Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Organisation / service factors'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 1,519 results
  1. News Article
    The number of patients stuck in hospitals despite being ‘medically fit’ to leave has continued to increase in recent months, leading to warnings from NHS Confederation that trusts are finding it ‘impossible’ to make progress on reducing the numbers. Official statistics for April suggest an average of 12,589 patients per day in NHS hospitals in England – 13% of all occupied beds – did not meet the “criteria to reside”. At 31 trusts, the proportion was 20% or more. NHS England has since told local leaders to make reducing the numbers of delayed discharges an operational priority. The issue is a key factor behind the long waits in emergency care, as ward beds are taking longer to become available to accident and emergency patients. Rory Deighton, acute lead at NHS Confederation, said targets to reduce delayed discharges “will not be met” unless the government “invests in domiciliary care wages,” amid high numbers of vacancies in the social care sector. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 June 2022
  2. News Article
    NHS England was aware of concerns about upper gastrointestinal surgery at a hospital nearly three years before the Care Quality Commission intervened to stop it being carried out, HSJ can reveal. NHSE in the South East commissioned a report into upper GI cancer services in parts of the region in January 2020. In particular, HSJ understands the review was prompted by concerns the small number of surgeries carried out at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton meant it may be unable to comply with parts of the service specification and face difficulties maintaining an adequate surgical workforce rota. Despite these concerns, Brighton continued to carry out upper GI surgery until the CQC suspended planned oesophagic-gastric resections last August. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 March 2023
  3. News Article
    Bereaved families are having to report maternity blunders because watchdogs and hospitals are unable to spot failings, an expert has warned. Bill Kirkup said avoidable deaths were "a badge of shame" but would continue without urgent change. Eight years on from his report into the Morecambe Bay maternity scandal, he said the failure of officials to act had needlessly cost more lives. "I am very disappointed – and surprised – that we're still where we are", he said. "That's a terrible badge of shame for the health service that it takes families to come and tell us what's wrong. "Yet just about every tragedy that I've ever been involved with investigating has come to light when there's a group of families who say 'You've got a problem here'. "People are lying, they're not being open and they're concealing what's happening. "If we can't bring this change, I'm not confident that there won't be another East Kent, Morecambe Bay or Nottingham, somewhere else." Read full story Source: Mail Online, 10 March 2023
  4. News Article
    Ministers and NHS England have not sufficiently warned the public of the risk to patient harm posed by next week’s junior doctors strike, some of the NHS’s most senior trust chief executives have warned. The senior leaders contacted HSJ with their concerns after a group call between trust leaders and NHSE bosses on Thursday. The chief executives and medical directors, who spoke to HSJ on condition of anonymity, made a series of robust criticisms which focussed on the lack of awareness of danger presented by the junior doctor’s industrial action, a lack of thorough communication of that to the public, and the insistence that trusts negotiate strike agreement with the British Medical Association at a local level. One comment on the chat function stated: ”Public awareness of the impact of this strike seems far lower than for e.g. the ambulance strike, but from a an acute trust perspective this will have a much bigger impact on patient care and safety. Junior doctors’ are not newly qualified students - they are the backbone of day to day medical management in our services. I am concerned we might be giving false assurance about the quality of service we can offer next week.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2023
  5. News Article
    GPs are facing “insurmountable pressures”, experts have said as they warned that the NHS “will not survive” without general practice. A new report into GP pressures suggests one in four staff fear their practice is in danger of closing because of unmanageable workloads and rising demand. The document, from the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), says general practice is “in crisis”, and makes a series of calls to help ease pressures and stop the growing number of GPs from quitting. The report says GPs are bracing for “winter-style pressures” well into spring and summer. “The workload pressures in general practice over this winter have been immense, and high levels of patient demand are set to continue for some time,” the report authors wrote. “General practice is in crisis. We cannot rely on short-term emergency funding pots over winter to try and paper over the cracks." Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 March 2023
