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Found 639 results
  1. News Article
    World leaders in infection control and disease prevention convened online at the inaugural iClean 2020 conference on 28 May to discuss innovative infection control reform in hospitals and aged-care facilities in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Keynote speaker Professor Didier Pittet* said there has never been a more pertinent time to address infection control in our healthcare systems. “During this devastating COVID-19 pandemic, up to one in five people who contracted the virus globally are healthcare workers, and we saw similar numbers in the SARs and MERS outbreaks." “Furthermore, aged-care residents accounted for 29% of COVID-19-related deaths in Australia, and this rate is even higher in Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom, who have been hardest hit by the pandemic,” Professor Pittet said. “We are therefore calling for urgent reform in our approach to cleaning and disinfection in hospitals and aged-care homes.” Professor Pittet explained that Clean Hospitals — an initiative aiming to create better procedures, training, auditing and management processes — would allow cleaning and infection control managers around the world to improve quality and outcomes. Read more Source: Hospital Healthcare, 1 June 2020
  2. News Article
    A team of 25,000 contact tracers are making their first phone calls to track down people who will be told to self-isolate under a new scheme in England. Tracers will text, email or call people who test positive with coronavirus and ask who they have had contact with. Any of those contacts deemed at risk of infection will be told to isolate for 14 days, even if they are not sick. A test and trace system is also launching in Scotland, where an easing of the lockdown is expected later. The aim of England's NHS Test and Trace system is to lift national lockdown restrictions and move towards more localised, targeted measures. The team will start by contacting the 2,013 people who tested positive for the virus on Wednesday. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 May 2020
  3. News Article
    Retailers in England selling home antibody tests, including Superdrug and Babylon, have been told to stop sending them out, and labs must not process them, while the regulatory body (Public Health England) examines how well they work. Read story Source: The Guardian, 27 May 2020
  4. News Article
    Facial recognition has been added as a way of logging in to an NHS app that lets people order prescriptions, book appointments and find healthcare data. Initially, it will allow faster access to the services on the app, which is separate from the contact-tracing one, but its developers say it could also be used for COVID-19 "immunity passports". The NHS facial-recognition system, built by iProov and available for both Android devices and iOS, requires users to submit a photo of themselves from an official document such as their passport or driving license. They then scan their face using their phone and, following a short sequence of flashing colours, their identification will be verified and they will have access to all the services on the NHS app. Immunity passports need to link a person's identity to their coronavirus test results, so would require a robust way of allowing people to verify themselves. Those deemed clear of the virus could then prove their status via a code generated by an app. However, the idea is controversial, not least because there is no hard scientific evidence that having had the coronavirus provides people with long-lasting immunity. The World Health Organization has warned countries against implementing such passports, saying: "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection." Dr Tom Fisher, a senior researcher at Privacy International, said the implementation of such measures needed to be "necessary, proportionate and based on the epidemiological evidence". "For the moment, immunity passports do not meet this test," he said. "We must be concerned about the broad societal impact of such immunity passports. They are essentially about limiting the rights of those who are not deemed to be immune. This is a route to exclusion and discrimination." Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 May 2020
  5. News Article
    National leaders have said healthcare workers must do better on social distancing amid growing evidence that staff-to-staff transmission is the significant factor in the spread of coronavirus throughout hospitals. NHS England national clinical director for trauma Dr Chris Moran, said: “I’ve witnessed and I’m sure you’ve all witnessed that actually healthcare workers are not necessarily been the best at managing social distancing. We know when directly managing patients that it [social distancing] is impossible, that’s what PPE is for to protect both sides of the equation. But I think in the staff-only areas we could do quite a lot better in some of the places that I’ve visited.” National director for acute care Keith Willett added: “The evidence we’ve seen coming through suggests the infection risks from staff to patients or patients to staff seems very low but the risks to staff of infection, COVID-19 infection, within hospitals is much, much, much higher between staff and staff, and patients and patients.” The warning comes after NHS England’s patient safety director Dr Aidan Fowler said he was concerned about the rates of "nosocomial spread within our hospitals”. Following national guidance designed to facilitate an increase in elective operations and other routine work, NHS trusts have been asked to set up “covid free” green zones and blue zones with a higher COVID-19 risk. Read full story Source: HSJ, 21 May 2020
  6. News Article
