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Patient_Safety_Learning

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News posted by Patient_Safety_Learning

  1. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Another inquiry has been launched into the sudden death of a second teenage girl in the Accident and Emergency department of University Hospital Limerick three weeks ago.
    The 16-year-old girl died suddenly on January 29, hours after she was rushed to UHL suffering from breathing difficulties.
    The girl, a much-loved only child, died in front of her mother in what an informed source described as “deeply traumatic circumstances”.
    It is the latest tragedy under review at UHL following the death of Aoife Johnston (16) from Shannon, Co Clare,
    Read full story
    Source: Irish Independent, 20 February 2024
  2. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) is leading a new project to examine the causes of the growing challenge of medicines shortages and help tackle their impact on patients and pharmacy practice.
    A new advisory group, convened by RPS and chaired by RPS Fellow Dr Bruce Warner, will meet later this month and bring together experts from primary and secondary care, patients, the pharmaceutical industry, suppliers, regulators, government and the NHS.
    Read full press release
    Source: The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, 13 March 2024
  3. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A woman who suffered chronic abdominal pain for 18 months after undergoing a caesarean section was found to have a surgical instrument the size of a dinner plate inside her abdomen.
    The Alexis retractor, or AWR, was left inside the New Zealand mother after her baby was delivered at Auckland City Hospital in 2020.
    Following initial investigations into the case, Te Whatu Ora Auckland, formerly Auckland District Health Board, claimed it had not failed to exercise reasonable skill and care towards the patient, who was in her 20s.
    But on Monday, New Zealand’s Health and Disability Commissioner, Morag McDowell, found Te Whatu Ora Auckland in breach of the code of patient rights.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 4 September 2023
  4. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The NHS has today announced the 143 hospital sites that will test and roll out Martha’s Rule in its first year.
    Confirmation of the first sites to test implementation of Martha’s Rule is the next step in a major patient safety initiative, following the announcement in February of NHS England funding for this financial year.
    The purpose of Martha’s Rule is to provide a consistent and understandable way for patients and families to seek an urgent review if their or their loved one’s condition deteriorates and they are concerned this is not being responded to.
    Read full press release
    Source: NHS England
  5. Patient_Safety_Learning
    NHS managers are destroying the careers of whistleblowers who raise concerns about patient safety, a group of medics warns.
    More than 50 doctors and nurses have told The Telegraph they have been targeted after raising concerns about upwards of 170 patient deaths and nearly 700 cases of poor care. One consultant described it as “the biggest scandal within our country” and said the true number of avoidable deaths was “astronomical”.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: Telegraph, 18 May
  7. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A ransomware group has carried out its threat to NHS Dumfries and Galloway and released a "large volume" of patients' data on the dark web.
    A small amount of details were released in March as "proof" that the cyber criminals had accessed confidential information, with a warning that more would be published if a payment was not made to stop it.
    The new chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway health board, Julie White, called the release an "utterly abhorrent criminal act".
    She said work was now beginning to with other national agencies including the Scottish government, police and National Cyber Security Centre to assess what has been published.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 7 May 2024
  8. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) was abolished in every hospital and hospice in the country just under a decade ago. This end-of-life-care protocol was scrapped by the Government as a “national disgrace”, in the words of Norman Lamb, then Care Services Minister, after a review by Baroness Neuberger found widespread failings and abuses.
    But troubling evidence since the scrapping suggests that the practises established under the LCP are in fact still continuing today in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).
    Read full story
    Source: Catholic Herald, 18 February 2024
  9. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Thousands of people who are unknowingly living with hepatitis C in England could be identified and treated due to an expanded NHS testing initiative.
    The initiative includes new liver scanning and portable testing units to be rolled out in communities where people may be at a higher risk of contracting the infection.
    Also included in the initiative are testing events happening at GP surgeries and community outreach at drug and alcohol support services.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian 8 April 2024
  10. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The NHS’s leading wheelchair provider has been told to urgently improve its complaints system by the health service ombudsman amid concerns disabled people are waiting up to two years for chairs.
    The parliamentary and health service ombudsman (PHSO) took the unusual step of writing to AJM Healthcare after a sharp rise in complaints from wheelchair users. Most related to people not receiving new wheelchairs or the correct parts. The waits range from a month to two years, the ombudsman said.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian 21 May 2024
  11. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The chair of the major inquiry into rogue surgeon Ian Paterson has raised concerns over a separate patient recall process conducted by Salford Royal Hospital, and suggested NHS England should intervene.
