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Found 943 results
  1. News Article
    More than 80% of GPs believe that patients are being put at risk when they come into their surgery for an appointment, a new survey shows. A poll of 1,395 GPs found only 13% said their practice was safe for patients all the time. Meanwhile, 85% expressed concerns about patient safety, with 2% saying patients were “rarely” safe, 22% saying they were safe “some of the time” and 61% saying they were safe “most of the time”. Asked if they thought the risk to patient safety was increasing in their surgery, 70% said it was. Family doctors identified lack of time with patients, workforce shortages, relentless workloads and heavy administrative burdens as the main reasons people receiving care could be exposed to risk. The survey, which was self-selecting, also found that: 91% said more GPs would help improve the state of general practices. 84% have had anxiety, stress or depression over the past year linked to their job. 31% know a colleague who was physically abused by a patient in the last year. 24% know of a member of general practice staff who has taken their own life due to work pressures. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 March 2022
  2. News Article
    Infection control rules in hospitals are ‘now disproportionate to the risks’ posed by covid and should be relaxed, some of the NHS’s most senior leaders have warned. The government rules – such as not allowing covid-positive staff to work, and separating out services for covid, non-covid and covid-contact patients – make a big dent in hospital capacity and slows down services. Glen Burley, who is chief executive of three Midlands trusts and involved in national-level discussions on elective matters, told HSJ: “Pretty much every pathway has a covid and non-covid route, which slows down flow and staff productivity. “There is a growing argument that these rules are now disproportionate to the risks. With covid cases in the community also rising now, we may have to question again the relative risks of continuing to isolate staff.” NHS Confederation director of policy Layla McCay told HSJ: “Healthcare leaders are concerned the current [IPC] measures are having a serious knock-on effect on capacity and that the measures in their current form are reducing efficiency and capacity within healthcare settings. “We need more clarity on if and how current measures can be safely adjusted so [the NHS] can further increase bed capacity and patient throughput, as well as the ability to transport patients more quickly and efficiently.” But NHS Providers, which has previously said relaxing the IPC guidance would not enable a “rapid” increase in the NHS’ capacity to tackle the elective care backlog and could pose significant “risks”, remains more cautious. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 March 2022
  3. News Article
    Women and NHS staff have warned that mothers are being “forgotten” after giving birth, with a staff crisis only making matters worse. Kate, a 32-year-old from Leeds, says she has been left in “excruciating” pain for nine years after horrifying postnatal care. Other women have told The Independent stories of care ranging from “disjointed” to “disastrous”. It comes as midwives warn there are “horrendous” shortages in community services, which have prevented women from accessing adequate antenatal and postnatal care. Mary Ross-Davie, the Royal College of Midwives’ director for professional midwifery, said that with each Covid wave midwifery staffing has been hit worse than the last. To provide safe care during labour, antenatal and postnatal care, teams are sent into wards putting “huge pressure on care”. She said this could mean clinicians end up “missing things”, such as women struggling emotionally after birth. The warnings over poor antenatal and postnatal care come after experts at the University of Oxford said in November there were “stark” gaps in postnatal care, despite the highest number of deaths being recorded in the postnatal period. Dr Sunita Sharma, lead consultant for postnatal care at Chelsea and Westminster Trust, said that when NHS maternity inpatient staffing overall is in crisis “often the first place staff are moved from is the postnatal ward, which is clinically very appropriate, but it can come at a cost of putting more pressure on postnatal care for other mothers”. Dr Sharma said postnatal teams were doing their best to improve services but need national drivers and funding to sustain improvement. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 March 2022
  4. News Article
    Patients waiting for surgery and cancer care in England will face long delays for years to come, MPs have warned in a new report that is highly critical of both ministers and NHS bosses. The already-record 6.1 million-strong waiting list for vital treatment will keep growing and officials are “too optimistic” that plans to tackle it will succeed, the public accounts committee (PAC) said in a report on Wednesday. “For the next few years it is likely that waiting time performance for cancer and elective care will remain poor and the waiting list for elective care will continue to grow,” it said. The committee of MPs, which monitors spending across Whitehall, acknowledges Covid-19’s role in contributing to the ballooning backlog and lengthening waiting times. But it singled out years of inaction by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for particular blame. Patients waiting for