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Found 490 results
  1. News Article
    Doctors have warned the decision to remove face mask guidance in healthcare settings is "playing Russian roulette" with staff and patients' welfare. It was withdrawn in May in hospitals, dentists and GP surgeries having been in place since June 2020. Doctors from the British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland condemned the decision at the time. Now, the Scottish Healthcare Workers Coalition has written to ministers to highlight the "very serious flaws" in changing the guidance. The group is made up of Scottish healthcare workers who worked throughout the pandemic and are now living with long Covid or another chronic post-viral illness or disability. In the letter, the coalition states the updated guidance is not based on the science of coronavirus transmission and "represents a flawed and dangerous decision which will result in more infection in health and social care settings". Dr Shaun Peter Qureshi, of the Scottish Healthcare Workers Coalition, said: "At-risk patients have entirely legitimate concerns that they may endanger their health by visiting their GP or hospital. "With at least 4% of NHS staff now living with chronic post-Covid complications, the Scottish government must follow the evidence and improve protections from the airborne spread (of the virus) in healthcare settings, not reduce them." Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 July 2023
  2. News Article
    Acute trust leaders have expressed ‘extreme concern’ over their ability to maintain safe services in the upcoming junior doctor and consultant strikes. Leaders at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust are “extremely concerned about the impact on patients… as well as on the health and wellbeing of staff”, according to its latest CEO report to the board, Junior doctors are striking between 7am on Thursday 13 July and 7am on Tuesday 18 July. The report warned this would result in “complete withdrawal of labour, with no exemptions to cover emergency and critical services”. The report said: “Junior doctors may only be recalled to work in the event of a mass casualty incident… Although other staff can cover for junior doctors they are becoming exhausted and increasingly reluctant to do so. “We are therefore extremely concerned about our ability to maintain safe services.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 12 July 2023
  3. News Article
    NHS England has reduced its elective activity target for the service because of the impact of junior doctors’ strike, and acknowledged the service may not hit the prime minister’s pledge to reduce waiting lists before the next general election if the industrial action continues. NHSE has agreed a deal with ministers which will see the “value based” elective activity target set for the service reduced for 2023-24 from 107 per cent of pre-pandemic levels to 105 per cent (See explainer box on value-based targets below). Trust finance bosses were briefed by NHSE chief finance officer Julian Kelly this morning (Wednesday 12 July) on the eve of junior doctors’ longest strike action to date. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 12 July 2023
  4. 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
  5. News Article
    Most frontline medics believe ministers are seeking to “destroy the NHS” because they have starved it of cash and mistreated its staff, the leader of Britain’s doctors has said. Prof Philip Banfield also warned that the health service, which on Wednesday will mark the 75th anniversary of its creation, is so fragile that it may not survive until its 80th. Banfield, the British Medical Association’s chair of council, mounted an unusually strong attack on the government’s handling of the NHS in an interview with the Guardian. “This government has to demonstrate that it is not setting out to destroy the NHS, which it is failing to do at this point in time,” he said. “It is a very common comment that I hear, from both doctors and patients, that this government is consciously running the NHS down. [And] if you run it down far enough, it’s going to lead to destruction. “You’ll struggle to find someone [among doctors] on the frontline who thinks otherwise, because that’s what it feels like.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 July 2023
  6. News Article
    The head of NHS England has warned that July's planned strikes in the health service could be the worst yet for patients. Amanda Pritchard said industrial action across the NHS had already caused "significant" disruption - and that patients were paying the price. This month's consultant strike will bring a "different level of challenge" than previous strikes, she said. Junior doctors and consultants will strike for a combined seven days. Ms Pritchard told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the work of consultants - who are striking for the first time in a decade - cannot be covered "in the same way" as junior doctors. "The hard truth is that it is patients that are paying the price for the fact that all sides have not yet managed to reach a resolution," she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 July 2023
