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Found 641 results
  1. News Article
    Patients with coronavirus have been discharged from a hospital and infected family members, a councillor claimed. Heather Kidd, a Liberal Democrat member of Shropshire Council, said a woman in south Shropshire told her that her husband had been "sent home with Covid". She initially found evidence of four cases but said those were the "tip of the iceberg" with more coming to light. The medical director of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) said they were following guidelines, but would look into the "concerning" cases. Ms Kidd said since she first spoke out, she had been contacted by a number of people who have had Covid-positive family members discharged from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal in Telford back into their homes. Arne Rose, the medical director at SaTH, said there was now a "special swab squad" testing patients every 24 hours as opposed to every 48 hours. He said some patients, who after 28 days of their first positive Covid test were no longer considered infectious, would be the subject of a "careful risk assessment". They could then be discharged with advice on self-isolating at home. "The cases... sound concerning," Mr Rose said, adding he would investigate to "learn if anything went wrong." Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 March 2021
  2. News Article
    The UK should steel itself for a “difficult autumn” and “hard winter” of illnesses because people have lived for an unusually long period without exposure to respiratory viruses, one of the country’s top medics has warned. Dr Susan Hopkins, the head of Covid strategy for Public Health England, said population immunity to viruses other than Covid-19 could be lower than usual and that a surge in flu was probable. She said the NHS must be better prepared than it was last autumn, when new, faster-spreading variants of coronavirus emerged forcing the country into lockdown for the third time. Speaking on the BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show Hopkins said: “I think we have to prepare for a hard winter, not only with coronavirus, but we’ve had a year of almost no respiratory viruses of any other type. And that means, potentially the population immunity to that is less." “So we could see surges in flu. We could see surges in other respiratory viruses and other respiratory pathogens.” A record number of people, about 30 million in total, were invited for a free flu jab last autumn as ministers feared it would add to strains on the NHS. “It’s really important that we’re prepared from the NHS point of view, from public health and contact tracing, that we have everything ready to prepare for a difficult autumn,” she said. “We hope that it won’t occur and it will be a normal winter for all of us.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 March 2021
  3. News Article
    Nurse leaders are lobbying government to update "fundamentally flawed" guidance on personal protective equipment. The Royal College of Nursing says the existing recommendations are based on out-of-date evidence. One nurse told the BBC she had not been allowed to wear a higher-grade mask, despite having to go into the homes of patients with Covid. The nurse, who wishes to remain anonymous, wanted to use what's known as an FFP3 mask that filters out infectious aerosols. But she says her employers insisted on following national guidance, that most health staff should wear thinner surgical masks, instead. This comes at a time of mounting concern among many healthcare organisations that personal protective equipment (PPE) is inadequate. A new report for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) criticises the official guidelines for PPE as "fundamentally flawed" because they're based on out-of-date evidence. It says that the risk of infection by aerosols is not given enough emphasis and that key research papers highlighting the possibility of airborne transmission have not been considered. The RCN's report concludes that key research papers on aerosols appear to have been ignored and that the terms used to search for new papers were likely to be "biased against" those on airborne transmission. The lead author of the study, Prof Dinah Gould, says she is "very disappointed" at the review for not taking into account the latest science. "A year into the pandemic, the review needs replacing. It needs updating and we should be able to offer healthcare workers and patients better than what we're offering them now." Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 March 2021
  4. News Article
    NHS Supply Chain has suspended supplies of some ultrasound gels over concerns they might be connected with outbreaks of bacterial infections in multiple hospitals. Thirty hospitals have reported 46 cases of Burkholderia contaminans between October last year and January 2021. No patients have died but some developed sepsis symptoms. NHS Supply Chain has suspended supplies of three ultrasound gels as a “precautionary measure” and guidance has been updated on the safe use of gel to reduce the risk of transmission of infection. Existing stocks have not been recalled and NHS Supply Chain is stocking similar products as alternatives. Public Health England has said its provisional investigation suggests a potential link with ultrasound or ultrasound-guided procedures as many of the infected patients had undergone these before the bacterium was identified. It is also investigating how many of the patients have spent time in intensive care or high dependency settings. A related bacteria, called Burkholderia cepacian, was also found in 27 cases. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 March 2021
  5. News Article
