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Found 124 results
  1. News Article
    Six wards in a busy London Hospital, added at a cost of £24 billion during the pandemic, are lying empty because the builders did not install sprinklers. With the NHS in crisis, the Royal London Hospital in east London, has had to mothball the space, which is large enough to take 155 intensive care beds, while officials work out what to do with it. They have no patients in it since last May. Source: The Sunday Times, 29 January 2023 Shared by Shaun Lintern on Twitter
  2. Content Article
    Health workers, hailed as heroes during the pandemic, say they’re being abandoned by the NHS and the government. Some are living with Long Covid and say it’s having a devastating impact on both their personal and professional lives. For Panorama, the BBC’s health correspondent, Catherine Burns, meets staff struggling to return to work and reveals how some are now facing financial hardship and the prospect of having to retire early or, worse, being sacked.
  3. News Article
    High levels of microplastics have been found in operating theatres by researchers who highlighted the “astoundingly high” amounts of single-use plastic used in modern surgical procedures. A team from the University of Hull found the amount of microplastics in a cardiothoracic operating theatre was almost three times that found in homes, and said this identifies another route through which the tiny particles can enter the human body, with unknown consequences. The study, published in the journal Environment International, is the first to examine the prevalence of microplastics in surgical environments. The team analysed levels in the operating theatre and the anaesthetic room in cardiothoracic surgeries and discovered an average of 5,000 microplastics per metre squared when the theatre was in use. Jeanette Rotchell, professor of environmental toxicology at the university, said the types of microplastic particles identified relate to common plastic wrapping materials and could also come from blister packs, surgical gowns, hairnets and drapes for patients. Prof Rotchell said: “Although we know microplastics are in the air in a variety of settings, we can’t yet say what the consequences are or whether microplastics are harmful to health. Researchers have yet to establish this. Read full story Source: The Independent, 27 January 2023
  4. Content Article
    An examination of our local community hospital (2nd largest in the state of Maine) and a petition to hopefully spark discussion and change.
  5. News Article
    The US Joint Commission will hold a safety briefing with healthcare organisations at the start of every accreditation survey starting in 2023, the organisation has said. Site surveyors and staff members preselected by the healthcare organisation will conduct an informal, five-minute briefing to discuss any potential safety concerns — such as fires, an active shooter scenario or other emergencies — and how surveyors should react if safety plans are implemented while they are on site. The change takes effect 1 January 2023 and applies to all accreditation surveys performed by the organisation. Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 13 December 2022
  6. News Article
    NHS England has warned trusts not to compromise on fire safety when using corridor spaces to treat patients, amid growing pressure to accommodate more patients. It comes as emergency departments face increasing pressure from national and regional officials to find more space for patients this winter – even when they are deemed full to capacity – to reduce ambulance handover delays. The guidance, issued earlier this month, says trusts should complete new fire safety risk assessments before bringing any new part of a hospital into use for patient care, or extending the capacity of an existing area. It also said trusts have a legal duty to ensure escape routes are kept clear. It added: “As we continue to find extra capacity in the estate by newly using, or re-using, parts of hospitals for patient treatment or care, or increasing the capacity of existing areas, we would like to remind you of how any change of use of areas may affect fire safety requirements. “Under no circumstances must fire compliance be compromised on sites which have been changed.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 29 November 2022
  7. News Article
    Patients have been asking to go to other hospitals rather than one where the ageing roof is being held up by more than 2,400 wooden and steel posts. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn has already had to close four of its seven operating theatres because of concerns the ceiling could collapse. Alex Stewart, head of Healthwatch Norfolk, said some pregnant women have asked to go to other hospitals. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) opened in 1980, one of seven hospitals built using a material called reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). The material has serious weaknesses and is deteriorating, with uncertainty over its structural integrity leading to more than £100m being spent this financial year on safety measures across the affected sites. Mr Stewart told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think people are very frustrated, they're well aware that the hospital staff inspect the hospital on a daily basis, several times a day. "That said, we are aware of patients, for example, who are giving birth, who have asked to go to other hospitals because they're scared in case the roof might fall in on them." The hospital's interim chief executive, Alice Webster, said while four theatres have had to be closed, "potentially" there could be problems with the ceilings in the others. "We continue to monitor it on a daily basis," she said. "We're making sure our theatres are functioning longer, we're functioning at weekends and trying to manage the waiting lists that way." She added: "If we don't get a new hospital we will have to review all the services that we currently provide, but we won't be able to provide all the services that we currently do." Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 November 2022
  8. Content Article
    Lucy is a world-leading authority on recovering from disaster. She has been at the centre of the most seismic events of the last few decades, advising on everything from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to the 7/7 bombings, the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, the Grenfell fire and the Covid-19 pandemic. In every catastrophe, Lucy is there to pick up the pieces and prepare for the next one. She holds governments to account, helps communities rally together, returns personal possessions to families, and holds the hands of the survivors.   In her moving memoir she reveals what happens in the aftermath and explores how we pick up and rebuild with strength and perseverance. She takes us behind the police tape to scenes of destruction and chaos, introducing us to victims and their families, but also to the government briefing rooms and bunkers, where confusion and stale biscuits can reign supreme. Telling her own personal story, Lucy looks back at a life spent on the edges of disaster, from a Liverpudlian childhood steeped in the Hillsborough tragedy to the many losses and loves of her career.