  6. News Article
    A staffing crisis in children’s dentistry has prompted the urgent removal of junior doctors from Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH. GOSH has struggled to recruit consultants for its paediatric dentistry services for at least two years, which has led to trainee doctors going unsupervised, according to a new report by regulator Health Education England. A report seen by The Independent said the service was running with just one part-time consultant but needed at least two. The news comes amid a national “crisis” in dentistry, with the latest data from the government showing that half of all children’s tooth extractions in 2021-22 were due to “preventable tooth decay”. GOSH told The Independent it was struggling with a “limited pool” of paediatric dentists and, as a result of shortages, many patients were waiting longer than the 18-week standard. Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 February 2023
  7. News Article
    A trust spent £460,000 on legal fees trying to fight a patient safety whistleblowing case that it lost, it can be revealed. An employment tribunal judge rejected the idea that a consultant nephrologist had done anything to bring about her dismissal from Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust. Jasna Macanovic was subjected to what the tribunal earlier this year called “a campaign of harassment”, after she warned colleagues that a procedure they were using was harming patients. After relationships broke down in the Wessex Kidney Unit, she was referred to a disciplinary panel at which two board members – the former nursing director and the current medical director – offered her a good reference if she would resign. She refused and was dismissed in March 2018. The judge noted the offer was clear evidence that the disciplinary process was a foregone conclusion. Read full story Source: HSJ, 8 March 2023
  8. News Article
    Nearly three-quarters of children detained under the mental health act are girls, a new report has found, amid warnings youngsters face a “postcode lottery” in their wait for treatment. Average waiting times between children being referred to mental health services and starting treatment have increased for the first time since 2017 with the children’s commissioner describing support across the country as “patchy”. In the annual report on children’s mental health services, the watchdog warned that, although the average wait is 40 days, some children are waiting as long as 80 days for treatment after being referred in 2021-22. The analysis, published on International Women’s day, also says young girls represented the highest proportion of children detained under the mental health act last year, highlighting “stark and worrying” gender inequalities. Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 March 2023 Further reading on the hub: Top picks: Women's health inequity
  9. News Article
    Hospital trusts must only remove gas and air on maternity wards as a “last resort”, NHS England has said. Several hospitals temporarily suspended the use of gas and air following concerns that midwives and staff are being exposed to too-high levels of gas over prolonged periods of time. Some pregnant women have posted on social media, saying the decisions have left them feeling anxious and worried about their pain relief options. Some NHS trusts have also come under fire for the way they communicated the message that gas and air would be suspended. In new guidance to trusts, NHS England said it had looked at the health impacts for staff of levels of nitrous oxide exceeding prescribed levels, “drawing upon relevant legislation and existing guidance on the safe management of gas and air in healthcare settings”. It said trusts must ensure they are compliant with legislation and national guidance on the use of gas, but must only remove it for women as a last resort and must tell them about other pain relief. “Where, following the meeting of the (medical gas) committee, there is concern that the trust is not compliant, then this should be formally reported by the trust to the NHS England regional operations centre for the attention of the regional chief midwife,” the guidance said. Read full story Source: The Independent, 3 March 2023
  10. News Article
    There are 625,000 people on a hospital waiting list in Scotland. That figure is the highest on record and equivalent to one in nine of the population. Backlogs have soared since the Covid pandemic and more people faced with long waits are seeking private treatment. An opinion poll commissioned by BBC Scotland suggests one in five of those who replied said they - or one of their family - had paid for private medical care in the past 12 months. Most (73%) said they would have preferred to use the NHS. Linda Fyfe, from South Ayrshire, was among those not prepared to wait for NHS treatment when she needed a hip replacement. Within months Linda went from living with the "bearable" pain in her right hip to being unable to comfortably move more than 100 yards. The 75-year-old said the pain changed her whole lifestyle and she could not wait between 12 and 18 months for an operation on the NHS. The retired social work administrator was quoted £14,000 to go private in the UK but this was more than she could afford. She opted to have the same procedure done in Lithuania for about half the price. The Kaunas clinic that treated Linda said it sees about 10 people a month from Scotland and more from across the UK."I made the right decision. I couldn't have gone another year or 18 months and it might even have taken longer. Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 March 2023
