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Found 110 results
  1. 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 Hundreds of vital NHS operations and appointments are being cancelled as a result of outdated infrastructure, undermining attempts by doctors to tackle record waiting lists.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
  2. News Article
    Trusts have been told to check the safety of their helipads after an accident in a hospital car park left a pensioner dead. Jean Langan, 87, was blown over by the “downwash” of air from a helicopter at Derriford Hospital last year. She was walking through a car park at the hospital after an appointment when she fell and hit her head as an HM Coastguard helicopter landed on the hospital’s helipad. Another elderly woman broke her pelvis. Now the Health and Safety Executive has written to trust chief executives reminding them of their duty to manage health and safety risks around helipads. These risks include downwash from helicopters, the moving parts of helicopters, and the design and location of helipads. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 August 2023
  3. News Article
    More than 250 NHS buildings in Scotland could contain a potentially dangerous type of concrete that can collapse without warning. NHS Scotland issued a Safety Action Notice in February and completed a "desktop survey" of its estate in June. Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) was used to build roofs, walls and floors from the 1960s to the 1990s. NHS Scotland has warned the material is potentially vulnerable to "catastrophic failure without warning". But a Scottish government spokesperson said there was "no evidence to suggest that these buildings are not safe." Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 July 2023
  4. News Article
    NHS England’s target for all trusts to have a working electronic patient record (EPR) system by March 2025 is now ‘unachievable’’ and a new date has been set a year later, government has admitted. A new report of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority – the government body which scrutinises and supports major projects – states: “Delivery confidence is [rated] red as a number of NHS trusts are reporting they are unlikely to be able to fully implement an electronic patient record by March 2025.” The document, published quietly last week, downgrades the rating from “amber” to “red” – and also reveals £700m was cut from the programme’s budget last year. The “frontline digitisation” programme was launched by government and NHSE in 2021 with the aim of getting all trusts to a minimum level of capability, including 90% to have an EPR of an acceptable standard by the end of 2023, and 100 per cent by March 2025. But the IPA report states that a revised business case is now being prepared to reflect a new “end date” of March 2026. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 July 2023
  5. News Article
    The government is on track to break a key election promise from Boris Johnson to build 40 new hospitals in England by the end of the decade, a damning report by the public spending watchdog has found. Delays to projects mean the target is unlikely to be met, with work on buildings in the second cohort of the scheme yet to have started as of May, according to the National Audit Office. The approach to achieving objectives at the lowest possible cost could also result in hospitals that are too small, the watchdog warned, as modelling assumptions may be unrealistic about the extent to which care in future will be provided outside hospitals. The government failed to achieve good value for money, with the scheme having cost £1.1bn by March this year, and progress has been slower than expected, the report concluded. The claim will ignite concerns that the new hospitals would struggle to cope in the event of another pandemic, given England already has one of the highest rates of hospital bed occupancy among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 July 2023
  6. News Article
    Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust temporarily suspended admissions to the women’s and children’s centre at Princess Royal Hospital – which houses the provider’s consultant-led maternity services – earlier this week due to an issue with a generator. HSJ understands a power cut occurred and estates chiefs were concerned about running solely on battery power, hence suspending admissions while the problem was fixed. Five inductions of labour were diverted to neighbouring trusts, while fewer than five caesarean sections were rescheduled during the outage. Meanwhile, 56 patients accessing the trust’s telephone triage service were advised by medical chiefs to attend nearby hospitals. Following the incident, a learning review is taking place, and HSJ understands this will investigate whether any women came to harm. HSJ has also been told the generator has been fixed “as good as permanently”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 June 2023
  7. News Article