  9. News Article
    Thirty-four hospital buildings in England have roofs made of concrete that is so unstable they could fall down at any time, ministers have admitted. The revelation has prompted renewed fears that ceilings at the hospitals affected might suddenly collapse, injuring staff and patients, and calls for urgent action to tackle the problem. Maria Caulfield, a health minister, made the disclosure in a written answer to a parliamentary question asked by the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson, Daisy Cooper. Caulfield said surveys carried out by the NHS found that 34 buildings at 16 different health trusts contained reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), which one hospital boss has likened to a “chocolate Aero bar”. RAAC was widely used in building hospitals and schools in the 1960s, 70s and 80s but has a 30-year lifespan and is now causing serious problems. In 2020 Simon Corben, NHS England’s director of estates, declared that RAAC planks posed a “significant safety risk” because their age meant they could fall down without warning. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 August 2022
  10. Content Article
    Governments in England, Scotland and Wales recently withdrew covid sick leave for NHS staff. These changes to sick pay provision for staff on Covid-related sick pay is hard to understand at a time when Covid-19 infections are going up exponentially and many NHS organisations are reporting increasing numbers of staff off sick. Evidence is emerging that your chances of on-going issues (Long Covid) following a covid infection increase with each re-infection. Given this you might expect that NHS organisations were ensuring their infection control guidelines guaranteed staff were fully protected against Covid-19. However, in many Trusts this does not appear to be the case. Throughout the pandemic many NHS organisations seem to have focused on following Government guidelines about PPE requirements and ignored their obligations under Health and Safety Legislation. This has resulted in on-going shortcomings in protecting staff at work. This is discussed by Professor Raymond Agius and colleagues in a BMJ blog.
  11. News Article
    A trust which rented 1,100 lone worker alarms has found just four were in use after a year. Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust rented the system for five years, with the contract starting in early 2021. But a year later only 51 of the units were assigned to a user, and just four were being used. Most of the users had not completed their training and 19 had not even logged into the system to set up a profile, according to an annual health and safety report covering 2021-22. The health and safety report said: “Unfortunately the system has yet to demonstrate value for money as the uptake within services across the trust is very poor, despite the extensive work by the health and safety team to encourage uptake.” This had included demonstrating the system at multiple meetings and trying to raise awareness. A spokesperson from Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust said: “The lone worker system is one of the ways we ensure the safety of our staff who work alone. It has taken time to embed the new system due to the changes in working practices during the pandemic. However, in recent months we have seen the number of staff actively using the system increasing." “There is more we are doing to ensure wider take-up and implementation, through a programme of engagement and training.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 August 2022
  12. News Article
    People would rather go to England if they had a stroke than use the A&E at a north Wales hospital, a health watchdog has said. Inspectors said there was a "clear and significant risk to patient safety" after inspections at the department in Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Denbighshire. North Wales Community Health Council's Geoff Ryall-Harvey said it was the "worst situation" they had seen. The report said inspectors found staff who were "working above and beyond in challenging conditions" during a period of "unrelenting demand". Many staff told them they were unhappy and struggling to cope. They said they did not feel supported by senior managers. However inspectors said that the health board was not fully compliant with many of the health and care standards, and highlighted significant areas of concern, which could present an immediate risk to the safety of patients, including: Doctors were left to "come across" high-risk patients instead of being alerted to them. Patients were not monitored enough - including a suspected stroke patient and one considered a suicide risk. Children were at serious risk of harm as the public could enter the paediatric area unchallenged. Inspectors found evidence of children leaving unseen or being discharged against medical advice. Betsi Cadwaladr health board said it was committed to improvements. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 August 2022
  13. Content Article
    Foreign body ingestions are common events among paediatric patients. Button battery ingestions are particularly dangerous. Although the incidence of button battery ingestions has not changed over the last 30 years, the rates of emergency department visits, major morbidity, and mortality have risen dramatically since the introduction of the 3-volt–20 mm lithium batteries in 2006. These batteries are larger and more powerful than their predecessors, which has increased the incidence of esophageal impaction and significant tissue injury.  The overall incidence of major morbidity or mortality after button battery ingestion is 0.42%. However, in children under six years old who ingest batteries >20 mm, the rates of major complications are as high as 12.6%. All reported fatalities have occurred in children under five years old. This article in the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation newsletter looks at the perioperative management of children who have ingested a button battery.