    Leaders in Salford have been resisting pressure to expand a review of patients treated by the former head of its spinal division, John Williamson, over his 23-year career at the hospital.
    A review of his last five years established clear problems with his surgical techniques and found multiple cases of avoidable harm.
    Read full story
    Source: HSJ, 7 May 2024
  12. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Capitalizing on the pandemic explosion in telehealth and therapy apps that collect details of your mental health needs, data brokers are packaging that information for resale, a new study finds. There’s no law stopping them.
    In a study published Monday, a research team at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy outlines how expansive the market for people’s health data has become.
    After contacting data brokers to ask what kinds of mental health information she could buy, researcher Joanne Kim reported that she ultimately found 11 companies willing to sell bundles of data that included information on what antidepressants people were taking, whether they struggled with insomnia or attention issues, and details on other medical ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease or bladder-control difficulties.
    Justin Sherman, a senior fellow at Duke who ran the research team, says that mental health data should be treated especially carefully, given that it could pertain to people in vulnerable situations — and that, if shared publicly or rendered inaccurately, could lead to devastating results.
    Source: Washington Post, 13 February 2023
    Read full story
  13. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A third of those with a women’s health condition have been made to wait three years or longer for a diagnosis, damning new research has revealed.
    The same study found half of those women took a year or more to be given their diagnosis.
    Srdjan Saso, a consultant gynaecologist and surgeon who works with King Edward VII’s Hospital, told The Independent: “A delayed diagnosis can mean a severe impact on quality of life both professionally and personally.
    “It can have a significant impact on a woman’s day-to-day life and hence needs to be addressed properly and seriously. From a more sinister perspective, in certain cases, it can be cancer and we are picking it up late.”
    Source: Independent, 14 February 2023
    Read full story 
  14. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Desperately ill people with eating disorders are being refused NHS treatment for “not being thin enough”, as new figures reveal the health service is in the grips of a growing eating disorder crisis.
    Shocking figures obtained by The Independent show at least 5,385 patients – the overwhelming majority, 3,896, of whom are children – were admitted to general wards for conditions such as anorexia and bulimia in 2021-22, more than double the number in 2017-18.
    It comes as separate analysis of NHS figures suggests the number of children being treated for eating disorders more than doubled from 5,240 in 2016-17 to 11,800 in 2022-23.
    Read full story
    Source: Independent 1 August 2023
  15. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Parts of ceilings have fallen in at two key units of a decrepit NHS hospital, forcing it to evacuate patients and cancel X-rays and scans, the Guardian can reveal.
    The problems at Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport, which is plagued by leaks and major structural defects, have prompted claims it is “dangerous for both patients and staff”.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 3 May
  16. Patient_Safety_Learning
    One of the UK's most secretive centres of scientific research - Porton Down - is aiming to stop the next pandemic "in its tracks".
    James Gallagher, Health and science correspondent, passed through the incredibly tight security at this remote facility to get rare access to its scientists.
    They are based in the shiny new Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre.
    Their work builds on the response to Covid, and aims to save lives and minimise the need for lockdowns when a new disease next emerges.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC 7 August 2023
  17. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Groundbreaking treatments for Alzheimer’s disease that work by removing a toxic protein called beta amyloid from the brain may benefit whites more than Black Americans, whose disease may be driven by other factors, leading Alzheimer’s experts told Reuters.
    The two drugs - Leqembi, from partner biotech firms Eisai (4523.T) and Biogen (BIIB.O), and an experimental treatment developed by Eli Lilly (LLY.N), donanemab — are the first to offer real hope of slowing the fatal disease for the 6.5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s.
    Although older Black Americans have twice the rate of dementia as their white peers, they were screened out of clinical trials of these drugs at a higher rate, according to interviews with 10 researchers as well as four Eisai and Lilly executives.
    Prospective Black volunteers with early disease symptoms did not have enough amyloid in their brain to qualify for the trials, the 10 researchers explained.
    Read full story
    Source: NBC 31 July 2023
  18. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The number of coroner warnings issued last year which were linked to a lack of capacity in emergency care was around four times that seen before covid.
    HSJ analysis of “prevention of future deaths” reports – also known as Regulation 28 reports – show a steep rise since 2021 in deaths linked to long delays in ambulance responses, hospital handovers, and emergency department waits.
