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Found 1,304 results
  1. News Article
    Hospital trusts in England face “eye-watering” rises in energy bills of £2m a month each due to the fuel price surge, with NHS leaders saying patients may face longer waiting times or even see their care “cut back” as a result. NHS trusts are concerned they will have to make critical choices on staff levels and the services they provide in order to keep operating, with energy costs predicted to be as much as three times higher than a year ago. The BMJ surveyed NHS trusts in England for details of their recent and predicted future energy bills and how they expected to operate this coming winter when taking into account the additional energy charges on the way. Most said they expected their energy bills to double at least. Rory Deighton, senior acute lead at the NHS Confederation, which represents the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said: “This isn’t an abstract problem, as the gap in funding from rising inflation will either have to be made up by fewer staff being employed, longer waiting times for care, or other areas of patient care being cut back." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2022
  2. News Article
    Cold homes will damage children’s lungs and brain development and lead to deaths as part of a “significant humanitarian crisis” this winter, health experts have warned. Unless the next prime minister curbs soaring fuel bills, children face a wave of respiratory illness with long-term consequences, according to a review by Sir Michael Marmot, the director of University College London’s Institute of Health Equity, and Prof Ian Sinha, a respiratory consultant at Liverpool’s Alder Hey children’s hospital. Sinha said he had “no doubt” that cold homes would cost children’s lives this winter, although they could not predict how many, with damage done to young lungs leading to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema and bronchitis for others in adulthood. Huge numbers of cash-strapped households are preparing to turn heating systems down or off when the energy price cap increases to £3,549 from 1 October, and the president of the British Paediatric Respiratory Society, also told the Guardian that child deaths were likely. “There will be excess deaths among some children where families are forced into not being able to heat their homes,” said Dr Simon Langton-Hewer. “It will be dangerous, I’m afraid.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2022
  3. News Article
    Dr Ted Baker has been named as the government’s preferred candidate for chair of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB). Steve Barclay, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has today (26 August 2022) invited the Health and Social Care Committee to hold a pre-appointment scrutiny hearing with Dr Baker. Ted Baker was Chief Inspector of Hospitals at the Care Quality Commission between 2017 and 2022. He trained as a paediatric cardiologist. He was in clinical practice for 35 years and has held a range of clinical and academic leadership roles including medical director at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. He was selected following an open public appointment process. Following the select committee hearing, the committee will set out its views on the candidate’s suitability for the role. The Secretary of State will then consider the committee’s report before making a final decision on the appointment. Read full story Source: HSIB, 26 August 2022
  4. News Article
    Liz Truss has pledged to halt the exodus of doctors from the NHS to tackle the Covid backlog and surging waiting lists. The frontrunner in the Conservative leadership race is planning to unveil a series of radical reforms that will stop doctors from retiring early and entice retirees to return. One in 10 consultants and GPs is expected to retire in the next 18 months because of pension rules that mean they are "paying to work". A source close to her said she would deal with it by “cutting red tape and dealing with issues in the pension and tax system that currently act as barriers for people wanting to return”. It comes amid concerns that the NHS backlog after lockdown is causing more than 1,000 excess deaths per week - more than the figure now killed each week by coronavirus. A source close to Liz Truss also said: “The Covid pandemic put unprecedented strain on our NHS, and the resulting backlog is seeing people struggling to get appointments and treatments. We must act to tackle it, and we will. We will make it easier for doctors and nurses who have recently left or are planning to leave the NHS but want to return or stay to do so.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph (20 August 2022)
  5. News Article
    A black NHS worker has launched legal action against the health service’s blood and transplant authority after witnessing years of alleged racism within the service. Melissa Thermidor, 40, from Bushey, Hertfordshire, has lodged an employment tribunal claim against NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and two executives who have since left the authority. Betsy Bassis and Millie Banerjee, who were the chief executive and chairwoman, have denied the allegations and intend to fight the tribunal claims. One colleague allegedly said: “White donors are more likely to shop at Waitrose and black donors at Tesco.” At subsequent meetings, the phrase “Tesco donors” was used. Staff also allegedly referred to “you people” when speaking to black members of the team. Thermidor claims she was constructively dismissed after whistleblowing about racism within NHSBT. The health authority, which supported 3,386 organ donations in the year to March last year as well as collecting blood from 761,000 donors, has been embroiled in allegations of bullying, racism and poor culture under Bassis and Banerjee’s leadership. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 21 August 2022 Read NHS Blood and Transplant's response to the article.
