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Found 1,519 results
  1. News Article
    An inspection of a county's urgent and emergency services found delays were caused by a lack of empty beds and prolonged waiting times. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected Gloucestershire emergency care services in November and December. The report found staff worked well in challenging circumstances but the CQC said pressures on workers across the system needed addressing. Dr Jeremy Welch said: "The system is being stretched and we need to adapt." CQC deputy chief inspector for hospitals, Nigel Acheson, said: "We found the system to be complicated. As a result, staff and patients weren't always able to understand which urgent and emergency care service was best suited to their needs. "This meant people sometimes attended the emergency department when they could have been treated more appropriately elsewhere." In addition the report touched on adult social care and the possibility of using empty care home beds when hospitals were struggling to cope. Dr Welch recognised "it's been a blinking tough time in care homes" over the pandemic and credited the relaxing of rules to allow visits but said there are other factors that would need to be considered. However he added: "We've got enough beds when we map across, it's just getting patients through the hospital and home because home is where they want to be." Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 March 2022
  2. News Article
    A large mental health trust has highlighted a lack of additional funding for the sector, in contrast to the £8bn earmarked for acute providers to tackle elective waiting lists. Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Foundation Trust expects demand for its services to be 20% higher than pre-covid levels, but says uncertainties around funding could “impede” progress and “wider service sustainability”. In an interview with HSJ last week, TEWV’s chief executive Brent Kilmurray said: “Quite often, we are facing the challenge of trying to find beds and meet demand. What we’ve seen is an increase in occupancy and an increase in length of stay. And we are relating that to an increase in acuity. “We really welcome the investment that goes into the long-term plans on the specialist services that are coming through. [But] what we want to do with our work is give greater transparency to the backlogs that have developed and some of the additional pressures. Asked about the trust’s actions to address multiple concerns around safety and quality, Mr Kilmurray said staffing had improved in forensics, although the vacancy rate is still higher than the trust average, and that a leadership development programme is aiming to improve the culture of the organisation. He said he hopes the CQC “would see significant improvement” when they are inspected again. He added that “a lot has changed” since the high-profile deaths of two teenagers under the care of the trust, which are subject to an ongoing inquiry He said: “We will be able to build on the legacy of those young women in terms of the learning that we want to embed within the organisation.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 December 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
    The purpose of Care Quality Commission (CQC) ratings has been a hotly contested question since the creation of the four category classifications in the last decade. The original idea was to give the public a sense of how good their local hospital was, as well as providing commissioners, system managers and government with an idea of whether the local, regional or national health services they had responsibility for were getting better or worse. The practicality of the first aim was always questionable given the public’s inability and unwillingness, in most cases, to take their custom elsewhere. The second ran into the lack of desire and/or courage on behalf of most commissioners to challenge their local provider, but it did seem to have traction at the top of the shop. Jeremy Hunt, told HSJ, once they had been dished out across the sector, that their CQC classification now mattered much more then whether or not it had achieved foundation status or not. Another function, whether intended or not, was that by splashing “inadequate” and unsafe care on the front pages, in the wake of the Francis report, CQC ratings fuelled a drive to put more staff on the wards (forcing the Treasury to pay for the consequent agency bills and deficits, and curtailing Simon Stevens’ transformation funds). Whatever your take on their purpose, however, they only make sense if they accurately reflect the state of the service. And the latest data suggests that may not be the case. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 March 2022
  5. News Article
    More than 1,300 patients a year are having NHS funding for their palliative care withdrawn after living longer than expected, BBC analysis shows. Terminally ill or rapidly-declining patients are given fast-track support, allowing them to live outside hospital. From 2018 to 2021, a total of 9,037 people had this funding reviewed in England and Wales, with 47% of them losing all support. A further 15% of patients had their continuing healthcare support replaced with the more limited NHS-funded nursing care. Sandra Hanson was referred to the fast-track pathway of the NHS continuing healthcare scheme in mid-2020, after her needs were judged by a clinician to be "end of life". She was diagnosed with end-stage dementia, and had been in hospital eight times in the previous year following multiple falls and bouts of pneumonia. The funding covered the costs of a nursing