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News Article
No new funding to tackle NHS work shortages, says Sajid Javid
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Sajid Javid has announced a plan to tackle NHS workforce shortages will be published by the end of the year - but the health service will not receive any additional funding to back it, he said. In a speech setting out widespread reforms, the health secretary on Tuesday said the NHS is the area where the government spends the most money, adding that spending increases have meant areas such as education have lost out. Mr Javid said the UK has now come to a “crossroads” where it must choose between “endlessly putting in more and more money, or reforming how we do healthcare”. He confirmed the government will publish a long-awaited plan for the NHS workforce by the end of the year, but in response to questions from The Independent over funding, he said it would not go above the £36 billion already promised. Mr Javid said costs for the new staffing plan would come from existing budgets. Healthcare leaders have repeatedly called for a long-term “fully funded” plan to address staff shortages across the NHS, alongside a funding commitment for health education regulator Health Education England. As part of the government’s latest plan to reform NHS services, the health secretary said patients who have been waiting the longest would travel to less busy hospitals or private facilities for care - with the NHS footing the bill for travel and accommodation. He also urged people to harness the “power of families” to make a difference for their loved ones’ health, recalling when his father quit smoking at the request of his mother. Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 March 2022 -
News Article
'Overworked staff' impacting patient safety at Torbay Hospital
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has raised concerns about Torbay Hospital being understaffed and the impact that has had on patient safety. It carried out an unannounced focused inspection of medical care services at Torbay Hospital in December, after receiving information of concern about the service. Cath Campbell, CQC’s head of hospital inspection, said: “When we inspected medical care services at Torbay Hospital, we were mindful of the pressures that the COVID-19 pandemic had had on the trust, and aware that staff were working extremely hard during this time. However, we were concerned to find some of the wards didn’t have enough staff to meet the needs of patients, especially those on a dedicated COVID-19 ward, and the trust wasn’t able to provide us with evidence that there were enough staff on the ward to monitor patients to keep them safe.! “In addition, staff didn’t always complete risk assessments for each patient to remove or minimise risks to people’s safety. Staff also did not always identify patients at risk of deterioration and act quickly to keep them safe." The Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust says it has taken the CQC’s findings very seriously and made immediate improvements, which the CQC have recognised. Read full story Source: Torbay Weekly, 4 March 2022 -
News Article
Staffing crisis deepens in NHS England with 110,000 posts unfilled
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS is facing a deepening staffing crisis, with the number of unfilled posts across health services in England rising to 110,192, official figures show. The shortages include 39,652 nurses and 8,158 doctors, according to the latest quarterly data for health service vacancies published by NHS Digital. The disclosure prompted warnings that the shortage of frontline personnel would lead to longer delays, hit the campaign to cut the 6.1m treatment backlog and undermine quality of care. Staff groups said they feared that low pay, burnout from heavy workloads and constant pressure during shifts, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, were leading demoralised workers to quit. “The fact that nursing vacancies remain stubbornly high, at about 40,000 in the NHS in England, is deeply worrying. With every job that remains unfilled, safe patient care becomes even harder to maintain”, said Patricia Marquis, the Royal College of Nursing’s director for England. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “The Conservatives’ scrapping of the nursing bursary and failure to fix staffing shortages has been disastrous for the NHS, and patients are paying the price. NHS staff do heroic work but there simply aren’t enough of them. Yet the government still has no plan to fill these positions, meaning patients will continue to wait unacceptable lengths of time for treatment.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2022 -
News Article
NHS ‘woefully unprepared’ for care of an ageing England
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS is “flying blind” and “woefully unprepared” to cope with England’s rapidly ageing population, senior doctors have warned as stark new figures reveal the country has only one full-time geriatrician to care for every 8,000 older people. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said the drastic shortage of specially trained physicians to look after the rising number of elderly people and a lack of NHS workforce planning meant England was “sleepwalking into an avoidable crisis of care for older people”. Its analysis of NHS and Office for National Statistics data shows there is just one full-time geriatrician for every 8,031 people over the age of 65 in England. There are also regional disparities, with one geriatrician caring for more than 12,500 over-65s in the east Midlands, while the figure in north-east and central London is one per 3,254. Estimates suggest that by 2040 there could be as many as 17 million over-65s. But the college warns that many doctors will soon be requiring geriatric care themselves as 48% of consultant geriatricians are due to retire within the next decade. The RCP said the health service was short of staff across all specialities and the shortage of geriatricians was one example of why the health service needed more workforce planning. It said there was no publicly available data on the number of staff the NHS needed to train now to meet future demand for care. Dr Jennifer Burns, the president of the British Geriatrics Society, said the crisis would only worsen with the “predictable rise” in the numbers of older people across the country. “It is absolutely vital that these fundamental issues around the recruitment, retention, development and support of the workforce are addressed, and that there is a properly resourced strategy for future needs,” she said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2022 -
News Article
Ukraine’s hospitals ‘desperate’ for medical supplies as oxygen runs out
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Hospitals across Ukraine are “desperate” for medical supplies, doctors have warned, as oxygen stores are hit and other vital health supplies run low amid bombardment from Russian forces. UK-based Ukrainian doctors have issued an urgent appeal for donations of supplies as they travel to eastern Europe in response to reports of shortages of medical equipment and medicines. The World Health Organisation warned on Sunday evening that oxygen supplies in Ukraine were “dangerously low” as trucks were unable to transport oxygen supplies from plants to hospitals across the country. Dr Volodymyr Suskyi, an intensive care doctor at Feofaniya Clinical Hospital in Kyiv, told The Independent he had been forced to use an emergency back-up system to supply oxygen to a patient on life support after the area near plant which supplies his hospital was bombed. Dr Dennis Olugun, a UK-based doctor who is leading the group of medics from the Ukrainian Medical Association of the United Kingdom (UMAUK) to deliver medical supplies, said the situation was “desperate” in some areas. He said some hospitals did not have basic necessities such as rubber gloves. He told The Independent: “What they need in the hospitals is portable ultrasound machines, portable x-ray machines because they have so many patients they much rather walk around the wards and do whatever diagnostic work rather than transporting patients." The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations have called for medicines, pharmaceutical ingredients and raw materials to be excluded from the scope of sanctions being levied against Russian trade. Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 March 2022 -
News ArticleTens of thousands of new mothers have been left feeling “hopeless” and “isolated” during the pandemic, with the NHS seeing record numbers of referrals to mental health services. Requests for help from new, expectant and bereaved mothers jumped by 40% in 2021 compared with 2019, analysis by The Independent has revealed. NHS data shows mental health referrals hit an all-time high of 23,673 in November last year, with average monthly referrals for the whole of 2021 running 21% higher than the year before, jumping from 17,226 to 21,990. Among those affected when support systems were “suddenly” removed in March 2020 was Leanne, a woman who had her second child just before the pandemic and experienced a mental health crisis. She told The Independent how she had struggled following the first lockdown. “I just thought, Oh God, my recovery is going to stop, how am I going to get better now because I’ve got no support – I’m on my own with it,” she said. “I was [also] anticipating the lockdown … in addition to the nursery closing, and I was getting quite anxious about that, and feeling quite hopeless. The pressure piled on me was enormous, and I had no one who could see me or support me." Dr Rosena Allin-Khan MP, the shadow minister for mental health, said the figures uncovered by The Independent were “extremely concerning” and that pregnant women had been “forgotten about through the pandemic”. The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ lead for perinatal mental health services, Dr Joanne Black, said the NHS pandemic recovery plan had lost sight of women in pregnancy and children under two years old, who have been “disproportionately affected”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 28 February 2022
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News Article
Sussex woman forced to sleep in wheelchair due to lack of care staff
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A woman has been left to sleep in her wheelchair several nights a week and remain in bed for the rest of it due to a lack of social care in her local area. Mandy Page, 53, who lives alone in Hove, has difficulty getting into and out of bed on her own and previously had carers to provide support in the morning and evenings. However, since before Christmas she has had no care support in the evenings after the MyLife East Sussex agency told her it was no longer covering her care, and that the agency believed her care was now being provided by her local authority. Page receives dialysis three times a week at Royal Sussex county hospital, and on those days arrives home, by hospital transport, after 6pm. This means that without help getting out of her wheelchair and into bed she must sleep in the wheelchair. “It’s very stressful, because at the moment I’m in bed every day. I can’t get up without help, and I can’t get back to bed on a dialysis day,” Page said. “On a