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Found 964 results
  1. News Article
    Rapidly falling continuity of care levels pose an “existential threat” to patient safety, Britain’s top family doctor will warn today as research reveals only half of Britons regularly see the same GP. Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), will say trusted relationships between family doctors and patients are the most “powerful intervention” for delivering effective, high-quality care as they boost patient satisfaction and health outcomes, and reduce use of hospital services. But in a keynote speech to the college’s annual conference, Marshall will warn that continuity of care is becoming almost impossible to deliver on the NHS amid soaring demand and shrinking numbers of GPs, in what he will describe as the “most worrying crisis in decades”. There are mounting concerns over the ability of the NHS to tackle record waiting lists, with 6.5m patients awaiting care in England alone. Earlier this month Sajid Javid, the health secretary, admitted the current model of GP care “is not working” but insisted there would be no more money for the health service. At the RCGP conference in London, Marshall will tell delegates that because of rising workloads and fewer staff, GPs no longer have the time to properly assess patients, with 65% warning safety is being compromised due to appointments being too short, according to a recent survey commissioned by the college. Only 39% of respondents said they were able to deliver the continuity of care their patients need – down from 60% two years ago. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2022
  2. News Article
    Suffering is “the new norm” in the NHS and people can expect to spend their last few years in pain, the outgoing chairman of the British Medical Association said. Chaand Nagpaul, who steps down this week, said the NHS was in a “perilous state”. He also wants people to have sympathy for the “plight” of junior doctors, who have said they will prepare for a ballot on strikes over pay. There are 6.5 million people on NHS waiting lists, many of whom have been waiting a year or more. Nagpaul, who has been a GP for 33 years, said: “I have not come across this scale of suffering, of unmet need. And what we’re going to be seeing is people spending the last years of their lives, literally in pain, unable . . . to have a hip operation. That will be the final years of their lives.” He said there was a “whole, larger population of patients just literally not featuring in the statistics” waiting for outpatient treatment, mental health care and diabetes checks. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 27 June 2022
  3. News Article
    NHS patients in England who have been waiting more than two years for surgery are being offered hospital treatment in alternative parts of the country. More than 6,000 long-term waiting-list patients are being offered travel and accommodation costs where appropriate to help the NHS through the backlog. Health officials want to ensure nobody is waiting more than two years by the end of July. Three patients waiting for surgery in Derby have already received treatment in the Northumbria health region, with another two patients booked in, NHS England said. And in south-west London, 17 orthopaedic patients from the South West of England are being treated, with another 11 patients set to follow in the coming weeks. Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said the number of two-year waits had already reduced by two-thirds since January. "Innovations like this are helping to tackle waiting lists and speed up access to treatment, backed by record investment," he said. But British Medical Association leader Dr Chaand Nagpaul is warning that attempts to address what he called a "once in a generation backlog of unimaginable proportions" would be undermined by a lack of staff and beds. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 June 2022
  4. News Article
    Surgery waiting lists will triple by 2030, triggering a “population health crisis”, unless there is a huge increase in NHS capacity, according to new research. Experts from Birmingham University have said efforts to reduce hospital backlogs are not enough and that it is “impossible” for the existing frontline workers to tackle increasing waiting lists. The most in-depth analysis of the challenge facing hospital waiting lists in England has revealed 4.3 million people need invasive surgery or procedures such as endoscopy, the largest number since 2007. Of these, an estimated 3.3 million are on a “hidden waiting list”, likely to need treatment but yet to be identified by the NHS due to the impact of the pandemic. More than 2.3 million people, 53% of the waiting list, are of working age, meaning their delayed diagnoses and treatments could have an impact on the economy. Without a substantial increase in NHS capacity, the team behind the work say the total figure for those waiting for surgery in England could rise to 14.6 million by 2030. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 26 June 2022
  5. News Article