  6. News Article
    Some acute trusts have kept more than half of their executive directors over a five-year period – whereas others have seen all of them change, according to HSJ analysis of top-level managerial stability. HSJ looked at the number of executive directors who had been in place between April 2017 and April 2022, by examining annual reports and board papers. One trust – Southport and Ormskirk – had five CEOs during the five year period, and three other trusts had four. The national average was more than two different CEOs at each trust across the five years. Thirty-one trusts (out of 108 listed) had three different CEOs during the period, and just 23 trusts had one. NHS Providers interim chief executive Saffron Cordery said: “This analysis underlines the value of long-term investment in NHS trust leadership. It highlights too the danger of chopping and changing leaders amid longstanding financial, capacity, workforce and other structural pressures on the health system. “It is vital to invest in people alongside operational priorities. More must be done to guarantee a robust and diverse pipeline of leaders, equipped to take on crucial roles.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 August 2022
  7. News Article
    Britain is in the grip of a new silent health crisis. For 14 of the past 15 weeks, England and Wales have averaged around 1,000 extra deaths each week, none of which are due to Covid. If the current trajectory continues, the number of non-Covid excess deaths will soon outstrip deaths from the virus this year. Experts believe decisions taken by the Government in the earliest stages of the pandemic – policies that kept people indoors, scared them away from hospitals and deprived them of treatment and primary care – are finally taking their toll. Prof Robert Dingwall, of Nottingham Trent University, a former government adviser during the pandemic, said: “The picture seems very consistent with what some of us were suggesting from the beginning. “We are beginning to see the deaths that result from delay and deferment of treatment for other conditions, like cancer and heart disease, and from those associated with poverty and deprivation. “These come through more slowly – if cancer is not treated promptly, patients don't die immediately but do die in greater numbers more quickly than would otherwise be the case.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 18 August 2022
  8. News Article
    The Joint Commission Resources (JCR) has announced the appointment of two world-class and leading healthcare experts to serve as international outside directors on its board of directors: Abdulelah M. Alhawsawi and Sangita Reddy. As international outside directors, Dr. Alhawsawi and Ms. Reddy will provide their global expertise and direction to improve safety and quality of healthcare in the United States and abroad. They will be full voting members of the 13-person board of directors, which serves as JCR’s governing body. The board includes healthcare professionals, business executives and quality experts from around the world. “Dr. Alhawsawi and Ms. Reddy have dedicated their lives to transforming healthcare globally, and we are thrilled to welcome them to Joint Commission Resources’ Board of Directors,” says Jonathan B. Perlin, president and chief executive officer, The Joint Commission. “These board appointments bring unique international expertise and perspective on healthcare policy and the challenges and opportunities to advance quality and safety worldwide.” “We are so pleased that Dr. Alhawsawi and Ms. Reddy are joining Joint Commission Resources’ Board of Directors,” says Jean Courtney, interim president and chief executive officer, and chief operating officer, JCR. “They each bring in-depth and unparalleled international healthcare expertise. This will be invaluable as JCR continues to expand its mission to improve patient safety and quality of care around the globe.” Read full story Source: Joint Commission Resources, 16 August 2022
  9. News Article
    Doctors and health service providers welcomed publication of an NHS strategy for managing demand ahead of another busy winter for health and social care, but said it failed to address underlying problems with the system. In a letter to the heads of NHS trusts and integrated care boards, NHS England chiefs said they had begun planning for capacity and operational resilience in urgent and emergency care ahead of "significant challenges" during the coming months. The British Medical Association (BMA) said the strategy was a "step in the right direction", but "lacks detail", while the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said it amounted to little more than "a crisis mitigation plan". The package of measures included creating the equivalent of 7000 extra general and acute beds through a mix of new physical beds, scaling up 'virtual' beds, and "improvements in discharge and flow". The letter acknowledged that there was "a significant number of patients spending longer in hospital than they need to" and that whilst "the provision of social care falls outside of the NHS’s remit, the health service must ensure patients not requiring onwards care are discharged as soon as they are ready and can access services they may need following a hospital stay." Read full story Source: Medscape, 15 August 2022
  10. News Article