dialysis day, I go to dialysis and I’m in my wheelchair. Every other day, I’m in bed all day and all night. That’s no life. Page’s situation exemplifies the crisis in social care. England has faced chronic shortages of care workers, with a survey by Care England finding that 95% of care providers struggle to recruit and retain staff. In 2020/21, there were around 105,000 vacancies at any one time in the social care sector, and more than a third of the sector’s staff left their jobs during the year. Page says the lack of adequate social care has taken a negative toll on her quality of life, and has meant she hasn’t been able to undertake everyday tasks. Rob Persey, the executive director for health and adult social care at Brighton and Hove council, said the council had not been able to source a new provider for Page since her earlier care was withdrawn. “This is a national as well as a local problem as there are insufficient home care staff to meet demands. Various local initiatives, including additional funding, have been taken to increase the home care workforce, but so far they have only had a limited impact." “We recognise Mandy does not want respite care, and acknowledge this is a completely unacceptable situation for her,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 February 2022 -
News ArticleA record number of more than 400 workers in England have left the NHS every week to restore their work-life balance over the last year, according to a new analysis of the workforce crisis hitting the health service. The flood of departures comes with staff complaining of burnout and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder following two years of battling the Covid pandemic. There are now concerns that the exodus is impacting the quality of care, with more than a quarter of adults saying they or an immediate family member had received poor care as a result of the workforce problems. The findings emerged in an assessment of the health service compiled by John Hall, a former strategy director at the Department of Health and Social Care, for the Engage Britain charity. Concerns over the state of the workforce came top of its list as it investigated the public’s attitude towards health and social care services, which remain under pressure in the wake of the pandemic. “The workforce crisis in the NHS has clearly penetrated the public consciousness,” Hall writes. “The UK has long had significantly lower numbers of doctors and nurses per capita than comparable systems … More recently, the impact of working conditions is showing an increasing impact on the ability of the NHS to retain staff. Around 50 in every 10,000 staff working in hospital and community health services in June 2021 left the service within the next three months, citing work-life balance as the reason. This was a new record.” Julian McCrae, Engage Britain’s director, said frontline health and care workers were now “running on empty” and a plan for boosting the workforce was overdue. “NHS workers across the country have spoken to us about feeling overstretched, undervalued and struggling to get support in a chaotic system,” he said. “We can’t allow staff to burn out, while putting patients at risk of mistakes or spiralling downwards as they wait months for treatment. The government must act quickly to expand its promise of reform, based on listening to the people who use or work in the system every day. Only answers rooted in real experiences can deliver health and care that works for us all.” Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 February 2022
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News ArticleThe NHS is facing a “time bomb” and will be forced to cancel or delay around 8 million operations each year by 2040, due to a lack of consultant anaesthetists across the services. The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCOA) said the current shortage of at least 1,400 staff across the UK means millions operations will not be able to take place. The college has warned its speciality is facing a “perfect storm” of limited training places, poor retention and an ageing workforce with 39 per cent nearing retirement age. The analysis found as demand for surgeries continue the need for anaesthetists is due to increase by 3.85 per year, meaning the NHS will need around 25,000 doctors in these posts by 2040. Dr Fiona Donald, president of the RCOA said: “The NHS is facing an anaesthetic workforce time bomb. We already have profound workforce shortages that are preventing huge numbers of operations from taking place – and unless urgent action is taken, the problem is going to worsen. “We would welcome government funding for additional anaesthetic training posts. One hundred additional posts per year would start to plug the gap and help get the UK back on a sound footing to be able to address the waiting list backlog. Without this investment, we foresee impacts to patient care and a further impact on the mental health of our current workforce – they need to be able to prioritise their own health and that of their families alongside the focus they already place on the health of patients and the public.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 February 2022
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News Article
Government rejects calls to address nurse burnout and shortage