  11. News Article
    Ambulance chiefs have warned of a ‘significant escalation’ in the strike action being planned by unions next week – saying the flexibilities that helped deal with previous walk-outs will no longer be available. In a letter to local NHS leaders, seen by HSJ, North West Ambulance Service said unions are “becoming more stringent in their approach”, and the trust’s ability to respond to incidents will be severely weakened. For the last day of strike action in February, the GMB union told NWAS it was abandoning exemptions (derogations) for category 2 calls, which include heart attacks and strokes. The NWAS letter, sent yesterday, said the Unite union also now intends to take this approach on 6 March. Last month the head of the London Ambulance Service said the reduced level of service in the capital “causes harm to our patients” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 March 2023
  12. News Article
    Older and overweight patients are making it harder to clear NHS surgery backlogs, anaesthetists have warned. New data reveal an “extremely worrying picture” of increasing age, rates of obesity and complexity of surgical patients across the UK, the Royal College of Anaesthetists said. The average age of patients requiring anaesthesia increased by 2.3 years, from 50.5 to 52.8, over the last decade, while their BMI also jumped from 24.9 (borderline normal/overweight) to 26.7 (overweight). The proportion of patients who are complex or have other comorbidities has also significantly increased, the study found. When patients are older, overweight and have other problems, this makes anaesthetic and surgical care more complicated and higher risk, the authors said. Managing these patients safely takes longer during surgery and can lead to slower recovery times, requiring more time in hospital. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 2 March 2023
  13. News Article
    A £14bn plan to reduce NHS backlogs caused by Covid is failing to meet targets, with cancer waiting times at their worst-ever levels, parliament’s spending watchdog has said. A report by the Commons’ public accounts committee said NHS England’s three-year recovery programme for elective and cancer care, agreed in 2022, was already “falling short” in its first year and expressed serious doubts that the wider plan would be achieved on time. MPs found that although the first target was to eliminate two-year waits for elective care by July 2022, there were 2,600 patients who had been waiting more than two years in August 2022, and a record 7 million people on waiting lists in total. The recovery programme was overoptimistic, the report said. “NHS England made unrealistic assumptions about the first year of recovery, including that there would be low levels of Covid-19 and minimal adverse effects from winter pressures.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 March 2023
  14. News Article
    A struggling acute trust says its failure to hit its elective care targets is directly linked to doctors’ demanding overtime rates in line with the British Medical Association’s rate cards, as national tensions around the issue intensify. University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust’s January performance report said its elective activity was down by around 1,000 cases over a two-month period, due to the issue. Last summer, the BMA published a “rate card” outlining the “minimum” hourly pay consultants should receive for additional work, such as waiting list initiatives and weekend shifts. Some accused the union of “acting like football agents” by trying to inflate their members’ pay. NHS chiefs have long been warning of the risk the rate card poses to elective recovery. But there are few examples of a trust making such an explicit link between their struggle to staff overtime shifts because of the rate card and subsequent failure to hit their elective targets, and placing a number on how many patients they were forced to add to the list because of the issue. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 March 2023
  15. News Article
    A trust chief executive has suggested an inquiry team looking at 2,000 deaths is lacking in “expertise” and has created a “disproportionate impression” of the problems at his trust. Essex Partnership University Trust is at the centre of a high-profile inquiry into the deaths of patients over a 20-year period, which was sparked after serious concerns were raised over specific cases. The inquiry, led by Geraldine Strathdee, a former national clinical director for mental health, is reviewing the cases of 2,000 people who died while they were patients on a mental health ward in Essex or within three months of being discharged. In a letter to the inquiry, obtained by HSJ through a freedom of information request, trust chief executive officer Paul Scott wrote: “The headline number of c.1,500 or c.2,000 deaths used in publicity by the inquiry is, in my opinion, not a fair reflection of the deaths that would be of interest to the inquiry.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 March 2023