    Senior doctors have drawn up a major dossier refuting Sajid Javid’s claim that the pressures on the NHS were created by the Covid pandemic, amid continued warnings over patient safety, scarce beds and staff morale. The health secretary has repeatedly suggested that the problems around record waiting lists and ambulance waiting times have been prompted by the pandemic. Last week in parliament, he accused shadow health secretary Wes Streeting of having his “head under a rock for two years” for not seeing that the pressures stemmed from Covid. However, in a major review of evidence shared with the Observer, doctors pointed to issues around funding, bed capacity, staffing and recruitment that pre-dated the arrival of Covid. The dossier, drawn up by the British Medical Association as it gathers for its annual conference this week, finds that the UK’s health services were ill-prepared for the pandemic as a result of “historical underfunding and under-resourcing in the decade preceding the virus”. Denise Langhor, an emergency medicine consultant in the north-west of England, said that the pandemic had “laid bare” the health service’s problems, but did not create them. “Those problems and those holes already existed,” she said. “It is entirely disingenuous of this government to claim the waiting lists and the difficulties people are experiencing with NHS care at the moment are due to Covid. They have been building for a decade. “Every day, I have patients that I wish I could have treated sooner. It’s an awful thing as a doctor to be trying to look after patients on a corridor, and knowing they are not getting the standard of care that you want to give them. “Frequently it feels like we’re operating by choosing the least worst option rather than the best option.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 June 2022
  6. News Article
    Vulnerable patients cared for in secure mental health units across England could miss out on vital medications due to a shortage of learning disability nurses, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) has warned. The report into medication omissions in learning disability secure units across the country highlights problems with retaining learning disability nurses, with the number recruited each year matching those leaving. Figures quoted in the report suggest the number of learning disability nurses in the NHS nearly halved from 5,500 in 2016 to 3,000 in 2020. The HSIB launched a national investigation after being alerted to the case of Luke, who spent time in NHS secure learning disability units but was not administered prescribed medication for diabetes and high cholesterol on several occasions. At Luke’s facility, which included low and medium secure wards, HSIB investigators considered that the quality and style of care provided to patients had been directly impacted by a lack of nurses with required skill sets. Findings from HSIB’s wider national investigation link a shortfall of learning disability nurses to instances of patients missing their medication, with the report’s authors describing a “system in which medicines omissions were too common and prevention, identification and escalation processes were not robust”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 June 2022
  7. News Article
    Violence against ambulance staff in England has reached a record high, as the NHS crisis in emergency care continues to deepen. An estimated 12,626 incidents were reported in the 12 months to April 2022, according to nationwide data shared with The Independent – a 7% rise on the previous year. However, since 2016, the number of paramedics who have been verbally or physically assaulted, or threatened with assault, has nearly doubled, rising from 7,689. Adam Hopper, the national ambulance violence prevention and reduction lead for the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), which provided the data, said the findings “confirm the worrying trend of increasing violence against ambulance staff”. One paramedic told The Independent a bone was broken in his neck after he was strangled by a drunken patient he was attempting to treat. Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, a membership body for trusts in England, said that alcohol is the most prominent factor in such assaults, followed by drugs and people being in mental health crisis. “Race and sexuality have also increased as exacerbating factors in these assaults, as have delays to treatment and arrival times,” he added. Read full story Source: The Independent, 19 June 2022
  8. News Article
    Almost 100,000 people with serious heart problems, including some “living on borrowed time”, are enduring long waits for potentially life-saving NHS care because hospitals are so busy. Some of them are in such poor health they will have a heart attack and die as a consequence of facing such “dangerous” long delays, the British Heart Foundation has warned. The number of patients in England being forced to wait more than the supposed maximum 18 weeks for cardiac treatment has trebled since Covid-19 struck, from 32,186 in February 2020 to an unprecedented 96,321, a BHF analysis of published NHS England data shows. They are waiting for procedures such as having a stent or balloon inserted to reopen a blocked artery, a pacemaker or implantable defibrillator fitted, or open heart surgery, including bypasses or valve replacement operations. Others urgently need to have an echocardiogram, CT or MRI scan to help doctors decide on treatment. Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, a consultant cardiologist who is also the BHF’s associate medical director, said: “Cardiac care can’t wait. Without timely treatment, heart patients may be living on borrowed time.” “Tens of thousands of people feel in limbo, waiting many months or even years for cardiac surgery, invasive heart procedures or important diagnostic tests. During this time they could quite quickly become much sicker, and tragically some could even die before they can receive the heart care they so desperately need,” she added. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2022
  9. News Article