    NHS England has said integrated care systems (ICSs) will be responsible for ‘initial problem solving and intervention’ if trusts fail to deliver against key targets to prepare for winter. NHSE’s letter on winter planning and response, published on Friday, said system working “means a new approach to accountability” and that ICBs – the NHS executive of ICSs – would be accountable for ensuring that providers and others “deliver their agreed role in their local plans and work together effectively”. The document, signed by NHSE’s leadership, says: “ICBs are responsible for initial problem solving and intervention should providers fail, or be unable, to deliver their agreed role. “Intervention support can be provided from NHS England regional teams as required, drawing on the expertise of our national level urgent and emergency care team as needed.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 August 2022
  11. News Article
    The medical body at Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust has written to the trust’s chair saying that it is unable to provide safe care and expressing a lack of confidence in the board. The letter, which has been seen by HSJ, is signed by 140 of doctors at the mental health provider. It claims the trust’s “clinical services are unable to provide good basic care and are unsafe”. Significant criticism is reserved for the trust’s senior management, with the letter stating “there is a general dysfunction with perpetual changes of key staff in executive posts and ever increasing layers of management” and that “major decisions are frequently made by a handful of people at an executive level without clinical consultation”. The letter continues: “Doctors are by and large used as clinical workhorses. Many carrying huge workloads and holding unacceptable clinical risks”. The letter, first revealed by BBC Look East, asks for an urgent meeting with the chair and states that the medical body “lacks confidence in the executive board to resolve the plight of NSFT”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 August 2022
  12. News Article
    A scheme handing payments to those affected by the contaminated blood scandal will be announced this week, as ministers scramble to help those harmed by the “historic wrong”. Whitehall sources confirmed that a programme handing interim payments will be confirmed in the coming days, once officials have ironed out issues to ensure that victims are not taxed on the payments or have their benefits affected by them. It is thought that ministers accept recent recommendations that infected people and bereaved partners should get “payments of no less than £100,000”. More than 4,000 people are in line for the payment. Kit Malthouse, the cabinet office minister, has been prioritising the scheme in the last week to ensure payments are made as soon as possible. “The infected blood scandal was a tragedy for everyone involved, and the prime minister strongly believes that all those who suffered so terribly as a result of this injustice should receive compensation as quickly as possible,” said a No 10 source. “He has tasked ministers with resolving this issue so that interim payments can be made to all those infected as soon as possible, and we will set out the full details later this week.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 August 2022
  13. News Article
    Fresh concerns have been raised about the treatment of whistleblowers by managers at a trust recently embroiled in a high-profile bullying scandal, the hospital’s workforce director has disclosed. A series of further accusations have been made against managers at West Suffolk Foundation Trust, where executives were recently judged to have led an “intimidating, flawed” hunt for a whistleblower, prompting a series of high-profile departures. The trust’s executive director for workforce detailed in a paper for the hospital’s July board meeting how managers had been hunting to identify staff who had raised concerns through supposedly confidential channels. The report, by executive director of workforce and communications, Jeremy Over, said: “Feedback has been given indicating that some people have had a poor experience when speaking up. “In two separate cases, where people spoke up in confidence, it was reported that the managers were then asking and wishing to find out who had spoken up making the individuals very uncomfortable. “Another case reported that the individual was ‘told off’ by their manager for ‘going about their heads’ [sic] and another where staff felt discouraged from raising any points or suggestions as these were taken [as] a personal offence [by] the senior staff. In a further case, the person speaking up was criticised [for] doing so.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 3 August 2022
  14. News Article
    Ministers have admitted a key NHS pledge to ensure that everyone who has been waiting at least two years for hospital care would be treated by last month has not been met. The then health secretary Sajid Javid made the promise in February when launching the NHS’s “elective recovery plan”. It was intended to tackle what is now a record 6.6 million-patient backlog in England for those awaiting a procedure such as a joint replacement or cataract removal and included a series of treatment milestones the health service had to hit. “No one will wait longer than two years by July,” Javid said. However, the Department of Health and Social Care has now admitted that it will miss that target and that “a small number of patients” will have remained untreated by that deadline. The health minister Maria Caulfield told Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, in a written parliamentary answer on 18 July that while “no formal estimate has been made … engagement with the National Health Service suggests a small number of patients with complex cases will have waited longer than two years for NHS treatment by the end of July 2022”. Streeting said the admission was a further example of the government not backing up rhetoric on the NHS with concrete action. “It is unacceptable for anyone to be left waiting more than one year for healthcare, let alone two,” he said. “Once again the Conservatives have overpromised, [and] undelivered, and patients are paying the price.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 August 2022
