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Showing results for tags 'Health Disparities'.
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Content ArticleThe US's response to monkeypox fails to put patients and their care at its centre, writes Eric Kutscher in the BMJ opinion article. As a primary care and addiction medicine physician, Kutscher has been dismayed by the number of patients he has treated over the past few weeks who’ve been infected with the vaccine-preventable monkeypox virus. Most have been in considerable pain and required strong analgesics, with some unable to even sit because of their skin lesions. Yet for many, the most agonising and scarring aspect of their infection is not their physical symptoms, but the complete removal of their humanity by the medical response to monkeypox. As a medical and public health community, we are exhausted after Covid-19, and our compassion fatigue is showing in our policies and procedures for monkeypox. The spread of the virus to previously non-endemic countries was only recently declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. Unlike with Covid-19, this is not a novel virus—we have the appropriate diagnostic testing, treatment, and even vaccines that we need. Yet, just as we have failed to deploy these tools to assist in outbreaks in African nations, we are now also failing our patients from a sexual minority—patients who are already underserved and justifiably mistrusting of a medical system.
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Content ArticleThis report by Richard Norrie, director of the Statistics and Policy Research Programme at Civitas, aims to scrutinise the Race and Health Observatory (RHO) rapid evidence review into ethnic inequalities in healthcare published in February 2022. The report highlights inconsistencies in the review's use of research and data and argues that its conclusions do not reflect the full body of evidence available concerning race and health outcomes. The author suggests that the review makes a false assumption that the needs of all ethnic groups are the same, which leads to its potentially inaccurate conclusions about the prevalence and causes of health inequalities.
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News Article
'Bolder government action' needed to address inequalities in dementia risk
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
"Bolder government action" is needed to address inequalities in dementia risk, the charity Alzheimer's Research UK has warned this week. The comments come in response to findings from four new studies presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) which link socio-economic deprivation with increased risk of dementia and cognitive decline. Dr Susan Mitchell, head of policy at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: "These findings are a stark reminder of the health gap between the most and least deprived in society, with the most deprived at a higher risk of developing dementia. "Ultimately, these inequalities are profoundly unfair, but they are also avoidable. The Government has a key role in addressing inequalities through a range of measures to improve poverty, employment, housing and education." She added: "We urge Government to make dementia prevention a key priority in its aim to level up healthcare across the country, and hope the forthcoming health disparities white paper lays the foundation for a fairer, healthier nation." Read full story Source: Medscape, 5 August 2022 -
Content ArticleThe Commission on Young Lives (COYL) was set up in September 2021, to propose a new settlement to prevent marginalised children and young people from falling into violence, exploitation and the criminal justice system, and to support them to thrive. Its national action plan will include ambitious practical, affordable proposals that government, councils, police, social services and communities can put into place. This detailed report by COYL examines the state of children and young people's mental health, describing the current situation as "a profound crisis." It examines the impact of the pandemic on young people's mental health, as well highlighting the lack of capacity and inequalities present in children and young people's mental health services. It then looks in detail at factors that contribute to mental health issues in children and young people and prevent marginalised groups from accessing mental health support.
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Content ArticleYoung people from different backgrounds with different lived experiences can have different physical and mental health outcomes. This briefing document by the Association for Young People’s Health (AYPH) offers a definition for health inequalities that is specific to young people, and a conceptual framework to help identify key causes and factors that influence health outcomes. As well as highlighting the impact of Covid-19 on young people's health and wellbeing, the paper focuses on different factors that will affect young people's health outcomes now and in the future, including education, employment, housing, geographical area, development of behaviours and relationships.
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Content ArticleThis practical guide was commissioned by The Health Foundation and NHS England to support NHS systems to tackle health inequalities. Co-written by the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network and a reference group of national experts, stakeholders, service providers and people with lived experience of inequalities, the guide suggests practical action that systems can take to ensure equitable access, excellent experience and optimal outcomes for all. The guide covers four key areas for action and features good practice examples which systems and providers can adapt and apply to their local context. There are also checklists to assist system leaders, managers, clinicians, and operational staff, to design new models of care and embed sustainable action to drive down healthcare inequalities. The guide supports the national Core20plus5 approach to reduce healthcare inequalities which focuses on a population group of the core 20% most deprived nationally and those from inclusion health groups; outlining five clinical areas of focus.