    Next week’s rail strikes will ’probably end up killing people’ as they will prevent staff working for already struggling ambulance trusts from getting to work, a senior NHS leader has told HSJ. Both London Ambulance Service Trust and South Central Ambulance Service Foundation Trust have moved to ”Reap 4”, This is the highest level of alert, meaning they are under extreme pressure. Ambulance trusts are already experiencing high demand amid soaring temperatures and continuing problems with lengthy handovers at the accident and emergency departments. Fears are now growing that next week’s rail strikes will push services to breaking point as many ambulance staff travel to work by public transport. The three days of rail strikes – on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday next week – will see many lines with very limited services. Tube services in London will also be hit by a strike on Tuesday and the London Overground and some tube lines will be affected on rail strike days. A senior leader closely involved in southern England’s emergency and urgent care services told HSJ: “Next week’s rail strikes will probably end up killing people because they’ll prevent ambulance trust staff getting to work.” Other ambulance trusts are understood to be monitoring the situation closely. Trusts in REAP 4 (REAP stands for resource escalation action plan) normally take a series of measures including diverting more staff to frontline duties, asking some patients to make their own way to hospital and concentrating on reaching the most serious patients. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 June 2022
  10. News Article
    Delays unloading ambulances at busy hospitals are causing serious harm to patients, a safety watchdog is warning. The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch has been investigating how the long waits are delaying 999 emergency response times across England. Kenneth Shadbolt, 94, waited more than five hours for an ambulance after a bad fall - an accident that proved fatal. Logs show that in his final 999 call he asked: "Can you please tell them to hurry up or I shall be dead." Ken Shadbolt had been in good shape for his age. On the night of Wednesday, 23 March 2022, just before 03:00, he got out of bed to go the bathroom and fell, hitting a wardrobe before collapsing on the floor. He had hurt his hip - how badly he didn't know - and couldn't get up. He could reach his mobile on his bedside, though, and dialled 999 for help. The BBC has seen transcripts of the three separate phone calls he made to South Western Ambulance Service that night. The first was short and factual, covering the basic details of his injury. He seemed calm and lucid but made clear he was in pain and needed an ambulance. Internal call logs seen by the BBC show that at this point Ken was triaged as a category two emergency, meaning paramedics should arrive in 18 minutes, on average. About 15 minutes later, Ken called 999 for a second time. An internal ambulance service log seen by the BBC shows that South Western Ambulance Service was indeed busy that night. It talks about "high demand" in the Gloucester area, with more than 60 patients waiting for help, some for more than eight hours. Another hour passed before Ken made his third and final call to 999. It was clear now that he was in serious pain. He felt "terrible sick" and said his "breathing is going too". "I need an ambulance because I'm going to fade away quite quickly," he said. The same reply came back: "The ambulance service is just under a lot of pressure at the moment... we are doing our best." An ambulance finally got to Kenneth Shadbolt's house at 08:10 that morning, four hours after that final call. Ken died at 14:21 that afternoon, with the cause of death given as a "very large subdural haematoma" or bleed on the brain. His son Jerry Shadbolt said: "The doctors were saying his injuries were non-survivable but would they have been non-survivable if he'd arrived at hospital four hours earlier? I'd like an answer to that question. "He was on his own and he knew he was on his own. He must have felt abandoned and alone on his bedroom floor. That's the most troubling part of it for me." Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 June 2022
  11. News Article
    The NHS has a low bed base, and NHS England is reviewing ‘how we right-size our capacity’ across hospital, community and ‘virtual’ services, Amanda Pritchard has said. The NHSE chief executive addressed the annual NHS Confederation this week and said: “The NHS has long had one of the lowest bed bases among comparable health systems. And in many respects this reflects on our efficiency and our drives to deliver better care in the community. “But it was true before the pandemic, and it remains true now that we have passed the point at which that efficiency actually becomes inefficient. “So the point has come where we need to review how we right-size our capacity across the NHS. That will of course look at the whole picture of hospital, community and virtual capacity.” Ms Pritchard also highlighted the current pressures on the emergency care system, which has widely been linked to slow discharges from hospital and insufficient social care provision. She cited the “unacceptable rise in 12-hour waits for admission from [accident and emergency]” which “underlines that the issue is flow”, and said “we know we will need to make more progress before winter”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 June 2022
  12. News Article
    One of the trusts worst affected by coronavirus has been issued with two warning notices and rated ‘inadequate’ for leadership, following a Care Quality Commission inspection. The regulator raised serious concerns about the safety of Countess of Chester Hospital Foundation Trust’s maternity services, as well as the oversight and learning from incidents. It also found staff were experiencing multiple problems with a newly installed electronic patient record, while systems for managing the elective waiting list were said to be unsuitable. In maternity services, the inspectors flagged severe staff shortages and a failure to properly investigate safety incidents. They said there were three occasions during the inspections when the antenatal and post-natal ward was served by only one midwife, despite the interim head of midwifery saying this would never happen. Inspectors also highlighted five incidents last year where women had suffered a major post-partum haemorrhage, involving the loss of more than two litres of blood and which resulted in an unplanned hysterectomy. The CQC said two were not reported as serious incidents, and where learning had been identified from the others, action plans were not being completed on time. The CQC said it was only made aware of the incidents by a whistleblower, while internal actions agreed in December 2021 had still not been implemented two months later. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 June 2022
