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Found 943 results
  1. News Article
    Nearly 600 patients waited 10 hours or more in the back of an ambulance to be transferred into emergency departments last month – with one taking 24 hours, HSJ can reveal. The 24-hour wait was the longest handover delay recorded in the past year, and probably ever, according to information released by ambulance trust chief executives. In May last year the longest recorded rate was seven hours. This has risen steadily during the year to hit 24 hours in April. In March a patient in the West Midlands had to wait 23 hours. The figures also show 11,000 patients waited more than three hours for handover last month, with 7,000 of them taking more than four hours and 4,000 over five hours. Some 599 waited more than 10 hours. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives estimates 35,000 patients were potentially at risk of harm from delayed handovers last month, with just under 4,000 of those risking severe harm. This is based on work it did looking at patients waiting more than 60 minutes in 2021 and was a slight fall on March. They are based only on handover delays and do not include harm from patients left waiting for an ambulance response. Hours lost to ambulance handover delays restrict ambulance trusts’ ability to reach other patients waiting for an ambulance in the community. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 May 2022
  2. News Article
    Tens of thousands of emergency calls are taking more than two minutes to be answered in England amid a crisis in the ambulance service, The Independent has learned. More than 37,000 emergency calls took more than two minutes to answer in April 2022 – 24 times the 1,500 that took that long in April 2021, according to a leaked staff message. April’s figures were slightly down compared to March, The Independent understands, when 44,000 calls took more than two minutes to answer. The deterioration in 999 calls being answered within the 60-second goal comes as ambulance services across the UK have been placed under huge pressures. The latest NHS data showed long delays in response times for ambulance services with stroke or suspected heart attack patients waiting more than 50 minutes on average. Response times are being driven by ambulances being held up outside of A&Es because emergency departments are unable to take patients. In March, there were likely to have been more than 4,000 instances of severe harm caused to patients as a result of ambulances being delayed by more than 60 minutes. Martin Flaherty, managing director of AACE said: “It is no secret that UK ambulance services and their staff are under intense pressure, which is further evidence of the need to secure more funding for ambulance services as soon as possible, continue to find more ways to protect and care for our staff, prevent the depletion of our workforce and above all, eradicate hospital handover delays. “AACE believes that whilst reasons such as overall demand and increasing acuity of patients are certainly contributory factors, the most significant problem causing these pressures remains hospital handover delays. These have increased exponentially and the numbers of hours lost to ambulance services is now unprecedented. For example, in some regions in March, ambulance trusts were losing up to one third of all the ambulance hours they were capable of producing due to hospital handover delays.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 15 May 2022
  3. News Article
    Families are being ‘left without the support they need’, as overstretched services struggle to handle ‘a significant and growing minority’ of children not developing as expected. Figures published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities earlier this month show 79.6% of children who received a two-to-two-and-a-half year review with an ages and stages questionnaire during quarter three of 2021-22 met the expected level in all five areas of development measured. The five areas assessed by the screening questionnaire are communication skills, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, problem solving, and personal-social. A lower-than-expected score in any of the five areas will likely mean some sort of intervention, which may include further monitoring from health visitors or referral to a specialist service. However, health visitor numbers are declining. ber 2015. Alison Morton, Institute of Health Visiting executive director, said: “The latest national child development data highlight a worrying picture with fewer children at or above the expected level of development at two-to-two-and-a-half years. While the majority of children are developing as expected, a significant and growing minority are not. “The pandemic and its impacts are not over. In many areas, despite health visitors’ best efforts, they are now struggling to meet growing levels of need and vulnerability and a backlog of children who need support. In our survey, health visitors reported soaring rates of domestic abuse, mental health problems, child behaviour and development problems, poverty, and child safeguarding. “In addition, onward referral services like speech and language therapy, and mental health services, also have long waiting lists and families are left without the support that they need.” Read full story Source: HSJ, 16 May 2022
  4. News Article