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The government has rejected calls for an overhaul of NHS workforce planning amid concerns of staff shortages and a mounting backlog of patients. It comes after a House of Commons health and social care committee report in 2021 found burnout among nurses and other healthcare professionals had reached an emergency point. MPs had called for immediate action to support exhausted staff through a plan to cover staffing needs for the next two decades, led by Health Education England. But in a government response to the report, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) rejected calls for independent annual reports on workforce shortages and future staffing requirements. Instead, a new duty in the recently introduced Health and Care Bill will require the health and social care secretary to publish reports on workforce planning in England every five years. The duty is intended to compliment ‘investment on workforce planning and supply already underway’, the government’s response states. But UNISON national nursing officer Stuart Tuckwood said a lack of an independent view on what is needed to support the NHS workforce risked the government focusing on cost ‘above all else’. "The urgent focus for this year must be on preventing further gaps from appearing in the workforce, including nursing teams." "The failure to grade staff properly for the jobs they do, ensure fair pay for additional hours and deliver flexible work patterns are all reasons cited by nurses, healthcare assistants and other staff for leaving." Read full story Source: Nursing Standard, 17 February 2022 -
News ArticleAt least 20 patients have suffered harm due to their follow-up appointments not being booked at a hospital department where people ‘continue to come to harm’, according to an internal review. Torbay and South Devon Foundation Trust is reviewing its ophthalmology service after 22 people were harmed following “system failures” with their follow-up appointments. The trust’s initial investigation, obtained by HSJ with the Freedom of Information Act, warned there were “potentially” other patients affected by the failures who had not yet been identified. In response, the trust said its ophthalmology department had already “undertaken a significant amount of work to address a large proportion of the actions arising from the review”, including building another operating theatre and recruiting more staff. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 August 2023
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News Article
'Tipping point' warning as strike-hit appointments near million mark
Clive Flashman posted a news article in News
As junior doctors begin a four-day strike today with a two-day strike by consultants a fortnight later, Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: "Trust leaders are very worried about six more days of severe disruption across the NHS this month. "We could be close to a tipping point. Trusts and staff are pulling out all the stops to reduce waiting times for patients but with no end to strikes in sight the sheer volume of planned treatment being put back due to industrial action will make it almost impossible for trusts to cut waiting lists as much as the government wants. "Waiting lists are now at a record high of 7.57 million, the pressure on urgent and emergency care services is relentless and an already stretched NHS is gearing up for another high-demand winter as pressure on tight budgets mounts. "A string of strikes – which have led to more than 835,000 routine treatments and appointments being put back since December – is estimated to have cost the NHS around £1bn already including lost income and hiring expensive staff cover. "The number of rescheduled appointments could be close to 1 million after this month's strikes and consultants have called another two-day strike in September. There will be a long-lasting effect on patients who have had treatment delayed and on already low staff morale. "Concerns are mounting too over how patient safety will be maintained during August's strikes as many NHS services will be even more stretched as many staff are on much-needed summer holidays and cover is harder to secure. "It's vital that the government and unions find a breakthrough urgently. Trust leaders understand the strength of feeling among striking staff and why they're taking action. Everyone in the NHS wants to concentrate on treating more patients more quickly rather than spend days making plans to cope with strikes. "People can still rely on the NHS during strikes, calling 999 in an emergency. For less urgent cases people should use 111 online for help and advice." -
News Article
Healthcare workers need more ‘time to care’
Clive Flashman posted a news article in News
Steve Gulati, Associate Professor and Director of Healthcare Leadership at HSMC (University of Birmingham) discusses the concept of "time to care" within healthcare. A UK-wide poll of healthcare workers revealed that most NHS staff think they have too little time to help patients and the quality of care that services provide is falling. This reported reduction in the time to care is perhaps inevitable after almost a decade of health funding failing to keep up with increases in demand, and is a cause for concern for all of us – patients, carers or those working in the NHS. Where does this fit in to the wider picture – and can anything be done about it? It is not just NHS workers who are feeling the pinch – levels of public satisfaction with the NHS are at an all-time low. Interestingly, the two most cited reasons relate to access (difficulties or delays in getting appointments) and, tellingly, to staff shortages. Even against this gloomy backdrop, the collectivised funding model upon which the NHS is founded continues to find significant public support. All of this points towards a painful congruence – NHS staff feel that they do not have enough time to care, and the public is noticing. Is ‘time to care’ an outdated concept, harking back to an age of long patient stays, a paternalistic bedside