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Found 803 results
  1. News Article
    More than 26,000 adults with severe mental illness die prematurely each year from preventable physical illnesses, analysis by the Royal College of Psychiatrists suggests. New data from the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities shows 120,273 adults in England with severe mental illness, including psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, died before the age of 75 between 2018 and 2020. Of these, the College estimates 80,182 deaths (two in three) were potentially preventable, which is an average of 26,727 people each year. Preventable deaths include deaths from diseases like cancer and heart disease which could have been prevented with earlier detection and treatment or lifestyle changes. While adults with severe mental illness are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviours like smoking and drinking alcohol excessively, they are also less likely to access screening and treatment for a range of reasons including stigma associated with having a mental illness. While cancer is the leading cause of premature death among those with a severe mental illness, it also significantly increases the risk of dying before the age of 75 across a range of physical health conditions. Adults with severe mental illness are on average: 6.6 times more likely to die prematurely from respiratory disease 6.5 times more likely to die prematurely from liver disease 4.1 times more likely to die prematurely from cardiovascular disease 2.3 times more likely to die prematurely from cancer. Read full story Source: Royal College of Psychiatrists, 17 May 2023
  2. News Article
    Hundreds of babies are dying unnecessarily because overstretched maternity services are delivering substandard care and struggling to overcome entrenched poverty and racial inequalities, a report has warned. The report by baby loss charities Sands and Tommy’s says the government’s aim to halve the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in England by 2025 is stalling, while there is no target in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Stillbirths are creeping up in England after falling in the past decade. Babies dying before and during delivery rose to just over four in every 1,000 births in 2021. Similarly, long-falling rates of neonatal deaths, where newborns die within the first four weeks of birth, are also rising. There were 1.4 deaths of newborn babies for every 1,000 births in 2021, compared with 1.3 in 2020. Robert Wilson, head of the charities’ joint policy unit, said the government and NHS need to make fundamental changes. “The UK is not making enough progress to reduce rates of pregnancy loss and baby death, and there are worrying signs that these rates are now heading in the wrong direction,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 May 2023
  3. News Article
    The death rates for black women in childbirth were revealed in a recent report from MPs and were described as “appalling”, yet action, not words, are needed for what could be considered breaches of the Human Rights Act. Ministers are not giving priority to reducing the gap in health inequalities, write Nicola Wainwright and Suleikha Ali in a commentary to the Times. "If the response to the review is foot-dragging from the government and senior health service officials, then legal action may be the only way to draw focus to this issue and to try to reduce the number of ethnic minority women and babies dying unnecessarily." The report, published by the women and equalities committee last month, highlights the “glaring and persistent” disparities faced by ethnic minority women compared to their white counterparts with regards to pregnancy and birth. However, these same disparities have been known and reported on for 20 years, while progress on improving the situation has been shockingly slow. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 11 May 2023
  4. News Article
    Figures showing the risk of maternal death being almost four times higher among women from black ethnic minority backgrounds compared with white women in the UK have been published. The figures, which relate to 2019 - 2021, have been released by MBRRACE-UK, a collaboration involving the University of Leicester. The MBRRACE-UK collaboration (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries), led from Oxford Population Health's National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, looked at data on women who died during, or up to six weeks after, pregnancy between 2019 and 2021 in the UK. The report showed the risk of maternal death in 2019 - 2021 was almost four times higher among women from black ethnic minority backgrounds compared with white women. Marian Knight, professor of Maternal and Child Population Health at Oxford Population Health and maternal reporting lead, said: "Persistent disparities in maternal health remain. "It is critical that we are working towards more inclusive care where women are listened to, their voices are heard, and we are acting upon what they are telling us." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2023
  5. News Article
    GPs in South London have eradicated a large gap in blood pressure control between white patients and those from a Black or minority ethnic background, after a year-long project. AT Medics Streatham PCN in Lambeth found that among their patients under 80 diagnosed with hypertension, there was a 12% inequality gap in blood pressure control, with 67% of white patients and 55% of black patients treated to target. The two practices in the PCN have 45,000 patients, with around 3,100 diagnosed with hypertension. They set up a centralised recall system and made use of practice pharmacists and healthcare assistants to provide guidance, education around self-care, lifestyle and medicines. Dr Tarek Radwan, GP director said: ‘This project has delivered incredible results, and this is all down to the dedication of our amazing team, especially our administrators, healthcare assistants and pharmacists. "The last 12 months have proved that we can not just reduce but actually eradicate health inequalities and raise the quality of care for everyone at the same time. "I know the difference this will make to our local communities, and it really shows what is possible with a highly motivated multidisciplinary team." Read full story Source: Pulse, 3 May 2023
