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Found 247 results
  1. News Article
    Nearly half of all NHS hospital maternity services covered so far by a national inspection programme have been rated as substandard, the Observer can reveal. The Care Quality Commission (CQC), which regulates health and care providers in England, began its maternity inspection programme last August after the Ockenden review into the Shropshire maternity scandal, which saw 300 babies left dead or brain damaged by inadequate NHS care. Of the services inspected under the programme, which focuses on safety and leadership, about two-thirds have been found to have insufficient staffing, including some services that were rated as good overall. Eleven services saw their rating fall from their previous inspection. Dr Suzanne Tyler of the Royal College of Midwives said: “Report after report has made a direct connection between staffing levels and safety, yet the midwife shortage is worsening. Midwives are desperately trying to plug the gaps – in England alone we estimate that midwives work around 100,000 extra unpaid hours a week to keep maternity services safe. This is clearly unsustainable and now is the time for the chancellor to put his hand in the Treasury pocket and give maternity services the funding that is so desperately needed.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 July 2023
  2. News Article
    The quality of care that the NHS provides has got worse in many key areas and patients’ long waits to access treatment could become even more common, research has found. The coalition government’s austerity programme in the early 2010s led to the heath service no longer being able to meet key waiting time targets, the Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation said. Austerity ushered in “really concerning deterioration across the board” in the overall quality of NHS care, as judged by patients’ experience and prevention of ill-health, not just speed of access. Analysis by the two thinktanks’ joint Quality Watch programme, which monitors more than 150 indicators of care quality over time, found that in England: Fewer people with long-term heath conditions such as cancer, diabetes and depression, are getting enough help to manage their condition. Breast cancer screening rates for women aged 53-74 have fallen. It has become harder for patients to see a named GP. Only 6% of midwives think their maternity unit has enough staff to do its job properly. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 July 2023
  3. News Article
    Healthcare leaders have called for an urgent plan to tackle the social care crisis, warning Rishi Sunak there is “clear concern” over an ongoing failure to tackle staff shortages. The warning from Matthew Taylor, chief executive of NHS Confederation which represents hospitals and community services, comes after the publication of the long-awaited £2.4bn NHS workforce plan, which committed to 300,000 extra nurses and doctors in the coming years. Mr Taylor said any benefits to improve NHS staffing will be “limited” without an equivalent strategy for the social care sector, which currently has 165,000 vacant posts. Health bosses, represented by NHS Confederation, have now written to the prime minister asking for “urgent intervention” and calling for a clear plan for improving pay and conditions to attract staff. Martin Green, chief executive for Care England that represents care homes, warned that the sector “is in the midst of a workforce crisis, which is going to get worse not getting better”. He welcomed the NHS Confederation’s letter and said unless similar improvements were made within social care, there would be more “cancelled operations, more people languishing in hospital when they don’t need to and the whole breakdown of the system”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 2 July 2023
  4. News Article
    Nearly 170,000 workers left their jobs in the NHS in England last year, in a record exodus of staff struggling to cope with some of the worst pressures ever seen in the country’s health system, the Observer can reveal. More than 41,000 nurses were among those who left their jobs in NHS hospitals and community health services, with the highest leaving rate for at least a decade. The number of staff leaving overall rose by more than a quarter in 2022, compared to 2019. The figures in NHS workforce statistics of those leaving active service since 2010 analysed by the Observer show the scale of the challenge facing prime minister Rishi Sunak. He launched a new workforce plan on Friday to train and keep more staff. Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “Staff did brilliant work during the pandemic, but there has been no respite. The data on people leaving is worrying and we need to see it reversed. “We need to focus on staff wellbeing and continued professional development, showing the employers really do care about their frontline teams.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 July 2023
  5. News Article
    Thousands more doctors and nurses will be trained in England every year as part of a government push to plug the huge workforce gaps that plague almost all NHS services. The number of places in medical schools will rise from 7,500 to 10,000 by 2028 and could reach 15,000 by 2031 as a result of the NHS’s first long-term workforce plan. There will also be a big expansion in training places for those who want to become nurses, with the number rising by a third to 40,000 by 2028 – matching the number of nurses the health service currently lacks. Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, hailed the long-awaited plan as “a once in a generation opportunity to put staffing on a sustainable footing for years to come”. Medical groups, health experts and organisations representing NHS staff welcomed the plan as ambitious but overdue. Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund thinktank, said it could be a “landmark moment” for the health service by providing it with the staff it needs to provide proper care. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2023