home, where she suffered fewer falls. But in March 2021, this funding was reviewed by her local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). These assessments, usually undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team including health and social care professionals, consider the severity of a person's needs in areas such as mobility, cognition and behaviour. Sandra's daughter, Charlotte Gurney, said the family was represented by a social worker they had not previously met, and describes the meeting as "traumatic" as she tried to explain her mum's needs. "We just felt not listened to... we were treated as if we were trying to swindle the system. Sandra's support was withdrawn, and she had to be moved to a new nursing home, financed by her husband Malcolm. Shortly afterwards, she broke her wrist following a fall and injured her face. The family believe had the review correctly identified Sandra's needs and risks, this could have been avoided. Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 March 2022
  6. 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
  7. 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
  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 only NHS gender identity service for children in England and Wales is under unsustainable pressure as the demand for the service outstrips capacity, a review has found. The interim report of the Cass Review, commissioned by NHS England in 2020, recommends that a network of regional hubs be created to provide care and support to young people with gender incongruence or dysphoria, arguing their care is “everyone’s business”. Led by the paediatrician Hilary Cass, the interim report explains that the significant rise in referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust in London has resulted in overwhelmed staff and waiting lists of up to two years that leave young people “at considerable risk” of distress and deteriorating mental health. Last spring, the Care Quality Commission demanded monthly updates on numbers on waiting lists and actions to reduce them in a highly critical report on GIDS. Differing views and lack of open discussion about the nature of gender incongruence in childhood and adolescence – and whether transition is always the best option – means that patients can experience a “clinician lottery”, says the new review, which carried out extensive interviews with professionals and those with lived experience. It notes that the clinical approach used by GIDS “has not been subjected to some of the usual control measures” typically applied with new treatments. Another significant issue raised with the review team was that of “diagnostic overshadowing”, whereby once a young person is identified as having gender-related distress, other complex needs – such as neurodiversity or a mental health problem that would normally be managed by local services – can be overlooked. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 March 2022
  10. News Article
    The two-week wait cancer target should be scrapped and replaced with a different measure, as part of an overhaul of cancer standards, NHS England has said. After piloting a new measure which aims to see 75% of patients given the all-clear or a diagnosis within 28 days of referral, NHS England has recommended .The new “faster diagnosis target” would replace the current ‘two-week wait’ target, which is for 93% to have seen a specialist within two weeks, but not necessarily had a diagnosis. This proposal, and other changes to the way cancer waiting time targets are organised, will be consulted on until 6 April. The nine current cancer targets were created in 2000. The current headline measure along with the two-week wait — a two-month wait from urgent GP referral to first treatment — has not been hit since December 2015. The document containing the proposals said the current two-week standard saw some patients given an appointment at which no test was taken, purely to hit the target. For some suspected cancers, “many trusts… offer outpatient appointments to ensure they hit the target”, without improving diagnosis. The move to scrap the two-week wait was welcomed – with significant caveats — by Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK chief executive Michelle Mitchell said: “The new Faster Diagnosis Standard is a more meaningful target than the current two-week wait that will hopefully improve early diagnosis. If all trusts met the 75 per cent target, it would be an improvement to where we are now. However, in the long-term to improve cancer survival, we’d like to see a 95 per cent target originally proposed in the 2015 cancer strategy in Sajid Javid’s upcoming 10-year plan for cancer. “We recognise the target was set lower because of a shortage of cancer specialists, critical to diagnosing cancer across the NHS. The government must provide the extra investment they have promised to grow the NHS workforce. Every moment of delay risks more people waiting for diagnosis and treatment.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2022
  11. News Article
    Staff failed to provide kind and compassionate care and did not treat children with respect at a private hospital downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’, a report by health inspectors has revealed. Huntercombe Hospital Stafford was placed in special measures in 2016, but was rated “good” by the Care Quality Commission two years later. Now, its first inspection under provider Huntercombe Young People Ltd in October 2021 has exposed a raft of safety concerns and instances of poor care. Huntercombe Young People Ltd took over the service in February 2021. Heavy reliance on agency staff, workers spotted with their “eyes closed” on observations, and staff not respecting young people’s pronouns were among concerns inspectors flagged. Staff observation of patients was also found to be “undermined” by a blind spot where people could self-harm unseen, the CQC report, published today, said. Children also told the CQC they felt staff did not always understand their mental health condition or know how to support them, particularly those on the psychiatric intensive care ward with eating disorders or autism. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2022
