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Showing results for tags 'Additional equipment required'.
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News Article
Ukraine’s hospitals ‘desperate’ for medical supplies as oxygen runs out
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Hospitals across Ukraine are “desperate” for medical supplies, doctors have warned, as oxygen stores are hit and other vital health supplies run low amid bombardment from Russian forces. UK-based Ukrainian doctors have issued an urgent appeal for donations of supplies as they travel to eastern Europe in response to reports of shortages of medical equipment and medicines. The World Health Organisation warned on Sunday evening that oxygen supplies in Ukraine were “dangerously low” as trucks were unable to transport oxygen supplies from plants to hospitals across the country. Dr Volodymyr Suskyi, an intensive care doctor at Feofaniya Clinical Hospital in Kyiv, told The Independent he had been forced to use an emergency back-up system to supply oxygen to a patient on life support after the area near plant which supplies his hospital was bombed. Dr Dennis Olugun, a UK-based doctor who is leading the group of medics from the Ukrainian Medical Association of the United Kingdom (UMAUK) to deliver medical supplies, said the situation was “desperate” in some areas. He said some hospitals did not have basic necessities such as rubber gloves. He told The Independent: “What they need in the hospitals is portable ultrasound machines, portable x-ray machines because they have so many patients they much rather walk around the wards and do whatever diagnostic work rather than transporting patients." The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations have called for medicines, pharmaceutical ingredients and raw materials to be excluded from the scope of sanctions being levied against Russian trade. Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 March 2022- Posted
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- Patient harmed
- Medical device / equipment
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News Article
NHS England reviewing bed capacity
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS has a low bed base, and NHS England is reviewing ‘how we right-size our capacity’ across hospital, community and ‘virtual’ services, Amanda Pritchard has said. The NHSE chief executive addressed the annual NHS Confederation this week and said: “The NHS has long had one of the lowest bed bases among comparable health systems. And in many respects this reflects on our efficiency and our drives to deliver better care in the community. “But it was true before the pandemic, and it remains true now that we have passed the point at which that efficiency actually becomes inefficient. “So the point has come where we need to review how we right-size our capacity across the NHS. That will of course look at the whole picture of hospital, community and virtual capacity.” Ms Pritchard also highlighted the current pressures on the emergency care system, which has widely been linked to slow discharges from hospital and insufficient social care provision. She cited the “unacceptable rise in 12-hour waits for admission from [accident and emergency]” which “underlines that the issue is flow”, and said “we know we will need to make more progress before winter”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 June 2022- Posted
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- Lack of resources
- Long waiting list
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News ArticleExtra beds squeezed into hospitals as part of winter planning are crowding out space for rehab, pushing up length of stay and knock-on costs, and increasing the chance of readmission, NHS leaders have been warned. Systems and trusts were encouraged to staff thousands of additional ward beds in the run-up to last winter to try to ease emergency care pressures, and government and NHS England have since asked for many of them to be kept open through the year. However, many of the additional beds are not in proper ward spaces, instead being located in gyms and other areas used for physiotherapy and other rehab. This followed on from some rehab areas already being lost during the pandemic, to be used for beds or storage. NHSE has sent out a warning about the issue, following a commitment by ministers earlier this year. However, senior figures in physio and older people’s care remain concerned the spaces will not be restored without checks and enforcement, especially as acute trusts remain under pressure to increase general bed space.
