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Sam

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  1. Sam
    A trust which had four ‘never events’ where patients were connected to air rather than an oxygen supply could have avoided them if it had been more proactive when a national patient safety alert was sent out several years earlier, a report has found.
    In one case, a baby being investigated for sepsis had oxygen saturation levels of just 75% before the mistake was realised. In another, a woman with COPD and pneumonia had oxygen saturation at 80% when she was connected to the air outlet.
    Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust asked the Royal College of Physicians to carry out an invited review after the four never events at Calderdale Royal Hospital in 2018 and 2019. The earliest incident happened in February 2018 but was not identified until a retrospective audit nearly a year later.
    The RCP’s report said that, had this been identified earlier, “steps could have been put in place to avoid such incidents from subsequently occurring”.
    But it added: “All four never events could have been avoided if the trust had responded more proactively to the previous NHS Improvement patient safety alert about the dangers of erroneously connecting patients to air instead of oxygen and had subsequently restricted access to air outlets.”
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 2 November 2020
  2. Sam
    Ministers have denied care home inspectors access to weekly testing for coronavirus – despite fears they could contribute to the spread of COVID-19 as cases rise across the country, The Independent can reveal.
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) was told by the Department of Health and Social Care last month it could not have access to regular testing for inspection teams as the watchdog prepares for 500 inspections of care homes during the next six weeks.
    Officials said the teams, who are assessing care conditions for the vulnerable and elderly, did not get close enough to people to present a risk.
    During the first wave of the virus, after Public Health England initially said there was no risk to care homes, an estimated 16,000 residents died from the virus.  At the height of the crisis up to 25,000 NHS patients were discharged to care homes by the NHS, with many not having been tested for the virus.
    Labour MP Barbara Keeley said: “The refusal of the Department of Health and Social Care to treat CQC inspectors in the same way as other staff going into care homes puts lives at risk.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 20 October 2020
  3. Sam
    The culture of working without breaks is dangerous to doctors’ and patients’ wellbeing and only a cultural shift can change things, argues Heidi Edmundson. 
    Heidi, Consultant for Emergency Medicine at Whittington Health NHS Trust, discusses in BMJ Opinion how it has become impossible to ignore the huge cost of burnout to both individual doctors and the medical workforce. Breaks are no longer being viewed as a luxury, but as an integral part of physician wellbeing, patient safety, and workforce sustainability. However exceptional reporting and the costs associated with recruitment and retention issues mean that they are becoming a financial issue as well. Heidi ran her own departmental “public health” campaign entitled “take a break” to see if she could change this culture. 
    "I started this project with a desire to try and change culture and I have come to realize that changing the culture around taking breaks is really just the tip of the iceberg. What we really need is a huge cultural shift in our attitudes and behaviours towards staff wellness. This will require imagination, innovation, and investment at all levels."
    Read full story
    Source: BMJ Opinion, 28 June 2019
  4. Sam
    One of the mysteries of COVID-19 is why oxygen levels in the blood can drop to dangerously low levels without the patient noticing.
    It is known as "silent hypoxia" and as a result, patients have been arriving in hospital in far worse health than they realised and, in some cases, too late to treat effectively.
    But a potentially life-saving solution, in the form of a pulse oximeter, allows patients to monitor their oxygen levels at home, and costs about £20.
    They are being rolled out for high-risk Covid patients in the UK, and the doctor leading the scheme thinks everyone should consider buying one.
    A normal oxygen level in the blood is between 95% and 100%.
    "With Covid, we were admitting patients with oxygen levels in the 70s or low-or-middle 80s," said Dr Matt Inada-Kim, a consultant in acute medicine at Hampshire Hospitals.
    He told BBC Radio 4's Inside Health: "It was a really curious and scary presentation and really made us rethink what we were doing."
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 21 January 2021
    See hub resource on the 'Covid Oximetry @home' project
  5. Sam
    Care homes should refuse to take coronavirus patients from hospitals if they cannot prevent the spread of the disease, the care watchdog has told The Independent.
    Staff should admit these patients only if care homes are equipped with the right personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection prevention measures, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said.