  12. News Article
    Urgent action is required to tackle hospital waiting times on both sides of the Irish border, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). A report into the primary healthcare systems of Ireland and Northern Ireland found that both jurisdictions are experiencing similar problems. These include workforce shortages and increasing expenditure. On hospital waiting times the problem is worse in Northern Ireland. The proportion of people on the waiting list in Northern Ireland for more than one year increased from 20% to 60%. In the Republic of Ireland, during the same period between 2017 and 2021, the figure increased from 12% to 20%. A key distinction between the healthcare systems is the absence of a universal healthcare system in Ireland, write the authors. That means in Northern Ireland, all residents are entitled to a wide range of free health care services, while in Ireland, the majority pay to see their GP and for other services. But despite this key difference, both systems are currently facing similar challenges, including shortages in key areas of the workforce and long waits for a range of healthcare services. Cross-border collaboration in healthcare across the island is an interesting but contentious issue. At present, according to the ESRI report, that work is relatively limited. It points to a 2011 report which identified the potential benefits to be gained from increased co-operation in healthcare including collaboration in cystic fibrosis, ear, nose and throat surgery, paediatric cardiac surgery and acute mental health services. However, this 2022 report concludes that despite some notable exceptions such as the Congenital Heart Disease Network and the North West Cancer Centre at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry, "collaboration has been relatively limited". Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 March 2022
  13. News Article
    NHS England is trying to force a prestigious cancer trust to publicly apologise to a group of whistleblowers, after being ‘shocked’ by the way it responded to a review into their concerns. As HSJ reported in January, an external review into The Christie Foundation Trust supported multiple concerns which had been raised by staff about a major research project with pharma giant Roche. The review had also noted how 20 current and former employees, some of whom were “long-standing, loyal, senior staff”, had described bullying behaviours and felt they had suffered detriment because they spoke out. In response to the review, trust chair Christine Outram and chief executive Roger Spencer issued a bullish report listing numerous “inaccuracies” and characterised the concerns as being limited to a “small number of staff who are dissatisfied or aggrieved”. It did not thank the staff for raising the issues, nor apologise for the experiences they had. However, HSJ has now learned that NHSE is trying to ensure the trust issues a public apology. At a meeting with some of the whistleblowers on 11 February, David Levy, medical director for NHSE North West, said he was “shocked” and “frankly a bit angry” at the trust’s response, saying it reflected badly on the organisation, HSJ understands. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 March 2022
  14. 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
  15. News Article
    The government has launched a review of leadership in health and social care. The review will be led by former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Gordon Messenger, and will report back to Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid, in early 2022. The Health and Social Care Leadership Review will look to improve processes and strengthen the leadership of health and social care in England. Working with the health and care systems, retired General Sir Gordon Messenger will have a team from DHSC and the NHS to support him led by Dame Linda Pollard, chair of Leeds Teaching Hospital. The review comes as the government invests a record £36 billion to put health and social care on a sustainable financial footing and deliver the biggest catch-up programme in NHS history. Any recommendations made as the review progresses will be considered carefully and could be rapidly implemented to make every penny of taxpayer’s money count. Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, said: "I am determined to make sure the NHS and social care delivers for the people of this country for years to come and leadership is so important to that mission. We are committed to providing the resources health and social care needs but that must come with change for the better. This review will shine a light on the outstanding leaders in health and social care to drive efficiency and innovation. It will help make sure individuals and families get the care and treatment they need, wherever they are in the country, as we build back better." Read full story Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 2 October 2021
  16. News Article