  13. News Article
    Adult mental health patients in England have spent more than 200,000 days being treated in “inappropriate” out-of-area placements – at a cost to the NHS of £102m – in the year since the government pledged to end the practice. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, which carried out the analysis, says such placements, in which mental health patients can be sent hundreds of miles from home, are a shameful and dangerous practice that must stop. The government said it would end such placements by April last year but, in the 12 months since, 205,990 days were spent inappropriately out of area, at a cost equivalent to the annual salaries of more than 900 consultant psychiatrists, the college found. Dr Adrian James, the college’s president, said: “The failure to eliminate inappropriate out-of-area placements is a scandal. It is inhumane and is costing the NHS millions of pounds each year that could be spent helping patients get better. “No one with a mental illness should have to travel hundreds of miles away from home to get the treatment they desperately need.” He said investment was needed in local, properly staffed beds, alternatives to admission, and follow-up care in the community as well as government backing “to address the workforce crisis that continues to plague mental health services”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 June 2022
  14. News Article
    The number of calls for an ambulance in England have almost doubled since 2010, with warnings of record pressures on the NHS that are seeing A&E patients stuck in corridors and many paramedics quitting the job. Ambulance calls have risen by 10 times more than the number of ambulance workers, according to a new analysis of NHS data carried out by the GMB union. An increase in people seeking emergency treatment, GPs unable to cope with demand and cuts to preventive care are all being blamed for the figures. While the figures represent all calls for an ambulance, some of which go unanswered and do not lead to a vehicle being sent, they reveal the increasing pressures that have led to claims that patient safety is being put at risk by ambulance waiting times. There has been a significant increase in the number of the most serious safety incidents logged by paramedics in England over the past year. Paul, a paramedic and GMB deputy branch secretary, said he had recently seen a crew waiting almost 10 hours between arriving at hospital and transferring a patient to hospital care. “They arrived at the hospital at 20.31,” he said. “They then cleared from the hospital at 05.48 in the morning. The impact of the lack of resources is affecting the ambulance service. “We are also seeing people become aggressive to the ambulance crew, because they’ve waited hours upon hours in an ambulance." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 June 2022
  15. News Article
    The NHS needs reform rather than more money, the health secretary has said, while admitting that record-high waiting lists will continue to rise before they fall. Sajid Javid said the health service already had the resources it needed and did not require more to care for patients effectively. “The NHS now has locked in the resources it needs. It doesn’t need any more money. What it needs to deliver for more people is not money. It needs reform,” he said. In an interview with the Times, he compared the NHS to the now defunct video rental chain Blockbuster, arguing that it needed to be dramatically restructured in order to continue delivering healthcare free at the point of use. “You want to have a system that, yes, it’s got the values of 1948 but looking at delivery towards 2048,” he said. The health secretary’s remarks on funding for the health service follow a damning report that showed the NHS had lost almost 25,000 beds across the UK in the last decade. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said the drop had led to a sharp increase in waiting times for A&E, ambulances and operations, and was causing “real patient harm” and a “serious patient safety crisis”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 June 2022
  16. News Article
    Concerned healthcare workers in Illinois and Indiana are calling on The Joint Commission to add a safe staffing standard to its accreditation process. Yolanda Stewart, a patient care technician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, once injured her back so badly on the job that she couldn’t work for six months. But when she talks about that time, she doesn’t mention her own pain. Instead, she talks about the patient she’d been trying to help, recalling his extreme discomfort. Because the unit was short-staffed, Stewart lifted and turned the patient on her own. The move helped the patient but cost Stewart. Many healthcare workers have similar stories, she says, adding, “Working short-staffed is a safety issue for workers and patients.” In fact, reports show that lack of staff in hospitals leads to higher patient infection and death rates. Covid-19 has greatly worsened the healthcare staffing shortage, with 1 in 5 hospital employees — from environmental services workers to nurses — leaving the field. Hospitals have grappled with staffing issues since before the pandemic, but Covid-19 highlighted the challenges — and exacerbated them. Now, concerned healthcare workers throughout Illinois and Indiana are sounding the alarm. They’re calling on The Joint Commission — the third-party agency that accredits 22,000 US healthcare organisations — to add a safe staffing standard to its accreditation process, similar to student-to-teacher ratio requirements that many states have. “We have all kinds of rules to make sure that hospitals are safe: We make sure that healthcare workers wash their hands before procedures, that they wear gloves and protective equipment, that bed sheets are changed between patients. Yet there are no statewide regulations about hospital staffing levels,” said Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare Illinois President Greg Kelley at a demonstration in early June. Read full story Source: Chicago Health, 8 June 2022