  14. News Article
    NHS England has called for a “deep dive” into local evacuation and shelter arrangements, amid ongoing concerns about outdated and unsafe estate. NHS England’s director of emergency preparedness, resilience and response Stephen Groves wrote to trusts: “Following the publication of the updated evacuation and shelter guidance for the NHS in England, and recent work driven by the heightened risk associated with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), the 2022-23 EPRR annual deep dive will focus on local evacuation and shelter arrangements.” The letter, sent at the end of last week, comes amid growing concerns about NHS estate, including RAAC planks which were used in constructing public sector buildings in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Areas to be examined in the deep dive vary by type of organisation. However, according to a self-assessment tool referenced in the letter, questions for providers include: whether they have “a process in place to triage patients in the event of an incident requiring evacuation and/or shelter of patients”; whether there are “effective arrangements in place to support partners in a community evacuation, where the population of a large area may need to be displaced”; and whether “evacuation and shelter arrangements include resilient mechanisms to communicate with staff, patients, their families and the public, pre, peri and post evacuation”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 August 2022
  15. Content Article
    Perioperative practitioners in the UK are universally concerned about the risk surgical smoke plume poses to their health. Yet less than a fifth are aware of any policy being in place to manage this risk within their organisation. The majority of hospitals have plume evacuation equipment in place, but it is only used in the minority of surgical procedures. Almost three-quarters of theatre staff have experienced symptoms associated with exposure to surgical smoke plume. But these symptoms are rarely reported and, when they are, no action is generally taken. These are the findings of a new report published by the Surgical Plume Alliance (SPA), a joint advocacy initiative between the Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP) and the International Council on Surgical Plume (ICSP). They aimed to gain a greater understanding of the awareness levels, training, management and policy surrounding surgical smoke plume in the UK.
  16. News Article
    Two-thirds of defective breathing machines distributed by the health service have not been repaired or replaced in the 12 months since they were subject to a worldwide recall over safety concerns. Philips Respironics last year issued a field safety notice for a series of ventilation devices because the polyester-based foam used to dampen the noise of the machines can break down. The foam particles or potentially toxic chemicals may be inhaled or ingested by patients. Almost 8,000 of the affected machines have been contracted by the Health Safety Executive (HSE) for use in hospitals and private homes, including 6,394 continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices, 1,348 bilevel positive airway pressure (BPAP) devices, and 147 mechanical ventilators. However, the HSE told The Times that only 2,723 devices had been repaired or replaced a year after the recall was announced. A spokesman did not respond when asked if the HSE was concerned about patient safety, given that more than 5,000 devices have not been attended to. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 8 July 2022
  17. News Article
    The chief executive of a hospital has said the building is not in a condition "we should expect any of our nearest and dearest to receive care" in. Kettering General Hospital chief executive Simon Weldon described the site as "a big hotchpotch of things, some things that are new, about 10 years old, to things that are 100 years old, and everything in between". He added: "Those are not conditions a modern hospital should be proud of, those are not conditions we should ask any staff to work in, they are not the conditions we should expect any of our nearest and dearest to receive care." The initial £46m the hospital was award in 2019 was to replace the temporary "power plant". Mr Weldon said he would submit a business case to get money "to fix the vital infrastructure work that will keep this site safe". But he said the hospital really needed to be rebuilt, and that "fixing the hospital would be bad value for taxpayers". Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 July 2022
  18. News Article
    Britain’s safety at work regulator refused to investigate reports from NHS trusts that 10 frontline staff had died as a result of catching Covid-19 during the pandemic. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) declined to look into at least 89 dangerous incidents that NHS trusts said involved healthcare workers being exposed to Covid, including 10 deaths. The stance taken by the HSE, which oversees workplace health and safety and can bring prosecutions, is disclosed in freedom of information requests by the Pharmaceutical Journal. It has prompted concern that the regulator is too strict in its definition of workplace harm. It found that 173 trusts in England submitted at least 6,007 reports about employees’ exposure to Covid-19 in the course of their duties to the HSE between 30 January 2020 and 11 March 2022, under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR). They included 213 “dangerous occurrences”, which are incidents that have the potential to cause significant harm; 5,753 cases where a staff member had caught Covid-19; and 41 deaths among people who had been exposed to the disease at their workplace. However, the HSE refused to look into five Covid deaths reported under the RIDDOR scheme by the Yorkshire ambulance service (YAS) because of what it considered a lack of evidence. The regulator also decided not to look into the Covid deaths of five staff at University College London hospital acute trust, despite the trust’s belief they had caught it at work. “The HSE found that there was no reasonable evidence that the infection was contracted at work,” a trust spokesperson said. Shelly Asquith, the health, safety and wellbeing officer at the Trades Union Congress, said the HSE’s decisions and claimed lack of evidence was “really concerning”. It suggested a continued “element of denial about Covid being airborne and it not being possible to necessarily pinpoint where exactly somebody was exposed once it’s in the air”, she added. Read full story Source: Guardian, 26 May 2022
