The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has called on the UK government not to wait until after the upcoming general election to approve an infant immunisation programme against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), so that babies can be protected next winter.
In June 2023 the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations (JCVI) recommended developing an RSV immunisation programme for infants and for older adults.1 It issued a fuller statement reiterating the advice in September 2023.2 But the government has yet to make a final decision on rolling out an RSV immunisation programme.
A letter signed by more than 2000 paediatricians and healthcare professionals says that the sooner a full RSV vaccination programme is implemented the more effective it will be and that it “could save child health services reaching breaking point.”
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Source: BMJ, 20 March 2024
Treatments for seven conditions such as sore throats and earaches are now available directly from pharmacists, without the need to visit a doctor.
The Pharmacy First scheme will allow most chemists in England to issue prescriptions to patients without appointments or referrals.
NHS England says it will free up around 10 million GP appointments a year.
Pharmacy groups welcome the move but there is concern about funding and recent chemist closures.
Pharmacists can carry out confidential consultations and advise whether any treatment, including antibiotics, are needed for the list of seven minor ailments.
Patients needing more specialist or follow-up care will be referred onwards.
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Source: BBC News, 31 January 2024
Scrapping the new Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will leave thousands of New Zealanders exposed to ongoing harm from dodgy medical devices, warn patient safety advocates and legal experts.
The act, which was due to come into force in 2026, would have modernised the regulation of medicines and natural health products, and made medical devices, as well as cell, gene and tissue therapies, subject to a similar regulatory regime as drugs.
The industry has backed the move, saying the new law was heavy-handed and would stop people getting access to the latest lifesaving technological advances.
However, Auckland woman Carmel Berry — who was left in constant knife-like pain from plastic mesh implanted during surgery — said she was “living proof” of the old system’s failures.
It took more than 10 years of lobbying by her and the other founders of Mesh Down Under to get authorities to take action — a decade in which hundreds of other people were injured.
She is horrified that the TPA, signed into law in only July, is on the chopping block.
Beginning work to repeal it was No 47 out of 49 points on the Government’s to-do list for its first 100 days.
“I’m horrified. After so many years of developing and rewriting the act and getting it through ... shame on them.”
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Source: New Zealand Herald, 18 February 2024
Four carers who were convicted of abusing patients at a secure hospital have been given suspended sentences.
An undercover BBC Panorama investigation showed patients being mocked by staff at Whorlton Hall in County Durham between 2018 and 2019.
The four former staff, who are all men, were sentenced on Friday after being convicted by a jury last year.
Judge Chris Smith said Whorlton Hall was an "unpredictable and inherently frightening place to live".
The specialist hospital for people with complex needs was privately run by Cygnet, but funded by the NHS.
It has since closed.
Judge Smith said Whorlton Hall had a "malign culture" and was an "unpredictable and inherently frightening place to live."
He added: "Each of you failed those patients and their families. It was a fundamental breach of trust."
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Source: BBC New, 20 January 2024
The NHS has been accused of putting patients' lives at risk after it allowed hundreds of staff, including senior consultants and managers, to work thousands of miles from the UK.
A Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered that NHS staff at every level are working remotely in places as far flung as Australia and Japan.
Critics last night warned that the 'unacceptable and dangerous' arrangements could threaten patient safety.
Professor Karol Sikora, a former director of the World Health Organisation cancer programme, said: "Allowing staff to work from abroad is a huge mistake that can only undermine patient safety and the efficacy of treatment."
At least 335 NHS staff from 33 trusts have been allowed to work abroad in the past two years, according to data from Freedom of Information requests.
Until last year, Constantine Fragkoulakis, 42, was employed as a consultant radiologist at Sherwood Forest Hospitals Foundation Trust in Nottinghamshire.
The trust said its radiologists "routinely interpret images and write reports away from the hospitals where they are based".
But Mr Fragkoulakis admitted there had been "a lot of IT issues, so there was no patient care involved or clinical work'. He added: 'Essentially it was just meetings that I did."
Another consultant radiologist, Branimir Klasic, 50, is being allowed to work two weeks each month in Croatia by the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board in South Wales.
It said recruitment was "increasingly challenging" and that it was "open to exploring ways of working that ensures we can provide the skills and expertise that our patients need".