    Vulnerable people released from immigration detention in the UK are too often left without crucial continuity of care, leading to quickly deteriorating health, concludes a report. The report comes from Medical Justice, a charity that sends independent volunteer clinicians into immigration removal centres across the UK to offer medical advice and assessments to immigration detainees. The charity said that between 1 October 2020 and 30 September 2021 a total of 21 362 people were detained in UK immigration centres and 17 283 were released into the community, having been granted bail or leave to enter the UK or remain. Of these, 2239 were considered to be “adults at risk.” One woman whose delay in treatment “could potentially have life or limb threatening consequences”, struggled to re-arrange an orthopaedic oncology appointment that she missed because she had been detained. One released Medical Justice client described how he ended up a number of times in Accident & Emergency, having been unable to secure a recommended cardiology appointment. The report found that release from detention is often unplanned, chaotic and medically unsafe. Medical Justice sees repeated cases of vulnerable people released into the community without adequate care plans, with little or no information and support about entitlement and how to access a GP, and rarely with referrals to community support services such as local mental health teams. This has included people who had very recently attempted suicide in detention. Read full story Source: BMJ, 4 March 2022
  17. News Article
    Patients whose operations have been delayed will be able to shop online for hospitals with the shortest waiting times in the public and private sector, under plans being announced by the health secretary this week reports The Times. Sajid Javid will unveil a three-point plan to transform the NHS as part of efforts to tackle a record backlog of more than six million people. Under the proposals, patients referred for hospital care will be able to go online to look up the waiting time at their local hospital, and compare it with times at any hospital in the country, including those in the private sector. The website will allow patients to book their treatment at any unit in the country and there are plans to make the service available on the NHS app. The proposals will be set out in a speech on Tuesday. Javid said: “The NHS constitution says already that you as a patient have the right to ask for an alternative provider for your treatment." However, is this just a distraction? writes Roy Lilley in his latest newsletter. Shopping on-line for treatment depends on getting a website organised that can collect real-time data from all Trusts, for every specialty, that can take into account staffing, rota-gaps and clinical priorities. Software might be able to cope but has the potential to throw the NHS into chaos. People arriving from ‘out of area’ will need video-out-patient consultations, some way of doing blood, imaging and other tests. And post-op? The same again for out-patients and physio, OT, aids, adaptations, pharmacy and social care support... ... to say nothing of the stress on patients and their families. None of this is impossible but the NHS is nowhere near geared up for it. Sources: The Times, 6 March 2022 (paywalled) Roy Lilley's newsletter, 7 March 2022
  18. News Article
    GP surgeries must open for routine appointments between 9am and 5pm on Saturdays and during weekday evenings, NHS bosses have said. From October, patients will be able to book weekend and evening slots with “the full multi-disciplinary team” in a local practice, including for services such as screening, vaccinations and health checks. The British Medical Association said it was “bitterly disappointed” by the changes, which had been imposed without its agreement. A letter tells GPs the appointments must be made available at least two weeks in advance. Same-day online booking should be possible “up until as close to the time slot as possible”. Any unused slots should be available for NHS111 to allocate to callers. Some may be remote appointments, but networks are told to “ensure a reasonable number” of appointments are face-to-face consultations. Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “There’s a great deal in this letter that patients will welcome, given the struggles they have had since the start of the pandemic to see their GPs face-to-face or even get through to their surgeries.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 2 March 2022
  19. News Article
    More than a dozen families are seeking compensation following "significant failures" at NHS Lothian's hearing service for children. The health board apologised to more than 155 families after an independent investigation found serious problems diagnosing and treating hearing loss. Sophie was born partly deaf and failed repeated hearing tests for years. Her family say no help was offered by the paediatric audiology department at NHS Lothian who kept saying she would be fine. But her parents say she is not. Sophie is now seven. Her speech and language has not developed fully and is sometimes hard to understand. Her confidence has been affected. Her mum Sarah said: "They failed Sophie. You kind of trust what they were doing, you thought maybe she doesn't need hearing aids, maybe she will just catch up and now she's almost eight years old and she's still not caught up and you think 'OK, maybe there were mistakes made then'." An independent investigation by the British Academy of Audiology (BAA), published in December last year, found "significant failures" involving 155 children over nine years at NHS Lothian. Several profoundly deaf children were diagnosed too late for vital implant surgery. The health board has "apologised sincerely" to those affected. The BAA looked at more than 1,000 patient records finding "significant failures" in almost 14% of them. The BAA said it found "no evidence" that national guidelines and protocols on hearing tests for children had been followed or consistently applied "at any point since 2009". Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 March 2022