  17. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued a trust with a warning notice following an inspection that found wards did not have enough staff to care for patients. Staff at York hospital told inspectors they were not able to interact with individual patients and cater to their needs, with one saying: “We have to choose, do we turn, check, and make sure all patients are not soiled, or do we fully wash ten? Some of these patients haven’t been washed for two to three days.” York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals CEO Simon Morritt said: “Many of the issues raised by the CQC were known to us, and reflect the extreme pressures facing the trust, the demands of covid and associated staff absence, and the well-documented recruitment challenges. The report demonstrates that, when faced with these pressures, it is not always possible to give the standard of care we would want for all of our patients all of the time.” The CQC said there were “significant safety concerns about fundamental standards of patient care” at the hospital. “The service didn’t have enough nursing staff with the right skills, training and experience to keep patients safe and to provide the right care and treatment,” said Sarah Dronsfield, the CQC’s head of hospital inspection. “It was disappointing that managers didn’t regularly review the situation and change the staffing arrangements to accommodate this.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 June 2022
  18. News Article
    A struggling A&E told patients they had no beds in the hospital and would face waits of 13 hours, The Independent has learned. NHS staff at Harlow A&E, run by Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust, warned patients on Monday: “We’ve got 170 patients in the department, there are 90 patients waiting to be seen at the moment…our current wait time for a doctor is seven and half hours I will estimate by the time I go home in the morning at 8 ‘clock some of you will still be waiting because the waits will get up to 13 hours. “There are currently no beds in the trust we’re trying to make space if we can but if people are admitted there’s a chance they’ll stay in A&E overnight." “We will do our best to make you comfortable but please don’t expect you will be going direct to a ward because that might not happen.” The staff member asked relatives to leave as the department was so busy. Speaking with The Independent an emergency department consultant from the Midlands said they were “fed up”. He added: “It’s just so unfair on patients and staff. The best ones are burning out and wanting to leave. The only way to survive seems to be to stop caring/trying It’s just so unfair on patients and staff. The best ones are burning out and wanting to leave. The only way to survive seems to be to stop caring/trying.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 June 2022
  19. News Article
    Patient safety campaigners have said ‘too many women’ are still not being offered a general anaesthetic for a diagnostic test because of staff shortages, leaving them in severe pain. A survey by the Campaign Against Painful Hysteroscopies found around 240 women – which equates to 80 per cent of respondents – who had a hysteroscopy since the start of 2021 said they were not told they could have a general anaesthetic prior to the procedure. This suggests the situation has only improved marginally since 2019, when the campaign group first started collecting data. A spokeswoman from the campaign group called the pain being endured by women “barbaric” and said staffing shortages need to be addressed. Guidance from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said all pain relief options, including general anaesthetic, should be discussed. Helen Hughes, chief executive of Patient Safety Learning, said: “We are hearing from too many women that they are not being given the full information about the procedure. It damages their trust and makes them worry about accessing future services.” She said: “It’s distressing that despite what we know, [the guidance] is not being implemented properly. Informed consent is essential for patient safety as well as a legal requirement.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 June 2022 What is your experience of having a hysteroscopy? Share your experiences on the hub in our community forum. Further reading: House of Commons Debate - NHS Hysteroscopy Treatment Through the hysteroscope: Reflections of a gynaecologist Minister acknowledges patients’ concerns about painful hysteroscopies; but will action be taken? Improving hysteroscopy safety: Patient Safety Learning blog Outpatient hysteroscopy: RCOG patient leaflet
  20. News Article
    The number of patients stuck in hospitals despite being ‘medically fit’ to leave has continued to increase in recent months, leading to warnings from NHS Confederation that trusts are finding it ‘impossible’ to make progress on reducing the numbers. Official statistics for April suggest an average of 12,589 patients per day in NHS hospitals in England – 13% of all occupied beds – did not meet the “criteria to reside”. At 31 trusts, the proportion was 20% or more. NHS England has since told local leaders to make reducing the numbers of delayed discharges an operational priority. The issue is a key factor behind the long waits in emergency care, as ward beds are taking longer to become available to accident and emergency patients. Rory Deighton, acute lead at NHS Confederation, said targets to reduce delayed discharges “will not be met” unless the government “invests in domiciliary care wages,” amid high numbers of vacancies in the social care sector. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 June 2022