    During the first wave of the pandemic, care homes saw widespread outbreaks of the virus with 16,000 deaths. Homes struggled to access protective clothing for staff and were forced to take 25,000 untested patients discharged from hospitals.
    In an in-depth interview, Kate Terroni, the CQC’s chief inspector of social care, said care homes should not be put under pressure during a second wave to take infected patients they could not properly look after.
    She said any home that refused to admit patients would have her support.
    “Care home providers should only admit a resident when they are confident they can meet their care needs, so where they are confident they’ve got good infection prevention control, they’ve got the right PPE, they’ve got the right workforce."
    “We will absolutely support a provider to say they cannot admit someone if those ingredients aren’t in place.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 12 October 2020, 
  6. Sam
    An NHS trust is to appear in court today charged with breaking the law on being open and transparent after a woman’s death in the first ever court case of its kind.
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has brought a criminal prosecution against University Hospitals Plymouth Trust which will appear at Plymouth Magistrates Court tomorrow morning.
    The trust is charged with breaching the duty of candour regulations under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 which require hospitals to be honest with families and patients after a safety incident or error in their care. Hospitals are legally required to notify patients or families and investigate what has happened and communicate the findings to families and offer an apology.
    The case relates to how the Plymouth trust communicated with a woman’s family after her death which happened after she underwent an endoscopy procedure at Derriford Hospital in December 2017.
    The trust was required by law to communicate in an open and transparent way. The CQC has accused the trust of failing to do this.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 22 September 2020
  7. Sam
    A trust has been accused of presiding over the deterioration of a key service amid communication problems between senior leaders and a ‘worrying series of resignations’ which has left the department with ‘no doctors’.
    The British Association of Dermatologists wrote to Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust on 13 July to request an urgent meeting with the provider’s management to discuss the matter.
    The letter, seen by HSJ, outlines fundamental patient safety and staffing concerns about the trust’s dermatology service and accuses the trust of putting “continued communication barriers” between clinicians and management.
    The letter, signed by BAD president Mabs Chowdhury, says there are now “no doctors in the department” after two consultants and a locum consultant resigned “due to apparent unhappiness with the running of services [and in] a continuation of a worrying series of resignations”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 19 July 2023
  8. Sam
    The most comprehensive picture so far of how covid’s second wave has hit the NHS in the north of England is revealed in new figures obtained by HSJ.
    The latest data confirms that parts of the North West region now have more coronavirus patients in hospital beds than they did in the spring. It comes amid intense public debate about the best way to fight covid, and whether or not it is close to swamping the NHS.
    Collected from local NHS sources in a joint HSJ and Independent investigation, the information shows for example that:
    Lancashire and South Cumbria had 544 confirmed covid hospital patients yesterday (around 15-18% of the bed base), about 20 more than during the April peak. Liverpool University Hospitals – which remains the most severely affected trust – had 408 confirmed covid patients yesterday (20-25% of bed base), whereas it never topped 400 in the spring. The data is sent routinely by trusts to NHS England but most of it is not published – something some politicians are now calling for.
    As of yesterday, there were nearly 6,100 confirmed-covid patients across England, about 650 of whom were in critical care, and 560 receiving mechanical ventilation, according to information shared with HSJ.
    The number of “unoccupied” hospital beds is much lower now than in the spring, when they were cleared out in anticipation of a major hit. In the North West, up to 5,500 acute beds were reported as “unoccupied” in the spring, whereas the figure now is about 2,500 (around 14-18% of the bed base).
    However, critical care is the major pinch point in the most affected areas, with nearly half of the mechanical ventilation beds open at Liverpool’s hospitals (29 of 62) occupied by confirmed covid patients; and a third of those across the North West (178 of 556).
    However, hospitals in the area have opened very few extra critical care “surge” beds so far. The total numbers of mechanical ventilation (a subset of critical care) beds open in LUH and the rest of the region has not increased much in recent weeks, and falls well short of what they have declared they could open as potential surge capacity, if they cancelled large amounts of non-urgent care and reorganised staffing and wards.