    Care home residents and staff were put at risk of infection because personal protective equipment (PPE) was used wrongly, a health watchdog has said. Croft House, in Ossett, near Wakefield, has been put in special measures after being deemed "inadequate" by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors. The home was "not well-led", according to the inspectors who visited last year. The CQC report, which was published last week, highlighted a number of measures had not been taken, meaning staff and residents were exposed to the risk of infection transmission, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. "Staff could not safely put on and take off PPE as this was stored in people's rooms. Staff needed to cross the room to collect the PPE," the report said. Meanwhile, there was no hand sanitiser in the corridors or bins to dispose of PPE and staff "were not effectively wearing PPE", it added. Residents at the home, which provides nursing and residential care for up to 68 people, were at "risk of missing medication or being given incorrect medication" because of how systems were managed, the report said. However, relatives spoke highly of staff at the home, with one family member describing an employee they knew as "accommodating and helpful", according to the report. Countrywide Care Homes, which runs the site, said improvements had been made since the inspection on 18 December. Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 March 2021
  6. News Article
    Senior doctors are leading a programme of work to review deaths caused by hospital-acquired covid in the North West, which has had disproportionately high rates of nosocomial infections over the last three months. According to internal NHS England papers seen by HSJ, a number of common themes have been identified as driving the infections in the region, including “breaches in the basic tenets of infection prevention control”, insufficient numbers of cleaning staff at some trusts, and a lack of consistent testing. The papers say there is also evidence that covid occupancy rates above 20 per cent drives nosocomial transmission. Occupancy rates in the North West have been near or above this level since the start of December, but have still been significantly lower than other areas, such as London. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 February 2021
  7. News Article
    A Care Inspectorate report shows many homes are still failing to maintain infection control safety standards in Scottish care homes. Infection prevention was weak or unsatisfactory in half of the Scots care homes most recently checked by government regulators. Almost a year on from the start of the pandemic, the latest round of inspection reports highlighted poor practice in 11 out of 22 care homes. Read report
  8. News Article
    Nearly 20 major healthcare bodies are appealing to the Prime Minister for better personal protection against coronavirus. They say at least 930 health and care workers have died of COVID-19 and more are experiencing long-term effects. In a letter, they say measures to stop airborne spreading are "inadequate" and call for urgent improvement in masks and other defences against variants. The government said it was monitoring evidence on airborne transmission and would update advice "where necessary". The organisations involved represent a wide range of health professionals, from doctors and nurses to dieticians and physiotherapists. Their approach to Downing Street follows repeated efforts to raise the issue with others in government. With health and care workers at three to four times greater risk of becoming infected than the general public, the plea to Boris Johnson is to make an "urgent intervention to prevent further loss of life". It says current policies focus on contaminated surfaces and droplets - for which the best defences are hand hygiene and social distancing - but not on airborne transmission by tiny infectious aerosols. The groups are demanding: ventilation is improved better respiratory protection, such as FFP3 masks, are provided healthcare guidance reflects the evidence of airborne transmission. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 February 2021
  9. News Article
    The NHS’ response to the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic saw the number of whistleblowing concerns raised with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) almost double in December, with the strength of local leadership among the most frequent complaints. Many parts of the NHS, particularly in the South East, were suffering major covid pressures in December, and the regulator received 204 whistleblowing concerns, compared to 105 in the same month in 2019. The most common complaints were around staffing levels, infection control and leadership. The rise in complaints was revealed by CQC chief inspector of hospitals Ted Baker in an interview with HSJ. Professor Baker also said the pandemic had proved that the NHS’ emergency care system lacked “resilience”. Trusts which the regulator has received concerns about in recent months have included Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, over poor staffing levels and infection controls, University Hospitals Birmingham FT, around staffing levels and leadership concerns, and Mid and South Essex FT, over concerns around the provision of oxygen. Professor Baker told HSJ: “One of the really positive things that has happened during the pandemic is an increase in the number of people raising concerns with us. It’s been really helpful for us in assessing the risk in the system." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 February 2021
  10. News Article
