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Found 421 results
  1. Content Article
    Authors conducted a before and after, retrospective, observational study using anonymised, routinely collected, patient-level data from a single English NHS ED between April 2018 and December 2019. The primary outcomes of interest were the proportion of admitted patients, that is, the admission rate, the length of stay in the ED and ambulance handover times. They used interrupted time series models to study and estimate the impact of removing the 4-hour access standard.
  2. News Article
    The NHS has lost almost 25,000 beds across the UK in the last decade, according to a damning report says the fall has led to a sharp rise in waiting times for A&E, ambulances and operations. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said the huge loss of beds since 2010-11 was causing “real patient harm” and a “serious patient safety crisis”. At least 13,000 more beds are urgently needed, it added, in order to tackle “unsafe” bed occupancy levels and “grim” waiting times for emergency care and handover delays outside hospitals. Patients are increasingly “distressed” by long waiting times, the college said, as are NHS staff who face mounting levels of burnout, exhaustion and moral injury. The UK has the second lowest number of beds per 1,000 people in Europe at 2.42 and has lost the third largest number of beds per 1,000 population between 2000 and 2021 (40.7%), the report said. There are currently 162,000 beds in the NHS across the UK, according to the college. “The situation is dire and demands meaningful action,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, the college’s vice-president. “Since 2010-11 the NHS has lost 25,000 beds across the UK, as a result bed occupancy has risen, ambulance response times have risen, A&E waiting times have increased, cancelled elective care operations have increased. “These numbers are grim,” Boyle added. “They should shock all health and political leaders. These numbers translate to real patient harm and a serious patient safety crisis. The health service is not functioning as it should and the UK government must take the steps to prevent further deterioration in performance and drive meaningful improvement, especially ahead of next winter.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 31 May 2022
  3. News Article
    "I shouldn't have to work out my escape route when I walk into a property." Paramedic Joanna Paskell was a victim of one of the near-3,000 attacks on emergency workers in Wales last year. The patient who punched her got a 12-month community order, but it left the 45-year-old suffering with anxiety and meant she was off work for four months. "It took four security guards to calm her down so she could be treated," said Mrs Paskell, who has worked with the ambulance service for more than 25 years. She said at first she tried to laugh it off, but it was only when getting ready for her next shift, five days later, that she felt the emotional toll. "All I want to do is make a difference - that's why I joined this job. We can't do that if we're working in fear of our own safety." Last year there were 2,838 assaults against police officers, firefighters, ambulance staff, NHS workers and prison staff - a 4.9% rise. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 May 2022
  4. News Article
    More than one in five patients at some hospitals are leaving accident and emergency departments before completing treatment, and in some cases before being seen for assessment at all, with the rate across England trebling since before the pandemic. Experts told the Observer that the increase was probably driven by a combination of long A&E waiting times and by difficulties accessing NHS facilities such as GPs, community health services and NHS 111. The figures apply to patients who left A&E before an initial assessment; after an assessment but before treatment started; or before treatment was completed. They include patients who left to find treatment elsewhere. David Maguire, a senior analyst with the King’s Fund health thinktank, linked the rise to patients having difficulty accessing other parts of the NHS and going to A&E instead. “We’re probably talking about things that won’t require an admission, but it’s important that you get seen by someone,” he said. “So for example, somebody’s got a chest pain, somebody’s got some sort of adverse indication that you would want to seek attention for. It’s a perfectly rational thing to do. But it’s a struggle to access at other points [in the NHS], so you default towards A&E.” He added that staff shortages and social care capacity were also contributing factors. “I think it’s a lot of the NHS not functioning properly. Pre-pandemic, there was a certain amount of flex in the system – even with the problems that we were seeing around performance – that meant you could come to A&E with some of these issues. That flex in the system has gone – the capacity has been absorbed by other issues.” Read full story Source: The Observer, 21 May 2022
  5. News Article