    A major acute site has issued a ‘full capacity’ alert to staff, just days before the services are due to move into a replacement hospital with fewer beds. In an email seen by HSJ, medical leaders at the Royal Liverpool Hospital alerted staff to extreme pressures on the site, with ambulances being held outside and “no space” in resuscitation areas. The RLH currently has around 685 beds, but at the end of this month the services are due to start transferring to the long-awaited new Royal Liverpool, on an adjacent site. The new hospital has 640 beds, and several frontline staff have told HSJ this is causing significant concern, with the current services under so much pressure. One senior source at the trust said there has been a push since 2017 to reduce inpatients beds at the current hospital, to try and match the capacity of the new build, but this hasn’t been achieved. They added: “Surgeons are concerned that their beds will get filled with medical outliers. The whole issue is all the patients who are waiting for social care. It was supposed to have been sorted by now.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 September 2022
  8. News Article
    Over 50 new surgical hubs will open across the country to help bust the Covid-19 backlogs and offer hundreds of thousands more patients quicker access to vital procedures, Steve Barclay, has announced. These hubs will provide at least 100 more operating theatres and over 1,000 beds so people get the surgery they need. And they will deliver almost two million extra routine operations to reduce waiting lists over the next three years, backed by £1.5billion in government funding. They will focus mainly on providing high-volume, low-complexity surgery, as previously recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, with particular emphasis on ophthalmology, general surgery, trauma and orthopaedics, gynaecology, ear nose and throat, and urology. Located on existing hospital sites, the surgical hubs will bring together skills and expertise of staff under one roof – reducing waiting times for some of the most-common procedures such as cataract surgeries and hip replacements. Improving quality and efficiency will mean patients have shorter waits for surgery, will be more likely to go home on the same day, and will be less likely to need additional treatment. And, as the hubs are separated from emergency services, surgical beds are kept free for patients waiting for planned operations, reducing the risk of short-notice cancellations and improving infection control. Read full story Source: Building Better Healthcare, 5 September 2022
  9. News Article
    Half of healthcare facilities worldwide lack basic hygiene services with water and soap or alcohol-based hand rub where patients receive care and at toilets in these facilities, according to a new report by WHO and UNICEF. Around 3.85 billion people use these facilities, putting them at greater risk of infection, including 688 million people who receive care at facilities with no hygiene services at all. “Hygiene facilities and practices in health care settings are non-negotiable. Their improvement is essential to pandemic recovery, prevention and preparedness. Hygiene in health care facilities cannot be secured without increasing investments in basic measures, which include safe water, clean toilets, and safely managed health care waste,” said Dr Maria Neira, WHO Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health. “I encourage Member States to step up their efforts to implement their 2019 World Health Assembly commitment to strengthen water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in health care facilities, and to monitor these efforts.” The latest report, “Progress on WASH in health care facilities 2000–2021: special focus on WASH and infection prevention and control”, has for the first time established this global baseline on hygiene services – which assessed access at points of care as well as toilets – as more countries than ever report on critical elements of WASH services in their hospitals and other health centres. For hygiene, data are now available for 40 countries, representing 35% of the world’s population, up from 21 countries in 2020 and 14 in 2019. The newly established global estimate reveals a clearer and more alarming picture of the state of hygiene in health care facilities. Though 68% of health care facilities had hygiene facilities at points of care, and 65% had handwashing facilities with water and soap at toilets, only 51% had both and therefore met the criteria for basic hygiene services. Furthermore, 1 in 11 (9%) of health care facilities globally have neither. “If health care providers don’t have access to a hygiene service, patients don’t have a health care facility,” said Kelly Ann Naylor, UNICEF Director of WASH and Climate, Environment, Energy, and Disaster Risk Reduction (CEED). “Hospitals and clinics without safe water and basic hygiene and sanitation services are a potential death trap for pregnant mothers, newborns, and children. Every year, around 670,000 newborns lose their lives to sepsis. This is a travesty – even more so as their deaths are preventable.” Read full story Source: WHO, 30 August 2022
  10. News Article