  6. News Article
    There is a considerable human and healthcare cost that could have been avoided at the onset of COVID-19 had more been done to ameliorate eventual racial health disparities, amounting to thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, according to analysis from Altarum on behalf of Episcopal Health Foundation. Using figures up until the end of September 2020, the researchers found that had Black and Hispanic people in Texas been hospitalised at the same rate as their White counterparts, the state would have seen 24,000 fewer hospitalisations. That would have amounted to $550 million in healthcare cost savings, the analysis showed. That is not to mention the human costs associated with racial health disparities during the pandemic. Had Black and Hispanic patients had the same COVID-19 mortality rates as White people, the state of Texas would have seen about 5,000 fewer deaths, cutting the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the state by 30%. “These numbers are a glaring reminder of how non-medical factors like economic status and living conditions impact health and how COVID-19 is highlighting that in the worst way,” Elena Marks, president and CEO of the Episcopal Health Foundation, said in a statement. “The human and economic costs of health disparities continue to grow during the pandemic and we’re learning why we can’t address them through medicine alone. Something has to change in Texas.” Read full story Source: Patient Engagement HIT, 13 January 2021
  7. News Article
    A host of algorithms used by medics to assess disease risk and help make decisions on treatment are failing to take transgender patients into account, doctors have said. Many metrics and thresholds in medicine, including ideal body weight, alcohol clearance rates, kidney function and risk of cardiovascular disease vary by gender. A team of UK doctors and medical students have issued a warning over a lack of evidence as to whether trans patients should be considered for these gender-based scores according to their gender assigned at birth or the gender they have transitioned to – or whether alternative scores are required. In an effort to tackle the issue, the team have launched a research initiative called Trans Gap Project. Dr Michael Niman, a junior NHS doctor and chair of the project, said: “Currently, daily medical decisions involving gender-based scores have limited to no research for the trans community. This means that trans patients are often forgotten about or not considered in the medical world, leading to a significant gap in their access to appropriate medical care.” “When scores that haven’t considered trans people are used, patient autonomy is impaired for trans and gender-diverse patients, as they can’t make true informed decisions on their care – which is one of the bioethic pillars,” Niman said. In some cases, there could be safety concerns. “Clinicians are currently faced with uncertainty regarding the best clinical practice to address these scenarios, owing to a lack of evidence-based guidance,” Niman said. “It is vital clinicians take a vested interest in the research of gender-based scores for the trans community due to the importance of safe practice considerations within the NHS.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 May 2023
  8. News Article
    “Nobody cares about me. Nobody wants to help me. I don’t want to be here anymore.” Difficult words to hear from a small child, but for Molly Tippetts, aged five with a nasty tooth infection, the outburst was the culmination of two years of pain – all because she couldn’t get an appointment to see a dentist. Molly is just one example of the UK’s dental-health crisis. An increasing number of people cannot access dental care at all; others – including children and expectant mothers – find themselves on years-long waiting lists. Even though the pandemic is over, NHS practitioners admit the country is in a crisis that shows no sign of ending. New research shows one in four people suffering from toothache put off going to the dentist because of the cost. Dentistry is now the number one issue raised with Healthwatch, the independent statutory body representing NHS patients, with four in five people who contacted them saying they found it difficult to access dental care. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health recently warned that even toothbrushes were a “luxury item” for some families, and that children’s dental health was a “national disgrace”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 25 April 2023
  9. News Article
    The Women and Equalities Committee in a recent report has challenged the government over failures to address inequalities in maternity care which have led to Black women dying at four times the rate of white women. Tinuke Awe, 31, was left ‘traumatised’ and forced to go without pain relief after midwives didn’t believe she was in labour. Ms Awe, was induced after experiencing late pre-eclampsia while pregnant with her first child in 2017. She said: “Pre-eclampsia can be life-threatening for mum and baby, and it could’ve been fatal if I wasn’t treated. I was told I couldn’t leave the hospital and had to be induced". “They said the hormones could take 24 hours to work, but my labour happened really quickly and when I told the midwife she didn’t even believe I was in labour.” “I felt so overlooked and it was horrible how nobody listened to me,” she added. “I ended up having to have an assisted delivery which isn’t what I wanted, but it could’ve been avoided if someone had acknowledged I was in labour rather than ignore me. I just felt so unimportant.” Ms Aew alongside Clotilde Abe set up the charity Five X More. The organisation helps give advice and empower Black women to make informed choices during pregnancy and after childbirth. Five X More hope that the testimonials of the women they support can be used to show that better outcomes are possible with their ‘five steps for self-advocacy‘ being used to encourage women to ask for things like a second opinion. Read full story Source: The Independent, 18 April 2023 Read our interview with Tinuke Awe on the hub: Five X More campaign: Improving maternal mortality rates and health outcomes for black women