    Read full story
    Source: HSJ, 23 October 2020
  9. 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
  10. Sam
    All vulnerable people will have been offered a coronavirus vaccination by “late spring” the head of NHS England has said as he warned the health service was “back in the eye of the storm.”  
    In a New Year message, Sir Simon Stevens described 2020 as the “toughest year” and he paid tribute to nurses, doctors, therapists and other NHS staff including hospital cleaners, carers and volunteers as well as care home staff.
    Sir Simon visited a new vaccination centre on Monday saying: “We think that by late spring with vaccine supplies continuing to come on stream we will have been able to offer all vulnerable people across this country Covid vaccination. That perhaps provides the biggest chink of hope for the year ahead.”
    His comments came as the NHS in London was said to be “teetering on the edge” as latest data showed the numbers of hospital admissions in the capital jumped more than 200 per cent since the end of lockdown on 2 December.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 29 December 2020
  11. Sam
    Dr Katherine Henderson, a senior A&E consultant in London and President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, says physical and verbal attacks have increased in recent months.
    Speaking to the Guardian, she says: “It is a sad reality that in recent months there has been a rise in abuse directed towards healthcare workers, but this abuse is not something new to frontline staff or emergency departments. It was bad before the pandemic, but there’s a changed atmosphere now.
    “During the pandemic people were being very positive about healthcare workers. But now the public are frustrated that services aren’t getting back to normal. Maybe people who weren’t the source of abuse before are now being the source of abuse. Abuse may be physical or verbal, it may be through social media, or it may be racial or misogynistic.
    “People are being angry – very angry – with us. They are angry about long waits, about having to stand outside emergency departments in queues, about delays in ambulances coming, including to take their relative home from hospital. The public haven’t really caught up with how struggling the whole NHS is."
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 10 October 2021
  12. Sam
    NHS patients in rural areas of England face extra long waits for treatment, according to a study.
    The Nuffield Trust think-tank says urban areas benefited most from measures put in place to help the NHS cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Researchers found rural hospitals now faced an uphill challenge when it came to restoring services to normal.
    NHS England says that funding reflects the higher costs of delivering care in rural communities.
    The Nuffield Trust report says while the number of Covid cases in rural areas was lower than in big urban centres, the pandemic's impact on services has been much greater. It says the coronavirus crisis highlighted pre-existing problems facing rural trusts.
    For example, it can be hard to recruit and retain doctors and nurses who are willing to work in smaller hospitals, which means trusts rely more heavily on expensive agency staff to fill gaps in rotas. This, in turn, has a detrimental effect on the finances of hospital trusts which struggle to balance the books.
    In addition, rural trusts often have only a limited capacity to treat any extra patients as they are often already very busy.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 11 December 2020
  13. Sam
    Thousands of hospital patients were allowed to return to their care homes without a Covid test despite a direct plea to the government from major care providers not to allow the practice, the Observer has been told.
    As the crisis began to unfold in early March 2020, providers held an emergency meeting with department of health officials in which they urged the government not to force them to accept untested residents. However, weeks later, official advice remained that tests were not mandatory and thousands of residents are thought to have returned to their homes without a negative Covid result.
    The revelation will heap further pressure on the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who has admitted some care residents returned from hospital without a test. It comes after Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former senior adviser, last week accused Hancock of misleading the prime minister over the policy, during his unprecedented evidence in parliament.
    Some 25,000 people were discharged to care homes between 17 March and 15 April, and there is widespread belief among social care workers and leaders that this allowed the virus to get into the homes.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 29 May 2021
  14. Sam
    Senior clinicians say their trust board has caved into political pressure by making an ‘unsafe’ decision to re-open a small emergency department — having previously suggested this would not happen if there was a second wave of coronavirus.
    In a letter to management at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, seen by HSJ, a group of 17 emergency medicine consultants have raised serious concerns over the planned re-opening of the accident and emergency department at Chorley and South Ribble Hospital next week.
    The unit, which has long suffered from staffing shortages and temporary closures, was again closed on a temporary basis at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. When covid subsided in the summer, plans were put forward to reopen it in the autumn.