  6. News Article
    Staff sickness in the NHS in England has reached record levels. Figures for 2022 show an absence rate - the proportion of days lost - of 5.6%, meaning the NHS lost the equivalent of nearly 75,000 staff to illness. This is higher than during the peak pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 - and a 29% rise on the 2019 rate. Mental health problems were the most common cause, responsible for nearly a quarter of absences, the Nuffield Trust analysis of official NHS data shows. Big rises were also seen in cold, coughs, infections and respiratory problems, likely to be linked to the continued circulation of Covid as well as the return of flu last year. The think tank warned the NHS was stuck in a "seemingly unsustainable cycle" of increased work and burnout, which was contributing to staff leaving. The analysis, exclusively for BBC News, comes ahead of the publication of the government and NHS England's long-awaited workforce plan. Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 June 2023
  7. News Article
    The UK risks becoming highly reliant on overseas care workers after nearly 58,000 visas were issued for the sector last year, a report says. Analysis by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford found that the demand for foreign staff had left the NHS and care homes open to “vulnerabilities” including “exposure to international competition for health workers and risks of exploitation”. The study, commissioned by the employment group ReWAGE, also examined where care workers were coming from. In 2022, 99% of care workers sponsored for work visas in the UK were from non-EU countries. The top countries were India (33%), Zimbabwe (16%), Nigeria (15%) and the Philippines (11%). Dr Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory, said: “Health and care employers have benefited a lot from international recruitment. “But relying this much on overseas recruits also brings risks. For example, care workers on temporary visas are vulnerable to exploitation and the rapid growth in overseas recruitments makes monitoring pay and conditions a real challenge.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 June 2023
  8. News Article
    The NHS is set to undergo the "largest expansion in training and workforce" in its history, Rishi Sunak has said. Speaking to the BBC, the prime minister said the plans would reduce "reliance on foreign-trained healthcare professionals". It comes at a time of record-high waiting lists in the NHS and junior doctors set to stage a five-day strike next month. The full plans are expected to be published next week. Pressed about the length of time it would take to see the results of the changes, Mr Sunak accepted it could take "five, ten, fifteen years for these things to come through", but that did not mean it was not the right thing to do. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 June 2023
  9. News Article
    About 15,000 nurses in Minnesota walked off the job Monday to protest understaffing and overwork — marking the largest strike of private-sector nurses in U.S. history. Slated to last three days, the strike spotlights nationwide nursing shortages exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic that often result in patients not receiving adequate care. Minnesota nurses charge that some units go without a lead nurse on duty and that nurses fresh out of school are delegated assignments typically held by more experienced nurses, across some 16 hospitals where strikes are expected. The nurses are demanding a role in staffing plans, changes to shift scheduling practices and higher wages. “I can’t give my patients the care they deserve,” said Chris Rubesch, the vice president of the Minnesota Nurses Association and a nurse at Essentia Health in Duluth. “Call lights go unanswered. Patients should only be waiting for a few seconds or minutes if they’ve soiled themselves or their oxygen came unplugged or they need to go to the bathroom, but that can take 10 minutes or more. Those are things that can’t wait.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: Washington Post, 12 September 2022
  10. News Article
    There is a "toxic" culture of bullying and blame in the Isle of Man's emergency department at Noble's Hospital, an inspection has found. The Care Quality Commission's report said it was a "significant concern" along with "ineffective" staff training and medicine storage systems. It found a "significant disconnect" between nursing and medical staff had the potential to "cause or contribute to patient harm". During inspectors' four-day visit in June, some staff said the attitude and behaviour of senior medics was "feral". Manx Care's director of nursing Paul Moore said the understaffed department had been "really struggling" at times. He warned efforts to change governance and culture would take time. Mr Moore said on average the emergency department had about 50% of the required staff over a given month, and recruitment was the "number one priority" to help make lasting changes. "The bottom line is I have to put staff in front of patients before other considerations, especially when we're short", he added. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 September 2022
  11. News Article
    GPs have warned of a ‘tsunami of demand’ this winter as patient contacts surged 200% during the pandemic. One of the largest GP providers in the UK, Modality Partnership, told The Independent it received 4.8 million calls from patients in one year alone with around a quarter going unanswered every day. The provider, which covers 500,000 patients across the country, said its practices were now working above “safe levels” with 50 appointments a day per GP, far higher than the 35 advised by the British Medical Association. Speaking with The Independent, Vincent Sai, chief executive and partner at Modality said the new health secretary Therese Coffey must “not point fingers” and “not find a scapegoat” as “every part of the system is under pressure. Every player in the health system is under the cosh.” Dr Sai said: “We believe patient contacts have increased 200 per cent, over the last few years. The expectation is that GP practices have maybe four to five patient contacts per year, but if you just look at just the number of phone calls alone, it’s showing that it’s much more now. “So something is broken somewhere...there’s more work, there are fewer people. People say I can’t get access to my GP and the hypothesis is they’re just lazy and not working, but it’s not the case.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 September 2022