  7. 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
  8. News Article
    Nurses strikes are set to end but the disruption for NHS patients will continue as senior doctors are the latest to vote to walk out. The Royal College of Nursing failed to reach the threshold needed to hold further action, with just 43% of the required 50% of members returning a ballot to hold fresh walkouts. But more than 24,000 members of the British Medical Association (BMA) backed industrial action by 86% on a turnout of 71%, well above the legal threshold of 50%, with senior doctors set to strike on 20 and 21 July. It comes after the union last week announced a five-day strike by junior doctors will be held from 13 July. NHS leaders have said consecutive walkouts from junior doctors and now consultants presents a “huge risk” for the health service. Read full story Source: The Independent, 27 June 2023
  9. 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
  10. News Article
    Junior doctors will take part in what is “thought to be the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service” for five days next month. The British Medical Association junior doctor committee announced this morning there would be a walkout from 7am on Thursday 13 July and 7am on Tuesday 18 July in its ongoing pay dispute with government. It comes amid growing expectation that a Royal College of Nursing ballot on further strike action over the Agenda for Change pay award, which ends this week, is likely to fail to secure a mandate. But junior doctors’ strikes are continuing to hit elective recovery, and strain relationships, with workload on other groups increased as they are asked to provide cover. Junior doctors have allowed no “derogations” (exemptions) from the action, as they say other staff groups can cover emergency care, and one move to call them in to a busy hospital in the south west, in an earlier round, was abandoned. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 June 2023
  11. News Article
    Doctors suffering from burnout are far more likely to be involved in incidents where patients’ safety is compromised, a global study has found. Burned-out medics are also much more likely to consider quitting, regret choosing medicine as their career, be dissatisfied with their job and receive low satisfaction ratings from patients. The findings, published in the BMJ, have raised fresh concern over the welfare and pressures on doctors in the NHS, given the extensive evidence that many are experiencing stress and exhaustion due to overwork. A joint team of British and Greek researchers analysed 170 previous observational studies of the links between burnout among doctors, their career engagement and quality of patient care. Those papers were based on the views and experience of 239,246 doctors in countries including the US, UK and others in Africa, Asia and elsewhere globally. They found that burned-out medics were twice as likely as their peers to have been involved in patient safety incidents, to show low levels of professionalism and to have been rated poorly by patients for the quality of the care they have provided. Doctors aged 20 to 30 and those working in A&E or intensive care were most likely to have burnout. It was defined as comprising emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation – a “negative, callous” detachment from their job – and a sense of reduced personal accomplishment. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 September 2022
  12. News Article
    Trying to strike a balance between free speech and public health, California’s Legislature on Monday approved a bill that would allow regulators to punish doctors for spreading false information about Covid-19 vaccinations and treatments. The legislation, if signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would make the state the first to try to legislate a remedy to a problem that the American Medical Association, among other medical groups and experts, says has worsened the impact of the pandemic, resulting in thousands of unnecessary hospitalisations and deaths. The law would designate spreading false or misleading medical information to patients as “unprofessional conduct,” subject to punishment by the agency that licenses doctors, the Medical Board of California. That could include suspending or revoking a doctor’s license to practice medicine in the state. While the legislation has raised concerns over freedom of speech, the bill’s sponsors said the extensive harm caused by false information required holding incompetent or ill-intentioned doctors accountable. “In order for a patient to give informed consent, they have to be well informed,” said State Senator Richard Pan, a Democrat from Sacramento and a co-author of the bill. A paediatrician himself and a prominent proponent of stronger vaccination requirements, he said the law was intended to address “the most egregious cases” of deliberately misleading patients. Read full story (paywalled) Source: New York Times, 29 August 2022
  13. News Article