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Content ArticleDisabled people's voices need to be valued and prioritised in the planning and delivery of health and care services. This long read sets out the findings of research carried out by The King's Fund and Disability Rights UK into how disabled people are currently involved in health and care system design, and what good might look like.
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Content ArticleThis briefing paper by thinktank The Centre for Mental Health explores evidence about the links between factors that worsen mental health, showing that living in poverty increases people’s risk of mental health difficulties, and that more unequal societies have higher overall levels of mental ill health. It also demonstrates that poverty and economic inequality intersect with structural racism to undermine the mental health of racialised and marginalised groups in society. Among other things, it highlights inequalities in access to primary care and mental health services across the UK.
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News Article
Londoners several times more likely to get life-saving treatment
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS and the Treasury need to make a renewed commitment to increasing the number of patients who benefit from thrombectomy, the Stroke Association has said, as it revealed the service was dependent on just 106 doctors in England. New analysis due to be published by the charity later this week – and shared with HSJ – also found only a quarter of thrombectomy units are open 24 hours, seven days a week, with 42% only operating during office hours and Monday to Friday. Despite an NHS long-term plan target of treating 10% of strokes with a thrombectomy by this year, only 2.8% were benefitting in December 2021 – a smaller proportion than in the US or some other Western European nations. It means nearly 6,000 people who could benefit from thrombectomy are missing out, the charity has calculated. The Stroke Association’s report also highlighted large apparent regional variation in the share of stroke patients receiving the treatment — with London patients several times more likely to receive the treatment than elsewhere. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 July 2022 -
Content ArticleIs good-quality health care being provided for women in prison? As the government proceeds with plans to build 500 more prison places for women, this new Nuffield Trust analysis uses HES data to look at women prisoners' use of hospital services, finding that they face a series of challenges and risks in prison because of barriers to accessing health and care services.
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Content ArticleInfographic highlighting statistics on ethnic health inequalities in the UK.
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Content ArticleTwo years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that gender differences exist, and that women, men, and gender minorities are differentially impacted by the pandemic.
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News Article
NHS waits force patients to pay for private ops
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Long NHS waiting times appear to be pushing people into paying thousands of pounds for private treatment. There were 69,000 self-funded treatments in the UK in the final three months of last year - a 39% rise on the same period before the pandemic. Experts said it was a sign of how desperate people had become. The BBC has seen evidence of people taking out loans and resorting to crowdfunding to pay for private treatment. The figures from the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) do not include those who have private insurance - instead they are the people paying the full cost of treatment themselves, leaving them liable for huge bills. Patient groups warned there was a risk of a two-tier system being created, with the poorest losing out because they were the least likely to be able to afford to pay for treatment. Patient watchdog Healthwatch England said waits for treatment were one of the most common concerns flagged by patients, and warned the situation risked "widening health inequalities". Chief executive Louise Ansari said for most people going private "simply isn't an option", especially with the cost-of-living crisis. "People on the lowest incomes are the most likely to wait the longest for NHS treatment. This leads to a worse impact on their physical health, mental health and ability to work and care for loved ones." Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 July 2022 -
Content Article
The NHS has declared climate change a health emergency, but are trust leaders and healthcare staff talking and acting on this? Angela Hayes, Clinical Lead Sustainability at the Christie Foundation Trust, discusses climate change and the impact it has on all of our lives and health. She believes healthcare professionals have a moral duty to act, to protect and improve public health, and should demand stronger action in tackling climate change.- Posted
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Content ArticleMost doctors enter their training with a desire to help people. When a patient asks us for assistance, and what is requested is within our power, we generally say yes. If what they want is not safe or evidence based—another home detox from alcohol, or a drug that is blacklisted in our formulary—we have good reasons for declining. When the main reason for saying no is that we are just too busy, however, it is far harder. Our ability to say no raises questions of equity and patient safety; as there are not enough GPs to cope with patients’ demands, we need to be careful how we spend our time. If we want to continue to look after our patients safely, we must also start learning to say no in other spheres, politely pushing back against the transfer of work from hospitals to general practice.