    Nearly 600 patients waited 10 hours or more in the back of an ambulance to be transferred into emergency departments last month – with one taking 24 hours, HSJ can reveal. The 24-hour wait was the longest handover delay recorded in the past year, and probably ever, according to information released by ambulance trust chief executives. In May last year the longest recorded rate was seven hours. This has risen steadily during the year to hit 24 hours in April. In March a patient in the West Midlands had to wait 23 hours. The figures also show 11,000 patients waited more than three hours for handover last month, with 7,000 of them taking more than four hours and 4,000 over five hours. Some 599 waited more than 10 hours. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives estimates 35,000 patients were potentially at risk of harm from delayed handovers last month, with just under 4,000 of those risking severe harm. This is based on work it did looking at patients waiting more than 60 minutes in 2021 and was a slight fall on March. They are based only on handover delays and do not include harm from patients left waiting for an ambulance response. Hours lost to ambulance handover delays restrict ambulance trusts’ ability to reach other patients waiting for an ambulance in the community. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 May 2022
  6. News Article
    New figures leaked to HSJ show the true volume of 12-hour waiters in emergency departments is more than four times higher than official statistics suggest. Internal NHS England figures for February and March show around one in five admissions through ED waited more than 12 hours from arriving until being admitted to a ward – equating to around 158,000 cases. The official stats published by NHSE record a slightly different, and shorter, time period, from ‘decision to admit’ to admission. There were around 39,000 of these cases in the same two months, which equates to 4 per cent of admissions through ED, and 5.4 per cent of total emergency admissions. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has long called for the official stats to reflect the total time spent from arrival in ED (as per the internal data), and for trusts to be measured and regulated on this. Senior medics have for some time been warning about the patient safety risks of long waiting in EDs and have appealed to NHS England and the government for plans to tackle the crisis. Adrian Boyle, vice president of RCEM, said: “This data show the scale of long waiting times in emergency departments and the scale of the patient safety crisis. Performance continues to deteriorate across multiple metrics meaning we are documenting a failing urgent and emergency care system without any system transformation or improvement." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 May 2022
  7. News Article
    The NHS has recorded its largest monthly increase in the waiting list for 10 months, as unprecedented challenges in urgent and emergency care continue to disrupt recovery. The elective figures published today for March presented mixed results, but much of the good news – a drop in the number of two-year waiters – had already been announced by NHS England in unvalidated figures for April. Meanwhile, the system recorded its largest monthly rise in the overall list for 10 months, with the number of patients growing by 174,847 to hit a new record 6.36 million. This is the biggest month-on-month increase since the number jumped between April and May 2021 when it rose by 181,708 to hit 5.3 million. The overall list has risen every month since May 2021, but the rises in the last four months have all been under 80,000. The NHS warned in February it expects the waiting list to continue rising until March 2024, with patients now seeking care after various covid lockdowns. Meanwhile, the number of patients waiting 12 hours from a decision to admit in accident and emergency departments reached a new high in data published today, covering April. Ambulance response times also improved slightly last month from March’s all-time low. Average category one performance – for immediately life-threatening conditions, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest - was 9:02 minutes against a seven-minute target, but still an improvement on last month’s 9:35 minutes. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 12 May 2022
  8. News Article
    Paramedic Moira Shaw is eyeing the frantic activity at the front doors of Edinburgh's emergency department. She is waiting for the go-ahead to hand over her patients to medics and answer the next 999 call. It can be a long wait. Last week, 1 in 10 ambulances across Scotland took more than 80 minutes to drop patients at an emergency department. BBC Scotland joined Moira and colleague Blair Paul at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh where they were among seven ambulances waiting to drop off patients. "At the moment we can be an hour waiting, we sit in the ambulance and we wait until there is a space to go in," explains Moira, who has been with the service for nearly a decade. "This is pretty much an everyday occurrence now. "It's that domino effect, so if patients are waiting to move to other areas, A&E gets clogged up and they can't take any more patients in because they are waiting to move people on." Moira said she has noticed they are attending more calls where people have not been able to get through to their GP so phone 999 instead. Another theme picked up by Moira and her colleague Blair is helping younger sicker patients who need urgent hospital treatment. "I've seen actually quite a lot of people maybe in their 40 or 50s who have got now stage four cancer and they've just not been able to get access to any treatments or anything just due to the pressures on the NHS at the moment," explained Blair. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2022
  9. News Article
