patients have died after the government overruled multiple safety concerns raised about an IT system used to triage 16 million NHS patients a year. An HSJ investigation has uncovered at least three instances where patients triaged by the NHS Pathways software died months, sometimes years, after central agencies were alerted to safety concerns by ambulance trusts, but declined to make changes requested.
    NHS Digital, the organisation that oversees NHS Pathways, told HSJ it had assessed the complaints but made changes only where “clinically necessary”. It has repeatedly asked coroners to “strike from the record” concerns raised about the safety of NHS Pathways’ advice.
    Since 2015, coroners investigating 11 patient deaths have called for changes to the NHS Pathways software, used by NHS 111 and 999 services to triage patient calls, to prevent future deaths. Coroners have raised these concerns with health and social care secretary Matt Hancock, his predecessor Jeremy Hunt, NHS England, NHS Digital, the Care Quality Commission and service providers. Although NHS Pathways is run by NHS Digital, overall responsibility rests with NHS England.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 15 July 2019
  15. Sam
    Medical errors aren’t uncommon in Canada. In 2013, 28,000 people died from safety incidents in acute and home care settings, according to the Canadian Patient Safety Institute. Those preventable incidents may include errors with medication, preventable infections and injurious falls. Last year, more than 900 new medical lawsuits were filed in Canadian courts. About half of all medical mistakes are considered preventable, researchers say. In many cases, injured patients are unable to work and require financial assistance to pay the bills. 
    The widespread problem has grown to epidemic levels in Canada, according to Kathleen Findlay, CEO and Founder of the Center for Patient Protection. “I think it is a national health care crisis and it’s not getting nearly the attention it deserves,” said Findlay, who founded the advocacy group after her mother suffered a series of medical errors during a six-month hospitalisation.
    What’s worse, critics say, is that the system in place to hold doctors accountable is unfairly stacked against patients, who can only get compensation by taking legal action against their doctor. Critics say that doctors often have a financial leg up over patients thanks to the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA), which has access to more than $3 billion to cover legal defense.
    “I believe we have a rigged system that does more to help doctors than the patients they have harmed,” said Findlay, who described the CMPA as a Frankenstein-like creation designed specifically to help doctors. “We are paying as taxpayers for a healthcare system that harms us, and the perversity of it is that we have to pay again to defend the doctors who have done the harm. If that isn't perverse I don't know what is.”
    Read full story
    Source: CTV News, Canada, 14 July 2019
  16. Sam
    Most patients who want to see their own GP can no longer get an appointment with them, according to new figures suggesting the days of the family doctor are over. The statistics show record numbers of patients struggling to even get through on the telephone, and increasingly long waits for an appointment. For the first time, the majority of patients who wanted to see a particular doctor were unable to do so, the survey of more than 770,000 patients shows. The research comes amid mounting evidence of a wider NHS crisis, with waiting lists reaching an all-time high.  
    Read full story
    Source: The Telegraph, 11 July 2019
  17. Sam
    Allergy patients are being warned of a potential fault with Emerade adrenaline pens. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said some have blocked needles, so cannot deliver adrenaline. Around two in every 1,000 pens are thought to be affected and patients are advised to follow the existing advice to carry two pens at all times. If patients follow the advice to carry two pens at all times, the risk of not being able to deliver a dose of adrenaline falls to virtually nothing - 0.23% to 0.000529%.
    The MHRA added: "Healthcare professionals should contact all patients, and their carers, who have been supplied with an Emerade device to inform them of the potential defect and reinforce the advice to always carry two in-date adrenaline auto-injectors with them at all times."
    Read full story
    Read MHRA alert
    Source: BBC News, 12 July 2019
  19. Sam
    The NHS has teamed up with Amazon to allow elderly people, blind people and other patients who cannot easily search for health advice on the internet to access the information through the AI-powered voice assistant Alexa. The health service hopes patients asking Alexa for health advice will ease pressure on the NHS, with Amazon’s algorithm using information from the NHS website to provide answers to health questions. Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, said the move will help patients, especially the elderly, blind and those who are unable to access the internet in other ways, take more control of their healthcare and help reduce the burden on the NHS.
    However, despite welcoming the move, the Royal College of GPs warned that independent research must be carried out to ensure the advice given is safe. Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, said: “This idea is certainly interesting and it has the potential to help some patients work out what kind of care they need before considering whether to seek face-to-face medical help... However, it is vital that independent research is done to ensure that the advice given is safe, otherwise it could prevent people seeking proper medical help and create even more pressure on our overstretched GP service.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 10 July 2019
  20. Sam
    Researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered that patients who had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes were up to 50 per cent less likely to die within a decade if their doctor showed empathy. In healthcare, empathy is defined as understanding the patient’s perspective, shared decision making between patient and doctor, and consideration how the illness may impact other areas of their life. But with financial and time pressures plaguing the NHS, doctors increasingly complain they do not have enough time to carry out the softer side of medicine. Now research, published in the Annals of Family Medicine, shows that showing care for a patient can be far more effective at prolonging life than giving drugs to lower cholesterol or blood pressure and so should be prioritised.
    Read full story
    Source: The Telegraph, 8 July 2019
  22. Sam
    Accident and emergency has become the top source of negligence claims by patients. Delays, misdiagnosis and poor treatment in accident and emergency (A&E) departments are now the top cause of NHS negligence claims, overtaking orthopaedic surgery for the first time. Bungled operations on backs, bones, joints, ligaments, nerves and muscles usually lead to the most claims, but a 41-page NHS strategy document for the next 12 months reveals that emergency units have become the main source of litigation against the service.
    Read full story
    Source: The Times, 7 July 2019
  23. Sam
    Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has said he hopes NHSX will "provide the leadership to transform the use of digital technology" across the health service. Speaking exclusively to Digital Health News at the launch of NHSX in London on 3 July, Matt Hancock added that he ultimately hopes NHSX “will save clinician’s time and patient’s lives”.
    NHSX, which will oversee technology across health and social care, was confirmed by Digital Health News in February 2019 and brings together teams from the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and NHS Improvement.
    Source: Digital Health News, 4 July 2019
  24. Sam
    Plans to cap legal costs for NHS mistakes that lead to deaths of newborns could leave the bereaved at the mercy of 'ambulance-chasing' claims firms, a former Lord Chancellor has warned. Health officials have drawn up plans to limit spending in cases where damages are worth less than £25,000. This covers around eight in ten medical negligence claims, including the deaths of newborns, and stillbirths - where Britain’s record is among the worst in the developed world. Ministers have said the changes will stop “unscrupulous law firms” receiving excessive legal costs that dwarf the damages received by victims. However, Lord Falconer, Lord Chancellor under Tony Blair, raised fears that the measures could see established law firms leave the market  and be replaced by unregulated claim management companies. 
    Read full story
    Source: The Telegraph, 6 July 2019
  25. Sam
    National bodies can provide systems and policies for the NHS, but safety is improved at the point of care. Lauren Mosley, Head of Patient Safety Implementation, and Donna Forsyth, Head of Investigation, describe the new Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF).
    Read full story
    Source: NHS Improvement, 2 July 2019
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