  10. News Article
    An MPs' report is calling for faster progress to tackle "appalling" higher death rates for black women and those from poorer areas in childbirth. The Women and Equalities Committee report says racism has played a key role in creating health disparities. But the many complex causes are "still not fully understood" and more funding and maternity staff are also needed. The NHS in England said it was committed to making maternity care safer for all women. The government said it had invested £165m in the maternity workforce and was promoting careers in midwifery, with an extra 3,650 training places a year. Black women are nearly four times more likely than white women to die within six weeks of giving birth, with Asian women 1.8 times more likely, according to UK figures for 2018-20. And women from the poorest areas of the country, where a higher proportion of babies belonging to ethnic minorities are born, the report says, are two and a half times more likely to die than those from the richest. Caroline Nokes, who chairs the committee, said births on the NHS "are among the safest in the world" but black women's raised risk was "shocking" and improvements in disparities between different groups were too slow. "It is frankly shameful that we have known about these disparities for at least 20 years - it cannot take another 20 to resolve," she added.
  11. News Article
    Eighteen months after April Adcox learned she had skin cancer, she finally returned to Charleston's Medical University of South Carolina last May to seek treatment. Adcox had first met with physicians at the academic medical center in late 2020, after a biopsy diagnosed basal cell carcinoma. The operation to remove the cancer would require several physicians, she was told, including a neurosurgeon, because of how close it was to her brain. But Adcox was uninsured. She had lost her automotive plant job in the early days of the pandemic, and at the time of her diagnosis was equally panicked about the complex surgery and the prospect of a hefty bill. Instead of proceeding with treatment, she attempted to camouflage the expanding cancerous area for more than a year with hats and long bangs. If Adcox had developed breast or cervical cancer, she likely would have qualified for insurance coverage under a federal law that extends Medicaid eligibility to lower-income patients diagnosed with those two malignancies. For female patients with other types of cancer, as well as pretty much all male patients, the options are scant, especially in South Carolina and the 11 other states that haven't yet implemented Medicaid expansion, according to cancer physicians and health policy experts who study access to care. In the face of potentially daunting bills, uninsured adults sometimes delay care, which can result in worse survival outcomes, research shows. The odds of patients getting insurance to help cover the cost of treatment play out a bit like a game of roulette, depending upon where they live and what type of cancer they have. "It is very random — that's, I think, the heartbreaking part about it," said Dr. Evan Graboyes, a head and neck surgeon and one of Adcox's physicians. "Whether you live or die from cancer shouldn't really be related to what state you live in." Read full story Source: CBS News, 7 April 2023
  12. News Article
    Governments should set aside 10% of health spending for preventive and public measures such as cycle lanes and anti-obesity strategies, a thinktank has said, warning that “political short-termism” over health is making the UK increasingly ill and unequal. The report by the Tony Blair Institute argues that a centralised NHS model “almost entirely focused on treating sickness” rather than on wider objectives is not only harming people’s health but hampering the economy, with more than 2.5 million people out of the labour market because of long-term ailments. The report emphasises the human cost as well, noting that the effect of diseases caused or exacerbated by lifestyle means UK life expectancy is stagnating, while men living in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea can now expect to live 27 years longer than their peers in Blackpool, Lancashire. Along with a coherent central plan, the authors stressed the need for effective localism, with accountable regional bodies working to improve public health, rather than “the existing top-down and reactive approach of the NHS”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 March 2023
  13. News Article
    Unconscious bias in the UK healthcare system is contributing to the stark racial disparity in maternal healthcare outcomes, a conference has heard. The Black Maternal Health Conference UK, also heard that black women not being listened to by healthcare professionals was also a contributing factor. The conference, organised by The Motherhood Group, was arranged to highlight the racial inequality in maternal healthcare and the disparity in maternal mortality between white, ethnic minority and black women in the UK. Black women in the UK are four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than white women, according to a report published by MBRRACE-UK. Asian women are twice as likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth. Sandra Igwe, who founded the NGO The Motherhood Group in 2016 after the traumatic birth of her daughter, told the PA Media that the event was an opportunity to “bridge the community, stakeholders, professionals, [and] government”, de-stigmatise mental health and bring about change to improve black maternal health. “There are so many stats – so why wouldn’t we have a whole day’s conference dedicated to addressing these, just scratching the surface of some of the stats?” Charities and activists have been raising alarm bells about the dangerous consequences of unconscious bias in maternal healthcare for many years. Igwe co-chaired the Birthrights inquiry, a year-long investigation into racial injustice in the UK maternity services, which heard testimony from women, birthing people, healthcare professionals and lawyers and concluded that “systemic racism exists in the UK and in public services”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 March 2023 Sandra Igwe is our hub topic lead for Black Maternal Health. Read our recent interview with Sandra.