  21. News Article
    Emergency doctors in Scotland are “dreading” the Queen’s Jubilee weekend as fears grow that the public holiday will add to long patient queues. One accident and emergency consultant has pleaded with patients to be considerate to NHS staff as they deal with long backlogs at a time when other workers will be on holiday. Calvin Lightbody, at Hairmyres Hospital in Lanarkshire, said that the GP out-of-hours service in his region had been so short-staffed they had to send patients to A&E instead of treating the people themselves, adding to the delays in hospitals. He said a four-day bank holiday weekend, when doctors’ surgeries will be shut, threatened to add to the pressure on “creaking” services. “If you go to A&E you are going to have a very long wait to be seen, several hours probably,” he said. “Please be kind. Our staff are working extremely hard, they are flat out, they are exhausted, they are doing their best.” He appealed to patients not to delay seeking medical attention if they were seriously unwell including those suffering chest pain, heavy bleeding and stroke symptoms even though services were “overwhelmed”. Read full story Source: The Times, 1 June 2022
  22. News Article
    GPs are facing “insurmountable pressures”, experts have said as they warned that the NHS “will not survive” without general practice. A new report into GP pressures suggests one in four staff fear their practice is in danger of closing because of unmanageable workloads and rising demand. The document, from the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), says general practice is “in crisis”, and makes a series of calls to help ease pressures and stop the growing number of GPs from quitting. The report says GPs are bracing for “winter-style pressures” well into spring and summer. “The workload pressures in general practice over this winter have been immense, and high levels of patient demand are set to continue for some time,” the report authors wrote. “General practice is in crisis. We cannot rely on short-term emergency funding pots over winter to try and paper over the cracks." Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 March 2023
  23. News Article
    More than 500 seriously ill patients died last year before they could get treatment in hospital after the ambulance they called for took up to 15 hours to reach them, an investigation by the Guardian reveals. The fatalities included people who had had a stroke or heart attack or whose breathing had suddenly collapsed, or who had been involved in a road traffic collision. In every case, an ambulance crew took much longer to arrive than the NHS target times for responding to an emergency. Bereaved relatives have spoken of how the pain of losing a loved one has been compounded by the ambulance crew having taken so long to arrive and start treatment. Coroners, senior doctors and ambulance staff say the scale of the loss of life illustrates the growing dangers to patients from the implosion of NHS urgent and emergency care services. “These 500-plus deaths a year when an ambulance hasn’t got there in time are tragic and avoidable,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which represents A&E doctors. “These numbers are deeply concerning. This is the equivalent of multiple airliners crashing.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 March 2023
  24. News Article
    The crisis in the NHS is leading to continued higher-than-usual death levels in England and Wales, experts have said. Figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that almost 170,000 more people than normal died in England and Wales between March 2020, when coronavirus was declared a pandemic, and the end of 2022 – 11% higher than the five-year average. However, the new data also shows that the number of excess deaths has continued, even as the virus’s fatality rate has declined thanks to vaccinations and weaker strains, with 90% of the excess deaths in 2022 occurring in the second half of the year, coinciding with recent NHS pressures and the impact of a cold winter. Prof David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University said that “analyses have suggested that delays in ambulance arrivals and in A&E will have had a substantial impact, as well as the cold weather and the early flu season”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 March 2023
  25. News Article
    A trust has been issued with a warning notice after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) raised concerns about parts of its maternity services. Following a focused inspection at University Hospitals Dorset Foundation Trust in September and November last year, the CQC has rated maternity services at Poole Hospital “inadequate”, down from “good”. The service was also rated “inadequate” in the safety and well-led domains. The CQC report warned that Poole Hospital’s maternity unit did not always have enough midwifery or medical staff to keep mothers and babies safe. The inspectors noted this had led to delays to induction of labour and caesarian sections, including emergency sections. A warning notice was also issued over concerns about the unit’s emergency call bell system, which worked “intermittently” due to poor wireless signal, and processes used to summon help during an emergency. The trust said it had since “taken action to address this risk”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2023
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