Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Pandemic'.

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 2,342 results
  1. News Article
    Younger adults are particularly affected by the rare blood clotting disorder linked to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the UK's medicines regulator has said. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said there were 209 cases in the UK of the rare combination of blood clots with low platelet counts following being vaccinated the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, with 41 deaths, up to 21 April. This is up from 168 cases and 32 deaths the previous week. The new data also shows 24 cases of clots in people aged 18 to 29, 28 in those in their thirties, 30 in people in their forties, 59 in people in their fifties and 57 in those aged 60 and above, with the age not known in the remaining cases. The numbers appear to rise with age but that is because more older people have been vaccinated. Fewer than one in five clots was fatal. The latest NHS England data show that 5.5 million people under 45 had received a first dose by 25 April, while 22.6 million of those 45 and over had done so. MHRA chief executive June Raine said no medicine or vaccine was without risk, but that blood clots were extremely rare. She added: “The benefits of the vaccine continue to outweigh the risks for most people. It is still vitally important that people come forward for their vaccination when invited to do so." Read full story Source: The Independent, 3 May 2021
  2. News Article
    Thousands of UK doctors are planning to quit the NHS after the Covid pandemic because they are exhausted by their workloads and worried about their mental health, a survey has revealed. Almost one in three may retire early while a quarter are considering taking a career break and a fifth are weighing up quitting the health service to do something else. Long hours, high demand for care, the impact of the pandemic and unpleasant working environments are taking their toll on medics, the British Medical Association findings show. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the leader of the BMA, said the high numbers of disillusioned doctors could worsen the NHS’s staffing problems and leave patients waiting longer for treatment. “It’s deeply worrying that more and more doctors are considering leaving the NHS because of the pressures of the pandemic – talented, experienced professionals who the NHS needs more than ever to pull this country out of a once-in-a-generation health crisis,” Nagpaul said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 May 2021
  3. News Article
    Pregnant women are facing a postcode lottery over whether they can bring a partner to maternity appointments. Health boards were given flexibility in November to allow pregnant woman in low Covid rate areas to take their partners to maternity appointments. But many parts of Wales with the lowest rates are still forcing pregnant women to attend some appointments alone. There are calls, as lockdown eases, for partners Wales-wide to be allowed to all appointments and during labour. Emma Fear, 30, was not able to take her partner with her to hospital when she experienced bleeding during pregnancy in June last year and was told, alone, that she was losing her baby. She then had to repeat the news to her partner, who was waiting outside in the car. "At the time, he could have come and sat outside a pub with me, but he couldn't come with me when I'd had severe bleeding and knew I had probably lost my baby." Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 May 2021
  4. News Article
    Patients are finding it increasingly hard to see their GPs, with warnings that pandemic restrictions have too often “closed the door” on NHS treatment, a report warns. The Patients’ Association survey comes as an investigation reveals that almost 100 GP surgeries closed down or merged with other practices last year. In total, almost 2.5 million patients were forced to switch to a new surgery because of 788 such closures since 2013, the freedom of information disclosures reveal . Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients’ Association, said the findings from its survey were “worrying” and show “clear dissatisfaction” from the public. The report said: “It is increasingly clear that many patients have found that new methods for arranging appointments do not work for them, or simply that they do not understand how to go about it. GPs are the front door to the NHS, and patients are increasingly perceiving that that door is closed to them.” Roughly half of those who had telephone consultations said the experience was worse than a traditional appointment, with three times as many saying they were unhappy about their experience, compared with those offering praise. The report warns: “The data does not show a ringing endorsement of new or remote methods for accessing NHS care; indeed, in most cases patients rated these methods worse than traditional contact.” Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 30 April 2021
  5. News Article
    A cutting-edge child and adolescent mental health centre hopes to help prevent young people from experiencing mental health problems. As we look hopefully towards a June bonfire of pandemic regulations and restrictions, many recognise that soaring rates of mental health problems and distress amongst our children and young people must be near the top of a 21st century list of challenges in “building back better”. School closures, uncertainty and being cut off from friends and social and sporting events have seen more children and young people referred to CAMHS — a service that was facing growing demand even before the pandemic. The long-term impact is obviously still unknown. However, a cutting-edge child and adolescent mental health centre opening in south London two years from now will play a big role in responding to the likely increased demand for ongoing support — and in developing innovative treatment responses. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 April 2021
  6. News Article