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News Article
GPs to give patients with learning disability and autism ‘priority appointments’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS England will ask GP practices to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for patients with a learning disability or autism such as giving them ‘priority appointments’. They could also be asked to provide ‘easy-read appointment letters’ to the group, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said yesterday in a new strategy on strengthening support for autistic people and those with a learning disability. It said the measures aim to support Government plans to reduce reliance on mental health inpatient care, with a target to reduce the number of those with a learning disability or autism in specialist inpatient care by 50% by March 2024 compared with March 2015. The policy paper said: ‘We know that people experience challenges accessing reasonably adjusted support which may prevent them from having their needs met.’ It added: ‘To make it easier for people with a learning disability and autistic people to use health services, there is work underway in NHS England to make sure that staff in health settings know if they need to make reasonable adjustments for people." NHS England is also developing a ‘reasonable adjustments digital flag’ that will signal that a patient may need reasonable adjustments on their health record, it said. It plans to make this flag, which is currently being tested, available across all NHS services, it added. Read full story Source: Pulse 15 July 2022 -
Content ArticleThe government recently appointed Dame Lesley Regan, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Imperial College London, as the first women’s health ambassador for England. The new role has been created to help close the gender health gap. Shakila Thangaratinam, Professor of Maternal and Perinatal health, University of Birmingham, reflects on what Dame Regan should focus on in this blog for The Conversation.
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News Article
UK skin cancer deaths higher in men than women
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More men are dying from melanoma skin cancer than women in the UK, Cancer Research UK is warning as the country's heatwave continues. Rates of the cancer, which can develop in sun-damaged skin, have been rising in both men and women in recent years. Late diagnosis may be part of the reason why men are faring worse. Melanoma is treatable if it is diagnosed early - the charity is urging people to take care in the sun and get any unusual skin changes checked. Melanoma death rates have improved for women in the last 10 years, but not for men. Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research, says the figures "drive home the importance of sun safety". "We all need to take steps to protect ourselves from the sun's harmful UV rays. Getting sunburnt just once every two years can triple your risk of skin cancer," she adds. Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 July 2022 -
News Article
Women in healthcare sector earn 24% less than men, international report finds
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Women working in healthcare earn on average 24% less than their male peers and face a larger gender pay gap than in other economic sectors, a joint report by the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization has found. The analysis, which looked at data from 54 countries across all geographic and income regions, found a raw gender pay gap of around 20%, which jumped to 24% when factors such as age, education, and working time were considered. Gender pay gaps also tended to be wider in higher pay categories, where men were over-represented, while women were over-represented in the lower pay categories. The authors said the findings highlighted that women, who accounted for 67% of the global health and care workforce in 2020, were underpaid and undervalued. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 13 July 2022 -
Content ArticleCancer screening involves testing for early signs of cancer in people without symptoms. It can help spot cancers at an early stage, when treatment is more likely to be successful, or in some cases prevent cancer from developing the first place. The screening test for bowel cancer is the faecal immunochemical test, or FIT, that looks for tiny traces of blood in your poo. These tests are sent to everyone in the eligible population every two years. In this blog Jacob Smith from Cancer Research UK looks at the importance of increasing bowel cancer screening in socioeconomically deprived communities, where there is a higher incidence of bowel cancer and death from bowel cancer. This is partly due to lower levels of participation in screening. The blog highlights the results of a recent study carried out by the University of Sheffield to determine which interventions may be successful in reducing health inequalities related to bowel cancer screening. Modelling found that re-inviting non-participants to take part in screening each year was a highly effective intervention, and it is estimated that this approach would prevent over 11,000 bowel cancer deaths over the lifetime of the current English population aged 50-74.
