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Patient_Safety_Learning

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News posted by Patient_Safety_Learning

  1. 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
  2. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Families of people with complex medical needs are warning the NHS system that funds their care at home is struggling to provide sufficient support.
    Despite recent significant increases in spending on Continuing Healthcare, experts say staff shortages and rising prices mean families are lacking help.
    Some say at times they are so exhausted from providing care, they worry about the safety of their relatives.
    The government says it has invested billions into health and social care.
    The BBC followed 24-year-old Declan Spencer for 10 months, witnessing how the repeated breakdown of his care has left his mother having to provide it by herself, day and night.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC 7 August 2023
  3. 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
  4. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Medical clinics are using fake Google reviews to boost their profiles online, a BBC investigation has found.
    Consumer groups say fake reviews are a "significant and persistent problem" and have called on internet firms to do more to remove them and fine companies.
    Which? has warned it could be a serious issue if someone chooses a treatment clinic based on reading a fake review.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC 2 August 2023
  5. 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
  6. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The use of artificial intelligence in breast cancer screening is safe and can almost halve the workload of radiologists, according to the world’s most comprehensive trial of its kind.
    Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer globally, according to the World Health Organization, with more than 2.3 million women developing the disease every year.
    Screening can improve prognosis and reduce mortality by spotting breast cancer at an earlier, more treatable stage. Preliminary results from a large study suggest AI screening is as good as two radiologists working together, does not increase false positives and almost halves the workload.
    The interim safety analysis results of the first randomised controlled trial of its kind involving more than 80,000 women were published in the Lancet Oncology journal.
    Read full story
    Source: Guardian 2 August 2023
  7. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A hospital trust has apologised to families after dozens of children suffered hearing loss following failures in their care.
    Croydon Health Services Trust had already revealed three children “may have been at risk of serious hearing loss or a delay to their speech development”, but it has now confirmed to HSJ that a further 49 “incurred mild to moderate hearing loss or impairment”.
    The south London trust would not disclose the results of its internal review that begun after it declared a serious incident in March 2021, saying it was “ongoing”, but said it had acted on all the “immediate recommendations”.
    The incident was declared after more than 1,400 children were found not to have been followed up by the trust. 
    There was also an external review carried out by an audiologist from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust. It is unclear which review uncovered the incidents of harm. 
    Read full story
    Source: HSJ 1 August 2023
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Coroners have warned of increasing numbers of deaths caused by problems in the emergency pathway, with some citing ‘severe’ staffing shortages.
    HSJ has identified that at least 24 “prevention of future death” reports were sent to NHS organisations in England and Wales in the first half of 2023, which noted shortcomings within emergency services.
    In six of the 24 cases, coroners found ambulance, emergency room and other delays caused or contributed to patient deaths.
    Read full story
    Source: HSJ 1 August 2023
  11. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A&E waiting times have deteriorated so much this winter that at some hospitals in England more than half of patients have had to wait more than four hours.
    BBC analysis of data for December and January shows Hull University Hospitals, Wye Valley and Shrewsbury and Telford were worst for A&E waits.
    The best trust out of the 107 providing data, Northumbria Healthcare, had fewer than 10% waiting more than four hours.
    NHS England said plans were being put in place to support struggling trusts.
    Source: BBC, 13 February 2023
    Read full story
  12. Patient_Safety_Learning
    GPs are attempting to deal with up to 3,000 patients each, amid worsening staff shortages, according to new analysis.
    The research shows that the number of patients per GP has risen sharply, as rising numbers of doctors reduce their hours, or opt for early retirement.
    Daisy Cooper, spokeswoman for Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care, said:
    “This ever-worsening GP shortage is having a terrible human cost, as people face delayed or missed diagnoses and A&Es fill up with desperate patients looking for treatment."
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: Telegraph, 14 February 
  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
    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
  15. 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
  16. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Virtual wards, set up to relieve pressure on A&E departments, could create extra NHS demand as some are only staffed for 12 hours a day, the country’s top emergency doctor has warned.
    The service allows patients to be monitored remotely from their own homes, freeing up hospital beds and capacity in emergency departments.
    Patients are given devices to track their vital signs, such as blood pressure and oxygen levels, with readings sent back to doctors via smartphone apps.
    Dr Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that virtual wards “must not be seen as a silver bullet for all the problems in urgent and emergency care”.
    “We’re very wary of virtual ward beds being used to say that there are increased beds within hospitals because that’s simply not true,” he said. “The plan for 7,000 or 5,000 extra beds need to be actual beds, with pillows, sheets and staff looking after them.”