  15. News Article
    NHS leaders across England say staffing gaps and a lack of capacity in social care are putting the care and safety of patients in the NHS at risk. Almost 250 NHS leaders responding to an NHS Confederation survey say that patients are being delayed in hospital much longer than they should, with the knock-on impact resulting in higher demand on A&E departments and longer ambulance response times. More than 9 in 10 NHS leaders warn of a social care workforce crisis in their area which they expect will get worse this winter. Nearly all NHS leaders say the lack of capacity in social care is putting the care and safety of patients at risk. More than four in five warn that the absence of care packages for people to be able to return home or be moved into a care home is the main reason why medically fit patients are stuck in hospital longer than they should be. Almost all NHS leaders say that the most impactful solution would be better pay for social care staff and want the Government to increase investment in social care as a priority. An acute trust executive director in the South West accused the Government of presiding over a “national scandal.” “If the social care capacity shortfall was solved then we would not be holding ambulances at all, we would have almost no problems with elective recovery and our emergency departments would not be crowded and unsafe,” they said. Another acute trust chair in the East of England added: “The result of using nearly 20 per cent of our beds for patients who are medically fit but need packages of care to return home is an overcrowded A&E, twelve-hour trolley waits and much delayed ambulance handover times. The connection is very clear to us…Until we find a solution to social care staffing and funding, the situation can only get worse.” Commenting on the survey results Lord Victor Adebowale, chair of the NHS Confederation, said: “Decades of delay and inertia have left social care services chronically underfunded and in desperate need of more support. “NHS leaders stand alongside their sister services in social care in wanting a rescue package for the sector. They are sounding the alarm and sending a clear message to Government that the social care system has not been ‘fixed’." Read full story Source: NHS Confederation, 28 July 2022
  16. News Article
    Bullying and harassment allegations made against leaders of the organisation that supplies blood to the NHS have prompted a Care Quality Commission (CQC) review, with staff claiming poor culture has exacerbated the crisis around low blood stocks. HSJ has learned whistleblowers at NHS Blood and Transplant raised concerns with the CQC. As a result, the regulator has been carrying out a review of the organisation’s leadership. Several current and former staff, who wished to remain anonymous, told HSJ there are widespread concerns about the organisation’s culture, which they claim has enabled bullying and harassment from senior employees, including some racist behaviours. They said the culture has resulted in a significant number of staff being absent due to stress and anxiety, which alongside the latest wave of coronavirus, has contributed to an ongoing staffing crisis. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 July 2022
  17. News Article
    Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has told a public inquiry institutions and the state can sometimes "close ranks around a lie". Giving evidence at the infected-blood inquiry, he said it could be seen as a "huge failing of democracy" that victims had waited so long for justice. At least 5,000 people contracted HIV or hepatitis C in the 1970s and 80s, after being given contaminated blood products and transfusions on the NHS. More than 2,400 have died as a result. Jenni Richards QC asked whether a 2012 briefing for new ministers in the health department - "almost certainly" not shown to Mr Hunt at the time - stating, under a heading "Key facts", hepatitis C and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) infection had been a problem in the 1970s and 80s, "before it was possible to screen donors and make products safer", suggested the contamination had been an "unavoidable problem". Mr Hunt, health secretary for six years until July 2018, replied: "I mean, that briefing is wrong and it shouldn't say that. "At the very least, ministers should be aware as politicians that this is contentious and disputed by families - but I'm afraid it tries to suggest the issue is closed when it is not." Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 July 2022
  18. News Article