    Thousands of patients have been left without vital healthcare after nearly 1 in 10 physiotherapists was prevented from practising after their regulator removed them from its register. Exactly 5,311 physiotherapists were deregistered by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) on 1 May because they had not renewed their registration after the HCPC decided not to send out reminder letters. Ash James, director of practice and development at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), said its helpline had been swamped with calls from distressed physiotherapists, concerned for their patients and worried about dramatic losses in income. “In one of the trusts in Liverpool, 23 physios were sent home in one day, and obviously the implication for patients is huge,” he said. “At a time when the workforce is stretched by the Covid backlog, it’s obviously not ideal that we’ve lost 9% of the workforce overnight.” Physiotherapists have many roles but play a crucial part in helping people leave hospital after long stays, because lengthy bed rest leads to muscle wastage that leaves patients needing physiotherapy to learn to walk again. So far, only about 2,300 physios have been re-registered. With most practitioners seeing at least five patients a day, the number of cancelled NHS and private appointments in the past two weeks could range between 50,000 to 100,000. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 May 2022
  5. News Article
    Jeremy Hunt has been accused of ignoring serious NHS staff shortages for years and driving medics out of the profession while health secretary after he intervened this weekend to warn of a workforce crisis. Promoting his new book, 'Zero: Eliminating Unnecessary Deaths in a Post-Pandemic NHS', Hunt said tackling the “chronic failure of workforce planning” was the most important task in relieving pressure on frontline services. Now the chair of the health and social care committee, he said the situation was “very, very serious”, with doctors and nurses “run ragged by the intensity of work”. But his comments drew sharp criticism from healthcare staff, who said Hunt – the longest-serving health secretary in the 74-year history of the NHS – failed to take sufficient action to boost recruitment while in the top job between 2012 and 2018. Instead, critics said, his tenure saw health workers quit the NHS in droves for jobs abroad or new careers outside medicine. There are now 100,000 vacancies in the NHS, and the waiting list for treatment has soared to 6.4 million. “There’s an avalanche of pressure bearing down on the NHS. But for years Jeremy Hunt and other ministers ignored the staffing crisis,” said Sara Gorton, the head of health at Unison, the UK’s largest health union. “The pandemic has amplified the consequences of that failure. Experienced employees are leaving at faster rates than new ones can be recruited.” “Hunt has recently been an articulate analyst of current issues, particularly workforce shortages, but these haven’t come out of the blue,” said Dr Colin Hutchinson, the chair of Doctors for the NHS. “At the time he could have made the greatest impact, his response was muted. We have to ask: was the service people were receiving from the NHS better, or worse, at the end of his time in office? At the time when it most mattered, he was found wanting.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 May 2022
  6. News Article
    New figures leaked to HSJ show the true volume of 12-hour waiters in emergency departments is more than four times higher than official statistics suggest. Internal NHS England figures for February and March show around one in five admissions through ED waited more than 12 hours from arriving until being admitted to a ward – equating to around 158,000 cases. The official stats published by NHSE record a slightly different, and shorter, time period, from ‘decision to admit’ to admission. There were around 39,000 of these cases in the same two months, which equates to 4 per cent of admissions through ED, and 5.4 per cent of total emergency admissions. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has long called for the official stats to reflect the total time spent from arrival in ED (as per the internal data), and for trusts to be measured and regulated on this. Senior medics have for some time been warning about the patient safety risks of long waiting in EDs and have appealed to NHS England and the government for plans to tackle the crisis. Adrian Boyle, vice president of RCEM, said: “This data show the scale of long waiting times in emergency departments and the scale of the patient safety crisis. Performance continues to deteriorate across multiple metrics meaning we are documenting a failing urgent and emergency care system without any system transformation or improvement." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 May 2022
  7. News Article
    The NHS has recorded its largest monthly increase in the waiting list for 10 months, as unprecedented challenges in urgent and emergency care continue to disrupt recovery. The elective figures published today for March presented mixed results, but much of the good news – a drop in the number of two-year waiters – had already been announced by NHS England in unvalidated figures for April. Meanwhile, the system recorded its largest monthly rise in the overall list for 10 months, with the number of patients growing by 174,847 to hit a new record 6.36 million. This is the biggest month-on-month increase since the number jumped between April and May 2021 when it rose by 181,708 to hit 5.3 million. The overall list has risen every month since May 2021, but the rises in the last four months have all been under 80,000. The NHS warned in February it expects the waiting list to continue rising until March 2024, with patients now seeking care after various covid lockdowns. Meanwhile, the number of patients waiting 12 hours from a decision to admit in accident and emergency departments reached a new high in data published today, covering April. Ambulance response times also improved slightly last month from March’s all-time low. Average category one performance – for immediately life-threatening conditions, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest - was 9:02 minutes against a seven-minute target, but still an improvement on last month’s 9:35 minutes. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 12 May 2022