    When the new Royal Liverpool Hospital opens its doors in October, every patient will have a single room with an en-suite bathroom. That set-up is unusual for acute hospitals in England, but many feel it is the future for all new buildings. "There's the privacy and dignity from the patient's point of view," says Jacqui Stamper, the hospital's associate chief nurse. "If they're in the room and talking to the doctors or the nurses, there isn't somebody just the other side of a curtain listening." "And then there's the infection prevention side of it as well. "It's absolutely the state of the art way of hospital care really." The new system will require staff to work differently, so patients can be properly monitored. Each ward has been broken up into smaller zones of between six and eight beds, and each zone has its own base where the nurses will sit. The trust which runs the hospital is currently running workshops to get staff used to the layout. "Nursing staff will be used to working in a bigger team than a couple of people, so it is a different way of working," Ms Stamper says. "We're listening to our staff and their concerns and answering those to see how we can address them going forward." Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 September 2022
  11. News Article
    Hospital trusts in England face “eye-watering” rises in energy bills of £2m a month each due to the fuel price surge, with NHS leaders saying patients may face longer waiting times or even see their care “cut back” as a result. NHS trusts are concerned they will have to make critical choices on staff levels and the services they provide in order to keep operating, with energy costs predicted to be as much as three times higher than a year ago. The BMJ surveyed NHS trusts in England for details of their recent and predicted future energy bills and how they expected to operate this coming winter when taking into account the additional energy charges on the way. Most said they expected their energy bills to double at least. Rory Deighton, senior acute lead at the NHS Confederation, which represents the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said: “This isn’t an abstract problem, as the gap in funding from rising inflation will either have to be made up by fewer staff being employed, longer waiting times for care, or other areas of patient care being cut back." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2022
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. News Article
    An unfortunate series of events involving a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine led to the death of a man at a hospital in India. Rajesh Maruti Maru, a 32-year-old, was thrust into the MRI machine while he was visiting an elderly relative at the BYL Nair Charitable Hospital in Mumbai, India. As the Hindustan Times reports, the man was apparently told by a junior member of staff to carry a metal cylinder of liquid oxygen into a room containing an MRI machine. Unbeknownst to everyone, the MRI machine was turned on. This caused Maru to be suddenly jolted pulled towards the machine, causing the oxygen tank to rupture and leak. The man later died after inhaling large amounts of oxygen. His body also bled heavily as a result of the accident. "When we [the hospital staff] told him that metallic things aren't allowed inside an MRI room, he said 'sab chalta hai, hamara roz ka kaam hai' [it's fine, we do it every day]. He also said that the machine was switched off. The doctor, as well as the technician, didn't say anything,” Harish Solanki, Maru's relative, told NDTV. "It's because of their carelessness that Rajesh died," Solanki added. Police are currently examining the CCTV footage of the incident and have arrested at least two members of hospital staff for the negligence. The local government has also awarded the man's family 500,000 rupees ($7,855) in compensation. Read full story Source: IFL Science, 29 January 2018
  15. News Article
    Implementation of Boris Johnson’s flagship pledge to build 40 new hospitals is “moving at a glacial pace” and is hamstrung by delays and a lack of funding, NHS bosses have warned. Some of the construction schemes have already fallen as much as four years behind schedule, while others have been hit by massive cost increases because of difficulties in obtaining sign-off on certain points. The new hospitals programme in England is progressing so slowly that bosses of half of the hospitals earmarked to benefit doubt whether they will ever get the money to deliver the promised rebuild, according to a report and survey of health service trust chiefs by NHS Providers. One hospital in a rural area had to send seriously ill patients to other hospitals as much as 50 miles away and cancel cancer surgery when an inspection found that the ceiling of its intensive care unit was in danger of collapsing. Another hospital has had to close an entire ward for the same reason, while another is plagued with sewage regularly leaking into clinical areas because of the age of the facility. One trust chief executive said: “The whole fabric of the building is shot and we need to rebuild. The build was supposed to be completed in 2024 but [we are] now looking at 2027.” Another boss said: “We operate 21st-century healthcare from 19th-century buildings – increasingly unsustainable.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 July 2022
  16. News Article
    Some hospital leaders in England say they are "living with risk" every day, with buildings in urgent need of repair. According to NHS trust bosses, delays to funding allocations have stalled vital upgrade projects. Structural safety concerns caused the critical care unit at one trust to be temporarily closed and planned operations were stopped. The government said it was working closely with trusts on building plans. One trust has installed props and steel beams in the maternity unit, making life very difficult for staff and mothers, according to hospital managers. The hospital leaders said the current political situation - with the government looking for a new leader - complicates matters. "This kind of political paralysis and instability is deeply unhelpful for the NHS when we've got a whole range of critical decisions that need to be made not only in capital investments but also NHS pay," said NHS Providers chief executive Saffron Corder. Read full story Source: BBC News, 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