    A proposed pay settlement is making doctors consider leaving the health service, the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland has said. In a BMA survey of more than 1,000 doctors, 85% of respondents said the proposed uplift of 4.5% was too low. The representative body said discontent was very high among junior doctors with 93% of them saying it was too low. "When asked about their intentions as to the likelihood of them continuing to work in Northern Ireland, junior doctors said they were now more likely to leave because of the low pay award," said the BMA. Read full story Source: BBC News (31 August 2022)
  14. News Article
    Liz Truss has pledged to halt the exodus of doctors from the NHS to tackle the Covid backlog and surging waiting lists. The frontrunner in the Conservative leadership race is planning to unveil a series of radical reforms that will stop doctors from retiring early and entice retirees to return. One in 10 consultants and GPs is expected to retire in the next 18 months because of pension rules that mean they are "paying to work". A source close to her said she would deal with it by “cutting red tape and dealing with issues in the pension and tax system that currently act as barriers for people wanting to return”. It comes amid concerns that the NHS backlog after lockdown is causing more than 1,000 excess deaths per week - more than the figure now killed each week by coronavirus. A source close to Liz Truss also said: “The Covid pandemic put unprecedented strain on our NHS, and the resulting backlog is seeing people struggling to get appointments and treatments. We must act to tackle it, and we will. We will make it easier for doctors and nurses who have recently left or are planning to leave the NHS but want to return or stay to do so.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph (20 August 2022)
  15. News Article
    Nearly 700 doctors are likely to leave the Welsh NHS as a result of a recent 4.5% pay rise, the British Medical Association has warned. The warning follows a survey by BMA Cymru, in which more than half of the 1,397 respondents said they could leave and most felt morale had dropped. The below-inflation pay rise will apply to consultants, junior doctors and GPs. The Welsh government said it accepted the NHS pay review body's advice and was limited on how far it could go. Dr Iona Collins, chairwoman of the BMA's Welsh Council, said the findings resonated with what she was hearing from colleagues across Wales. "Doctors' take-home pay has reduced over several years, making the NHS an increasingly unattractive employer," said Dr Collins. Read full story Source: BBC News (23 August 2022)
  16. News Article
    Doctors and nurses often “weight-shame” people who are overweight or obese, leaving them feeling anxious, depressed and wrongly blaming themselves for their condition, research has found. Such behaviour, although usually the result of “unconscious weight bias”, leads to people not attending medical appointments, feeling humiliated and being more likely to put on weight. Dr Anastasia Kalea and colleagues at University College London analysed 25 previous studies about “weight stigma”, undertaken in different countries, involving 3,554 health professionals. They found “extensive evidence [of] strong weight bias” among a wide range of health staff, including doctors, nurses, dieticians, psychologists and even obesity specialists. Their analysis found that a number of health professionals “believe their patients are lazy, lack self-control, overindulge, are hostile, dishonest, have poor hygiene and do not follow guidance”, said Kalea, an associate professor in UCL’s division of medicine. She added: “Sadly, healthcare, including general practice, is one of the most common settings for weight stigmatisation and we know this acts as a barrier to the services and treatments that can help people manage weight. “An example is a GP that will unconsciously show that they do not believe that the patient complies with their eat less/exercise more regime they were asked to follow as they are not losing weight." “The result is that patients are not coming back or they delay their follow-up appointments, they avoid healthcare prevention services or cancel appointments due to concerns of being stigmatised due to their weight.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 August 2022
  17. News Article
    The medical body at Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust has written to the trust’s chair saying that it is unable to provide safe care and expressing a lack of confidence in the board. The letter, which has been seen by HSJ, is signed by 140 of doctors at the mental health provider. It claims the trust’s “clinical services are unable to provide good basic care and are unsafe”. Significant criticism is reserved for the trust’s senior management, with the letter stating “there is a general dysfunction with perpetual changes of key staff in executive posts and ever increasing layers of management” and that “major decisions are frequently made by a handful of people at an executive level without clinical consultation”. The letter continues: “Doctors are by and large used as clinical workhorses. Many carrying huge workloads and holding unacceptable clinical risks”. The letter, first revealed by BBC Look East, asks for an urgent meeting with the chair and states that the medical body “lacks confidence in the executive board to resolve the plight of NSFT”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 August 2022