    A hospital trust has admitted that ‘medically fit’ patients caught covid on its wards while waiting to be discharged, with some of the cases under investigation. Bedfordshire Hospitals FT board papers said that a “number” of medically fit patients “acquired [covid] infection while awaiting appropriate and safe discharge”. Trusts nationwide have struggled to discharge patients as quickly as they wanted, the reasons including a Department of Health and Social Care mandate to only allow designated care homes to accept covid patients; the resumption of NHS Continuing Healthcare tests; shortages of community beds; and capacity in the care sector. The trust, formed in April by the merger of Luton and Dunstable University Hospital FT and Bedford Hospital FT, said a “significant proportion of [its covid] cases [were] due to acquisition in the hospital”. It continued: “A significant additional factor was the length of stay for many patients who were medically fit for discharge but were unable to return to their place of residence. Case reviews have shown that a number of these patients acquired infection while waiting appropriate and safe discharge.” The board papers said its covid serious incident reviews covered “some deaths on both sites… and the majority [were] patients with very severe co-morbidity”. It said six out of 15 serious incidents being investigated at its Bedford hospital site were “of potentially avoidable nosocomial covid infection (hospital acquired)”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 Februrary 2021
  11. News Article
    Care homes in England operated by profitable chains have been branded unsafe by inspectors, who found serious failures in efforts to control the spread of coronavirus in its latest wave. In the last month 40% of care homes inspected by the Care Quality Commission in England were judged to be inadequate or in need of improvement. Several handling fatal coronavirus outbreaks were revealed to have broken laws meant to keep residents safe. Some of the worst failings uncovered in reports filed in the last month include CCTV showing PPE being used wrongly on 63 occasions in one home, infected residents mixing in communal areas with Covid-free residents, chronic staff shortages, and a care home manager continuing to work after showing Covid symptoms. The spate of problems relates to a small minority of care homes but coincides with a tripling of fatalities linked to the virus among care residents in England and Wales. Read full story Source: 4 February 2021
  12. News Article
    A trust has warned it may reach a ‘tipping point’ where it is ‘impossible’ to separate covid positive and negative patients. Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust also revealed in papers published ahead of its Thursday board meeting that it planned to distribute a “duty of candour” leaflet for patients, warning them of the risk of contracting covid in hospital. The papers noted covid patients at the trust increased from 80 pre-Christmas to 230 by January, filling half its beds. HSJ’s figures suggest covid patients at the trust continued to rise until around 14 January before dropping back slightly. The report from the trust’s safety and quality committee — which met on 7 January — said: “It is becoming more difficult to separate the covid+ and covid- patients. In an increasing number of instances, patients are admitted to cold areas for non-covid treatment and without symptoms but then test positive. These patients then need to be admitted to hot areas and any contacts (including patients from the same bay) isolated. “At some point a tipping point could be reached where it may be impossible to retain hot and cold areas.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 January 2021
  13. News Article
    Rotating clinicians and keeping ventilation running are among Public Health England’s (PHE) recommendations for how to avoid spreading covid while looking after patients in the back of ambulances outside emergency departments. The suggestions are made in unprecedented new guidance issued by PHE amid sky-high rates of very long ambulance handovers outside hospitals. This is because emergency departments (EDs) are struggling with attempts to maintain distancing for infection control, along with high occupancy and severe operational pressures elsewhere in hospitals. It has led over the past two months to large numbers of patients being looked after in ambulances for extended times while they wait for space in ED. The PHE guidance, added last week to existing covid guidance for ambulance services, says it should only happen in “exceptional circumstances”. But it says staff in this situation should adopt infection prevention and control procedures including: if more than one clinician is available, rotating them regularly, so allowing them time to change PPE and have a drink; keeping ventilation systems running which may require the engine to be kept running; ensuring patients and any essential escorts wear surgical masks, as long as patient care is not compromised; minimising the number of people within the patient compartment and avoiding sitting face-to-face with patients; and decontaminating contact surfaces more frequently and during the delay if possible. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 January 2021
  14. News Article
    The government’s actions in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic have received a mixed review from MPs in a report that set out the successes and failures of the UK response. Although the joint report from the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee  praised the UK’s covid vaccination programme as highly effective, it also condemned serious errors, especially delayed lockdowns and how a test, trace, and isolate system was set up. Overall, the MPs’ inquiry found that some government initiatives were examples of global best practice but that others represented “serious mistakes.” The UK’s pandemic planning was based too narrowly on a flu model that had failed to learn the lessons from the SARS, MERS, and Ebola epidemics, said the MPs, which meant that its covid planning was worse than in other countries. Delays in establishing an adequate test, trace, and isolate system hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, said the MPs, and the government’s initial decision to delay a comprehensive lockdown had revealed its then “fatalistic” assumption that it was impossible to suppress the virus, which amounted, in practice, to accepting that herd immunity by infection was inevitable. The report said that many thousands of deaths could have been avoided if the government had not let hospitals discharge people into care homes in the initial phase of the pandemic and that this showed the “longstanding failure” to give social care sufficient priority and the same attention as the NHS. Read full story Source: BMJ, 12 October 2021