    Source: Telegraph, 11 February 2023
    Read full story
  17. Patient_Safety_Learning
    GPs have raised concern about a new colorectal cancer pathway aimed at reducing referrals into one of England’s largest acute hospital trusts.
    The pathway was implemented in December 2022 to tackle long waiting lists at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (ULHT) by reducing the number of referrals from primary care. 
    But the Lincolnshire LMC and Primary Care Network Association both raised concerns about the pathway and its impact on general practice in a letter to their ICB earlier this month.
    Read full story
    Source: Pulse, 13 February 
  18. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A heart failure patient has become the first in the UK to be fitted with an early warning sensor the size of a pen lid which gives off an alert if their condition deteriorates.
    Consultant cardiologists Dr Andrew Flett and Dr Peter Cowburn have pioneered the procedure to fit the FIRE1 System during trials at University Hospital Southampton (UHS), Hampshire.
    Dr Flett said: “This innovative new device has the potential to improve patient safety and outcomes in the management of patients with chronic heart failure and we are delighted to be the first site in the UK to implant as part of this ground-breaking study".
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 12 February 2023
  19. Patient_Safety_Learning
    An integrated care system has terminated a private provider’s contract to run four urgent treatment centres following performance concerns.
    Two local acute trusts were expected to take over from provider Greenbrook Healthcare this week, following the decision by North West London ICS.
    The impacted sites include Hillingdon UTC, which is co-located with the Hillingdon Hospitals Foundation Trust, as well as the Ealing, Central Middlesex and Northwick Park sites that are near to the respective hospitals run by London North West University Healthcare Trust.
    Read full article (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 24 January 2023
  20. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A hospital trust is facing a fine in a criminal prosecution over the death of a baby.
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is prosecuting Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust over the death of Wynter Andrews.
    Wynter died 23 minutes after she was born by Caesarean section in September 2019 at the Queen's Medical Centre. 
    The prosecution is one of only two the CQC has brought against an NHS maternity unit.
    The trust is due to face sentencing at Nottingham Magistrates' Court later.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 25 January 2023
  21. Patient_Safety_Learning
    A trust pressured into commissioning an external review of dozens of suicides faces fresh criticism and questions about the probe’s credibility after it emerged the investigation will not investigate each case but instead look to ‘identify themes’.
    Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust originally said it would carry out the review of more than 60 patient suicides internally. But following criticism, it U-turned on this decision and last month agreed to an externally-led process.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ
  22. Patient_Safety_Learning
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted doctors nationwide Monday about a limited availability of certain doses of a newly approved antibody drug given to infants to prevent RSV infection.
    Cases of RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, have started to rise as cold and flu season begins.
    "RSV season is here," said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. "We are seeing a substantial increase in the amount of RSV such that in many areas, it has become the most commonly identified respiratory virus causing disease in children.
    "This is one of the reasons why there's probably a lot of scrambling going on," he said, "to identify those babies at highest risk and to try to prioritize them, since it's such a limited resource right now."
    Read full story
    Source: NBC News, 23 October 2023
  23. Patient_Safety_Learning
    An ambulance spent 28 hours outside a hospital after an "extraordinary incident" was declared due to delays.
    The Welsh Ambulance Service said 16 ambulances had waited outside the emergency department at Morriston Hospital, Swansea, at one time.
    It said multiple sites across Wales were affected.
    The extraordinary incident, which asked people to only call 990 if their emergency was "life or limb threatening", is now over.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 23 October 2023
  24. Patient_Safety_Learning
    Thousands of patients in England and Northern Ireland are missing out on a life-extending prostate cancer drug that is more widely available on the NHS in Scotland and Wales, say experts.
    Charity Prostate Cancer UK said it was "unacceptable" that men in parts of the UK were facing a postcode lottery.
    Although not a cure, abiraterone can help stop prostate cancer spreading to other parts of the body.
    NHS England said it would review the drug's use for more men next year.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 23 October 2023
  25. Patient_Safety_Learning
    One of the most serious complications of a DVT is when a part of the clot breaks off and travels through the bloodstream to the lungs, leading to a blockage called a pulmonary embolism — this can cause chest pain, breathing difficulties, a faster heartbeat, coughing up blood, and can be life-threatening if not treated quickly.
    Worryingly, research suggests 40 per cent of patients who die from a pulmonary embolism complained of nagging symptoms for weeks before their death.
    For every pulmonary embolism diagnosed in time, there are at least another two where the diagnosis was missed and resulted in sudden death, according to the charity Thrombosis UK.
    Read full story
    Source: Daily Mail, 25 September 2023
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