    There were 52 in this category in 2023. The largest number pre-covid was 13 in 2018, although the rate also appeared to be slowly rising in the years running up to 2020.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 28 May 2024
  20. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Sajid Javid has revealed details of his young relative’s “brave battle” against myalgic encephalomyelitis, warning that patients with the condition are being “dismissed entirely” by doctors.
    During a debate held in Westminster Hall on Wednesday, the former health secretary spoke of the distressing experience of his cousin’s “amazing” daughter who developed the debilitating illness seven years ago, aged 13.
    ME is a complex neurological disorder that affects about 250,000 people in the UK and leads to symptoms including exhaustion and pain. Severe cases can be fatal, with patients bedridden and unable to eat or drink, and care held back by a lack of specialist NHS services.
    Read full story
    Source: The Times, 2 May 2024
  21. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The author of a Parliamentary report into ‘failing’ eating disorder services in 2017 says the number of concerning deaths still being reported five years on is ‘very distressing’.
    In the five years since ombudsman Rob Behrens warned of major shortcomings around adult eating disorder services, HSJ has identified at least 19 women whose deaths sparked concerns from coroners about their care (see list below). At least 15 of these were deemed avoidable, and resulted in formal warnings being issued to mental health chiefs.
    Source: HSJ, 14 February 2023
    Read full story
  22. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Campaigners have expressed alarm at new analysis showing a sharp increase in new or expectant mothers waiting for mental health care, with one woman found to have waited 319 days for a first appointment.
    More than 30,000 women who are pregnant or have newly given birth are on waiting lists for mental health support, according to NHS England data analysed by Labour, with the party saying many of them were being left to “suffer in silence”.
    Amid rising demand for what are known as perinatal mental health services, during the period from August 2022 to March 2023 the numbers of women waiting rose by 40%. Over that same period, the numbers who accessed support also rose, but only by 8%.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 4 September 2023
  23. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The rising number of people ­waiting for physiotherapy treatment is causing problems in other parts of the NHS and harming the UK’s economy, leading clinicians have warned.
    Waiting lists for treatment for ­musculoskeletal (MSK) problems such as back, neck and knee pain have grown by 27% since January last year. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) said the number of physiotherapy posts in the NHS was not keeping pace with demand from Britain’s ageing and increasingly obese population.
    The CSP said the UK needed a 7% increase in NHS physiotherapy positions every year to meet rising demand. Musculoskeletal conditions that are left untreated can become more complex and lead to mental health problems or the need for surgery, as well as time off work.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian, 26 May 2024
  24. Patient_Safety_Learning
    In the U.S., the prescribing label of Ozempic's sister drug, Wegovy, already warns of possible suicidal ideation because of similar side effects linked to other weight loss drugs.
    Following reports of self-injury and suicidal thoughts among a small number of people who’ve taken Ozempic or Wegovy in Europe and the United Kingdom, health regulators there are investigating whether the drugs carry a risk of these side effects.
    The European Medicines Agency said last month that it was reviewing 150 such reports from people who took drugs in this class, called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which lower blood sugar and suppress appetite by mimicking a hormone in the gut.
    Then last week, the U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency told Reuters that it was reviewing safety data about the drugs following similar reports.
    Neither Ozempic nor Wegovy, which are both versions of a drug called semaglutide at different dosages, carry warnings about suicidal ideation in Europe or the U.K., since clinical trials have not shown evidence of an increased risk.
    But in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration requires that medications for weight management that work on the central nervous system carry a warning about suicidal thoughts. Because the agency approved Wegovy as a weight loss treatment, its prescribing label asks medical professionals to monitor for these symptoms and to discontinue the medication if people develop them. Ozempic, which is only FDA-approved to treat diabetes, does not come with that warning.
    But some patients think it should.
    Read full story
    Source: NBC 1 August 2023
  25. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Jonathan Medland's voice crackles with anger and emotion when he talks about his beloved son Jon, who tragically took his own life aged just 22.
    'He was the most exuberant, engaging, funny and amazing young man you could ever wish to meet — nobody had a bad word to say about him — he was really going places,' says Jonathan, 66, a retired driving instructor from Barnstaple in Devon. 'But that drug did something terrible to his brain.'
    The drug he's referring to is isotretinoin — brand name Roaccutane — a pill first licensed in the UK for the treatment of severe acne in 1983 and since taken by hundreds of thousands of patients.
    Read full story
    Source: Mail Online 31 July 2023
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