surgery and cancer care in England will face long delays for years to come, MPs have warned in a new report that is highly critical of both ministers and NHS bosses. The already-record 6.1 million-strong waiting list for vital treatment will keep growing and officials are “too optimistic” that plans to tackle it will succeed, the public accounts committee (PAC) said in a report on Wednesday. “For the next few years it is likely that waiting time performance for cancer and elective care will remain poor and the waiting list for elective care will continue to grow,” it said. The committee of MPs, which monitors spending across Whitehall, acknowledges Covid-19’s role in contributing to the ballooning backlog and lengthening waiting times. But it singled out years of inaction by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for particular blame. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2022
  5. News Article
    The government has overseen years of decline in cancer care and non-urgent hospital services in England, MPs say. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said services had started deteriorating long before the pandemic. It pointed out key targets had not been met since 2016 and the pandemic had just exacerbated the problems. But ministers said they were investing extra money and creating more capacity to treat patients, to address the backlog that had now developed. More than six million people are currently on a hospital waiting list - one in nine of the population - the highest figure on record. This includes people waiting for operations such as knee and hip replacements. Meanwhile, just two-thirds of urgent cancer patients start treatment within the target time of 62 days. And the number of referrals for cancer care has dropped by between 240,000 and 740,000 since the pandemic started. The MPs said people would face serious health consequences because of delays in cancer treatment, with some dying earlier. The government is also accused of failing to recognise staffing the health service remains its biggest problem. The MPs said the workforce was crippled by shortages and exhausted by two years of the pandemic. Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 March 2022
  6. News Article
    The parents of a baby boy who lived for just 27 minutes have told an inquest they were "completely dismissed" throughout labour. Archie Batten died on 1 September 2019 at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in Margate, Kent. His inquest began on Monday at Maidstone Coroner's Court. The East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust has already admitted liability and apologised for Archie's death. The coroner heard Archie's mother Rachel Higgs was frustrated at being turned away from the maternity unit in the morning, when she had gone to complain of vomiting and extreme pain. She was told she was not far enough into labour to be admitted. She returned home to Broadstairs with her partner Andrew Batten, but continued to feel unwell so phoned the hospital. She was told the unit was now closed. Instead, two community midwives were sent to their home, where they attempted to deliver the baby but could not find a heartbeat. Andrew Batten told the inquest the midwives looked "terrified," and that there was "an air of panic", with the midwives whispering in the hallway instead of telling him and Ms Higgs what was happening. Under examination from the family's barrister Richard Baker, Victoria Jackson, the midwife who had originally seen Ms Higgs, admitted the high number of patients she was having to deal with had affected her ability to spend time with her. Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 March 2022
  7. News Article
    The highest ever number of medical students have been told there are no places for them this year, despite the health service’s crippling shortage of medics. The risk that young would-be doctors may not be allocated to start their training at a hospital in the UK has sparked concern among the medical students affected, as well as medical organisations. Pressure is growing for action to close the gap between the number of training places available across the NHS and the number of graduates seeking one, so medical talent is not wasted and hospitals hire as many fresh recruits as they can to help tackle the widespread lack of medics. Doctors are worried that the mismatch between demand for and supply of training places will lead to the NHS missing out on medics it sorely needs and that some of those denied a place will either go to work abroad instead or give up medicine altogether. The most recent official figures showed that the NHS in England is short of almost 8,200 doctors. Dr Dustyn Saint, a GP in Norfolk, tweeted the health secretary, Sajid Javid, about the situation, saying: “Sajid Javid sort this out! You know how much general practice needs these people in a few years, standing by and doing nothing is inexcusable.” Another doctor said: “It’s bonkers that 800 would-be doctors could be denied training places at a time when the NHS in England is short of 8,200 doctors.” The British Medical Association has voiced concern about the large number of unallocated medics. “Now we have a situation where a record number are left with unnecessary uncertainty about where they are headed this August,” said Khadija Meghrawi, the co-chair of its medical students committee. “In a time where student mental health is declining, this additional source of uncertainty and stress is particularly unfair.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 March 2022