  12. News Article
    Unfilled specialised medical consultant roles and an over-reliance on overworked, internationally trained graduates for non-consultant hospital doctors are among key risks to patient safety identified by the Irish Medical Council. The council, which is the regulatory body for the medical profession, sets out the risks to healthcare for the first time in its workforce intelligence report that breaks down the make-up of the medical register and explains why doctors are leaving the health system. More than a third of all clinically active doctors are on the general register, which is a key risk to patient safety because consultant and specialist roles are not being filled and “a considerable proportion” of non-consultant hospital doctors are required to perform the duties of consultants. The report found that the majority of non-consultant hospital doctors are trained overseas and that the health system overly relied on these doctors who reported being “overworked, undervalued, experiencing discrimination and unable to access specialist training.” “Aside from the individual impact on the doctors, the treatment of international medical graduates has serious implications for patient safety,” the council said. In another risk identified by the regulatory body, more than a quarter of doctors reported working more than 48 hours a week, in breach of the European Working Time Directive. This has further serious implications for patient safety,” the council said. Read full story Source: Irish Times, 1 September 2022
  13. News Article
    Ministers will introduce legislation as soon as parliament returns on Monday to tackle the NHS’s worsening staffing crisis by making it easier for overseas nurses and dentists to work in the UK. The move is part of a drive by the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to increase overseas recruitment to help plug workforce gaps in health and social care. Barclay believes thousands of extra health professionals will come as a result of new rules making it easier for medical regulators to register those who have qualified abroad. If the change proves successful it will help pave the way for more nurses and dentists coming to work in Britain from countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, the Philippines and Malaysia. However, critics claim the policy is a stop-gap that is no substitute for ramping up the supply of homegrown staff and risks worsening the lack of health workers in other countries that are struggling with shortages of their own. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 September 2022
  14. News Article
    The number of posts lying vacant across the NHS in England has reached a “staggering” record high of 132,139 – almost 10% of its planned workforce. The number at the end of June was up sharply from three months earlier when there were 105,855 vacancies, quarterly personnel figures show. NHS leaders said the huge number of empty posts showed why the health service is in a state of deepening crisis, with patients facing long waits for almost every type of care. The previous highest number of vacancies for full-time-equivalent staff was 111,864, recorded at the end of June 2019. The new number represents 9.7% of the NHS’s planned staffing levels – a new high. As recently as March 2021 there were 76,082 vacancies. Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “These figures paint a bleak picture. A jump in nearly 30,000 staff vacancies – equivalent to the entire staffing of a large NHS hospital – show an alarming trend across the NHS of rising levels of vacancies.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2022
  15. News Article
    A troubled acute trust has been sent a further warning notice after inspectors found severe shortages of midwives were causing dangerous delays to labour inductions. During one day in June, the Care Quality Commission found eight high-risk women at Blackpool Victoria Hospital had waited prolonged time periods for their labour to be induced. They said one woman had waited five days, while another who was forced to wait more than two days despite her waters having broken on the ward. Delays to labour induction can lead to serious safety risks for mothers and babies. The hospital’s maternity services, previously rated “good” for safety, have now been rated “inadequate” in this domain. The overall rating for maternity has dropped to “requires improvement”. The problems were caused by severe shortages of midwives at the hospital, which had struggled to bring in agency staff due to a lack of availability in the area. However, inspectors also said there was a lack of any discussion or attention to the issues within the trust, despite the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch previously highlighting concerns. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 September 2022
  16. News Article