    However, when announcing this, chief executive Karen Partington said: “It is really important that everybody recognises that if covid-19 cases begin to rise significantly, or other safety concerns are identified, we will need to revisit the situation.”
    The letter from the clinicians, addressed to trust clinical director Graham Ellis, said: “We consider that the trust has been subjected to an undercurrent of external pressure which has resulted in an unsafe decision being taken to re-open the ED prematurely…"
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 30 October 2020
  15. Sam
    NHS England has asked hospitals across the country to open hundreds more intensive care beds so they can take in patients from the hardest hit areas, to prevent those patches having to ration access.
    A letter sent to dozens of acute trusts today by NHS England asks them to enact their “maximum surge” for critical care from tomorrow, opening up hundreds of beds, which will rely on them redeploying staff and cancelling more planned care.
    The letter is to trusts in the Midlands but HSJ understands a similar approach is being taken in the other regions where critical care is not currently under as much pressure as London, the East of England and the South East.
    The message to surge capacity to support a “national critical care service” was reinforced to trusts nationwide in a call with Keith Willett, NHS England covid incident director, also on Wednesday.
    The letter, from the NHSE Midlands regional team, said there had been a national request for the region to surge beyond its own needs to support London and the East of England. “Significant” numbers are likely to be transferred, HSJ was told.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 13 January 2021
  16. 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
  17. Sam
    At least three people died and more came to ‘severe harm’ after treatment delays across three specialties at one hospital trust, new reports have revealed.
    King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust commissioned harm reviews due to problems with a lack of capacity and poor management of waiting lists in endoscopy, dermatology and ophthalmology pre-pandemic. Most of the problems relate to the trust’s southern site, Princess Royal University Hospital, and took place before the current executive team took over.
    The most recent board papers revealed a review of 614 cases at the PRUH’s endoscopy service found seven cases of “serious harm”. This category includes death and the document revealed three patients had died. 
    The review also “highlighted delays in endoscopy leading to delayed diagnoses of cancer” in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
    Investigators also found a dermatology patient came to “severe harm” after being lost to follow-up twice by the trust.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 17 September 2021
  18. Sam
    Millions of people who are at risk of serious illness from COVID-19 could be asked to start shielding again if infection rates continue to rise, according to reports.
    Officials are planning to send out letters telling the most vulnerable either to stay at home or to follow advice specifically tailored to their health conditions.
    The Daily Telegraph  reports that the new programme will initially target those living in areas with dangerous levels of coronavirus but went on to quote an anonymous official as saying it could be applied to the whole of England if necessary.
    If so, it could affect up to 4.5 million people – more than double the number who were asked to shield at the start of the lockdown in March.
    The new shielding scheme is reportedly based on a "stratified risk model" which would target individuals based on factors such as their underlying health conditions, age, sex and weight. 
    Read full story
    Source: 13 September 2020
  19. Sam
    An average of 10 pre-teen children are admitted to hospital for self-harm each week, it has been revealed, in an apparent doubling of rates.
    Between 2019 and 2020 there were 508 recorded hospital admissions for self-injury, such as cutting oneself, within the 9-12 age group in the UK, compared to 221 between 2013 and 2014, suggesting rates have doubled in the past six years, according to an analysis of the data from BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme.
    “The increase in the data that you've looked at is in keeping with what we're finding from our research databases,” Keith Hawton CBE, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford and consultant psychiatrist at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, told BBC File on 4.
    Prof Hawton, who is also principal investigator of the multicentre study of self-harm in England, said: “It's almost as though the problem is spreading down the age range somewhat. And I do think it is a concerning problem. And I do think it's important that it's recognised that self-harm can occur in relatively young children, which many people are surprised by."
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 16 February 2021
  20. Sam
    GP practices are being told they must make sure patients can be seen face to face when they need such appointments.
    NHS England is writing to all practices to make sure they are communicating the fact doctors can be seen in person if necessary, as well as virtually. It's estimated half of the 102 million appointments from March to July were by video or phone call, NHS Digital said.