  8. News Article
    Children’s lives are being put at risk, charities warn, as waiting times for eating disorder services soar to record highs. The number of children waiting more than four months following an urgent referral for an eating disorder was more than seven times higher at the end of 2021-22 compared to the same period in the previous year. Data showed that at the end of quarter four of 2021-22, 94 children were waiting more than 12 weeks following an urgent referral, the highest on record, compared to just 13 at the end of 2020-21. The latest NHS data on waiting times for community eating disorder services for children also showed more than 1,900 children were waiting for treatment at the end of March. Of these, 24 were waiting to start urgent treatment - up from 130 last year. Sophie Corlett, director of external affairs at Mind, said: “Our government is shamefully failing children and young people with eating disorders at the time when they need help most. Eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental health problem. Children in need of urgent NHS treatment for eating disorders should always be seen within one week yet some children are still waiting for treatment after twelve weeks. This is irresponsible and disgraceful.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 May 2022
  9. News Article
    A trade union has written to every politician representing the Scottish Borders to highlight "dangerous staffing levels" in local hospitals. Unison claims serious breaches of safety guidelines are occurring daily due to a lack of nurses, auxiliaries and porters. The letter says staff are unable to take proper rest breaks or log serious incidents in the reporting system. NHS Borders said patient and staff safety was its number one priority. Unison said working conditions in the area were regularly in breach of regulations. Greig Kelbie, the union's regional officer in the Borders, said: "We are getting regular messages from our members to tell us about the pressure they are under - and that they can't cope. "The care system was under pressure before Covid, but the pandemic has exasperated the situation, particularly at NHS Borders. "The NHS has been stretched to its limits and it is now at the stage where it is dangerous for patients and staff - we're often told about serious breaches of health and safety, particularly at Borders General Hospital where there are issues with flooring and staff falling. "We work collaboratively with NHS Borders to do what we can, but we also wanted to make politicians aware of how bad things have become. "We need our politicians to step up and implement change - we want them to make sure the Health and Care Act is brought to the fore and that it protects our members." Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 May 2022
  10. News Article
    A new high of 6.4 million people in England were waiting for routine NHS treatment in March 2022, as 12 hours waits in A&E hit an all time high last month and ambulance services continued to struggle. This is up from 6.2 million in February and is the highest number since records began in August 2007. A new record of 24,138 people had to wait more than 12 hours in A&E after a decision to admit them had been made in April. The figure is up from 22,506 in March, and is the highest for any calendar month in records going back to August 2010. However the number of patients being seen within four hours in April improved compared to March, with 72.3% of patients seen in this time compared to 71.6%. Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said: “Today’s figures show our hardworking teams across the NHS are making good progress in tackling the backlogs that have built up with record numbers of diagnostic tests and cancer checks taking place in March, as part of the most ambitious catch up plan in NHS history. “We always knew the waiting list would initially continue to grow as more people come forward for care who may have held off during the pandemic, but today’s data show the number of people waiting more than two years has fallen for the second month in a row, and the number waiting more than 18 months has gone down for the first time." Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 May 2022
  11. News Article