    Time is running out to finalise a track and trace strategy that would avoid a potential second surge in coronavirus cases, NHS leaders have said. The NHS Confederation warned of "severe" consequences to staff and patients if the right system was not established quickly and that lockdown measures should not be eased until a clear plan was in place. Contact tracing identifies those who may have come into contact with an infected person, either through an app or by phone and email, so they can avoid potentially passing the disease on. It follows the Prime Minister's pledge to introduce a "world-beating" contact tracing system in England from June. Niall Dickson, chief executive of the confederation, which represents health and care leaders, welcomed Boris Johnson's pledge made at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. But in a letter to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Mr Dickson said without a clear strategy the UK was at greater risk of a second peak of the virus. He said a strategy should have been in place sooner and if the right system was not instigated rapidly the ramifications for the NHS "could be severe". Speaking on the Today programme, Mr Dickson said: "We are absolutely clear that contact tracing is the right thing to do, it is absolutely critical, it has got to be in place to prevent any notion of a second surge if the lockdown is being further released." Read full story Source: 21 May 2020
  7. News Article
    European countries should brace themselves for a deadly second wave of coronavirus infections because the pandemic is not over, the World Health Organization’s top official in Europe has said. In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Hans Kluge, director for the WHO European region, delivered a stark warning to countries beginning to ease their lockdown restrictions, saying that now is the "time for preparation, not celebration". Dr Kluge stressed that, as the number of cases of COVID-19 in countries such as the UK, France and Italy was beginning to fall, it did not mean the pandemic was coming to an end. The epicentre of the European outbreak is now in the east, with the number of cases rising in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, he warned. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 20 May 2020
  8. News Article
    Up to a fifth of patients with COVID-19 in several hospitals contracted the disease over the course of the pandemic while already being treated there for another illness, NHS bosses have told senior doctors and nurses. Some of the infections were passed on by hospital staff who were unaware they had the virus and were displaying no symptoms, while patients with coronavirus were responsible for the others. The figures represent NHS England’s first estimate of the size of the problem of hospital-acquired COVID-19, which Boris Johnson last week said was causing an “epidemic” of deaths. In a national briefing last month on infection control and COVID-19, NHS England told the medical directors and chief nurses of all acute hospitals in England that it had found that 10%-20% of people in hospital with the disease had got it while they were inpatients. Senior doctors and hospital managers say that doctors, nurses and other staff have inadvertently passed on the virus to patients because they did not have adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) or could not get tested for the virus. Doctors say that hospital-acquired COVID-19 is a significant problem and that patients have died after becoming infected that way. One surgeon, who did not want to be named, said: “Multiple patients my department treated who were inpatients pre lockdown got the bug and died. Obviously the timeline supports that they acquired it from staff and other patients.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 May 2020
  9. News Article
    The leader of the NHS’ pandemic testing programme has highlighted concerns about the rate of COVID-19 transmissions in hospitals, HSJ can reveal. NHS England’s patient safety director Dr Aidan Fowler told an industry webinar that he and his team “are concerned about the rates of nosocomial spread within our hospitals”. Dr Fowler leads the NHS and Public Heath England testing programme (know as “pillar one”). He said the concerns had led to a focus on discovering where transmissions of covid-19 are occurring in hospitals, and how the NHS can reduce the rate of staff and patients becoming infected while on the NHS estate. His comments come as the NHS attempts to restart the provision of routine elective care and prepares for a significant increase in emergency admissions. The NHS has been told to create separate areas for covid positive and negative patients where possible, regardless of what they are being treated for. Patients are being to self-isolate at home for two weeks before attending hospital for treatment. Read full story Source: HSJ, 18 March 2020
  10. News Article
    Restarting NHS services will be an even greater challenge than coping with the first coronavirus infections, health think tanks and hospital chiefs have warned. Since March, the NHS has freed up more than 33,000 beds to prepare for an influx of COVID-19 patients needing intensive care, but since the peak of infection health chiefs have worried that delays to care were harming patients. Around 46,000 so-called excess deaths have been recorded during the pandemic, as compared against a five-year average. Around a quarter of these are believed to be unrelated to COVID-19. In a joint statement, the Health Foundation, Nuffield Trust and King’s Fund think tanks have said it could take months before the NHS and social care are able to fully restart. All three bodies will be giving evidence to the Commons health committee on Thursday, where they will warn about the impact on the health service’s “exhausted staff” and demand action to help care homes – which are now at the frontline in the fight against coronavirus. The experts will stress the need for the NHS to begin planning for a second peak of infections, especially if it comes in winter – when the service is usually overwhelmed by seasonal flu. They will warn about concerns over how the NHS manages the risk of infection, with the need for more protective equipment, social distancing and increased testing. This will “severely limit capacity for many months”, they said. Read full story Soruce: The Independent, 14 May 2020