  14. News Article
    Health Education England (HEE) has outlined a new vision for general practice training which it says will better prepare GPs for future models of care. The programme will have greater focus on areas such as addressing health inequalities and managing the growing proportion of patients with mental health care needs seen in general practice, HEE said. Innovative placements, perhaps with charities, third sector organisations and services such as CAHMS will be explored, the Training the Future GP report said. And it should include educational opportunities around improving cancer detection and referral, the report said, as well as training in the harms of overdiagnosis. Overall the goal is to move to a flexible model of training that meets the needs, skills and experiences of the trainee as well as the area they are working in. HEE said it would also continue to work to address issues of discrimination, prejudice, bias and specifically racism at individual, institutional and systemic levels, and to reduce differential attainment. It will include plans to ensure patients in deprived areas are able to access care, with the development of specific training offers on these issues and prioritising expansion of training capacity to areas in need. Read full story Source: Pulse, 17 March 2023
  15. News Article
    Life expectancy in the UK has grown at a slower rate than comparable countries over the past seven decades, according to researchers, who say this is the result of widening inequality. The UK lags behind all other countries in the group of G7 advanced economies except the US, according to a new analysis of global life expectancy rankings published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. While life expectancy has increased in absolute terms, similar countries have experienced larger increases, they wrote. In the 1950s, the UK had one of the longest life expectancies in the world, ranking seventh globally behind countries such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but in 2021 the UK was ranked 29th. The researchers said this was partly due to income inequality, which rose considerably in the UK during and after the 1980s. Prof Martin McKee, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “That rise also saw an increase in the variation in life expectancy between different social groups. One reason why the overall increase in life expectancy has been so sluggish in the UK is that in recent years it has fallen for poorer groups". Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2023
  16. News Article
    A new US study highlights a striking racial disparity in infant deaths: Black babies experienced the highest rate of sudden unexpected deaths (SIDS) in 2020, dying at almost three times the rate of White infants. The findings were part of research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also found a 15% increase in sudden infant deaths among babies of all races from 2019 to 2020, making SIDS the third leading cause of infant death in the United States after congenital abnormalities and the complications of premature birth. “In minority communities, the rates are going in the wrong direction,” said Scott Krugman, vice chair of the department of pediatrics and an expert on SIDS at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. The study found that rising SIDS rates in 2020 was likely attributable to diagnostic shifting — or reclassifying the cause of death. The causes of the rise in sleep-related deaths of Black infants remain unclear but it coincided with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately affected the health and wealth of Black communities. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Washington Post, 13 March 2023
  17. Content Article
    Imagine you have a disease that leaves you in severe pain, and frequently means you need emergency strong opioid pain relief. But your condition is rare, and A&E staff often have very limited knowledge of your condition. And on top of that you’re black, and staff assume you’re drug seeking, and this happens over and over again. This is just one of the ways people with sickle cell disorder face discrimination when trying to access health care. Is it any wonder you’d rather avoid the health and care service than have substandard care and/or face stigmatisation?  
  18. Content Article
    Across England, hospital activity continues to be seriously impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic with large falls in routine care resulting in millions of patients now subject to vast backlogs. Data analysis shows people from Asian groups faced larger falls in planned hospital care – both before and during the pandemic – than people from White, Black or Mixed ethnic groups. This infographic resource, designed in collaboration with the Nuffield Trust, aims to support the health care system by highlighting 10 key ways to tackle these disparities, and to take practical actions to address the ethnicity gap in care provision.