    An NHS boss who had a stroke was taken to A&E by her husband rather than calling for an ambulance because of concerns over long waits. In a series of tweets, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Deborah Lee praised his swift actions. She said he had "bundled her into his car", last week, after she had showed the signs of a stroke because he had heard her "lamenting ambulance delays". She is recovering but says it may have been different if they had called 999. Waits for an ambulance in England are the longest since new targets were introduced, in 2017. And Ms Lee's regional service - the South West - has the longest waits in the country, with category-two calls, which include strokes, taking nearly two hours, on average, to reach patients in March. The target is 18 minutes. In the tweets, Ms Lee said: "Naturally, I am eternally grateful to my husband for his swift actions… but I can't get one thing out of my head. "What if my husband hadn't been there and my daughter had called for an ambulance and I'd been put in the cat[egory]-two stack?" She went on to say it was not the fault of the ambulance service and the whole system was "working unrelentingly to this but to no great avail". Ms Lee said hospitals were struggling to discharge patients, because of a lack of social care, and so delays were building up in the rest of the system. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 April 2022
  10. News Article
    A clinical director and several senior managers have written to a trust CEO warning that patients are routinely waiting more than 60 hours to be admitted to a ward from accident and emergency, leaving staff “crying with frustration and anger”. In a letter to executives at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, seen by HSJ, the managers say they lack support from the rest of the trust, and claim the emergency department at Royal Preston Hospital has a “never-ending elasticity in the eyes of others”. The letter, dated 30 March, is signed by clinical director Graham Ellis, two unit managers, the specialty business manager, and the matron. It says: “Whilst we have documented our concerns previously the current situation is worse than it has ever been…Our situation is increasingly precarious… “For the past few months we have on a regular basis had more than 50 patients waiting for a bed and that wait being in excess of 60 hours. “This means that at most times there is limited or no space to accommodate newly acutely ill patients causing ambulance handover delays of over four hours and delay in treatment.” Clinicians at Preston have been raising safety concerns about the ED for several years, but the letter is the first time concerns of senior managers have been made public. The letter references research which suggests patients die as a “direct result from long waits in ED”, and says there has been an increase in clinical incidents, pressure sores, detrimental outcomes, and occasions where patients “die without the dignity of privacy”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 April 2022
  11. News Article
    NHS leaders are warning that the health service is facing the "brutal reality" of an Easter as bad as most winters. Latest data shows record waits for planned surgery and in A&E, as staff plough through a backlog fuelled by Covid. The government says there is hope on the horizon. Jean Shepherd, 87, had a stroke in April last year, leaving her severely disabled and requiring round-the-clock care. At the end of February there was an outbreak of sickness at her nursing home and she needed hospital treatment. She had to wait in a wheelchair for more than 9 hours until an ambulance arrived to take her to A&E. She then spent 31 hours on a trolley between the emergency department and a secondary-care unit. "She was very distressed because she doesn't like hospitals at the best of time," says her son, Andy Shepherd. "Since the stroke, because of her cognitive ability, she doesn't understand what's happening around her." Mrs Shepherd was eventually moved to a bed in a main hospital ward, where her family says she later contracted Covid, before recovering and being discharged back to her care home two weeks later. "I appreciate that A&E departments have always been busy, but I just wasn't prepared for what greeted me at the hospital," says her son. "There were patients on ambulance trolleys literally everywhere and the staff were absolutely rushed off their feet. I remember thinking at the time that this is not sustainable." Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 April 2022
  12. News Article
    More than four hours after an ambulance was called, Richard Carpenter, 71, who had had a suspected heart attack, began to despair. “Where are they?” he asked his wife, Jeanette. “I’m going to die.” She tried to reassure her husband that the crew must surely be close. Perhaps they were struggling to find their rural Wiltshire home in the dark. “But I could see I was losing him,” she said. She gave her husband CPR and urged him: “Don’t leave me.” But by the time the paramedics arrived another hour or so later, it was too late. Jeanette Carpenter, 70, a stoical and reasonable person, accepts it might have been impossible to save her husband. “But I think he would have had more of a chance if they had got here sooner,” she said. It is the sort of sad story that is becoming all too common. Across England, but in particular in the south-west, ambulances are too often not getting to patients in a timely manner. Before Covid, said one ambulance worker – who asked not to be named – he would do between six and 10 jobs in a shift. Now if the first person he is called to needs to go to hospital, he expects this will be his one job for the whole shift. “At some hospitals we are waiting outside hospitals for 10, 11 or 12 hours,” he said. “There’s nothing more demoralising than hearing a general broadcast going out for a cardiac arrest or road accident and there’s no resources to send. It’s terrible to think someone’s loved one needs help and we can’t do anything because we’re stuck at a hospital.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 April 2022