    Whistleblowing is still not ‘business as usual’ and leaders must take action after an unusual drop in the proportion of staff viewing their organisation as having a positive speak up culture, the national guardian for freedom to speak up has said. Speaking to HSJ, Jayne Chidgey-Clark highlighted some “really concerning” findings from the National Guardian’s Office’s most recent survey, both about speak up culture and the wellbeing of the freedom to speak up guardians. The NGO survey found a 10 percentage point drop in freedom to speak up guardians agreeing senior leaders supported workers to speak up, dropping from around 80% to 70% between 2020 and 2021. She also highlighted an increase in FTSU guardians reporting staff had experienced “detriment” for speaking up within their organisation. Ms Chidgey-Clark, a nurse by background who took up the role last December, said it was the first time the National Guardian’s Office had seen a drop on this question since the survey began in 2017, and that it also “chimed” with the latest NHS staff survey. She added: “Workers are saying the same thing, and that’s really concerning. And it will be even more concerning if we see a similar trend next year. It’s almost like an early warning sign to leaders." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 July 2022
  19. News Article
    The new health and social care secretary has asked officials to hastily organise several “hackathons” to try to address the crisis in ambulance performance. The first, which was instigated just last week, will take place tomorrow (28 July), and a second is planned for August, sources told HSJ. Messages from officials described the work as a “request from our new secretary of state” and explained the short notice by saying he was “pushing… quite strongly for something before the end of the month”. The aim is said to be to examine what is driving poor performance, and the Department of Health and Social Care is “particularly interested in understanding which factors reduce risk to patients”, according to one message seen by HSJ. Hackathons are short, time-limited collaborative design events, typically involving computer programmers and data scientists or analysts, which aim to result in working software or product on the chosen theme by the end. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 July 2022
  20. News Article
    The NHS has broken its “fundamental promise” to the public that life-saving emergency care will be available when they need it, a top NHS doctor has said, as ambulances continue to lose tens of thousands of hours waiting outside hospitals. Katherine Henderson, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that what she described as the fundamental promise of the NHS to provide an ambulance in a real emergency has been “broken”. Her comments come as the West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) University NHS Trust predicted it would lose 48,000 ambulance hours waiting outside A&E departments in July. This would make it the worst month on record. In papers published on Thursday, WMAS said the impact of handover delays means that patients are waiting longer than needed for an emergency response, including patients in category one, which includes those needing immediate life-saving care. It added: “This means that patients who are immediately time-critical medical emergencies do not get the response they need and may suffer significant harm or death.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 July 2022
  21. News Article
    NHS England and local leaders must urgently develop a coherent ‘operating model’ for the era of integrated care systems (ICS) or see the reforms fail, leading trust chief executives have told HSJ. Despite ICSs formally launching on 1 July, the chiefs said there was still no clarity about how the service would be supported and held to account as the Health and Care Act reforms are rolled out and the stuttering Covid recovery continues. The CEOs were speaking at a roundtable to mark the publication of HSJ's annual ranking of the NHS’s “top 50 trust chief executives”. NHSE has been working on a new operating model since last year. It has confirmed it plans to keep its seven separate regional teams, and has recently indicated national programmes will be curbed as part of reductions to central staffing. Caroline Clarke, the chief executive of north London’s Royal Free group of trusts, said: “What’s unclear to me is, what the operating model is for [the] whole NHS? What is NHSE going to do… what’s expected of the regions and the ICSs… is the performance management line [for providers] going to go all the way through the ICS?” Ms Clarke said she recognised “some kind of regional infrastructure” was needed and that the existing set-up made sense in widely recognised areas such as London and other “urban” conurbations. But she added: “Are [regions] just going to be aggregating features of the NHS, or are they actually going to have a kind of intent to them?” Ms Clarke said she was “hung up” on getting an effective operating model because, without it, there was an increased chance NHSE staff would “get in the way and stop us making decisions”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 July 2022
  22. News Article