A Department of Health spokesman said: "We are clear that ways of working, which are agreed between NHS employers and its staff, should never impact on NHS patients or services."
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Source: Daily Mail, 10 February 2024
Healthcare workers are being told not to report women to the police if they believe their patients may have illegally ended their own pregnancy.
The Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians (RCOG) says "deeply traumatised" women are being prosecuted following abortions.
By law, patients' data must not be disclosed without their consent.
The new guidance follows a recent rise in police investigations into abortions.
NHS staff can breach confidentiality rules to give information to the police about possible crimes, but only if it is in the "public interest". The RCOG says it is "never" in the public interest to report women who have abortions, and that they must be safeguarded.
In the first official guidance issued of its kind, a healthcare worker must "justify" any disclosure of patient data or "face potential fitness to practice proceedings".
The organisation says it is "concerned" by the rising number of police investigations following abortions and pregnancy loss, and the effect this might have on "especially vulnerable" patients.
Dr Jonathan Lord, RCOG's medical director, told the BBC: "A law that was originally designed to protect a woman is now being used against her.
"We have witnessed life-changing harm to women and their wider families as a direct result of NHS staff reporting women suspected of crimes, and we just don't think that would happen in other areas of healthcare.
"We deal with the most vulnerable groups who may be concerned about turning to regulated healthcare at all, and we need them to trust us".
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Source: BBC News, 22 January 2024
Sexual health services in England are at breaking point, according to local councils who are responsible for running the clinics.
They say that soaring rates of infections are threatening to overwhelm services and the government needs to provide extra funding.
Since 2017, more than two-thirds of council areas saw infection climb.
The Department of Health said more than £3.5bn has been allocated to local public health services this year.
The Local Government Association (LGA) - representing the councils that provide sexual health clinics - is warning that demand is soaring and services are struggling to keep up.
It is calling on the government to provide extra funding, as well as to publish a long-term plan to help prevent and treat sexually transmitted infections.
Nearly three-quarters of councils have seen a rise in rates of syphilis cases, and chlamydia infections are up in more than a third of areas.
Many of the new cases are younger people, and involve gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, but rates have also increased in heterosexual people.
Experts believe there has been a rebound effect after the restrictions connected to Covid, but infections were rising well before the pandemic hit.
There has also been a greater effort to test more people and improve access to services which may have led to more cases being identified.
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Source: BBC News, 20 January 2024
A group of doctors offered a controversial medical technique which allegedly put kidney patients' health at risk.
At least 20 patients at Queen Alexandra Hospital (QA) in Portsmouth have been using the procedure, which is not recommended in UK guidelines.
A consultant was wrongly sacked from the hospital in 2018 after objecting to the practice.
The hospital trust said the safety and care of its patients was its priority.
Jasna Macanovic, who worked at the QA for 17 years, had raised concerns about the way the trust was allowing some staff to deliver the dialysis technique - known as buttonholing.
"I don't think they're fit to practise medicine," Dr Macanovic told the BBC.
When Dr Macanovic examined the records of 15 patients using the buttonholing technique at the QA, she found infection rates four times higher than they experienced using the standard technique.
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Source: BBC News, 15 March 2024
One in 20 patients has to wait at least four weeks to see a GP at a time when funding for family doctor services is falling, NHS figures show.
In November 2023, 1.5m appointments in England at a GP surgery took place four weeks or more after they were booked, 4.8% of the 31.9m held that month.
In one in six appointments, 5.4m (17.3%), the patient was forced to wait at least two weeks after booking it to see a GP, practice nurse or other health professional.
“Millions of people are being left anxious or waiting in pain because they can’t get an appointment with their GP,” said Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who highlighted the latest evidence underlining the long delays that many patients face to see a GP.
“Staggering” numbers of patients now have to wait a long time, he said.
GP leaders blamed the situation on the widespread shortage of family doctors, which they said was making it impossible to keep up with the rising demand for appointments. Burnout due to intense workloads is prompting more GPs to work part time.
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Source: The Guardian, 22 January 2024
Disrepair in NHS buildings led to thousands of potentially-harmful incidents last year including critically ill patients being moved when rainfall came through the ceiling.
Sewage leaks, floods and failing equipment also featured in incident records obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act.
Health chiefs called on the government to nearly double its capital spending.
The government said "significant sums" had been invested to modernise the NHS.