  13. News Article
    Overstretched hospitals are stopping routine Covid tests for new patients as “brutal” pressures mount on doctors and nurses, The Independent understands. On Monday there were 1,702 new Covid admissions to hospitals in England as of 9 April – with 16,442 positive patients occupying beds – the NHS leaders warn their ability to tackle the backlog in planned care is at risk. Despite pleas from NHS chiefs to measures such as mask-wearing back into force, ministers said there were no plans to change guidance. The Independent understands at least two major hospitals, in Newcastle and York, have dropped testing of all patients without symptoms in order to alleviate pressure on beds – raising fears that Covid could spread on unchecked wards. Other hospitals are also likely to do the same as bed pressures worsen. Sources have told The Independent some trusts have begun to drop “red” Covid only wards, while some are considering not separating patients in A&E. One expert, critical care doctor Tom Lawton, who analyses hospital-acquired infection data, said that stopping patient testing in hospitals was “worrying” and that the NHS would be putting “blinkers on” just as in-hospital infections were “as high as they’ve ever been”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 April 2022
  14. News Article
    More than a quarter of cancers in Northern Ireland are being diagnosed in hospital emergency departments, according to Cancer Research UK. The study, published in The Lancet Oncology, was supported by NI Cancer Registry at Queen's University Belfast. It looked at 857,068 cases diagnosed between 2012 and 2017 in six countries including Australia, Denmark and the UK. Clare Crossey, 35, from Lurgan was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in February 2018 after being admitted to hospital as an emergency. The 35-year-old mother-of-two, who is a domiciliary care assistant, suddenly became very unwell with symptoms including tiredness and bruising. She told BBC News NI she had contacted her local health centre, where a GP told her she was being overly anxious. Ms Crossey said she had panicked, fearing she may have leukaemia after looking up her symptoms on the internet. "I had a feeling that things weren't right," she said. "The doctor did not agree with my suspicions as they passed me the number of the Samaritans helpline, a prescription for beta blockers and told me to wait a week for blood tests." She said: "I went to Craigavon's A&E, they did blood tests and within hours a consultant broke the news to me that I might have leukaemia." The medical team told her that had she waited any longer to come to the emergency department, she could have died, said Ms Crossley. Barbara Roulston, from Cancer Research UK, said the study confirmed too many people were only being diagnosed with cancer once their health had deteriorated to a point when they needed to go to their emergency department. "We need to reduce the number of cancer diagnoses that are happening in this way," she said. "That means renewed focus on early diagnosis and prevention through things like better awareness of symptoms, better uptake of screening programs and the way to do that is to get funding for the cancer strategy which was published recently. "If we don't, the risk is that we will start to see cancer survival going backwards." Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 April 222
  15. News Article
    Patients visiting Wales' newest emergency department were likely to have been put at risk of harm due to the lack of processes and systems in place, inspectors found. Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) carried out an unannounced inspection of The Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran between 1 and 3 November last year and published its findings on 29 March. On the day of their arrival inspectors said The Grange was at full capacity with no empty beds in A&E or in the hospital in general. Despite the best efforts of staff who were "working hard under pressure" the report stated the emergency department had several issues which could have compromised the privacy and dignity of patients. This included problems with the physical environment of the waiting room, which was described as a "major cause of anxiety" for visitors, as well as with the flow of patients through the hospital in general. It found that patients were not triaged and medically managed in A&E in a timely fashion with many being placed on uncomfortable chairs or in corridors for hours on end. Between 1 April 2021 and 1 November 2021, the average waiting time in the department was six hours and seven minutes. The report said some issues required immediate action including the fact patients in the waiting area were often left to "deteriorate without being overseen". There were also infection control failures which could have led to the cross-contamination of Covid-19. "We were not assured that all the processes and systems in place were sufficient to ensure that patients consistently received an acceptable standard of safe and effective care," the report stated. Read full story Source: Wales Online, 1 April 2022
  16. News Article