  11. News Article
    The Joint Committee on Human Rights has published a report on the contact tracing app, concluding that if effective, the app could pave the way out of the current lockdown restrictions and help prevent the spread of coronavirus, but there are significant concerns regarding surveillance and the impact on other human rights which must be addressed first. Last month the Committee launched their inquiry into the Government’s response to Covid-19: human rights implications. Following this, the Committee has produced a Reportthat outlines the key actions the Government must take to ensure that the app respects human rights including the right to privacy and non-discrimination at the same time as enabling individuals to move around more freely whilst helping to prevent the spread of the virus. The Chair of the Committee, Harriet Harman MP, said: “Assurances from Ministers about privacy are not enough. The Government has given assurances about protection of privacy so they should have no objection to those assurances being enshrined in law." "The contact tracing app involves unprecedented data gathering. There must be robust legal protection for individuals about what that data will be used for, who will have access to it and how it will be safeguarded from hacking. Parliament was able quickly to agree to give the Government sweeping powers. It is perfectly possible for parliament to do the same for legislation to protect privacy.” Read full story Source: www.parliament.uk, 7 May 2020
  12. News Article
    Surgeons have invented a new device to make it safer to diagnose some cancers during the coronavirus pandemic. Most nose and throat investigations have been cancelled due to increased risks of medics contracting COVID-19 via patients' coughs and sneezes. Two consultants have developed a device that clips over patients' masks and protects front-line workers. The West Midlands-based doctors want to raise £50,000 they say is enough to make devices for use across the NHS. Chris Coulson, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said procedures involving an endoscope to examine the nose or throat were known to put clinicians at a significantly increased risk of contracting coronavirus. "When clinicians carry out a nasendoscopy it can make patients cough, sneeze, and splutter - which risks spreading the virus to doctors, nurses and therapists," he said. His company endoscope-i Ltd, co-founded with Ajith George, a consultant head and neck surgeon at University Hospitals North Midlands, has now developed the SNAP. It clicks on to a conventional surgical mask, creating a hole through which the clinician can pass an endoscope directly into a patient's nose. A valve means, despite there being a hole, any coughs, sneezes or splutters are caught within the mask. Mr George said: "If we can raise the money needed to produce the devices, we can keep looking after patients and ensure that diagnosis and treatment is not delayed." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2020
  13. News Article
    Local authorities must be at the heart of contact tracing because COVID-19 is best understood as a pattern of local outbreaks rather than a national pandemic, says Sir Chris Ham and Robin Tuddenham in an HSJ article. Community testing and contact tracing represent our greatest hope for managing the risks to health of COVID-19 until a vaccine and effective treatments become available. Experts in infectious disease base their understanding of this on previous pandemics, and the experience of countries like South Korea and Germany. Work is underway at pace to resume contact tracking and tracing in England. It is understood that this programme will begin in earnest from 18 May following a pilot on the Isle of Wight. This work is a core part of Matt Hancock’s five-point plan for combating COVID-19, in support of some relaxation of lockdown anticipated soon. Whilst the pace is understandable, the methods and approach taken are top down, lack an effective role for key regional co-ordination through the Integrated Care Systems/Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships and Local Resilience Forums, and risk marginalising the essential skills of local authorities, GPs and the voluntary and community sector in place, according to Ham amd Tuddenham. Read full story Source: HSJ, 5 May 2020
  14. News Article
    The government has announced that the “restoration of other NHS services” will start today on a “hospital-by-hospital” basis. Health and social care secretary Matt Hancock in his daily ministerial coronavirus briefing announced the resumption of healthcare which has been suspended due to coronavirus will begin today. He said the initial focus would be on the most urgent services, citing cancer and mental health as examples. They will be reintroduced on a locally decided basis, depending on the level the virus is currently impacting different areas and trusts, which varies widely, and how easily they can reintroduce the work, he said. Mr Hancock, asked about the plan by HSJ during the briefing, indicated that a large-scale return would be enabled because the government is setting out to avoid a so-called second peak of the virus spreading, so the NHS will not need to keep tens of thousands of extra beds free in readiness. Experts and governments around the globe are concerned about the prospect of further peaks of the virus spread as they move to release distancing measures. Further NHS England guidance on the plan is expected later this week. Read full story Source: HSJ, 27 April 2020
  15. News Article