    More than two-thirds of trusts have been forced to suspend or pause a high-profile service improvement aimed at reducing neonatal and maternal deaths, because of widespread staffing shortages. HSJ research revealed a majority of trusts have been unable to implement the continuity of carer maternity model, after they were told to look again at whether it could be safely implemented. The model intends to give women “dedicated support” from the same midwifery team throughout their pregnancy, with a 2016 review saying it would reduce infant and maternal mortality rates and improve care more generally. It is particularly aimed at improving care for patients from minority ethnic groups and those with other risk factors, and has been championed by Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, NHS England’s chief midwifery officer. Key targets around the model were included in the 2019 NHS long-term plan. However, there is consensus nationally that it can only be rolled out safely where there are adequate numbers of staff to do so – otherwise the risks outweigh the benefits. Earlier this year, the final Ockenden report into maternity care failings at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust was critical of the model, and said it should be suspended until trusts have enough staff to meet “safe minimum requirements on all shifts”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 30 August 2022 Read more about the continuity of care maternity model on the hub
  17. News Article
    A study of over 1,000 health and social care workers, conducted by Florence, the tech platform providing health & social care workers access to available shifts, found that almost a third of healthcare workers admit to feeling overwhelmed at least once a week, with 17% feeling burnt-out every day. A staggering 97% believe the cost-of-living crisis has caused further stress or burnout among healthcare professionals. It comes after more than half of healthcare workers (56%) admit to working more than 2-3 times a week over their contracted hours, with 7% working overtime every day. Not having enough staff is causing the most pressure in their role (50%), followed by low pay (39%) and high workload (35%). The study revealed nine in ten NHS and social care workers state chronic staff shortages are affecting the quality of care. Analysing this deeper, three quarters of respondents stated that the quality of care is already being ‘severely’ impacted as high vacancy rates sweep across the industry. Dr Charles Armitage, Former NHS doctor and CEO and Founder of Florence, observed: “If you’ve got fewer people there on-shift to look after people, the quality of care decreases because the people that are there are overstretched, they’re trying to do too many things and are suffering from severe burnout. As a result, mistakes are made as they’re not able to just spend as much time with people and provide that really important patient-centred care.” Read full story Source: Hospital Times, 17 August 2022
  18. News Article
    Hospital doctors are being sent home from daytime shifts and told to come back and work overnight in the latest stark illustration of the NHS’s crippling staff shortage. Medics are having to change their plans at the last minute because hospitals cannot find any others to plug gaps in the night shift medical rota and need to ensure they have enough doctors on duty. Hospital bosses are forcing last-minute shift changes on junior doctors – trainees below the level of consultant up to the level of senior registrar – because staff sickness and the scarcity of locum medics has left them struggling to ensure patients’ safety is maintained overnight. One trainee doctor in south-west of England told how they started their shift as planned at 8am. However, “by mid-morning the doctor that was meant to be working that night, that I would hand over to, had called in ill”. The doctor stopped working at 11am, drove home – an hour away – and came back to work the night shift at 11pm. “By the time I returned I had already worked for three hours and driven for three hours. That’s an extra six hours on top of a busy night shift of 12.5 hours,” they said. Dr Julia Patterson, the chief executive of EveryDoctor, said: “We are hearing of escalating problems with NHS doctors being forced to work unsafe, unfair hours." “Patient safety is of paramount importance to all doctors, but this situation is simply not sustainable. When mistakes occur, staff are blamed. But staff are working in an unworkable system.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 July 2022
  19. News Article
    An ‘outstanding’ rated mental health trust has been criticised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for ‘unsafe’ levels of staffing and inadequate monitoring of vulnerable patients. The CQC said an inpatient ward for adults with learning disabilities and autism run by Cumbria Northumberland Tyne and Wear Foundation Trust “wasn’t delivering safe care”, and some staff were “feeling unsafe due to continued short staffing”, following an unannounced inspection in February. The inspection into Rose Lodge, a 10-bed unit in South Tyneside, took place after the CQC received concerns about the service. Inspectors highlighted a high use of agency staff, with some shifts “falling below safe staffing levels”, which meant regular monitoring of patients with significant physical health issues “was not always taking place”. They said the trust had “implemented a robust action plan” following the inspection. The CQC did not issue a rating. The trust’s overall rating for wards for people with a learning disability remains as “good”, and its overall rating remains “outstanding”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 July 2022
  20. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued a trust with a warning notice following an inspection that found wards did not have enough staff to care for patients. Staff at York hospital told inspectors they were not able to interact with individual patients and cater to their needs, with one saying: “We have to choose, do we turn, check, and make sure all patients are not soiled, or do we fully wash ten? Some of these patients haven’t been washed for two to three days.” York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals CEO Simon Morritt said: “Many of the issues raised by the CQC were known to us, and reflect the extreme pressures facing the trust, the demands of covid and associated staff absence, and the well-documented recruitment challenges. The report demonstrates that, when faced with these pressures, it is not always possible to give the standard of care we would want for all of our patients all of the time.” The CQC said there were “significant safety concerns about fundamental standards of patient care” at the hospital. “The service didn’t have enough nursing staff with the right skills, training and experience to keep patients safe and to provide the right care and treatment,” said Sarah Dronsfield, the CQC’s head of hospital inspection. “It was disappointing that managers didn’t regularly review the situation and change the staffing arrangements to accommodate this.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 June 2022