    The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) estimated 36 Scots died as a direct result of avoidable delays in the week to 30 March. It comes as the number of people in hospital with Covid reached another record high, the worst cancer waiting times were reported since records began in 2006, and the Royal College of Nursing issued a warning that patient care is under “serious threat” from record-high staffing shortages. The RCEM said it would “welcome” a decision to extend the legal requirement to wear face coverings in Scotland to protect the NHS. “Anything that can continue to reduce the spread and therefore try and relieve as much pressure as possible in the healthcare system would be welcomed,” said RCEM Vice President in Scotland Dr John Thomson. Dr Thomson, an emergency medicine consultant at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, said the government must understand the “unconscionable” harm coming to patients. “We have clear evidence that prolonged weeks in an emergency department lead directly to patient deaths,” he said. “Good evidence that, irrespective of what the medical problem is that they present with, that long wait alone is associated with death. “We can measure that quite clearly. One in 72 patients who wait in an emergency department beyond eight hours will die as a direct result. “In the last week alone we would estimate there were 36 avoidable deaths due to waits beyond eight hours. That's unconscionable.” A&E’s in Scotland are facing the “biggest patient safety crisis for a generation”, he said. Read full story Source: The Scotsman, 29 March 2022
  17. News Article
    New artificial intelligence software being rolled-out in NHS hospitals will be able to predict daily A&E admissions weeks in advance. The software, which launched in 100 hospitals across England on Monday, analyses data, including Covid infections rates, 111 calls and traffic to predict the number of patients that will seek emergency care. It also takes into consideration public holidays, such as New Year’s Eve, when A&E is more likely to be busy. The AI software is being rolled after trials showed an “impressive” ability to forecast admissions up to three weeks in advance. The NHS believes it will help tackle the record waiting list and allow hospitals to more easily manage their patient and bed capacity, prepare for busier days and staff up when needed. Nine trusts were given the software to use during the pandemic which notified them of expected spikes in cases, staff levels and numbers of beds and equipment necessary. However, hospitals receiving the new equipment have also been warned uncertainties within the data mean the system should be used as a “starting point to consider an operational response, not as a definite signal for action.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 28 March 2022
  18. News Article
    The use of temporary treatment areas for patients arriving via ambulance at over-crowded A&Es is ‘borderline immoral’ and ‘a danger to patient safety and dignity’, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned. The college said NHS England had told regional bosses to prepare to errect more of the so-called “tents” outside their major emergency departments as part of plans to get a grip on ambulance handover delays, which have reached record highs in the last two weeks. Senior figures also told HSJ that trusts have been instructed by NHS England to call the overflow facilities “temporary external structures” and not tents – a move also criticised by RCEM president Katherine Henderson. Dr Henderson told HSJ: “Using tents is just wrong on every level… We’ve been down this route before. It doesn’t work. It’s a huge distraction, and I think what upsets me the most about it is it creates the appearance that people are taking action when it’s not the action that will deal with the problem.” In an opinion piece for HSJ, Dr Henderson says: “We find ourselves in the completely unacceptable situation where the ‘solution’ to ambulance handover problems is to put up tents or sheds in front of emergency departments – euphemistically being called ‘temporary external structures’. “Trust leaders and NHS England must not be afraid to stand up and make this case – putting patients in tents is a bad, borderline immoral bodge job to treat the symptom rather than cause, and our patients need to see some real leadership to protect them." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 March 2022
  19. News Article
    The chief executive of three NHS trusts says ringfencing elective care within an acute hospital site is potentially more ‘productive’ than sending it to a separate ‘cold’ site. Glen Burley, who leads a “provider group” in the West Midlands, says his trusts have been grappling with the challenge of how to maximise elective activity without it being disrupted by emergency pressures. The conventional view – as outlined in the NHS long-term plan – is that performing more elective care on a separate site from emergency can help ensure theatre lists are not disrupted. But George Eliot Trust, which has been led by Mr Burley since 2018 and only has a single district general hospital, has created a “ringfenced” elective hub within the site. In an interview with HSJ, Mr Burley said: “So I actually think the most productive model in the NHS is if you can pull that off. “If you can actually protect your elective capacity and offer it on the same site [as] urgent care, so the clinicians are not having to move between sites, you’ve got optimal productivity. “The challenge right across the NHS has been avoiding that spillage, of emergency care into your elective capacity. “As you get busier and you escalate… the order in which you encroach into areas that you should not encroach into, is really key in that. We are saying we are going to protect our elective beds in a way that we haven’t done before." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 March 2022
  20. News Article