    A lack of accountability is causing the quality of NHS services to crumble, according to some of the most respected trust chief executives. They said the problem arose from four factors: the lack of an operating model for how NHS England should oversee the service, confusion over what integrated care systems should be responsible for, the lack of clarity on which standards providers should be seeking to meet, and trust leaders not holding each other to account. The views were expressed at a roundtable to mark the publication of HSJ’s annual ranking of the NHS’s “top 50 trust chief executives”. The most strongly worded contribution came from Milton Keynes University Hospital Foundation Trust chief executive Joe Harrison. He told the roundtable: “I’m really concerned about where we are at as an NHS. I think we’re in danger of all sitting around the campfire singing ‘kumbaya’ as the Titanic sinks. “We are presiding over a failing NHS. There’s no question about it. And if we carry on like this, people have every right to say, ‘what on earth are we spending £150bn on?’” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 July 2022
  23. News Article
    A quarter of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) non-executive directors of NHS trusts have seen or experienced discrimination in the course of their work, a report reveals. While almost four out of five (79%) of these BAME non-executives said they challenged such behaviour when they encountered it, only half (50%) said that led to a change of policy or behaviour. The other half felt they had been ‘fobbed off’ or subjected to actively hostile behaviour for having spoken up,” says a report commissioned by the Seacole Group, which represents most of the BAME non-executive board members of NHS trusts in England. It adds: “This level of discrimination is unacceptable anywhere and even more so in the boardrooms of NHS organisations. Too many Black, Asian and other ethnic NEDs (non-executive directors) are being subjected to it and left to deal with it on their own.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 July 2022
  24. News Article
    NHS leaders have sometimes been “shouting into the void” about their fears of the health service being overwhelmed by Covid because of the absence of a single national command centre for the pandemic response, a new report argues. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has published a report which recommends short and long term actions for dealing with Covid and future health emergencies. It says the government should have previously, and should now, set up “a national centre for response” to have overriding national responsibility for managing Covid and future crises. The government should also shift away from traditional methods of communication, to instead listen to “communities… beliefs and fears” about Covid, and adjust messages to respond to these. The report has been authored by the institute’s head of health Henry Dowlen, who was seconded to work on several pandemic projects such as a setting up a Nightingale Hospital and coordinating regional and national response work. He said that if government did not change course then the NHS, along with other services and parts of society, would remain in a “vicious cycle” of operational problems. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 July 2022
  25. News Article
    Women and girls across England will benefit from improved healthcare following the publication of the first ever government-led Women’s Health Strategy for England today. Following a call for evidence which generated almost 100,000 responses from individuals across England, and building on 'Our Vision for Women’s Health', the strategy sets bold ambitions to tackle deep-rooted, systemic issues within the health and care system to improve the health and wellbeing of women, and reset how the health and care system listens to women. The strategy includes key commitments around: New research and data gathering. The expansion of women’s health-focused education and training for incoming doctors. Improvements to fertility services. Ensuring women have access to high-quality health information. Updating guidance for female-specific health conditions like endometriosis to ensure the latest evidence and advice is being used in treatment. To support progress already underway in these areas, the strategy aims to: Provide a new investment of £10 million for a breast screening programme, which will provide 25 new mobile breast screening units to be targeted at areas with the greatest challenges in uptake and coverage. This will: - provide extra capacity for services to recover from the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic - boost uptake of screening in areas where attendance is low - tackle health disparities - contribute towards higher early diagnosis rates in line with the NHS Long Term Plan. Remove additional barriers to IVF for female same-sex couples. There will no longer be a requirement for them to pay for artificial insemination to prove their fertility status and NHS treatment for female same-sex couples will start with 6 cycles of artificial insemination, prior to accessing IVF services, if necessary. Improve transparency on provision and availability of IVF so prospective parents can see how their local area performs to tackle the ‘postcode lottery’ in access to IVF treatment Recognise parents who have lost a child before 24 weeks through the introduction of a pregnancy loss certificate in England. Ensure specialist endometriosis services have the most up-to-date evidence and advice by updating the service specification for severe endometriosis, which defines the standards of care patients can expect. This sits alongside the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) review of its guideline on endometriosis. Read full story Source: Gov.UK, 20 July 2022
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