  15. News Article
    A cabinet minister has refused to apologise for the government’s handing of the COVID-19 pandemic despite a new report finding that errors cost “thousands of lives”. Cabinet Office minister Stephen Barclay defended the government’s decision making to Sky News, saying: “We followed, throughout, the scientific advice. We got the vaccine deployed extremely quickly, we protected our NHS from the surge of cases.” His comments come as family members who lost loved ones to COVID-19 described the MPs’ report as “laughable” for failing to take evidence from the bereaved. The COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group criticised the parliamentary report as being “more interested in political arguments about whether you can bring laptops to Cobra meetings that it is in the experiences of those who tragically lost” family members to COVID-19. When asked, for a second time, if he would apologise by presenter Kay Burley, Stephen Barclay replied: “Well no, we followed the scientific advice, we protected the NHS, we took the decisions based on the evidence before us.” He made these comments despite the report finding that the delayed decision to lock down in spring last year was one of the “most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 October 2021
  16. News Article
    Britain’s early handling of the coronavirus pandemic was one of the worst public health failures in UK history, with ministers and scientists taking a “fatalistic” approach that exacerbated the death toll, a landmark inquiry has found. “Groupthink”, evidence of British exceptionalism and a deliberately “slow and gradualist” approach meant the UK fared “significantly worse” than other countries, according to the 151-page “Coronavirus: lessons learned to date” report led by two former Conservative ministers. The crisis exposed “major deficiencies in the machinery of government”, with public bodies unable to share vital information and scientific advice impaired by a lack of transparency, input from international experts and meaningful challenge. Despite being one of the first countries to develop a test for Covid in January 2020, the UK “squandered” its lead and “converted it into one of permanent crisis”. The consequences were profound, the report says. “For a country with a world-class expertise in data analysis, to face the biggest health crisis in 100 years with virtually no data to analyse was an almost unimaginable setback.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 October 2021
  17. News Article
    Hospitals in England have been given the green light to ease some of the Covid infection-control measures that have been in place during the pandemic. The changes, recommended by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), are aimed at easing pressure on the NHS. It says testing and isolating patients before planned operations can be dropped and hospitals can return to normal cleaning procedures. Social distancing can also be reduced from 2m (6ft) to 1m in some areas. UKHSA chief executive Dr Jenny Harries said the new recommendations would help local hospitals plan more elective care. "This is a first step to help the NHS treat more patients more quickly, while ensuring their safety and balancing their different needs for care," she said. Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: "As ever more people benefit from the protection of our phenomenal vaccination campaign, we can now safely begin to relieve some of the most stringent infection controls where they are no longer necessary, to benefit patients and ease the burden on hardworking NHS staff." Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 September 2021
  18. News Article
    The return of schools and the arrival of autumn means common colds and other respiratory infections are firmly on the rise, spreading coughs and sneezes, more severe illnesses, and prompting some to report their worst colds ever. According to Public Health England, there is no particularly nasty new virus doing the rounds, but as cases rise, experts warn that people can expect more frequent infections and more serious symptoms now the UK is emerging from lockdown. Common colds and other respiratory tract infections tend to ramp up in September when the schools go back and autumn arrives, but after 18 months of social distancing and mask wearing, many people are thought to have weaker immune defences to protect themselves against the onslaught of respiratory viruses. With reduced immunity across the board, people may fall ill with viruses they would normally have fended off with little trouble, or develop co-infections that make them feel more poorly. This is particularly likely if the viruses that have been kept at bay by anti-Covid measures all bounce back at once. “We don’t know what we’re going to see with common colds this season,” said Prof Ronald Eccles, former director of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University. “We’re seeing this increase now, but the whole system has been knocked out of kilter by the fact that we’ve been socially distancing and wearing masks, and children have not had that immunity over the past year or so.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 September 2021
  19. News Article