manner and unrealistic expectations? Both staff and patient experience suggest not. Although technology plays an increasing role in healthcare diagnostics, treatment and recovery, delivering care remains a deeply human phenomenon and is essentially a relational and personal task. Recognising that frontline healthcare workers need time to care is not a new phenomenon. Influenced by service improvement methodologies, the ‘productive ward’ initiative in the mid-2000s placed an explicit emphasis on using efficiency techniques for the express purpose of releasing nursing staff to have “time to care”. It was acknowledged that productivity was more than metrics around bed occupancy and throughput, for example, and that the driving purpose of service improvement was to time to care. Whilst research indicated a nuanced impact, the principle is long recognised. If solutions to these problems were easy, they would have been implemented by now. There is no doubt that on one level, it really is a matter of resources – no system can carry a vacancy factor of around 10% for any length of time without there being an evident impact. However, even within an environment of constrained resources, choices are made every day by caregivers and leaders alike about what receives attention and what is allowed to move into the ‘important but not urgent’ category. That is in no way to blame the hard-pressed caregivers, but instead to indicate that even when it really does not feel like it, every individual has a level of agency. Feeling as though one does not have time to do one’s job is, put simply, unpleasant for all workers but should especially concern us in care environments. The impact on clinical safety and quality is an obvious starting point, but it is also important to recognise the impacts on care workers themselves with regard to emotional labour and the impact on the psychological contract that working in a caring profession, when people feel that they don’t have enough time to care, must have. As eloquently stated by the Vice-President of the Royal College of Physicians in Wales, it is “…very clear that good clinicians, be they nurses, doctors, therapists or pharmacists, need time to train, time to care and time to rest”. Even in challenging times, self-care and compassionate, values driven leadership can make a difference. Caring is everyone’s business. Link to original article: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2023/healthcare-workers-need-more-time-to-care -
News Article
NHS to expand use of private sector to tackle waits
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The use of the private sector to tackle the NHS backlog in England is to be expanded, the government says. Ministers say they want to unlock spare capacity to get more people the treatment and operations they need. This includes opening eight privately-run diagnostic centres and using new rules to make it easier for the NHS to purchase care in the private sector. It comes as a record 7.5 million people are waiting for treatment - three million more than before the pandemic. The private sector already carries out hundreds of thousands of treatments and appointments for the NHS every year. But it has said it has the capacity to carry out about 30% more than it is. Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 August 2023 -
News ArticleThe prospect of waiting at least six weeks for a biopsy was too much for Neil Perkin. In February, the 56-year-old was told that he had suspected prostate cancer which needed to be confirmed by examining a sample of his tissue. “After the initial appointment with the consultant, there were no letters, texts or anything,” Perkin said. Instead, he decided to pay for it himself: £5,000 – a substantial sum for the part-time ferry operator. The results from a private hospital in Guildford confirmed the cancer. “I’d lost faith in the NHS by this point and I went private,” he said. “The cancer was spreading and my surgeon made it clear that if I’d waited for the NHS for my prognosis, [the] chances of cancer recurrence would be far worse.” In May he paid another £22,500 for the prostate to be removed at a private hospital in London, with financial help from his family. “I feel let down. It turned out from the pathology that this was urgent and a delay would have made a huge difference to my outcome, my prognosis and quality of life. They got there in the nick of time.” Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust said it was sorry to have been unable to meet Perkin’s expectations and strived to provide quality and timely care. “But we recognise that across the NHS there is an increased demand on services and this can impact patient waiting times.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 July 2023
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News Article
Families caring for dementia patients in UK reaching crisis point, says charity
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Soaring numbers of families struggling to care for someone with dementia have hit a “crisis point” with nowhere to turn for help when their loved one puts themselves or others at risk of harm, a charity has said. More than 700,000 people in the UK look after a relative with dementia. Many feel they can no longer cope with alarming situations where they or their relative are at immediate risk of being harmed, according to Dementia UK. Dementia can affect a person’s ability to manage their reactions to difficult thoughts and feelings. This can lead to them experiencing such intense states of distress that they become verbally or physically aggressive, putting themselves and those around them at risk of harm. The charity says carers and their loved ones are being failed because health and social care support services are already stretched to their limit, which has led to a surge in calls to its helpline. Sheridan Coker, the deputy clinical lead at Dementia UK, said: “We’re increasingly being contacted by families who are at risk of harm with no one to turn to. We receive calls where the person with dementia has become so distressed that they have physically assaulted the person caring for them, often a family member." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 31 July 2023 -