    The vaccination rate for staff at older care homes is below the recommended level set by scientists in more than half of England’s local authorities, analysis of NHS England data has revealed. Data as of 18 April shows that 76 out of 149 LAs had not reached the 80% vaccination threshold for care home staff to provide a minimum level of protection against COVID-19, according to the PA news agency. In 17 areas, less than 70% of staff had received a first jab. Lambeth, where 23 cases of a South African COVID variant have been recently reported in a care home, had the lowest uptake at 52.4%. The government last week announced the launch of a five-week consultation on mandatory staff vaccination as a result of the failure in some areas to reach the designated threshold. Read full story Source: Care Home Professional. 23 April 2021
  7. News Article
    The suicide of a woman with severe mental illness has prompted a review into the care of hundreds of other patients, according to her family. Frances Wellburn, 56, was under the care of Tees, Esk and Wear Valley Foundation Trust’s community mental health team in York, which before the coronavirus pandemic had categorised her as “medium risk”. This meant she should have had regular contact from the service, but an internal serious incident report into her death, seen by HSJ, found no contact was made with her for three months. In June 2020 she required admission to an inpatient unit for three weeks, but she deteriorated again after being discharged and took her own life in August. Her family have said Ms Wellburn was making a “good recovery” from episodes of psychosis prior to the pandemic, but the lack of support in the spring of last year had contributed to a major deterioration in her condition. According to sister, Rebecca Wellburn, the trust’s director of nursing Elizabeth Moody confirmed in a meeting with the family that a wider review had now been launched into the care of hundreds of patients under its York-based community services. Read full story Source: HSJ, 28 April 2021
  8. News Article
    Ministers have been urged to implement a clear recovery plan to bring down the country’s patient waiting lists that have ballooned to record-breaking levels as a result of disruption from the pandemic. Labour has warned that thousands of people waiting for hospital treatment are at risk of permanent disability and losing their livelihoods and has demanded government action. Some 387,885 patients in England are waiting more than a year for hospital treatment, according to NHS data. This has increased month-on-month since March of last year when the UK was first placed into lockdown. A year ago, in February 2020, the number of people having to wait more than 52 weeks to start treatment stood at just 1,613. In total, 4.7 million patients in England are waiting for some form of treatment or healthcare service – the highest figure since records began in August 2007. Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 April 2021
  9. News Article
    Hospitals are putting on extra surgery sessions in the evenings and at weekends to tackle the NHS’s spiralling waiting list and cut waiting times for patients. Health trusts in England are taking the unusual step after a rise in people waiting for cancer, heart and other treatment – and especially those forced to wait more than a year – because of the pandemic. Doctors, surgeons, health charities and hospital bosses are concerned that unusually long delays in accessing care could lead to patients’ conditions worsening or becoming inoperable. NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, fears sorting out the backlog could take up to five years. Four trusts spanning 10 acute and specialist hospitals in west and north-west London have joined forces to treat each other’s patients in a move to tackle the huge numbers seeking care. Figures collated by the trusts and shared with the Guardian show how dramatically waiting lists have increased across that area, as they have across England as a whole, as a result of the widespread suspension of normal NHS care over the last year. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 April 2021
  10. News Article
    Health resources diverted to fight the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a major drop in critical preventative care in the US, including childhood vaccinations and lead screenings, sexually transmitted disease testing and substance abuse services. In short, many of the routine measures meant to keep Americans healthy – and keep American health from slipping further behind that of other developed, peer nations – have hit a worrying cliff. As attention has focused on the immediate crisis of the pandemic and the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in America, this other hidden crisis represents another layer of disaster that also has profound implications. “This is either the second or first worst pandemic in modern human history,” said Dr Howard Markel, a pandemic historian and pediatrician at the University of Michigan. “We knew there would be repercussions and unintended consequences.” Now, there is a “whole menu of neglect” to address as a national vaccine campaign allows people to slowly emerge from a year of lockdowns and social distancing. “There is no historical precedent for this,” added Markel. In the first few months of the pandemic alone, at least 400,000 children missed screenings for lead, a toxic heavy metal. Doctors and nurses ordered 3m fewer vaccines for children and 400,000 fewer for measles specifically. For the first time, clinics were forced to ration lab tests for sexually transmitted diseases as lab capacity and supplies were diverted to test for COVID-19. Contact tracers were also re-deployed from tracking chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases to finding people in contact with COVID-19 patients. Data from one large commercial lab showed 669,000 fewer HIV tests were processed. Compared to 2019, the lab diagnosed nearly 5,000 fewer cases of HIV. Delayed diagnosis can lead to people unwittingly transmitting the virus. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 April 2021
  11. News Article