    A care home owner has said she was "forced" to ask two staff with Covid-19 to work because of a staff shortage. The Caledonia home in Holyhead, Anglesey, said 11 of its 12 residents had Covid and the two staff only cared for residents who were also positive. Ann Bedford said Anglesey council and an agency had both been unable to provide emergency cover for staff who were sick or isolating. After speaking to social services, it was agreed the staff could work. "I have never known a situation as bad as we faced over the last weekend. As a matter of course we have contingency plans in place to cope in emergencies but even these buckled under the strain," she said. "My heart sinks when I think about the weeks and months ahead. We felt abandoned and alone. I called on social services for help but they were facing their own emergencies." "The shortage of carers on Anglesey is at dangerous levels and is being intensified by the pandemic." Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 September 2021
  20. News Article
    Following a number of serious infections, hospitals have warned about the risks of wearing the wrong kind of face mask during surgery. This comes after a patient safety alert was issued by NHS England where it was reported that respirator masks have been acquired by the millions during the coronavirus pandemic but sometimes have been deployed in inappropriate settings. “These incident reports and feedback from services suggest that the risks of valved respirators and PAPRs for surgical and invasive procedures is not well recognised, and that their use may have become routine in some theatre environments.” NHS England said in the document. Read full story. Source: The Independent, 26 August 2021
  21. News Article
    According to the state's health watchdog Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), six out of 10 hospitals inspected last year were non-compliant with aspects of infection-control procedures against Covid-19. Recurring issues such as poor physical infrastructure, capacity issues and workforce challenges were found to hinder efforts to cope with the pandemic, and despite investments, issues around infrastructure and capacity have been worsened by the pandemic. “In most instances, we found an effective approach to adapt to this unprecedented crisis in hospitals. However, hospitals’ efforts were made more difficult due to underlying historic problems with infrastructure, limited bed capacity and unequal or limited access to specialist workforce input and advice – problems that Hiqa’s prior monitoring work against national standards has consistently highlighted.” said Hiqa’s director of regulation, Mary Dunnion. Read full story. Source: Irish Times, 10 August 2021
  22. News Article
    A doctors union has said some Covid measures should remain after the 19th July. The British Medical Association has said use of face masks should continue in addition to new ventilation standards. The call to protect the NHS comes after a rise in cases has been observed. On Thursday, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he hopes restrictions can be lifted in England on 19th July but that there may be a need to take extra precautions. Read full story. Source: BBC News, 3 July 2021
  23. News Article
    New FFP3 masks may reduce likelihood of infection rates, a new study finds. After healthcare workers used the masks when on Covid-19 wards, the rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections was found to be lowered by a significant amount. Since the study, Public Health England have updated its guidance which now requires NHS organisations to provide FFP3 respirators where appropriate. Read full story. Source: BMJ, 29 June 2021
  24. News Article
    More than 20 healthcare organisations, including those representing nurses, doctors, surgeons and therapists, are calling for stricter UK guidelines to be introduced on face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE). In a virtual meeting with officials, they will say existing rules leave them vulnerable to infection through the air, especially by new Covid variants. The unprecedented appeal will see them argue that other countries, such as the United States, protect their health workers with higher-grade equipment. It is thought to be the first time health and care organisations have united on a single issue in this way - a sign of the desperation many feel about the need for staff to be kept safe. The delegation will include representatives of the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and many other professional organisations and unions. On the government side will be about 20 of the most senior officials from all four UK nations, many involved in setting the guidelines on personal protective equipment (PPE). Read full story Source: BBC News, 3 June 2021
  25. News Article
    The prospect of care home workers being required to get vaccinated against COVID-19 has moved a step closer, with a crucial endorsement from the UK’s human rights watchdog. Ministers are considering changing the law to make vaccination a condition of deployment for people in some professions that come into regular close contact with elderly and vulnerable people at high risk from the coronavirus. In a report to the government seen by the Guardian, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) admitted that making vaccines compulsory for care home staff would be a “significant departure from current public health policy”. But they judged that ministers were “right to prioritise protection of the right to life for residents and staff” and said it would be reasonable for care home workers to need a jab “in order to work directly with older and disabled people, subject to some important safeguards”. The EHRC is also likely to make a similar recommendation about healthcare workers, after the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, suggested over the weekend that NHS staff could face mandatory jabs, too, as some patients were “being infected in hospital”. Zahawi said no decisions had been made yet, and stressed there was a precedent: surgeons were required to be vaccinated against hepatitis B. He added: “It would be incumbent on any responsible government to have the debate, to do the thinking about how we go about protecting the most vulnerable by making sure that those who look after them are vaccinated.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 June 2021
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