  16. News Article
    One patient is dying every 23 minutes in England after they endured a long delay in an A&E unit, according to analysis of NHS figures by emergency care doctors. In all, 23,003 people died during 2022 after spending at least 12 hours in an A&E waiting for care or to be admitted to a bed, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM). That equates to roughly 1 every 23 minutes, 63 every day, 442 a week or 1,917 each month. The college said its findings, while “shocking”, were also “unsurprising” and reflected the fact that emergency departments are often overwhelmed and unable to find patients a bed in the hospital. Rosie Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson, said “patients are now dying in their droves” due to successive Conservative governments neglecting the NHS, and added that the lives lost due to A&E snarl-ups constituted a “national disaster”. “Long waiting times are associated with serious patient harm and patient deaths,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, RCEM’s president. “The scale shown here is deeply distressing.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 February 2023
  17. News Article
    Urgent action is needed to prevent people dying from eating disorders, the parliamentary and health service ombudsman for England has warned, as he said those affected are being “repeatedly failed”. The NHS needs a “complete culture change” in how it approaches the condition, while ministers must make it a “key priority”, according to Rob Behrens. Little progress has been made since the publication of a devastating report by his office in 2017, which highlighted “serious failings” in eating disorder services, he said. Lives continue to be lost because of “the lack of parity between child and adult services”, and “poor coordination” between NHS staff involved in treating patients. There remain issues with the training of medical professionals, Behrens added. “We raised concerns six years ago in our ignoring the alarms report, so it’s extremely disappointing to see the same issues still occurring,” he said. “Small steps in improvements have been taken, but progress has been slow, and we need to see a much bigger shift in the way eating disorder services are delivered." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 February 2023
  18. News Article
    Ministers have spent only £15m in five years on research into tackling brain tumours, the biggest killer of adults and children under 40, while boasting about delivering £40m, MPs have found. The revelation emerged in a damning report seen by the Guardian that is due to be published this week by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on brain tumours after a two-year inquiry. The research system is “unfit for purpose”, patients are being denied access to clinical trials, and families have been let down by promises of “millions of pounds of investment which hasn’t materialised”, the report says. The APPG report also highlights a “valley of death” in which potential new treatments developed in the laboratory “fail to reach patients” because of unnecessary red tape. Some children are being denied access to clinical trials, and the national brain tumour research database is “not reliable”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 February 2023
  19. News Article
    NHS waiting times, staff shortages and service backlogs have been flagged as concerns in relation to dozens of patient deaths across England and Wales since the start of last year, the Observer can reveal, with coroners facing a succession of inquests concerning ambulance delays. Coroners issue prevention of future deaths reports (PFDs) when they believe preventive action should be taken, and send them to relevant individuals or organisations, which are expected to respond. Among 55 cases identified by the Observer are 24 patient deaths where coroners raised concerns about ambulance delays – all of them occurring before this winter’s ambulance crisis, when response times rocketed to their worst-ever levels. Wes Streeting, shadow health and social care secretary, said: “The NHS is in the biggest crisis in its history – and the crisis has a cost in lives. Patients are waiting for far longer than is safe, with terrible consequences.” But the issues highlighted by coroners in relation to patient deaths are wider than ambulance delays. They include: lengthy elective surgery backlogs; high referral thresholds and long waiting times for children’s mental health services; a national shortage of neurologists; long waiting times for psychological therapies; a lack of mental health beds and unfilled mental health staff vacancies; and a shortage of cardiologists compounded by a shortage of theatre capacity and beds. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 February 2023 Further reading on the hub - see a selection of Prevention of Future Deaths reports in our dedicated coroner's report section of the hub.