News ArticleA director at a major acute trust said it needs to stop “caving in” to demand pressures by opening extra escalation beds. Board members at Mid and South Essex were discussing a recent report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which rated medical services as “inadequate”. The CQC flagged significant staffing shortages and repeated failures to maintain patient records, among other issues. Deputy chair Alan Tobias told yesterday’s public board meeting: “We have just got to hold the line on these [escalation] beds. We never do. Every year we cave in… “We have just got to hold the line with this… Do what some other hospitals do, they shut the doors then. We have never had the bottle to do that.” Barbara Stuttle, another non-executive director, said: “Our staff are exhausted… We don’t have the staff to give the appropriate care to our patients when we have got extra beds. To have extra beds on wards, I know we have had to do it and I know why, [but] you are expecting an already stretched workforce to stretch even further. “And when that happens, something gives. Record keeping, that’s usually the last thing that gets done because they’d much rather give the care to patients.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 July 2023
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News Article
Shropshire patient left to change in hospital corridor 'felt exposed'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A woman treated in a hospital corridor says the lack of privacy was "wholly inappropriate" after other patients saw her without a top. Isabel Aston was taken to Princess Royal Hospital in Shropshire with pneumonia and sepsis and said she spent seven hours on a bed in a corridor. She said she felt exposed when other patients saw her changing her clothes. She explained: "People were walking in both directions [and] there aren't screens around your bed so people wanting the toilet who couldn't get out of bed were faced with the thought of using a bed pan in full view." She added that on feeling hot at one point, she wanted to change her t-shirt, but the process proved lengthy due to cannulas in her arms. "I did not have anything on underneath," she said. "I'm 64 years of age, I've probably reached an age where I'm not so self-conscious perhaps, but that could have been a much younger patient. "That could have been a patient for whom perhaps culturally they couldn't have change their t-shirt... or somebody who had mastectomy scars [and] were very self conscious. "It is wholly inappropriate for patients to be so exposed when they are so ill." The hospital trust said it aimed to maintain patients' dignity despite being under operational pressures. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 July 2023 -
News Article
Most NHS staff say they don’t have enough time to spend with patients
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Most NHS staff think they have too little time to help patients and the quality of care the service provides is falling, a survey reveals. Medical and nursing groups said the “very worrying” findings showed that hard-pressed staff cannot give patients as much attention as they would like because they are so busy. In polling YouGov carried out for the Guardian, 71% of NHS staff who have direct contact with patients said they did not have the amount of time they would like to have to help them. A third (34%) felt they had “somewhat less than enough time” and 37% “far less than enough time” than they wanted. Almost a quarter (23%) felt they had the right amount of time while just 3% said they had “more time” than they wanted. The survey presents a worrying picture of the intense pressures being felt at the NHS frontline. Those same personnel were asked if they thought the quality of care the service is able to offer has got better or worse over the last five years. Three-quarters (75%) said “worse”, including a third (34%) who answered “much worse”, while 17% said “about the same” and only 6% replied “better”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 July 2023 -
News Article
Patients 'waiting for days' in Emergency Department
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has said patients are waiting for days in corridors at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital's Emergency Department. Rita Devlin, NI director of the RCN, visited the unit on Thursday after getting calls from nursing staff. She described the situation as "scandalous". Speaking to Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme, Ms Devlin said while it was the Royal Hospital on Thursday, the situation is "bad right across the EDs". She said talking to nurses at the Royal, she was struck by "the absolute despair" some are feeling. "I spoke to some young, newly qualified nurses who are leaving because they just can't take the stress and the pressure any more," she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 July 2023 -
News Article
System admits 10-year diagnostic waits