    A hospital and one of its managers are facing a criminal investigation into the death of a vulnerable man who absconded by climbing a fence. An inquest concluded failings amounting to neglect contributed to the death of Matthew Caseby in 2020, after he fled from Birmingham's Priory Hospital Woodbourne and was hit by a train. The investigation will be carried out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Priory said it would co-operate fully "if enquiries are raised by the CQC". Mr Caseby, 23, climbed over a 2.3m-high (7ft 6in) courtyard fence on 7 September 2020. He was found dead the following day after being hit by a train near Birmingham's University station. The inquest in April heard other patients had previously climbed the fence and, despite concerns by members of staff, no action was taken to improve security in and around the courtyard until another patient absconded two months after Mr Caseby's death. Following the inquest, coroner Louise Hunt said she was concerned the fence and courtyard area may still not be safe and urged health chiefs to consider imposing minimum standards for perimeter fences at mental health units. She also criticised record-keeping and how risk assessments were carried out. Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 June 2022
  19. News Article
    NHS patients are being put in danger and waiting lists are getting even longer due to a £9bn maintenance backlog and a major lack of capital funding that has left some parts of hospitals “extremely dilapidated” and unfit for patients, health leaders have warned. Boris Johnson promised in 2019 to “build and fund 40 new hospitals”. But the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), the government watchdog, later gave the project an “amber/red” ranking, meaning its delivery “is in doubt with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas”. At the same time, the NHS in England is facing a £9bn maintenance backlog. Half of that sum, which is up from £6.5bn just three years ago, is required to tackle failings classed as posing either a “high” or “significant” risk to patients and staff. Now health leaders are warning that without an urgent injection of capital funding, patient safety is at risk and the waiting list for care – worsened by the pandemic – “will grow even larger”. Speaking to the Guardian, Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said the crisis had become extremely serious. Patient safety as well as the ability of the NHS to tackle record waiting lists is being “severely hampered”, Taylor warned, because the UK has been “plagued” by one of the worst records for capital investment in healthcare across all OECD countries over the past decade. One NHS trust chair in London told a survey, carried out this month, that “cramped” space means the trust is not “building up our capacity to deal with waiting lists”, and conditions for patients in some wards were “not fit for purpose”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 June 2022
  20. News Article
    Mental health trusts are exploring wider use of CCTV to review incidents of seclusion or restraint in response to high-profile abuse scandals, HSJ has learned. All providers of mental health, learning disability and autism services were ordered to review safety and asked to feed back to NHS England’s national team. The request was made in a letter from national director Claire Murdoch sent in response to abuse allegations aired by BBC Panorama and Channel 4’s Dispatches. The review is taking place alongside NHSE’s launch of a £36m three-year quality programme. This aims to identify providers and systems needing support, commission a culture and leadership development programme for all trusts, and produce a new model for safe inpatient care. Results of trust-level reviews, seen by HSJ, show at least five providers aim to use CCTV more “pro-actively”, as a tool for boosting safety. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 February 2023
  21. News Article
    When Amy Fantis gave birth to her first child two years ago, the labour was rapid, lasting only about four hours, and she was reliant on gas and air. Her second baby is due in just a few days — but the hospital has, like others around Britain, imposed a ban on the popular form of pain relief. Fantis, 36, from Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, is one of many women affected by the decision of several NHS trusts to suspend the use of the gas because of fears that midwives and doctors have been exposed to unsafe levels for prolonged periods. In some hospitals, levels of the nitrous oxide and oxygen mix are more than 50 times higher than the safe workplace exposure limits. In a survey of more than 16,600 women who gave birth last year, the Care Quality Commission found that 76% of respondents used gas and air at some point during labour. Although short-term use of the gas in childbirth is harmless to women and their babies, long-term exposure for midwives and doctors can affect the body’s ability to absorb vitamin B12, damaging nerves and red blood cells and causing anaemia. It is not believed that any NHS staff have become ill as a result of long-term exposure to gas and air. NHS England and the Health and Safety Executive recently warned other hospitals that they need to check the ventilation on maternity wards and ensure staff are kept safe. NHS England is planning to send out new guidance to trusts on the issue after a series of hospitals had to stop using the gas. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 25 February 2023