    Doctors and paramedics have told the BBC that long waits for ambulances across the UK are having a "dangerous impact" on patient safety. BBC analysis found a 77% rise in the most serious safety incidents logged by paramedics in England over the past year, compared to before the pandemic. In Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the 999 system is also under "tremendous pressure", doctors say. NHS England said the safety of patients is its "absolute priority". In October, nine-year-old Willow Clark fell off her bike on a country path in Hertfordshire, cracking her helmet and leaving her with a fractured skull and a nine-inch laceration across her leg. "I could see it was a really bad accident and I was 20 minutes away from home screaming for help," said her mother Sam. "These really nice people who were passing by phoned 999. "They explained she had a severe head injury and her leg was badly hurt but we were told it would be a 10-hour wait for an ambulance and we'd have to get her to hospital ourselves." When they got to A&E, Willow was immediately transferred to the trauma department. Doctors told her family that she should not have been moved because of her back and neck injuries. She later found out that Willow had been classified as an "urgent" category three case, meaning an ambulance should have arrived within 120 minutes. Coroners and lawyers have highlighted recent cases including: Staffordshire's assistant coroner issued a 'prevention of future deaths' warning after a patient in Stoke died after waiting eight hours for an ambulance. The family of a man who died after waiting nine hours for treatment has issued a legal challenge against the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service over a "chronic shortage" of ambulances. The London Ambulance service is investigating after a man died when paramedics took almost 70 minutes to respond to a suspected heart attack. Dr Katherine Henderson, an A&E consultant and president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told the BBC's Today programme the problem with ambulance waits was "more serious than we've ever seen it". Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 May 2022
  12. News Article
    Heart surgery patients in London have died “unnecessarily” and faced increased risk of death as botched NHS investigations into dozens of deaths reduced a hospital’s ability to treat people, a coroner has warned. “Unnecessary” patient deaths have occurred as a result of heart surgery at St George’s University Hospital Trust being restricted and emergencies diverted to other “over stretched” hospitals, following investigations by national NHS bodies. The warning that deaths have occurred and may occur in the future, comes following the conclusion of a series of inquest hearings in March, during which it was found the NHS’ wrongly blamed a team of cardiac surgeons for the deaths of dozens of patients. Coroner Fiona Wilcox, in a report published on Wednesday, has now said the “inadequate” NHS led investigations, which criticised the care of 67 patients, led to people being put increased risk of death. The NHS’ investigations into the deaths of 67 patients ruled there were “shortcomings” in care. It led to complex operations being diverted elsewhere and doctors being referred to the General Medical Council. Two doctors have sinced been exonerated following GMC hearings. According to the coroner’s findings, capacity within cardiac surgery at the unit is down by 60% and staff are becoming “deskilled.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 May 2022
  13. News Article
    Paramedic Moira Shaw is eyeing the frantic activity at the front doors of Edinburgh's emergency department. She is waiting for the go-ahead to hand over her patients to medics and answer the next 999 call. It can be a long wait. Last week, 1 in 10 ambulances across Scotland took more than 80 minutes to drop patients at an emergency department. BBC Scotland joined Moira and colleague Blair Paul at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh where they were among seven ambulances waiting to drop off patients. "At the moment we can be an hour waiting, we sit in the ambulance and we wait until there is a space to go in," explains Moira, who has been with the service for nearly a decade. "This is pretty much an everyday occurrence now. "It's that domino effect, so if patients are waiting to move to other areas, A&E gets clogged up and they can't take any more patients in because they are waiting to move people on." Moira said she has noticed they are attending more calls where people have not been able to get through to their GP so phone 999 instead. Another theme picked up by Moira and her colleague Blair is helping younger sicker patients who need urgent hospital treatment. "I've seen actually quite a lot of people maybe in their 40 or 50s who have got now stage four cancer and they've just not been able to get access to any treatments or anything just due to the pressures on the NHS at the moment," explained Blair. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2022
  14. News Article
    A chief executive has described her ‘considerable regret’ that growing difficulty in discharging patients has resulted in nearly half of her trust’s inpatients being clinically ready to leave. Debbie Richards, who leads Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust, a community and mental health provider, highlighted the issue at the trust’s board meeting last month, amid a “dearth of adult social care provision” across the country. In her update to the board, Ms Richards said delays in finding onward care for patients awaiting discharge meant “almost 50 per cent of our community hospital beds are occupied by patients who have no medical need to be in hospital”. In her report to the board, Ms Richards said: “Despite having over 5,000 care home beds in Cornwall, the majority of these are full, or care home providers are unable to offer beds because of a lack of staffing. “Where there is capacity, this tends to be for lower-level residential beds where unfortunately there is much less demand.” Siobhan Melia, chair of the NHS Community Network and CEO of Sussex Community FT, said the “dearth of adult social care provision” was the biggest limiting factor in discharging delayed patients home, followed by high staff vacancies and sickness absence." She called for a national long-term funding settlement for social care and reform of the sector to address the key challenges. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 May 2022