  19. Event
    Webinar to report on progress with updating the ISO 23908 standard on safety mechanisms in the design and manufacture of devices and the prevention of sharps injuries. See the agenda below. Agenda for webinar on 22.06.22 at 09.00 updating the ISO 23908 standard on safety mechanisms and the prevention of sharps injuries.docx Click here to join the meeting
  20. News Article
    Patients’ lives are at risk because NHS hospitals have been allowed to crumble into disrepair, with ceilings collapsing and power cuts disrupting surgery. The number of clinical incidents linked to the failure to repair old buildings and faulty equipment has tripled in the past five years, an investigation by The Times found. Hundreds of vital NHS operations and appointments are being cancelled as a result of outdated infrastructure, undermining attempts by doctors to tackle record waiting lists. Recent incidents include an unconscious patient on a ventilator being trapped in a broken lift for 35 minutes and power running out as a patient lay in an operating theatre. On Saturday, April 23, a five-hour power cut at the Royal London Hospital in east London led to the cancellation of operations including two lifesaving kidney transplants, and meant women giving birth had to be transferred to different maternity units in the backs of taxis. Hospitals have also recorded hundreds of rat and pest infestations, and some rooms containing patients have been left “overflowing with raw sewage”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 2 May 2022
  21. News Article
    A patient was left traumatised when his body caught on fire halfway through surgery - leaving his insides scorched. Mark, 52, went to hospital for a routine abscess removal - but woke up to the news that a freak accident in theatre had sparked an horrific blaze. A diathermy machine, used to stop bleeding, caused a swab to catch fire - before flames burnt their way through his exposed flesh, Mark explained. It took over a year for Mark - not his real name - to recover from his dreadful injuries - and the emotional scarring it caused. Between 2008 and 2018, 37 cases were acknowledged by NHS trusts across Britain. But from 2009 to 2019, it has paid out nearly £14 million in compensation settlements and legal fees. Fires such as these are often fuelled by leaking oxygen - and are caused by faulty machinery or sparking equipment. Campaigners are concerned that UK hospitals are lagging behind other countries in recording surgical fires and introducing protocols to reduce both their frequency and severity. Theatre scrub nurse Kathy Nabbie has spent the past five years trying to make colleagues more aware of the threat of surgical fires. In 2017 - after hearing how a woman in Oregon, USA, had suffered severe burns when her face was set alight in surgery - she made a simple safety checklist. Her Fire Risk Assessment tool allowed colleagues to check for the presence of elements that together might cause a fire to break out. But senior staff failed to implement the initiative and - when a surgical fire actually took place three months later - Kathy learned that her laminated checklist had simply been put in a drawer. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “After that they did start using it, but why on earth should it have taken an actual fire to persuade them?” Read full story Source: The Sun, 7 April 2022 Further reading What can we do to improve safety in the theatre? Reflections from theatre nurse Kathy Nabbie How I raised awareness of fires in the operating theatre - Kathy Nabbie
  22. Content Article
    In this blog, Lotty Tizzard, Patient Safety Learning’s Content and Engagement Manager, looks at the difficulties people experience in disposing of needles and injection devices safely at home. Variation in services across the UK can lead individuals to dispose of sharps incorrectly, posing a risk to refuse workers and the wider public.
  23. Content Article
    Patients falling (falling, slipping) is considered one of the most important patient safety risks in the elderly, in health institutions (hospitals, health centres..., etc.) in particular, and more generally in daily life activities at home, out shopping, etc. In this article I call for a cultural transformation for avoiding falls: from a culture of patient safety that focuses on falls within health facilities to a wider societal culture that must be adhered to by all members of society to prevent the risks of falling in the elderly and other groups at high-risk (including those with specific diseases, disabilities due to congenital causes, accidents...).
  24. Content Article
    Step Change in Safety is a member-led organisation which is working to make the UKCS the safest oil and gas province in the world in which to work. The safety of the workforce always comes first. Through collaboration, sharing knowledge and adopting best practices, workforce safety in the UKCS can be continually improved and Step Change in Safety are at the forefront in delivering that. Take a look at Step Change in Safety's resources and see how they could apply to healthcare.
  25. Content Article
    As an employer, you're required by law to protect your employees, and others, from harm. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, the minimum you must do is: identify what could cause injury or illness in your business (hazards) decide how likely it is that someone could be harmed and how seriously (the risk) take action to eliminate the hazard, or if this isn't possible, control the risk Assessing risk is just one part of the overall process used to control risks in your workplace. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provide a risk assessment template and examples.
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