  20. News Article
    A mental health trust is to be prosecuted after three patients died in its care. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is bringing charges against the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys (TEWV) NHS Trust. It is thought they relate to the deaths of Christie Harnett, 17, Emily Moore, 18, and a third person. The trust is said to have failed "to provide safe care and treatment" which exposed patients to "significant risk of avoidable harm". Both Christie Harnett and Emily Moore had complex mental health issues and took their own lives. The CQC said the trust "breached" the Health and Social Care Act, which relates to healthcare providers' responsibility to "ensure people receive safe care and treatment". In response, a spokesperson for the trust said: "We have fully cooperated with the Care Quality Commission's investigation and continue to work closely with them. "We remain focused on delivering safe and kind care to our patients and have made significant progress in the last couple of years." Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 February 2023
  21. News Article
    Record levels of NHS staff are seeking mental health help as clinicians warn the “crisis” facing workers is “worse than the pandemic”. Hundreds of staff are being referred to the specialist mental health service, NHS Practitioner Health, with 842 workers referred in October 2022 – up from 534 in the same month the year before and 371 in 2020. Around 40% of the staff seeking the service are GPs and 50% are hospital doctors. The news comes as The Independent reported that the NHS and government are set to axe funding for 40 mental health hubs set up for health and social care workers following the pandemic. Amandip Sidhu, of Doctors in Distress, which offers workers mental health support, said: “Health workers believe that the crisis they are currently dealing with is worse than during the pandemic and exacerbated by the fact there is no end in sight, with little evidence that decision-makers are taking steps to improve the situation. “The fact that the public, their patients, lack sympathy or understanding is making many medics feel isolated and completely unappreciated.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 February 2023
  22. News Article
    Suicidal NHS staff will be left in “dangerous” situations without support when national funding for mental health hubs ends next month, health leaders have warned. The hubs, set up with £15 million of government funding for NHS workers following Covid, are being forced to close or reduce services as neither the Department for Health and Social Care nor the NHS has confirmed ongoing funding for 2023-24. This will leave thousands of NHS staff, some of whom are described as “suicidal” in “complete limbo”, The Independent has been told. The British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Association of Clinical Psychologists (ACP) said the failure to continue the funding was an “irresponsible” way to treat vulnerable health and care workers. Professor Mike Wang, chair of ACP, said: “There is a clinical responsibility, not to remove a service from individuals who are vulnerable, and in difficulty … the problem with that is that the funding ceases at the end of March and that’s absolutely no time at all to make any [future] provision. So, it’s clinically irresponsible to simply halt a service. Some of these individuals are, you know, carrying suicide risk.” He said it was “dangerous” and “astonishing” that funding for the hubs was ending “given the present circumstances of continuing effects of the pandemic, clear evidence of underfunding of health care in this country”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 February 2023
  23. News Article
    Doctors have warned that patient safety is being put at risk by the state of crumbling NHS hospitals which have fallen into potentially dangerous disrepair, an ITV News investigation has found. Year-long leaks, collapsing floors, ageing roofs and potential for falling stone are among the issues exposed in the investigation - which have caused whole wards to be closed down. One doctor told ITV News conditions are so poor in hospitals she has worked in that “we are always just hoping that the next time something happens it does not cause something catastrophic.”Half of the 87 hospital trusts in England that responded to our Freedom of Information requests had at least one unresolved structural or maintenance issue, as of October 2022. Footage shared with ITV News by staff working in NHS hospitals lays bare some of the appalling conditions doctors are forced to treat patients in every day. Some leaks have been so severe they flood and close entire corridors, while some wards have become so unsafe they have been permanently shut. Read full story Source: ITV News, 22 February 2023
  24. News Article
    The national dentistry budget is set to be underspent by a record £400m this year, due to a shortage of dentists willing to take on NHS work, HSJ has learned. The situation is understood to have prompted major concerns in the senior ranks of NHS England, and calls for a “fundamental rethink” of the much-maligned primary dental care contract. The unspent funding is due to be used to plug budget deficits in other services and comes as patients in many areas struggle to access NHS dentistry. Healthwatch England described the estimated underspend as an “absolute scandal”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 February 2023
  25. News Article
    Staff at the Royal London are proud of their work but don’t know how long they can continue as waiting times grow and patients suffer. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 6 February 2023
×
×
  • Create New...