  15. News Article
    People in England are struggling to get dental treatment, as dentists close to new NHS patients, a watchdog says. Healthwatch England, the NHS body representing patients, said the problem was made worse by the rising cost of living and needed "urgent attention". It said some people were living in pain, unable to speak or eat properly, because they could not find treatment. And it warned the poorest were suffering most as they were least able to afford to pay for private dentistry. Healthwatch England said the issue was creating a two-tier system - dividing the rich and the poor - and called on the government to take action. "There is now a deepening crisis," said Louise Ansari, of Healthwatch England. "With millions of households bearing the brunt of the escalating living costs, private treatment is simply not an option - and even NHS charges can be a challenge. "This needs urgent attention." Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 May 2022
  16. News Article
    New calculations from Cancer Research UK estimate that, on average, over 65,000 people in England are left waiting longer than 28 days to find out whether they have cancer each month. These estimates are based on the latest data from the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS). The FDS is a performance standard introduced by Government in 2021. It’s used to better capture how long people on certain cancer-related referrals wait for a diagnosis. This applies to people referred by their GP urgently with suspected cancer, following breast symptoms, or have been picked up through cancer screening. The current FDS target is set at 75%, meaning three quarters of people being urgently referred should be told they have cancer or given the all-clear within that timeframe. However, this target has yet to be met. In addition, the data has revealed major variation across the country – with only 78 of 143 trusts meeting the 75% target. This means that despite the tireless efforts of NHS staff, chronic capacity issues mean that people continue to be failed by the system. Michelle Mitchell, our chief executive, said: “As a country we should not be willing to accept that over 1 in 4 people on an urgent referral are left waiting over a month to find out whether they have cancer. Nor should we stand for the variation that exists across the country.” The charity is calling on Government to include a more ambitious target within its upcoming 10-year cancer plan, to help ensure around 54,300 more people each month receive a diagnosis or have cancer ruled out within a month. With a robust plan and sustained investment to build a cancer workforce fit for the future, patients will be diagnosed quicker and earlier, which will save more lives. Read full story Source: Cancer Research UK, 9 May 2022
  17. News Article
    A 94-year-old man has said his GP refuses to see him “unless it’s life or death”. Dennis Baker, from North Hampshire, said he felt “put off” by his doctor's surgery, which is a three-minute walk from his house. The pensioner, who lives with his wife who has advanced dementia and is bed-bound, said he found it “quite difficult to carry on a conversation with a doctor” and cannot get one to visit him at home. “The chances are [the receptionist] will say… ‘you're not dying, a doctor will phone you at some stage today’, that’s the usual response,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One. It comes as the president of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) said family doctors should start “saying no” to extra work to tackle the crisis in primary care. Speaking at Pulse Live last week, Professor Dame Clare Gerada said the workload crisis was not the fault of GPs and they “cannot innovate [their] way out”. “When you’re in debates and people are saying to you 'you’ve got to work harder and smarter' - no, the rest of the system has to adapt,” she told the conference. “You have to start saying no.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 3 May 2022
  18. News Article
    More than 38,000 patients were put at risk of harm during March – more than 4,000 of them seriously – while they waited in an ambulance outside hospital, according to estimates shared with HSJ. The number of hour-plus delays to handing over patients from ambulances to emergency departments in March was the highest ever recorded, following steep increases since last summer. Figures collected by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), and shared with HSJ, reveal that one trust recorded a delay of 23 hours during March. Based on its detailed information about the length of handover delays, AACE has produced an estimate of the likely number of patients harmed while waiting to he handed over, using a model initially developed in research published last year. This found 85 per cent of those who waited more than an hour could have suffered potential harm. The AACE report said that patients who waited the longest were at greatest risk of some level of harm and the risk of severe harm tripled for those waiting for more than four hours compared with waiting for 60 to 90 minutes. AACE managing director Martin Flaherty told HSJ: “We expect the situation to be no better when we collate our figures for April. “The most significant problem remains hospital handover delays which continue to increase exponentially, with tens of thousands of ambulance hours being lost due to hospital handover delays, causing enormous knock-on effects out in the community, where delays in people receiving the ambulance resource they need are the obvious result. “However, the human cost, in terms of direct harm that is being caused to patients through these combined delays at hospitals and in the community, as well as to the health and wellbeing of our ambulance crews, is substantial." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 29 April 2022