  20. News Article
    Growing numbers of Britons are paying for private medical treatment in a shift that could undermine the NHS and create a “two-tier” health system, a report has warned. Declining access to and quality of NHS care, both worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, have begun to “supercharge” the trend, with one in six people prepared to go private instead of waiting. That is among the findings of a report by the left-leaning IPPR thinktank, which warns that in future getting fast, high-quality care on the NHS could become as difficult as the situation that already exists in regards to state-funded dental treatment, which has become a postcode lottery. “People are not opting out of the NHS because they have stopped believing in it as the best and fairest model of healthcare,” said Chris Thomas, the IPPR’s principal research fellow and co-author of the report. “Rather, those who can afford it are being forced to go private by the consequences of austerity and the pandemic on NHS access and quality, and those without the funds are left to ‘put up or shut up’.” The report says that unless the NHS starts performing better “people who can and are willing to do so will supplement their entitlement to NHS care with private healthcare products”. “With NHS waiting lists now at record levels, it is not surprising that more patients across the country are looking at private healthcare,” said David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, a trade body that represents about 100 private providers across the UK. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 March 2022
  21. News Article
    A Covid report by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has highlighted some ‘tragic individual cases’ over the past months. The report analyses cases over the first 18 months of the pandemic which for the majority reveal that councils and care providers weathered the unprecedented pressures they were under fire. However, the report also reveals the ‘serious impact on people’s lives’ when things go wrong. Cases include a woman who died from COVID-19 at a care home with poor infection control procedures which was then compounded by staff trying to cover up the facts. The Ombudsman’s report focuses on the lessons that can be learned from the complaints it has received about the pandemic and welcomes that, in many cases, councils and care providers are already using their experiences from the pandemic to consider how they can make improvements to services. Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “We have investigated some tragic individual cases over the past months. Each represents poor personal experiences where councils and care providers did not get things right. “Our investigations have shown that, while the system did not collapse under the extreme pressures placed on it, Covid-19 has magnified stresses and weaknesses present before the pandemic affecting some councils and providers. “We have always advocated how crucial good complaint handling is in any setting, so I am particularly saddened that, in some authorities, dealing with public concerns and complaints itself became a casualty of the crisis. At a time when listening to public problems was more important than ever, we saw some overstretched and under-resourced complaints teams struggle to cope. “If evidence was needed, this report proves that managing complaints should be considered a frontline service.” Read full story Source: Care Home Professional, 24 February 2022
  22. News Article
    Next month, a report will be published into one of the biggest scandals in the history of the NHS, the failures of maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. The BBC's Michael Buchanan who helped uncover the problems examines why so many failures were allowed to happen for so long. Kayleigh Griffiths' baby, Pippa, died at 31 hours old. The cause of death, the couple were later told, was an infection - Group B Strep. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust told the family they would carry out an investigation. But after several weeks of silence, Kayleigh contacted the trust to be told it was an internal investigation and the couple's input wouldn't be required. Kayleigh, an NHS auditor at a different trust, feared the truth was being hidden from her. That's when she decided to send the email to Rhiannon Davies, whose baby, Kate, also died at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust As the bond between the mothers deepened, their conversations morphed into something else. Armed with little more than a gnawing suspicion, they started to scour the internet, coroner's records and death notices to see if any other families had received poor maternity care at the Shropshire trust. They collated 23 cases dating back to 2000 - including stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and babies born with brain injuries. Appalled by what they had found, they wrote to the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt in December 2016, asking him to order an investigation. He agreed and in May 2017, senior midwife Donna Ockenden was appointed to lead the review. One of the themes the inquiry has already noted, in an interim report published in December 2020, is that in many cases the trust failed to investigate after something went wrong, or simply carried out its own inquiry. Panorama