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News ArticleArtificial intelligence (AI) could lead to UK health services that disadvantage women and ethnic minorities, scientists are warning. They are calling for biases in the systems to be rooted out before their use becomes commonplace in the NHS. They fear that without that preparation AI could dramatically deepen existing health inequalities in our society. A new study has found that AI models built to identify people at high risk of liver disease from blood tests are twice as likely to miss disease in women as in men. The researchers examined the state of the art approach to AI used by hospitals worldwide and found it had a 70% success rate in predicting liver disease from blood tests. But they uncovered a wide gender gap underneath – with 44% of cases in women missed, compared with 23% of cases among men. “AI algorithms are increasingly used in hospitals to assist doctors diagnosing patients. Our study shows that, unless they are investigated for bias, they may only help a subset of patients, leaving other groups with worse care,” said Isabel Straw, of University College London, who led the study. “We need to be really careful that medical AI doesn’t worsen existing inequalities.” Read full story Source: iNews, 9 July 2022
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News ArticleWhen Susan Sullivan died from Covid-19, her parents’ world fell quiet. But as John and Ida Sullivan battled the pain of losing their eldest, they were comforted by doctors’ assurance that they had done all they could. It was not until more than a year later, when they received her medical records, that the family made a crushing discovery. These suggested that, despite Susan being in good health and responding well to initial treatments, doctors at Barnet hospital had concluded she wouldn’t pull through. When Susan was first admitted on 27 March 2020, a doctor had written in her treatment plan: “ITU (Intensive therapy unit) review if not improving”, indicating he believed she might benefit from a higher level of care. But as her oxygen levels fell and her condition deteriorated, the 56-year-old was not admitted to the intensive unit. Instead she died in her bed on the ward without access to potentially life-saving treatment others received. In the hospital records, seen by the Observer, the reason Susan was excluded is spelled out: “ITU declined in view of Down’s syndrome and cardiac comorbidities.” A treatment plan stating she was not to be resuscitated also cites her disability. For John, 79, a retired builder, that realisation was “like Susan dying all over again”. “The reality is that doctors gave her a bed to die in because she had Down’s syndrome,” he said. “To me it couldn’t be clearer: they didn’t even try.” Susan is one of thousands of disabled people in Britain killed by Covid-19. Last year, a report by the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review Programme found that almost half those who died from Covid-19 did not receive good enough treatment, including problems accessing care. Of those who died from Covid-19, 81% had a do-not-resuscitate decision, compared with 72% of those who died from other causes. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 July 2022
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EventuntilEntrenched health inequalities have come to the fore over the past couple of years and we have seen some of the sharpest declines in health and wellbeing for our children, young people and their families. Never has there been a more urgent need to address the link between wider social, economic and environmental causes to the increased risk of poor public health and mental health. These are best understood and addressed at a local level by people and organisations that have relationships and knowledge of the nuances and cultures of individuals and communities. The formation of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) represents a significant opportunity for Boards to engage the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector in order to enable a truly integrated Health and Social Care System to be delivered. These new arrangements which will bring together local system partners should serve to strengthen relationships between the NHS and VCSE sector and promote greater equity. This free webinar, co-produced and sponsored by Barnardo’s, brings together an esteemed panel of experts to discuss how we make the most of these opportunities at this critical time, as well as showcasing innovative VCSE projects that are delivering improved outcomes for children, young people and their families. Register for the webinar
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Content ArticleThis is the transcript of a Westminster Hall debate in the House of Commons on waiting lists for gynaecological services.
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News ArticleEmma Hardy MP has secured a Westminster debate on gynaecological wait times. Gynaecology waiting lists across the UK have now reached a combined figure of more than 610,000 – a 69% increase on pre-pandemic levels. New analysis by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) shows that in England, gynaecology waiting lists have grown the most by percentage increase of all elective specialties. Emma is co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) for Surgical Mesh and Endometriosis - both come under the heading of ‘gynaecological conditions’ and both are being impacted by increased waiting times. Through her involvement with these APPGs, Emma has heard the testimony of so many women whose lives have been impacted by conditions that can be so painful and debilitating that they impact on every aspect of family, social and work life. Emma will ask the minister to launch an investigation into possible gender bias in the prioritisation of gynaecology services and ensure that elective recovery will address the unequal growth of gynaecology waiting lists compared to other specialties. Emma said: "It is completely unacceptable that 610,000 women are waiting for gynaecological care across the UK. The reality is that many of these women will be in excruciating pain awaiting treatment, unable to go about their day-to-day lives." Read full story Source: Hull Daily Mail, 5 July 2022