  22. News Article
    Only half the recommended number of medical staff were on duty at the O2 Brixton Academy on the night of a crush at the south-west London venue. Industry guidelines suggest there should have been medical cover of at least 10 people, including a paramedic and a nurse, but no paramedics or nurses were present. Rebecca Ikumelo, 33, and security guard Gaby Hutchinson, 23, died in hospital following the crowd surge on 15 December 2022 at the concert. The medical provider, Collingwood Services Ltd, said it was "fully confident" its team had "responded speedily, efficiently and with best practice". Two whistleblowers who regularly work for Collingwood Services Ltd at Brixton told BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme that medical cover at the south London gig had been "inadequate". Neither of them was there when the crush happened, but one said he had spoken to colleagues who were. "[They] had two student paramedics, so they're basically unqualified," said one whistleblower. "They have to be supervised by a paramedic, not by anybody of a lower grade. They didn't have appropriate supervision." Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 February 2023
  23. News Article
    Doctors have warned that patient safety is being put at risk by the state of crumbling NHS hospitals which have fallen into potentially dangerous disrepair, an ITV News investigation has found. Year-long leaks, collapsing floors, ageing roofs and potential for falling stone are among the issues exposed in the investigation - which have caused whole wards to be closed down. One doctor told ITV News conditions are so poor in hospitals she has worked in that “we are always just hoping that the next time something happens it does not cause something catastrophic.”Half of the 87 hospital trusts in England that responded to our Freedom of Information requests had at least one unresolved structural or maintenance issue, as of October 2022. Footage shared with ITV News by staff working in NHS hospitals lays bare some of the appalling conditions doctors are forced to treat patients in every day. Some leaks have been so severe they flood and close entire corridors, while some wards have become so unsafe they have been permanently shut. Read full story Source: ITV News, 22 February 2023
  24. News Article
    Hospitals in England have recorded more than 450 sewage leaks in the last 12 months, data shows, putting patients and staff in danger and prompting warnings that the NHS estate is “falling apart” after a decade of underinvestment. Freedom of information requests to NHS trusts by the Liberal Democrats found alarming examples of sewage leaking on to cancer wards, maternity units and A&E departments. The investigation also uncovered multiple cases of urine and faeces flowing into hospital rooms and on to general wards. Health officials called the revelations shocking. In some instances, sewage leaks made entire hospital departments unsafe for patients and led to staff struggling to work because they felt nauseous and had headaches. Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “This is a national scandal. Our country’s hospitals are falling apart after years of underinvestment and neglect. Patients should not be treated in these conditions and heroic nurses should not have the indignity of mopping up foul sewage.” “At every turn, our treasured NHS is crumbling, from hospital buildings to dangerous ambulance wait times. The government needs to find urgent funds to fix hospitals overflowing with sewage. Patient and staff safety is a risk if ministers fail to act,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 February 2023
  25. News Article
    The number of overheating incidents in clinical areas reported by NHS trusts has almost doubled over the last five years, with directors saying ageing estates make them vulnerable to extreme weather events. Providers reported that temperatures went above 26°C – the threshold for a risk assessment – more than 5,500 times in 2021-22, according to official data. Overheating looks set to become an increasingly significant issue for NHS estates, HSJ was told, as climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent and more intense. Janet Smith, head of sustainability at Royal Wolverhampton and Walsall Healthcare Trusts, said: “We’re feeling it now. And it’s not going to change unless we do something about it. We need a climate resilient estate to actually deliver sustainable care.” An overheating incident is when the temperature surpasses 26°C in an occupied ward or clinical space in a day, with each area counting as a separate incident. When this happens, trusts should carry out a risk assessment and take action to ensure the safety of vulnerable patients. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 February 2023
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