  19. Content Article
    Incomplete or inaccurate recording of ethnicity will undermine attempts to address health inequalities and improve access, experience and outcomes for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. This report by the Race Equality Foundation and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) looks at different aspects of the recording of ethnicity in healthcare. The authors interviewed people from a range of communities across England, as well as healthcare workers from different areas and settings to understand both sides of the process of collecting ethnicity data.
  20. Content Article
    For years, it has been known that pulse oximeters may present racial biases, with studies dating back as far as the late 1980s suggesting a flaw in how the device measures oxygen in people with darker skin tones. This article looks at how the Covid-19 pandemic finally brought the problem to the forefront of medicine. Ashraf Fawzy, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, talks about how he and other doctors noticed a trend in pulse oximeter readings not matching up to patient symptoms, and how they went on to research the issue, publishing their results in a study in May 2022. Their study found that Black and Hispanic patients were 29% and 23% less likely than white patients, respectively, to have pulse oximeters recognise their eligibility for more aggressive Covid-19 treatment. The resulting delay in care for patients with darker skin tones is likely to have a significant impact on patient outcomes.
  21. Content Article
    “Medical gaslighting” is a controversial term that has emerged to describe a phenomenon some people – women in particular – may recognise. It refers to a patient’s feeling that their symptoms are not taken seriously, or are being misdiagnosed by healthcare professionals. When she was 37, Eleanor presented at a hospital emergency department with severe chest pain. She was diagnosed with slightly high cholesterol and sent home. Three days later, she suffered excruciating pain and was taken to hospital in an ambulance. There, she was asked if she had suffered from panic attacks and was left overnight in a cubicle, before doctors realised she was having a heart attack. She needed eight cardiac stents. “I am sure no man would be asked if they suffer from panic attacks while they’re having a heart attack,” she says. This article in the Irish Times asks why women are more likely to feel their symptoms are not being taken seriously by doctors. Further reading on the hub: ‘Women are being dismissed, disbelieved and shut out’ Gender bias: A threat to women’s health Dangerous exclusions: The risk to patient safety of sex and gender bias
  22. Content Article
    Ahead of World Cancer Day 2023, Cancer Research UK have published a new report that shows that the impact of cancer for people in the UK will only grow, and sets out the challenges that cancer services are already facing today. New modelling published in the report, Cancer in the UK: Overview 2023 shows that if current trends continue, cancer cases will rise from the 384,000 diagnosed each year now, to over half a million by 2040. To put that into context, that means around a third more people will be diagnosed with the condition every year in comparison to current levels. And we could see around a quarter more annual cancer deaths – 208,000 by 2040, With services barely treading water now, Governments across the UK must act if they are to effectively meet the increase in demand that this analysis anticipates, but efforts have been piecemeal so far.
  23. Content Article
    In this blog, Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive, Helen Hughes, reflects on a recent discussion about hysteroscopy and patient safety at a conference in January 2023, hosted by the Association of Anaesthetists.
  24. Content Article
    In this YouTube video, Jerika T. Lam, Associate Professor at Chapman University, School of Pharmacy, offers insights on patient safety from a pharmacist’s perspective. As someone who works in a clinic that serves marginalised and underserved communities, she describes the important role pharmacists can play on a healthcare team alongside doctors and nurses to ensure patients get the appropriate medications with minimal drug interactions.
  25. Content Article
    Last year, the independent NHS Race and Health Observatory commissioned consultancy, Public Digital, to undertake a ‘digital discovery’ project to explore the lived experience of people undergoing acute emergency hospital admissions for sickle cell and managing crisis episodes at home. The NHS Race and Health Observatory’s January 2023 publication – ‘Sickle cell digital discovery report – Designing better acute painful sickle cell care’ – sets out to understand the broad availability of digital products and services that currently exist. The report explores the range of technology that is in place for Accident and Emergency clinicians, red-cell specialists, and ambulance care, to aid timely support to sufferers on their emergency hospital arrival. A number of focus groups and interviews were carried out with those that have lived experience of the disease, including patients who have suffered acute, painful sickle cell episodes during NHS A&E admissions. Research found a lack of individual care plans in place and, more broadly, no clear definition of what constitutes an actual care plan. A number of recommendations are set out in the report for the NHS and the wider healthcare system.
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