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- Physiotherapist
- Readmission
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News ArticleNHS hospitals have been told to cancel operations in an effort to free up 30,000 beds to create space for an expected surge in coronavirus patients. In a letter to NHS bosses today, NHS England said hospitals should look to cancel all non-urgent surgeries for at least three months starting from 15 April. Hospitals were given discretion to begin winding down activity immediately to help train staff and begin work setting up makeshift intensive care wards. Any cancer operations and patients needing emergency treatment will not be affected. The letter from NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens said: “The operational aim is to expand critical care capacity to the maximum; free up 30,000 (or more) of the English NHS’s 100,000 general and acute beds." In the meantime hospitals were told to do as much elective surgery, such as hip operations and knee replacements, as possible and to use private sector hospitals which it said could free up 12 to 15,000 beds across England. Sir Simon also said patients who did not need to be in hospital should be discharged as quickly as possible adding: “Community health providers must take immediate full responsibility for urgent discharge of all eligible patients identified by acute providers on a discharge list. For those needing social care, emergency legislation before Parliament this week will ensure that eligibility assessments do not delay discharge. Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 March 2020
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- Operating theatre / recovery
- Surgery - General
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News ArticleLondon’s hospitals are less than two weeks from being overwhelmed by covid even under the ‘best’ case scenario, according to an official briefing given to the capital’s most senior doctors this afternoon. NHS England London medical director Vin Diwakar set out the stark analysis to the medical directors of London’s hospital trusts on a Zoom call. The NHS England presentation, seen by HSJ , showed that even if the number of covid patients grew at the lowest rate considered likely, and measures to manage demand and increase capacity, including open the capital’s Nightingale hospital, were successful, the NHS in London would be short of nearly 2,000 general and acute and intensive care beds by 19 January. The briefing forecasts demand for both G&A and intensive care beds, for both covid and non-covid patients, against capacity. It accounts for the impact of planned measures to mitigate demand and increase capacity. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 6 January 2021
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News ArticleNHS 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
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News Article
Third of region’s ICUs exceed ‘maximum safe capacity’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More than a third of critical care units in the East of England are either at or have exceeded their maximum surge capacity, information leaked to HSJ reveals, and all but one are above their normal capacity. Data from the region’s critical care network shows that as of 11 January, seven of the region’s 19 critical care units were either at 100% of, or had exceeded, what is known as ”maximum safe surge” capacity. This represents the limit of safe care, mostly based on available staffing levels. The units have opened more beds, but they require dilution of normal staffing levels. Across the East of England, 482 of the region’s current 491 intensive care beds, after the opening of surge capacity, were occupied. This included 390 patients in intensive care with confirmed covid-19, six with suspected covid and 86 non-covid patients. It gives a regional occupancy rate of 91 per cent against total “safe surge” capacity. Published government figures show the rapid increase in demand for intensive care in the East of England in the last two weeks — the number of patients with covid in mechanical ventilation beds is more than double what it was just after Christmas. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 January 2021 -
Content ArticleSince 2010/11, the NHS has lost almost 25,000 beds across the UK. The evolving nature of healthcare provision means that the role of hospital admission has changed, but hospital beds still represent an essential part of healthcare, and the number available to the NHS should be carefully considered. A broad consensus has developed in recent years that the reduction in beds has happened too quickly. The outcome is that the NHS is now under-bedded. This has important consequences; patients must now endure long waits to be admitted with emergency department staff providing care normally provided in wards even as they continue to care for new arrivals; ambulance handover delays increase and there are delays to calls for an ambulance; planned operations are cancelled. Reducing long stays in emergency departments requires adequate staffing, space, efficient processes, and sufficient inpatient bed capacity. This report from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) focuses on inpatient bed capacity. While the unit of measurement is a bed, it must be remembered that a bed requires medical, nursing and other staff to safely function.
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- Lack of resources
- Organisation / service factors
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Content ArticleThis video examines the crisis facing NHS ambulance services in the UK and looks at the impact of delays and lack of capacity on patient safety. Paul Brand, UK Editor at ITV News, speaks to ambulance crews, patients and a recently bereaved family about their experiences, and highlights the increased stress levels ambulance staff are reporting. Note: The video contains footage of a 999 call that some viewers might find distressing.
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- Ambulance
- Emergency medicine
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Content Article
Further serious patient safety incidents: why are staff still not being listened to when concerns are raised?
Anonymous posted an article in Whistle blowing
Due to COVID-19 and the safety issues the pandemic is highlighting, I have decided to write a sequel to my previous blog 'Dropped instrument, washed and immediately reused'. I am writing this because it recently came to my notice from colleagues that safety is once again being compromised in the same private hospital where my shifts were blocked after I reported a patient safety incident.- Posted
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- PPE (personal Protective Equipment)
- High risk groups
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Content ArticleAhead of the Health and Social Care Select Committee’s next oral evidence session, Patient Safety Learning have raised several urgent safety issues with the Chair, Jeremy Hunt MP. Below is a blog summarising our submission to the Committee.
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- Risk assessment
- Risk management
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Content ArticleNHS staff are asking the same questions as everyone else about coronavirus. How deadly is it? How do we protect ourselves? Are the government’s tactics right? And how will the health service cope when – and it is when – it leaves large numbers of people seriously ill, many fighting for their lives? A senior consultant at a leading hospital for respiratory conditions such as pneumonia and cystic fibrosis talks to the Observer about his concerns.
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- Medicine - Infectious disease
- Staff safety
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