Heath Secretary Victoria Atkins said the government accepted that some hospital buildings "are not as we would wish them to be" but added that it was for NHS chief executives to decide how to spend the money.
According to NHS data, the care of more than 2,600 acute hospital patients was disrupted last year by estates and infrastructure failure.
The NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, has published a report setting out what health care leaders want the next government to prioritise.
It has called on the government to increase capital spending on the health service from £7.7bn to £14.1bn.
Matthew Taylor, its chief executive, said: "Put simply, a lack of capital funding can leave patients at risk."
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Source: BBC News, 21 February 2024
Fewer Americans are dying of cancer, part of a decades-long trend that began in the 1990s as more people quit smoking and doctors screened earlier for certain cancers.
However, the American Cancer Society warned that those gains are threatened by an increase in cancers among people younger than 55, in particular cervical and colorectal cancer, and by the continued disparities between white Americans and people of colour.
“The continuous sharp increase in colorectal cancer in younger Americans is alarming,” said Dr Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice-president for surveillance and health equity science at the American Cancer Society.
“We need to halt and reverse this trend by increasing uptake of screening, including awareness of non-invasive stool tests with follow-up care, in people 45-49 years, [old]” said Jemal.
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Source: The Guardian, 17 January 2024
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has launched a £50m “Challenge” funding call to tackle inequalities in maternity care.
The funding call aims to establish a research consortium to deliver research and capacity building over five years.
The call was announced as part of the Department for Health and Social Care’s women’s health priorities for 2024.
Recent evidence suggests that Black women in the UK are almost three times more likely to die during pregnancy or up to six weeks after pregnancy compared to white women. Asian women are twice as likely to die during pregnancy or shortly after, compared to white women.
The new consortium is hoped to bring together experts across the UK to help change numbers like these.
The research aims to focus on inequalities before, during and after pregnancy. According to NIHR, a key aim is to identify specific areas where measurable improvements can be made.
Relevant charities, patient groups, community groups and the life sciences industry will be involved in the research where appropriate.
Professor Marian Knight, scientific director for NIHR Infrastructure, said: “I am hugely excited about what this research can achieve – funding truly innovative approaches to tackle maternity inequalities will save women’s and babies’ lives – this is a challenge the NIHR is ideally placed to deliver.”
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Source: FemTech World, 15 March 2024
A midwife in New York who reportedly gave 1,500 children homeopathic pellets rather than the vaccinations required by the state has been fined $300,000 by the state's health department.
The midwife was identified as Jeanette Breen, who operates the Long Island-based Baldwin Midwifery.
Ms Breen reportedly gave the pellets as an alternative to required vaccinations and then proceeded to falsify the children's immunisation records, according to the New York Department of Health.
The midwife reportedly began giving the pellets during the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically during the 2019-2020 school year. The majority of the affected children live in Long Island, according to the Associated Press.
The health department said that the false records have since been voided, and that the families will have to ensure their students are up-to-date with their shots before they can return to school.
“Misrepresenting or falsifying vaccine records puts lives in jeopardy and undermines the system that exists to protect public health,” State Health Commissioner James McDonald said in a statement.
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Source: The Independent, 24 January 2024
NHS doctor Chris Day has won the right to challenge a tribunal decision which raises questions about information governance in NHS hospital trusts and the use of digital evidence by employment tribunals.
Day blew the whistle on acute understaffing at a South London intensive care unit linked to two patient deaths in 2013. His decade-long legal campaign has since exposed the lack of statutory whistleblowing protections for nearly 50,000 doctors below consultant level in England.
An appeal tribunal in February refused Day the right to challenge key aspects of an earlier tribunal ruling that cleared Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust (LGT) of deliberately concealing evidence and perverting the course of justice when one of the trust’s directors “deliberately” deleted up to 90,000 emails midway through a tribunal hearing in July 2022.
Day’s high-profile case nevertheless continues to raise questions about information governance practices in NHS hospital trusts and the degree of scrutiny applied to digital evidence retention and disclosure practices at UK employment tribunals.
The 2022 tribunal heard that LGT communications director David Cocke had attempted to destroy up to 90,000 emails and other electronic archives that were potentially critical to the case as the hearing progressed.