    However, the Royal College of GPs said any implication GPs had not been doing their job properly was "an insult".
    NHS England said research suggested nearly two thirds of the public were happy to have a phone or video call with their doctor - but that, ahead of winter, they wanted to make sure people knew they could see their GP if needed. Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, said GPs had adapted quickly in recent months to offer remote consultations and "safe face-to-face care when needed".
    Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said general practice was "open and has been throughout the pandemic", with a predominantly remote service to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
    He said: "The college does not want to see general practice become a totally, or even mostly, remote service post-pandemic. However, we are still in the middle of a pandemic. We need to consider infection control and limit footfall in GP surgeries - all in line with NHS England's current guidance."
    He said most patients had understood the changes and that clinical commissioning groups had been asked to work with GP practices where face-to-face appointments were not possible - for example, if all GPs were at a high risk from coronavirus.
    "Any implication that they have not been doing their job properly is an insult to GPs and their teams who have worked throughout the pandemic, continued delivering the vast majority of patient care in the NHS and face an incredibly difficult winter ahead," he said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 14 September 2020
    Research from the college indicated that routine GP appointments were back to near-normal levels for this time of year, after decreasing at the height of the pandemic.
    "Each and every day last week an estimated third of a million appointments were delivered face to face by general practices across the country," added Prof Marshall.
  21. Sam
    A hospital trust has admitted that ‘medically fit’ patients caught covid on its wards while waiting to be discharged, with some of the cases under investigation.
    Bedfordshire Hospitals FT board papers said that a “number” of medically fit patients “acquired [covid] infection while awaiting appropriate and safe discharge”.
    Trusts nationwide have struggled to discharge patients as quickly as they wanted, the reasons including a Department of Health and Social Care mandate to only allow designated care homes to accept covid patients; the resumption of NHS Continuing Healthcare tests; shortages of community beds; and capacity in the care sector.
    The trust, formed in April by the merger of Luton and Dunstable University Hospital FT and Bedford Hospital FT, said a “significant proportion of [its covid] cases [were] due to acquisition in the hospital”.
    It continued: “A significant additional factor was the length of stay for many patients who were medically fit for discharge but were unable to return to their place of residence. Case reviews have shown that a number of these patients acquired infection while waiting appropriate and safe discharge.”
    The board papers said its covid serious incident reviews covered “some deaths on both sites… and the majority [were] patients with very severe co-morbidity”. It said six out of 15 serious incidents being investigated at its Bedford hospital site were “of potentially avoidable nosocomial covid infection (hospital acquired)”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 4 Februrary 2021
  22. Sam
    An online trend that involves using tiny magnets as fake tongue piercings has led the NHS to call for them to be banned amid people swallowing them.
    Ingesting more than one of them can be life-threatening and cause significant damage within hours.
    In England, 65 children have required urgent surgery after swallowing magnets in the last three years.
    The NHS issued a patient safety alert earlier this month and is now calling for the small metal balls to be banned.
    It said the "neodymium or 'super strong' rare-earth magnets are sold as toys, decorative items and fake piercings, and are becoming increasingly popular". It added that unlike traditional ones, "these 'super strong' magnets are small in volume but powerful in magnetism and easily swallowed".
    The online trend sees people placing two such magnets on either side of their tongue to create the illusion that the supposed piercing is real.
    But when accidentally swallowed, the small magnetic ball bearings are forced together in the intestines or bowels, squeezing the tissue so that the blood supply is cut off.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 30 May 2021
  23. Sam
    Wearable devices will monitor the mood of all 70 staff at a large GP practice, in a trial aimed at improving employee health and wellbeing.
    Staff at Amicus Health, a GP practice in Devon, will be provided with a wearable device which allows the user to log how their day is going by pressing one of two buttons.
    The information gathered can be viewed by employers on a dashboard, identifying whether there are particular times in the day when moods drop. Users will also be able to see their data on a personal app, allowing them to track mood triggers and patterns.