  19. News Article
    An NHS boss who had a stroke was taken to A&E by her husband rather than calling for an ambulance because of concerns over long waits. In a series of tweets, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Deborah Lee praised his swift actions. She said he had "bundled her into his car", last week, after she had showed the signs of a stroke because he had heard her "lamenting ambulance delays". She is recovering but says it may have been different if they had called 999. Waits for an ambulance in England are the longest since new targets were introduced, in 2017. And Ms Lee's regional service - the South West - has the longest waits in the country, with category-two calls, which include strokes, taking nearly two hours, on average, to reach patients in March. The target is 18 minutes. In the tweets, Ms Lee said: "Naturally, I am eternally grateful to my husband for his swift actions… but I can't get one thing out of my head. "What if my husband hadn't been there and my daughter had called for an ambulance and I'd been put in the cat[egory]-two stack?" She went on to say it was not the fault of the ambulance service and the whole system was "working unrelentingly to this but to no great avail". Ms Lee said hospitals were struggling to discharge patients, because of a lack of social care, and so delays were building up in the rest of the system. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 April 2022
  20. News Article
    A shortage of specific types of hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) has left women struggling with untreated symptoms of the menopause. Demand for prescriptions has more than doubled since 2017 - partly because of work by campaigners to extend access - but supply of some products has not kept up. Yasmin Darling's experience of the menopause was sudden and profound. Two years ago, she had two operations to reduce her risk of inherited cancer which plunged her into an early menopause. "It's really hard to navigate medical menopause 10 years early," the 45-year-old says. "When you don't have the product you need, it makes it much more difficult to navigate." Because of Covid, Yasmin has never been seen by a specialist at a menopause clinic, so she is managing as best she can on her own. Claire Lopez, 59, spent three weeks trying to obtain her usual HRT patches from different local chemists but they were out of stock. Without them, her body becomes "very stiff", leading to slipped discs and severe back pain. "I have severe anxiety if I do not have these patches, so the total lack of coordination between GPs and pharmacists was extremely frustrating," Claire says. In the end, she had to arrange a private prescription through a local clinic, in the Midlands, costing £50. The government has said it is determined to ensure supplies of HRT can meet high demand. Minister for Women's Health Maria Caulfield said: "There are over 70 HRT products available in the UK, most of which remain in good supply. "However, we are aware of some issues with women being unable to access certain products. "We will be appointing a new HRT-supply chairperson and convening an urgent meeting of suppliers to look at ways we can work together to improve supply." Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 April 2022
  21. News Article
    At least 200,000 people missed out on essential surgery as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, with many enduring “misery and daily pain” as a result, a conference has heard. Both scheduled and emergency surgery levels dropped by 20% during the pandemic, suggesting there is now significant pent-up demand for treatment, according to the national clinical lead in surgery, Prof Deborah McNamara. Almost 343,000 people are waiting to see a surgeon for the first time, 100,000 of whom have been on a waiting list for more than 18 months, she told the conference on outcomes from the pandemic at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). This was only the start of delays for patients, she pointed out, as they have to wait again for their procedure to be carried out. Currently, more than 71,000 patients are waiting for surgery, a fifth of whom have been on the list for more than a year. Long-waiting patients needing complex surgery have been disproportionately affected, she said, as the system focused on treating “quick-win” procedures such as endoscopies. The amount of day-case work carried out by hospitals is back to 84 per cent of 2017 levels, yet complex care remains at only 67 per cent, she pointed out. Patients waiting for surgery were enduring a “huge amount of misery” that remains unquantified, according to Prof McNamara. The pandemic resulted in some positive changes, she said, including shorter hospital stays, a greater role for physician associates and a generational change in the use of IT. However, it also led to greater constriction in the capacity for scheduled surgery, and greater seasonal variations in demand. Read full story Source: The Irish Times, 26 April 2022
  22. News Article