    NHS England’s plan to make the 111 service a ‘primary route’ into emergency departments has fallen ‘far short of aspiration’, with only a small fraction of attendances being booked through it. NHSE began recording the numbers of ED appointments booked via 111 in August 2020, as it aimed to reduce unnecessary attendances and demand on emergency services, via the programme known as “111 First”. Planning guidance for 2021-22 told local systems to “promote the use of NHS 111 as a primary route into all urgent care services”. It added that at least 70% of patients referred to ED by 111 services should receive a booked time slot to attend. Pilots experimented with making it harder for people who had not called 111 to attend A&E, although proposals to direct those people away were rejected. Data published by NHSE shows the number of ED attendances that were booked through 111, but not those referred to ED without a booking. Jacob Lant, head of policy and research at Healthwatch England, said: “Sadly, it’s clear from these figures that implementation across the country is lagging behind where we would have hoped. “Obviously this has to be seen in the context of the massive pressures on A&E departments at the moment as a result of the pandemic, but there is also a need for the NHS to really step up efforts to tell people about this new way of accessing care.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: 25 February 2022
  21. News Article
    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
  22. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission has named the trusts which have performed ‘worse than expected’ on patient experience in urgent and emergency care. Data from the CQC survey of more than 36,000 people who used urgent and emergency care services in September 2022 shows a total of 10 trusts performed poorly on patients’ overall experience. Patients reported longer wait times, while only around half felt staff “definitely” did everything they could to help control their pain in the latest survey. Sean O’Kelly, the CQC’s chief inspector of healthcare, said it “remains extremely concerning that for some people care is falling short”. “These latest survey responses demonstrate how escalating demand for urgent and emergency care is both impacting on patients’ experience and increasing staff pressures to unsustainable levels." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 26 July 2023
  23. News Article
    A former national director has expressed her shock at visiting an accident and emergency department struggling with record numbers of mental health patients accompanied by police officers, and warned the issue needs an “absolute solution” from the area’s mental health trusts. Kathy McLean, a non-executive director at Barking, Havering, and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust, and previously NHS Improvement’s medical director, told a board meeting last week there were “police officers everywhere you looked” at the accident and emergency at King George Hospital in Ilford, which had just experienced its third consecutive record month for mental health referrals. While she recognised nearby mental health trusts North East London Foundation Trust and East London FT were “working hard”, she added: “This is not our problem, it is their problem that we’ve now got, and it’s not right for [patients], nor is it right for other people attending the emergency departments. “I’ve been to more emergency departments than most people in the country and I was shocked, everywhere you looked there was a police officer… This now needs an absolute solution. If this was ambulances sitting outside our ED, people would be saying, you’ve got to sort it.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 July 2023
  24. News Article
    Almost 900,000 older people are admitted to hospital every year as an emergency because the NHS is failing to keep them healthy at home, Age UK has warned. A major lack of services outside hospitals means elderly people are also suffering avoidable harm, such as falls and urinary tract infections, the charity said. In a new report it urges NHS bosses to push through huge changes to how the “hospital-oriented” service operates and establish “home first” as the principle of where care is provided. Doing so would reduce the strain on overcrowded hospitals and leave the NHS better set up to respond to the increase in the number of over-65s and especially over-85s, Age UK said. Its report, on the state of health and care of older people in England, concluded that “our health and care system is struggling, and too often failing, to meet the needs of our growing older population.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 July 2023
  25. News Article
    A struggling trust has been warned by regulators that it could see its junior doctors removed, after concerns about clinical supervision and safety at a hospital whose A&E closes at night. NHS England inspectors who visited Cheltenham General Hospital found emergency patients – including potential surgical patients – became the responsibility of the overnight medical team when its accident and emergency closed in the evening. One night, 26 patients had been handed across, the inspectors were told, and some patients were felt to be inappropriate for medical referral. A surgical registrar could be telephoned at Gloucester Royal Hospital about surgical patients. They were told that although there were no incidents of serious harm, there had been many “near misses” and juniors felt “unsafe and unsupported in terms of consultant clinical supervision, overall clinical/nursing staffing support or logistically in managing patients in this setting or arranging transfers”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 July 2023
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