    On the dashboard, employees’ data is divided into teams and is not anonymised, so employers can track the mood of individuals. Asked by HSJ whether this could deter some from using it, company co-founder Jonathan Elvidge said previous trials suggested it does not.
    He told HSJ that during trials on construction sites, employers found it easier to take action if they were able to identify workers who were regularly reporting that they were feeling low.
    He said employees preferred being identified as it gave them a voice and made it easier to express how they were feeling. 
    The device — called a Moodbeam One — will be trialled on all 70 clinical and non-clinical staff members at the practice, including 25 GPs. It will largely be down to the practice to decide how the data is used, according to Mr Elvidge.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 5 November 2020
  24. Sam
    The announcement on Friday by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that it will bring criminal charges against an NHS trust for failing to provide safe care to a patient is a hugely significant milestone in efforts to bring about greater accountability and safer care in the health service.
    The CQC has had the power to bring such prosecutions against hospitals since April 2015 when it was given a suite of new legal powers to hold hospitals to account on the care they give to their patients.
    Bringing in the new laws, the so-called fundamental standards of care, was one of the most significant actions taken after the care disaster at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, where hundreds of patients suffered shocking neglect, with some dying as a result.
    Prosecuting East Kent Hospitals University Trust over the tragic 2017 death of baby Harry Richford is a big step for the CQC and a consequence of the long-forgotten battles of many patients and families in Stafford who were told they were wrong in their complaints against the hospital.
    It will almost certainly lead to more calls for criminal charges against hospitals from families who have been failed.
    There are countless examples of NHS trusts not acting on safety warnings and patients coming to harm as a result. Just this week an inquest into the case of baby Wynter Andrews at Nottingham University Trust revealed fears over safety had been highlighted to the trust board 10 months before her death.
    At Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust there are hundreds of families asking the same questions as more evidence emerges of long-standing failures to learn from its mistakes.
    CQC's chief executive, Ian Trenholm, has provoked anger among NHS leaders and clinicians when he advocated taking a tougher line when trusts break the law.  But it is unlikely the CQC will launch a slew of prosecutions. It has said it will bring cases only where it sees patterns of behaviour and systemic failings. That is the correct approach as healthcare is complex and single errors will sadly happen despite everyone doing their best.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 10 October 2020
  25. Sam
    Research by Garmin finds 40% of young women say they have been accused of over-exaggerating symptoms of UTIs.     
    While it’s clear that already strained services and a lack of funding contributed to the impact of the pandemic on the healthcare system, health inequality isn’t something that’s unique to Covid-19.
    Instead, it’s often the result of commonly misunderstood, misrepresented and mistreated conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis and urinary tract infections (UTIs).
    New research from fitness company Garmin, published by The Independent, found that 40% of young women say they have been accused of over-exaggerating symptoms of UTIs or being “overdramatic” about their wellbeing when seeing a doctor. 45% also said they’ve had their UTI symptoms written off as “part of being a woman”.
    According to the Chronic Urinary Tract Infection Campaign (CUTIC), 50% of all women will suffer at least one UTI episode in their lifetime, one third of these by the age of 24. 
    “Statistics show that UTI is the most common infection seen by GPs,” says CUTIC. “In fact, doctors are so familiar with UTIs that they are frequently dismissed as merely a woman’s problem, rooted in the ‘flawed female anatomy’.
    “With little training in UTI management, GPs and urologists rely heavily on discredited laboratory tests which miss up to 60% of infections."
    “The medical training for UTI diagnosis is inadequate and most doctors are not aware of the complexity of this illness. They are trained to accept the test results and look no further,” CUTIC suggests.
    “It is clear from the recent government probe into menopause that women’s health has not been an area of priority. Conditions which primarily affect women are underfunded and under researched – this includes UTIs. Women are frequently patronised and not believed when they describe symptoms relating to UTIs, peri-menopause, menopause and vaginal atrophy. Medical training fails to include proper diagnosis and effective treatment for such conditions. Change is needed now.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Stylist, 2 February 2022
    Have you attempted to access treatment for a urinary tract infection (UTI), or recurrent UTIs? We'd love you to share your experiences with us? Share your experience on the hub.
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