    Women are being left unable to sleep or work competently because of the shortages of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) products used to treat symptoms of the menopause, the former cabinet minister, Caroline Nokes, has said. Millions of women go through the menopause every year, with many experiencing symptoms that can be severe, such as low mood, anxiety, hot flushes and difficulty sleeping, and have a negative impact on everyday life. The number of prescriptions for HRT in England has doubled in the last five years to more than 500,000 a month. But the rise in prescriptions has come amid several years of HRT shortages, with pharmacists often unable to fulfil prescriptions. Shortages have been blamed on manufacturing and supply issues, and have been exacerbated by the growing numbers of women seeking the products. Speaking in the Commons on Thursday, Nokes, chair of the women and equalities committee, called for an urgent debate on the issue to ensure women “can get the supplies that we need”. In October, the government announced that the cost of repeat prescriptions for HRT would be significantly reduced in England. In the Commons on Thursday, Labour MP Nick Smith asked Spencer why there was “no date yet for the HRT prescription changes in England”. Spencer said it was “something the health secretary is looking at, at this moment in time”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 April 2022
  23. News Article
    A hospital for adults with eating disorders has been rated inadequate after inspectors found the provision of food was "unsafe and unacceptable". A Care Quality Commission (CQC) report of the Schoen Clinic in York said some patients were given mouldy bread and one was served food containing plastic. Concerns were also raised around lack of staff and patient safety, though wards were clean and well-equipped. Schoen Clinic Group said issues raised in the report "were quickly addressed". Following the inspection in January the hospital has been placed in special measures and will be visited again in six months. Brian Cranna, CQC's head of hospital inspection, said: "The standards of care we found at Schoen Clinic York were putting patients at risk and so we have taken urgent enforcement action, which means the service must improve if it's to retain its registration." According to the report patients were put at risk of "physical and psychological harm due to unsafe and unacceptable food provision". Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 April 2022
  24. News Article
    A woman has described how she spent more than six hours of her 100th birthday waiting in agony for an ambulance after slipping and fracturing her pelvis while getting ready for a family lunch. Irene Silsby was due to be picked up by her niece, Lynne Taylor, for a celebration to mark her centenary on 9 April. But she fell in the windowless bathroom of her care home in Greetham, Rutland, and staff called an ambulance at 9am after she managed to summon help. “All I remember is I was in terrible pain,” said Silsby from her hospital bed on Saturday. When asked of the ambulance delay, she said: “It’s disgusting. I don’t know how I stood it so long, the pain was so severe.” Taylor expected to meet the ambulance as she arrived 45 minutes later. But when she reached the care home, the manager said it would be a 10-hour wait, she said. What was to be her aunt’s first trip outside the care home in more than five months turned into her lying on a cold floor surrounded by pillows and blankets to keep her warm and quell some of the discomfort. Taylor, 60, recalled her aunt saying: “They’re not coming to me because they know I’m 100 and I’m not really worth it any more.” Taylor said she had never felt so scared, frustrated and worried. After calling 999 and expressing her outrage, she was told that life-threatening conditions were being prioritised. “I thought she was going to die,” she said. “I didn’t think that any frail, tiny, 100-year-old body could put up with that level of pain on the floor.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 April 2022
  25. News Article
    Ambulance trusts are seeing rising numbers of serious incidents resulting from delays in reaching patients, research by HSJ has uncovered. Serious incidents are defined by the NHS as a patient safety failure “where the consequences to patients, families and carers, staff or organisations are so significant or the potential for learning is so great, that a heightened level of response is justified.” East Midlands Ambulance Service Trust saw 71 serious incidents in 2021-22 compared with 38 in the financial year before. The trust’s board papers attribute the increase in SIs related to delayed responses since June 2021 to “sustained pressure on the service” and the resulting growing handover times at accident and emergency departments. Of 14 SIs reported in February and the first half of March 2022, seven were due to “prolonged waits for an ambulance response”. West Midlands University Ambulance Service Foundation Trust has also seen an increase in SIs. Its board papers report that half of the SIs are due to “delays in reaching patients resulting in harm, serious harm, and deaths”. It has given the issue of “hospitals, breaches, delays and turnaround times” the maximum rating of 25 on its risk register. Long delays – especially for category two patients, where average performance last month was above an hour – are causing increasing concern. Stroke Association chief executive Juliet Bouverie said the organisation was hearing “shocking accounts from stroke survivors who have waited hours for an ambulance… We are extremely worried that stroke survivors’ lives and recoveries are being put at extreme risk.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 April 2022
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