  18. News Article
    A 65-year-old man died after doctors failed to notice serious abnormalities on his X-ray, an investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has revealed. The investigation comes a year after a landmark report by the Ombudsman highlighted failings in how X-rays and scans are reported and followed up in the NHS. Mr B, who was admitted to University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust in May 2019, had been unwell for several days. He was admitted to hospital suffering from abdominal pain and vomiting. An X-ray of his abdomen was taken, which two doctors said did not show any apparent abnormalities. The following day the man’s condition deteriorated. He suffered a heart attack and died. A PHSO investigation found the Trust failed to notice a blockage in his intestine on the X-ray. Because of this failure, Mr B did not receive treatment that could have saved his life. Speaking on this case Ombudsman Rob Behrens said: “The case of Mr B highlights the devastating impact mistakes like this can have. If the Trust had picked up the abnormalities on his X-ray sooner, Mr B could still be with his family today. “As the NHS faces the challenge of rebuilding after the pandemic, it must not lose momentum in improving the way X-rays and scans are handled during a patient’s care.” Progress has been made by the NHS in implementing recommendations made by the Ombudsman in the report; however, Rob Behrens has said more needs to be done to protect patients from serious harm. “Attention and buy-in from the NHS’s senior leaders is crucial if we want to see sustained and meaningful change in how X-rays and scans are managed during a patient’s care. We need more collaboration across clinical specialties, looking at the whole patient journey once a scan has been carried out. "I want to see the NHS treating complaints as a source of insight to drive improvements in patient care. Not learning from mistakes will mean missed opportunities to diagnose patients earlier. In the most serious cases, like that of Mr B, it will mean a death which should never have happened.” Read full story Source: PHSO, 20 July 2022
  19. News Article
    On 24 June the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that legalised abortion and left the regulation of abortion to the states.4 At present, about half of the 50 states ban or severely limit abortions, but the picture is changing daily as century old bans go into place in some states, bans are challenged in courts, and state legislatures debate changes to their laws. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said, “Each piece of legislation is different, using different language and rationales. State legislators are taking it upon themselves to define complex medical concepts without reference to medical evidence. Some of the penalties for violating these vague, unscientific laws include criminal sentences.” Doctors report being confused and fearful about how they can continue to practise in states where abortion laws are changing day by day and sometimes hour by hour. Katie McHugh, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Indianapolis, where abortion until 20 weeks is legal for the moment, told The BMJ about a patient who arrived from another state (around 200 miles away) with a miscarriage. “A fetal heartbeat could still be detected. The local hospital sent her home and told her to come back if she became very sick.” Instead she travelled two and a half hours by car to McHugh. “I don’t blame the physicians in [the other state]. I don’t know if abortion is legal now a trigger law is in effect. They could face lawsuits. As a physician, it’s unacceptable to have to watch the news to know what’s legal and how to practise,” said McHugh. Read full story Source: BMJ, 1 August 2022
  20. News Article
    People who go to hospital for non-covid treatment are at higher risk of the virus compared with the general public, which is why high levels of hospital-acquired Covid-19 in England are worrying some doctors. They fear that the coronavirus is becoming a potential hazard of a hospital stay for older or vulnerable people, in a similar way to “superbugs” such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). People who go to hospital for non-covid-19 treatment are at higher risk from the virus compared with the general public, says Tom Lawton, an intensive care doctor in Bradford, UK. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The New Scientist, 21 July 2022
  21. News Article