  21. News Article
    A trust has been issued with a warning notice after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) raised concerns about parts of its maternity services. Following a focused inspection at University Hospitals Dorset Foundation Trust in September and November last year, the CQC has rated maternity services at Poole Hospital “inadequate”, down from “good”. The service was also rated “inadequate” in the safety and well-led domains. The CQC report warned that Poole Hospital’s maternity unit did not always have enough midwifery or medical staff to keep mothers and babies safe. The inspectors noted this had led to delays to induction of labour and caesarian sections, including emergency sections. A warning notice was also issued over concerns about the unit’s emergency call bell system, which worked “intermittently” due to poor wireless signal, and processes used to summon help during an emergency. The trust said it had since “taken action to address this risk”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2023
  22. News Article
    A staffing crisis in children’s dentistry has prompted the urgent removal of junior doctors from Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH. GOSH has struggled to recruit consultants for its paediatric dentistry services for at least two years, which has led to trainee doctors going unsupervised, according to a new report by regulator Health Education England. A report seen by The Independent said the service was running with just one part-time consultant but needed at least two. The news comes amid a national “crisis” in dentistry, with the latest data from the government showing that half of all children’s tooth extractions in 2021-22 were due to “preventable tooth decay”. GOSH told The Independent it was struggling with a “limited pool” of paediatric dentists and, as a result of shortages, many patients were waiting longer than the 18-week standard. Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 February 2023
  23. News Article
    Nursing shortages are contributing to children waiting up to three times longer for spinal surgery than pre-pandemic, a top surgeon has claimed. Chris Adams says up to one in four operations are cancelled at NHS Lothian, with staffing the main reason. Mr Adams also claims that some children are not being put on waiting lists as early as they should be. NHS Lothian disputes some of Mr Adams' statements but says "significant pressures" are affecting waiting times. The senior clinician, one of Scotland's three paediatric spinal surgeons, said he was speaking out of behalf of spinal patients and their families The surgeon's claims appear in a new BBC Disclosure investigation into Scotland's NHS, which reveals that some children are waiting up to three times longer than pre-pandemic for spinal surgery, with some waiting more than a year. At least 51 out of a possible 190 planned spinal surgeries at RHCYP were cancelled at short notice in 2022, with nursing shortages understood to be the main cause Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 March 2023
  24. News Article
    A struggling acute trust says its failure to hit its elective care targets is directly linked to doctors’ demanding overtime rates in line with the British Medical Association’s rate cards, as national tensions around the issue intensify. University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust’s January performance report said its elective activity was down by around 1,000 cases over a two-month period, due to the issue. Last summer, the BMA published a “rate card” outlining the “minimum” hourly pay consultants should receive for additional work, such as waiting list initiatives and weekend shifts. Some accused the union of “acting like football agents” by trying to inflate their members’ pay. NHS chiefs have long been warning of the risk the rate card poses to elective recovery. But there are few examples of a trust making such an explicit link between their struggle to staff overtime shifts because of the rate card and subsequent failure to hit their elective targets, and placing a number on how many patients they were forced to add to the list because of the issue. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 March 2023
  25. News Article
    A criticised maternity service needs 37 more midwives, about a fifth of its total midwifery workforce. The Care Quality Commission has said Northampton General Hospital did not always have enough qualified and experienced staff to keep women safe from avoidable harm. Figures obtained by the BBC show that 49 serious incidents have occurred in its maternity services in four years. The hospital said it had undertaken "a lot of work" in the past 18 months and a recruitment process was under way. According to a Freedom of Information Act response, between November 2018 and November 2022, the hospital had 278 serious incidents, with the highest level coming across maternity services, including gynaecology and obstetrics. There are currently 37 vacancies for midwives but the trust said it manages staffing levels "closely and ensure that all shifts are covered by bank or midwives working altered shift patterns, to ensure that we are able to provide a safe maternity experience". Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 February 2023
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