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Adults across an integrated care system area are facing ‘unacceptable’ 10-year waits for an NHS assessment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the longest known wait for such services in England. Herefordshire and Worcestershire integrated care board has warned in board papers of “exceptionally high waiting times for ADHD assessment and treatment for Worcestershire patients (10 years+), with workforce challenges and service fragility compromising service delivery”. HSJ understands the long waits for ADHD diagnosis, which is a national problem, is predominately affecting adults with approximately 2,000 people on Herefordshire and Worcestershire’s ADHD list alone. Local provider Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust also warned on its website that its paediatric services were also “experiencing unprecedented demand”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 July 2023 -
News Article
Children waiting over a year in pain for NHS tooth removal
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Children in some areas of England are waiting up to 18 months on average for dental general-anaesthetic treatment and teeth extractions, an investigation reveals. Some have been left with prolonged dental pain, according to information shared with BBC News. The parents of one girl who has waited three years for extractions say the pain keeps her up at night. At the start of this year, more than 12,000 under-18s were on waiting lists for assessment or treatment at community dental service (CDS) providers, data obtained by the Liberal Democrats from the NHS Business Services Authority and shared with BBC News earlier this year reveals. Children are referred to a CDS provider when they have tooth decay too severe to be treated in general practice. They also treat those with physical or learning disabilities when general practice is not a practical option. The longest average wait faced by children for general-anaesthetic treatment at a CDS provider is 80 weeks, at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 July 2023 -
News Article
Girl, 14, could be left unable to walk after brain surgery cancelled three times
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A14-year-old girl could lose the ability to walk after her brain surgery was cancelled three times as NHS children’s services are stretched to breaking point. Piper Miller, who has severe autism, needs urgent surgery to remove fluid on her brain that if unaddressed could also leave her unable to control her bladder. But her operation has been pushed back three times in the past month due to emergency operations taking priority and severe short staffing made worse by junior doctors’ strikes. Her mum, Toni Milner said the delays had had a “heartbreaking and gut-wrenching” effect on her daughter whose anxiety is “sent through the roof” each time she is told she is not having her surgery. Piper’s story comes as NHS data uncovered by The Independent reveals at least 340 life-saving children’s operations, such as transplant and lung surgery, were shelved from April to December 2022, while 763 emergency operations were refused due to a lack of intensive care beds. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 July 2023 -
News Article
UK children waiting 16 months on average for ADHD and autism screening
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Children with suspected ADHD and autism are waiting as long as seven years for treatment on the NHS, as the health service struggles to manage a surge in demand during a crisis in child mental health. Experts said “inhumane” waits are putting a generation of neurodiverse children at risk of mental illness as they are “pushed to the back of a very long queue” for children and adolescent mental health services (Camhs). UK children with suspected neurodevelopmental conditions faced an average waiting time of one year and four months for an initial screening in 2022, more than three times longer than the average wait for all Camhs services, according to research carried out by the House magazine and shared with the Guardian. Half of all trusts responding to a freedom of information request had an average wait of at least a year, and at one-sixth of trusts it was more than two years. The NICE guidance for autism and mental health services stipulates that no one should wait longer than 13 weeks between being referred and first being seen. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 July 2023 Related reading on the hub: Long waits for ADHD diagnosis and treatment are a patient safety issue -
News Article
Austerity has led to NHS quality of care declining in key areas
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The quality of care that the NHS provides has got worse in many key areas and patients’ long waits to access treatment could become even more common, research has found. The coalition government’s austerity programme in the early 2010s led to the heath service no longer being able to meet key waiting time targets, the Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation said. Austerity ushered in “really concerning deterioration across the board” in the overall quality of NHS care, as judged by patients’ experience and prevention of ill-health, not just speed of access. Analysis by the two thinktanks’ joint Quality Watch programme, which monitors more than 150 indicators of care quality over time, found that in England: Fewer people with long-term heath conditions such as cancer, diabetes and depression, are getting enough help to manage their condition. Breast cancer screening rates for women aged 53-74 have fallen. It has become harder for patients to see a named GP. Only 6% of midwives think their maternity unit has enough staff to do its job properly. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 July 2023