has discovered the trust even developed its own investigation system, what they called a High Risk Case Review. It was outside any national framework that has been used to help learn lessons from incidents and doesn't appear to be a system that's used in any other NHS organisation. Another consequence of the unorthodox system was that fewer incidents were reported to NHS regulators, limiting the opportunity to learn lessons. One of the earliest cases on the original list of 23 compiled by the two couples was the death of Kathryn Leigh in 2000. Panorama has investigated the case and discovered that a theme identified almost two decades ago was to come up repeatedly in subsequent incidents. The publication of the final report by Donna Ockenden next month will be a watershed moment in the history of the NHS - the revelation of multiple instances of maternity failures in a rural corner of England. Pippa Griffiths and Kate Stanton-Davies lived fewer than 40 hours between them, but their legacy, in terms of improved maternity care, could last decades. Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 February 2022 Source:
  23. News Article
    Patient care may suffer as a result of cuts to the NHS budget to fund the continuing costs of Covid, NHS leaders and Labour have said, after Sajid Javid refused to say where the axe would fall. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is trying to make savings from its budget to fund free lateral flow tests for elderly people, Covid surveillance studies and genomic sequencing, after the Treasury refused its request for £5bn in extra funding. Although the government announced an end to most free mass testing and contract tracing on Monday, remaining Covid measures are expected to cost more than £1bn. The Treasury and the DHSC refused to say exactly how much cash would be needed or which services would have to be cut back, prompting fears that the NHS could have to find savings at a time of a huge waiting list backlog. It is understood that DHSC officials are working on identifying savings in the department’s £178.5bn budget for 2022-23, to fund the measures agreed on Monday, including maintaining a “baseline” testing capability that can be scaled up if necessary. They have ruled out hitting Javid’s plan for tackling waiting lists, but a government source would not rule out any other areas being affected, saying a “significant amount of money” would have to be found by “reprioritising”. Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, warned the government against abandoning its commitment to give the NHS “whatever it needs” to tackle Covid and called for transparency about “where the impact of these extra costs will fall”. “Trust leaders are understandably anxious over reports that the ongoing and significant costs of living with Covid will be met by ‘reprioritising’ the NHS’s existing budget,” she said. “There is a very real risk of trade-offs affecting the quality of patient care – something no one wants to see.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 February 2022
  24. News Article
    Seventy families have come forward to be a part of an independent review into maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH). The aim of the review is to "drive rapid improvements to maternity services". It comes after an investigation found 46 babies suffered brain damage and 19 were stillborn between 2010 and 2020. The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and NHS England are jointly leading the review of maternity incidents, complaints and concerns at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH). Cathy Purt, programme director of the review, said during a Nottingham City Council Health Scrutiny Committee meeting on Thursday: "We have had 70 families come forward 19 families have had their first interview with us." "We have secured via the CCG specialist psychological support for the rest of the families so they will now be able to come forward and have their interviews as well. "40 staff have come forward so far and more are coming as we go." The review will cover information dating back to 2006, and is expected to be completed by November 30 2022. Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 February 2022
  25. News Article
    NHS England and the Care Quality Commission have asked systems with large numbers of ambulance handover delays to urgently hold a meeting to try to fix the problem by “balancing the risks” of long 999 waiting times. The request was made in an email to chief executives, which warned the service was “in a difficult position with all parts of the urgent and emergency care pathway under considerable strain… most acutely in ambulance response times which in turn is linked to challenges in handing patients over to emergency departments”. The NHSE headed letter was signed by its chief operating officer, nursing director and medical director, but also by the CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals Ted Baker. It said there was a “strong correlation” between handover delays at hospitals — which take place where A&Es are unable to receive patients from ambulances — and long delays for category two ambulances. This is because ambulances have to wait for long periods outside the hospitals. The letter said: ”It is vital that we have a whole-system approach to considering risks across the urgent and emergency care pathway to provide the best outcomes for our patients. This may mean consideration of actions to be taken downstream to help improve flow and reduce pressures on emergency departments.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 February 2022
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