However, any remaining documents among the tens of thousands of emails and electronic archives, which NHS trust lawyers told the tribunal had been “permanently” destroyed, are likely still to exist and be recoverable, according to an expert consulted by Computer Weekly.
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Source: Computer Weekly, 19 March 2024
“I’ve seen patients take swings at doctors because they’re not happy with the time it’s taken or the doctor’s diagnosis. I’ve seen fire extinguishers set off and thrown at people, computers lifted and thrown across the emergency department and people run out of cubicles and punch other patients – people they don’t know – for no reason.”
Roger Webb, a security supervisor at the Queen’s Medical Centre hospital in Nottingham, is recalling some of the more unsavoury incidents he has witnessed in the course of his work.
“I’ve been struck in the groin, had scratches all over my arms where people have dug their nails in. I’ve been bitten and I’ve been spat at while trying to deal with situations. The spitting is the most depressing of those, though, because it’s so contemptuous and so horrible. And legally it’s assault.”
Like staff across the NHS, those at the QMC have seen a rise in abusive, threatening and intimidatory behaviour by patients and their relatives in recent years. In 2021-22, Nottingham University hospitals (NUH), the NHS trust that runs the QMC and its sister City hospital, recorded 1,237 incidents of aggression, violence and harassment. But it had many more – 1,806 – during the following year, 2022-23.
Last year brought another increase. In the six months between April to September alone, NUH recorded another 1,167 incidents, leaving 2023-24 likely to be the worst ever on record.
Staff have been hit, spat at, threatened, verbally abused and racially abused during this roll call of unpleasant incidents. Racially aggravated harassment has increased notably.
Some of the incidents have led to perpetrators being charged and convicted. Worryingly, in a growing number of cases, the patient has been responsible for several incidents while receiving one single episode of care.
Care delays are the main trigger for abuse at the QMC. But such incidents also arise when staff are treating drunks, rival gangs, people who are high on drugs and those with mental health problems.
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Source: The Guardian, 25 February 2024
Bereaved relatives have accused ministers of dragging their feet over an inquiry into the death of almost 2,000 patients across NHS mental health trusts in Essex.
The inquiry has still not started more than eight months after the announcement that it would be relaunched with beefed-up powers.
In June last year, the government gave in to pressure from families and the then chair of the inquiry, granting it legal powers to compel witnesses to give evidence. In December, the new terms of reference were sent to ministers, setting out what the inquiry will investigate.
But the terms of reference have yet to be approved by ministers, leaving relatives frustrated, with another “unnecessary” death reported a few weeks ago.
Melanie Leahy, whose son, Matthew, died at the Linden Centre in Chelmsford in 2012, said: “I know that this inquiry, the first of its kind nationally, if carried out in a timely and comprehensively investigative manner, it has the power to prevent more deaths, not just in Essex but all over the UK.
“Why am I and all the other bereaved families and injured individuals still waiting? Worse, why are we being met with such callous and terrifying indifference? Why are our legal team being ignored? We can only conclude that our government simply does not care. If the government continues to drag its feet in this way then they must be held to account for their failings. If there are more deaths during this interminable wait, this government needs to be held responsible.”
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Source: The Guardian, 12 March 2024
Black children in the UK are at four times greater risk of complications following emergency appendicitis surgery compared with white children.
Researchers revealed these alarming disparities in postoperative outcomes recently.
The study, led by Dr Amaki Sogbodjor, a consultant anaesthetist at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London, showed that black children faced these greater risks irrespective of their socioeconomic status and health history.
Appendicitis is one of the most prevalent paediatric surgical emergencies; approximately 10,000 cases are treated annually in the UK.
However, this marks the first attempt to scrutinise demographic variances in postoperative complication rates related to appendicitis.
Dr Sogbodjor emphasised the critical need for further investigation into the root causes of these disparities.
"This apparent health inequality requires urgent further investigation and development of interventions aimed at resolution," she said.
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Source: Surgery, 25 March 2024
While employment for new clinicians was positive in the last year with 96% of new nurses finding work, the issue is transitioning those clinicians from education into bedside and hospital practice, which is the most pressing safety challenge of 2024, according to the ECRI's annual report on patient safety.
"[T]here is growing concern about the difficulty of transitioning new clinicians from education to practice — in the face of several factors exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic," an overview of the report states. "Without sufficient preparation, support, and training, new clinicians can experience loss of confidence, burnout, and reduced mindfulness around culture of safety. The combination of these factors may lead to preventable harm."