    Doctors are less likely to resuscitate the most seriously ill patients in the wake of the pandemic, a survey suggests. Covid-19 may have changed doctors’ decision-making regarding end of life, making them more willing not to resuscitate very sick or frail patients and raising the threshold for referral to intensive care, according to the results of the research published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. However, the pandemic has not changed their views on euthanasia and doctor-assisted dying, with about a third of respondents still strongly opposed to these policies, the survey responses reveal. The Covid-19 pandemic transformed many aspects of clinical medicine, including end-of-life care, prompted by millions more patients than usual requiring it around the world, say the researchers. In respect of DNACPR, the decision not to attempt to restart a patient’s heart when it or breathing stops, more than half the respondents were more willing to do this than they had been previously. Asked about the contributory factors, the most frequently cited were: “likely futility of CPR” (88% pre-pandemic, 91% now); coexisting conditions (89% both pre-pandemic and now); and patient wishes (83.5% pre-pandemic, 80.5% now). Advance care plans and “quality of life” after resuscitation were also commonly cited. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 July 2022
  22. News Article
    A paediatrician has been struck off for falsely diagnosing children with cancer to scare their parents into paying for expensive private treatment. Dr Mina Chowdhury, 45, caused "undue alarm" to the parents of three young patients - one aged 15 months - by making the "unjustified" diagnoses so his company could cash in by arranging tests and scans, a medical tribunal found. Chowdhury, who worked as a full-time consultant in paediatrics and neonatology at NHS Forth Valley, provided private treatment at his Meras Healthcare clinic in Glasgow. But the clinic made losses, despite "significant" potential income from third-party investigations and referrals for treatment – with patients charged a mark up fee of up to three times the actual cost. In all three cases, Chowdhury gave a false cancer diagnosis, without proper investigation, before recommending “unnecessary and expensive” private tests and treatment in London. Parents previously told the tribunal of their shock and upset at receiving Chowdhury’s diagnoses during consultations between March and August 2017. He told the parents of a 15-month-old girl - known as Patient C - that a lump attached to the bone in her leg was a "soft tissue sarcoma" and a second lump had developed. Chowdhury urged them to see a doctor in London who could arrange an ultrasound scan, a MRI scan and biopsy in a couple of days, saying: "If things are happening it is best to get on top of them early." He also warned that it would be "confusing" to return to the NHS for treatment. But the parents spoke to an A&E doctor and an ultrasound scan revealed that the lumps were likely fat necrosis. Patient C later was discharged after her bloods tests came back as normal. The child’s mother told the tribunal that she and her husband had been "very upset" at Chowdhury’s diagnosis. She was also left "angry" after she later read Dr Chowdhury’s consultation notes and realised they were a "total falsification" of what was discussed. Read full story Source: Medscape, 18 July 2022
  23. News Article
    The NHS must be more welcoming to patients who often feel they should not bother doctors, the new patient safety commissioner for England has urged. Dr Henrietta Hughes, who takes up the role this week, said it was vital that patients had time to ask questions, despite pressures on the health service. Clinicians and managers need to put themselves in the shoes of their patients, she said, highlighting “highly inappropriate” interactions between doctors and patients that showed “a total lack of care and respect”. Hughes said it was not a surprise that all the groups affected in the Cumberlege report were women. “That’s something which is a societal problem, and it’s really important that the voices of all patients, including those of women, are listened to and taken really seriously,” she said. “Because otherwise untold harm happens and it can not only extend to the individual patient themselves, but to their families, to their children, to their livelihoods. This role is a real opportunity for championing patients’ voices, and also making sure those who are in charge who are able to make the changes, listen and respond appropriately." Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 14 July 2022
  24. 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
  25. News Article
    Female doctors have launched an online campaign that they say exposes shocking gender-based discrimination, harassment and sexual assault in healthcare. Surviving in Scrubs is an issue for all healthcare workers, say the campaign’s founders, Becky Cox and Chelcie Jewitt, who are encouraging women to share stories of harassment and abuse to “push for change and to reach the people in power”. The campaign has called for the General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors, to explicitly denounce sexist and misogynistic behaviour towards female colleagues and “treat them with respect”. More than 40 stories have been shared on the campaign’s website, ranging from sexual harassment by patients to inappropriate remarks and sexual advances from supervisors. The campaign is bolstered by evidence that shows 91% of female respondents had experienced sexism at work within the past two years. The findings are a result of nearly 2,500 surveyed doctors working in the NHS – the majority of whom were women – published in a 2021 report by the British Medical Association (BMA). Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 July 2022
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