  8. News Article
    The chief executive of three NHS trusts says ringfencing elective care within an acute hospital site is potentially more ‘productive’ than sending it to a separate ‘cold’ site. Glen Burley, who leads a “provider group” in the West Midlands, says his trusts have been grappling with the challenge of how to maximise elective activity without it being disrupted by emergency pressures. The conventional view – as outlined in the NHS long-term plan – is that performing more elective care on a separate site from emergency can help ensure theatre lists are not disrupted. But George Eliot Trust, which has been led by Mr Burley since 2018 and only has a single district general hospital, has created a “ringfenced” elective hub within the site. In an interview with HSJ, Mr Burley said: “So I actually think the most productive model in the NHS is if you can pull that off. “If you can actually protect your elective capacity and offer it on the same site [as] urgent care, so the clinicians are not having to move between sites, you’ve got optimal productivity. “The challenge right across the NHS has been avoiding that spillage, of emergency care into your elective capacity. “As you get busier and you escalate… the order in which you encroach into areas that you should not encroach into, is really key in that. We are saying we are going to protect our elective beds in a way that we haven’t done before." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 March 2022
  9. News Article
    The number of referrals for specialist NHS mental health care reached a record high in England by the end of 2021, an analysis suggests. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says the pandemic has led to unprecedented demand and backlogs and services are struggling to keep up. There were 4.3 million referrals, for conditions such as anxiety and depression, in 2021, NHS Digital says. Just under a quarter - 1.025 million - were for children or adolescents. The college said the NHS had delivered 1.8 million mental health consultations in December 2021, but an estimated 1.4 million people were still waiting for treatment. And hundreds of adults were being sent far from home for treatment because of a lack of beds in their area. President Dr Adrian James said: "As the pressure on services continues to ratchet up, the silence from government continues to be of grave concern for the college, the wider mental health workforce and, most importantly, our patients. "The warning of the long tail of mental ill health caused by the pandemic has not been heeded. "Many thousands of people will be left waiting far too long for the treatment they need unless the government wakes up to the crisis that is engulfing the country. "Staff are working flat out to give their patients the support they need but the lack of resources and lack of staff mean it's becoming an impossible situation to manage... "...We need a fully funded plan for mental-health services, backed by a long-term workforce plan, as the country comes to terms with the biggest hit to its mental health in generations." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 March 2022
  10. News Article
    An 86-year-old man died after lying in the road waiting more than four hours for an ambulance, his family have said. George Ian Stevenson was hit by a car near his home in Johnstown, Wrexham county, last Wednesday. His family said the first 999 call was made at 19:31 GMT, and the ambulance did not arrive until 23:37 GMT. The Welsh Ambulance Service is looking into the incident, but said that at the time of the call, all its vehicles were already committed to other patients. Two off-duty paramedics stopped to help, but were reluctant to move him in case they caused further injury. Mr Stevenson's granddaughter, Ellie Williams said on the night of the accident it was raining, freezing and foggy. She said: "Left there for four hours, begging for help, waiting for help. And that makes us so sad. "A hard-working man who has paid his taxes all his life and paid into the system has been let down when he's needed them the most, and I just can't quite comprehend what has happened to him." Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 March 2022
  11. News Article
    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
  12. News Article
    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
  13. News Article
    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
  14. News Article
    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
  15. News Article
    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
  16. News Article
    Tens 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
  17. News Article
    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
  18. News Article
    A 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
  19. News Article
    The 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
  20. News Article
    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
  21. News Article
    The 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
  22. News Article
    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
  23. News Article
    A 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
  24. News Article
    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
  25. News Article
    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
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