The ECRI publishes independent medical device evaluations, annually aggregates scientific literature and patient safety events, concerns reported to or investigated by the organization, and other data sources to create its top 10 report.
Each topic that landed in this year's top 10 "represents a failure in at least one of these areas; in fact, many overlap and their roots are found in multiple areas," the report notes.
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Source: Becker Hospital Review, 11 March 2024
Three in four NHS staff have struggled with a mental health condition in the last year, according to a new poll.
A survey of workers carried out by NHS Charities Together over medics’ mental health comes as healthcare leaders were forced to reverse cuts to NHS Practitioner Health, a service for medics.
A backlash from NHS staff over the proposed cuts forced health secretary Victoria Atkins to intervene.
In the new poll of more than 1,000 NHS staff, 76% said they have experienced a health condition in the last year with 52% reporting anxiety, 51% reporting low mood, while 42% of respondents also said they’d experienced exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the most recent NHS data shows the most common reasons for staff sickness are anxiety, stress, depression or other psychiatric conditions, with more than 586,600 working days lost over this in November 2023.
NHS Practitioner Health began as a mental health service for GPs but has since expanded to other specialities following funding from NHS England. However, last week the provider announced this national funding was due to end, so its service would be reduced.
NHS England said the decision was so it could review the services available for all NHS staff. However, it was forced to u-turn on the decision and agreed to provide funding for an additional year.
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Source: The Independent, 17 April 2024
A regulator overseeing 340,000 professionals breached a psychologist’s human rights by letting their fitness-to-practise case go on for a decade, amid widespread very long delays, it has emerged.
A judgment from the Health and Care Professions Tribunal said the “lamentable” situation for the registrant was down to the “disgraceful… manner in which the Healthcare Professions Council dealt with their case”.
The HCPC oversees professional standards for several groups including radiographers, paramedics, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and operating department practitioners.
If a complaint is made about a registrant, it can investigate and refer them to the tribunal, which can strike them off.
The Society of Radiographers said the current speed of cases was “simply unacceptable” and its director of industrial strategy Dean Rogers added: “Our members spend too long working — and living — under the intense scrutiny of their regulator, often under the control of an interim order restricting or even preventing their practise while investigations drag on.”
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Source: HSJ, 17 April 2024
A gran was left lying outside in the cold facing a seven hour wait for an ambulance following a fall before finally being rescued — by firefighters. Betsy Hulme, 83, was left in agony with a broken hip when she tumbled in her back garden in Leek, Staffordshire.
Son Steve, 60, a former ambulance technician, dialled 999 only to be told it would be several hours until paramedics could get to them due to long handover delays. After a further three hours of Betsy waiting on cold concrete slabs while soaked in rain water, desperate Steve decided to drive to a nearby fire station to ask for help.
Fire crews then came to rescue to lift gran-of-four Betsy into her son's car who took her to hospital where she remains after undergoing a hip repair operation. Dad-of-two Steve, of Leek, has now branded emergency response times as “absolutely disgusting”.
He said: "It’s opened my eyes if I’m honest. It’s absolutely disgusting. I’m so grateful and thankful to the fire service - but it really isn’t their job. I can't remember in my time working as an ambulance technician going to someone and saying, 'I’m sorry it’s taken us twelve hours to get here'."
“It was never anywhere near those ridiculous times when I worked there until 2000 and something has gone drastically wrong since. I can't speak highly enough of the boys and girls who work in the NHS, it's the people above them. Its systemic change that's needed."
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Source: Wales Online, 4 April 2024
In the next few days, once the data has been collected, the Government will come out and say that, thanks to its policies, the situation in A&E is improving.
Despite estimates released recently by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine that soaring waits for A&E beds led to more than 250 needless deaths a week in England alone last year, the Government will point to declining numbers of patients who breached the four-hour target this March.
The four-hour target means we're meant to see and either discharge or admit patients within four hours of their arriving in A&E.
But it's a sham, writes Professor Rob Galloway in the Daily Mail. Because, for the past month, the four-hour data has been manipulated, the result of two policies introduced earlier in the month by the Government.
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Source: Daily Mail, 3 April 2024