    The coronavirus can linger in patients’ eyes for several weeks and could act as a way of spreading the COVID-19 disease, according new study from Italy. Scientists at Italy’s National Institute for Infectious Diseases hospital in Rome studied the symptoms of an unnamed 65-year-old woman who developed the virus after travelling from the Chinese city of from Wuhan. When the woman developed conjunctivitis – an eye infection causing redness and itchiness – doctors decided to take regular swabs from her eye. They discovered the virus remained present in “ocular samples” up to 21 days after she was admitted to hospital. The team said the findings, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, indicated that eye fluids from coronavirus patients “may be a potential source of infection”. The study authors said: “These findings highlight the importance of control measures, such as avoiding touching the nose, mouth, and eyes and frequent hand washing.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 April 2020
  16. News Article
    Gowns for front-line staff were not included in the national pandemic stockpile of personal protective equipment, procurement chiefs have been told. Trust procurement leads have raised concerns over dwindling gown supplies. Health Care Supply Association chief officer Alan Hoskins tweeted he could not order the products through NHS Supply Chain, even after escalating the matter to NHS England. Mr Hoskins’ tweet on Sunday, which has since been deleted, said: “What a day, no gowns NHS Supply Chain. Rang every number escalated to NHS England, just got message back — no stock, can’t help, can send you a PPE pack. Losing the will to live, god help us all.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 30 March 2020
  17. News Article
    Acute trusts have been told to set aside 15% of their daily coronavirus tests for NHS key workers who are quarantining at home with others. New guidance for NHS trust chief executives on covid-19 testing has been published after NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens announced hundreds of frontline staff would be given antigen tests from next week. The guidance from NHSE said acute trusts should prioritise testing staff working in critical care, emergency departments and ambulance services, along with “any other high priority groups you determine locally”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 30 March 2020
  18. News Article
    A pandemic was predictable but instead of paying billions in insurance we’ve allowed a disaster that could cost trillions... Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 25 March 2020
  19. News Article
    NHS staff who have contracted coronavirus but remain at work because they show no symptoms are probably infecting patients, a public health official admitted yesterday. Doctors said they were worried about becoming “part of the problem” owing to a lack of testing and a shortage of protective equipment, particularly outside hospitals. Masks, gloves and visors can help stop people infecting others and stop them becoming infected. The British Medical Association said that staff testing was urgently needed so that doctors and nurses knew if it was safe for them to see patients. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 27 March 2020
  20. News Article
    A GP has criticised the practice of giving doctors surgical masks with expiry dates that have passed. Dr Kate Jack said doctors felt "like cannon fodder" after discovering the paper masks had expired in 2016. A box delivered to her Nottingham surgery had a 2021 label placed over the original date of 2016. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said equipment underwent "stringent tests" and was given a "new shelf-life" where appropriate. "I don't feel protected at the moment," said Dr Jack, a GP of 22 years. "They are really not designed for prevention of infection and are practically useless." Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 March 2020
  21. Content Article
    The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic presented significant challenges in the management of patients with chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS). This article in Frontiers in Neurology looks at how telemedicine was used as an alternative to face-to-face consultations with MS patients during the pandemic. Recognising the variation in care that occurred as different centres adopted telemedicine, they make a series of recommendations for the use of telemedicine in managing MS patients.
  22. Content Article
    This article in the Journal of Global Health aimed to consider which patient safety interventions are the most effective and appropriate in fragile, conflict-affected, and vulnerable (FCV) settings. The authors examined available literature published between 2003 and 2020, using an evidence-scanning approach. They found that the existing literature is dominated by infection prevention and control interventions for multiple reasons, including strength of evidence, acceptability, feasibility and impact on patient and healthcare worker wellbeing. They identified an urgent need to further develop the evidence base, specialist knowledge and field guidance on a range of other patient safety interventions such as education and training, patient identification, subject specific safety actions and risk management.
  23. Content Article
    At Patient Safety Learning we believe that sharing insights and learning is vital to improving outcomes and reducing harm. That's why we created the hub; providing a space for people to come together and share their experiences, resources and good practice examples.  This week is World Immunisation Week so our Content and Engagement Manager, Lotty, has picked five resources full of practical advice about vaccination in a range of settings.
  24. Content Article
    The Green Book is published by the UK Health Security Agency and contains the latest information on vaccines and vaccination procedures for vaccine-preventable infectious diseases in the UK.
  25. Content Article
    This guidance from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) outlines infection prevention and control (IPC) principles for adult social care settings in England, to be used with guidance on managing specific infections. It applies from 4 April 2022. This should be read in conjunction with DHSC's Covid-19 supplement to the infection prevention and control resource for adult social care.
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