    Pregnant women who catch COVID-19 are over 50% more likely to experience severe complications such as premature birth, admission to intensive care and death, a major study has found. Newborns of infected women were also nearly three times more at risk of severe medical complications and close to 10% tested positive during the first few days of their life, the study of more than 2,100 pregnant women across 18 countries worldwide revealed. Scientists leading the study warned the risk to mothers and babies is greater than acknowledged at the beginning of the pandemic, and called for pregnant women to be offered a COVID-19 vaccine. Stephen Kennedy, a professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Oxford, who co-led the study, said: “We now know that the risks to mothers and babies are greater than we assumed at the start of the pandemic and that known health measures when implemented must include pregnant women. “The information should help families, as the need to do all one can to avoid becoming infected is now clear. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 April 2021
  12. News Article
    A trust which was heavily criticised for poor infection prevention and control last summer has been praised for making improvements. East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust was served with an enforcement notice by the Care Quality Commission in August last year, citing “serious concerns” about patient safety. The trust had twice the national rate of patients infected with COVID-19 after admission to hospital. But a new report, issued today, found significant improvements, with several areas of outstanding practice. The conditions imposed on the trust after last year’s inspection of the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford were also lifted, following the visit by the CQC in early March. Cath Campbell, CQC’s head of hospital inspections in the South East, said the improvements were particularly commendable as the trust had been under extreme pressure as a result of the pandemic. She said: “Leaders adopted learnings from other trusts, and from NHS Improvement which led to the development of a detailed infection prevention and control improvement plan. The trust then set up an improvement group to focus on implementing the actions in the plan and put a committee in place to review internal audit data and led improvements based on this information. “Although there were still one or two areas for improvement which we have advised the trust to look at now, overall this is a very positive report.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 April 2021
  13. News Article
    Healthcare workers have welcomed a change in scientific advice on how to protect them from coronavirus. A document by the government's scientific advisory group (Sage) says higher grade masks may be needed when caring for Covid patients. Current guidance says that thinner surgical masks are adequate, outside of intensive care units. The Department of Health said guidance "is kept under constant review" and protecting NHS staff was a priority. Some doctors described it as a "crack of light" after more than a year of campaigning for improvements. A long list of healthcare unions and professional bodies has been making increasingly desperate appeals for what are called FFP3 respirators. These are designed to filter out infectious aerosols that may be lingering in the air, particularly in close proximity to patients. Growing evidence of the risks of airborne transmission has led the government to emphasise the importance of ventilation - with the words "fresh air" now added to the public messaging. And now a technical document released by Sage concludes that healthcare workers may need higher standards of respiratory protective equipment. Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 April 2021
  14. News Article
    Sarah Spoor and her two adult sons have spent the past 14 months shielding in a one-bedroom apartment, with no garden, in west London. Her youngest sleeps in the bedroom, his brother has a pull-out bed in the kitchen, while Spoor takes the living room in another fold-out bed. All three have complex medical conditions that leave them vulnerable to Covid, and despite the strain of living in such close quarters, they don’t feel safe leaving home any time soon. “If we catch it, we die; it’s that simple. In the 14 months, I have probably been out about four times, and that’s usually in some dire emergency,” said Spoor, who provides round-the-clock care for her sons, 20 and 24, after their medical team decided it was too risky for their usual carers to continue visiting. The family has yet to be vaccinated as their medical conditions, which include type 1 diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, pernicious anemia and thyroid failure, mean they are likely to experience a severe reaction leading to hospital admission, and they are concerned about the risk of catching Covid in hospital when cases are still prevalent. Spoor is not alone in fearing a return to life after lockdown, with disability charity Scope estimating 75% of disabled people plan to continue shielding until after their second vaccine dose, and some for longer. “I think there is a potential long-term impact that groups of people become squirrelled away and it’s potentially easy for governments and local authorities to forget about them,” said James Taylor, executive director of strategy and social change at Scope. “We’re really worried that, in the long-term, lots of the rights that disabled people have fought for, the visibility, the recognition of disabled people as equal, that all falling away and going backwards.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 April 2021
  15. News Article
    Hundreds of senior NHS managers have voiced their fears for the future of the health service amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis without a significant pay rise to help retain staff on the frontline. A survey of more than 800 senior NHS managers has revealed the extreme pressure some have been working under, with many working 20 or more hours of unpaid extra hours each week. More than 90 per cent backed a significant pay rise for NHS staff to try and head off a feared exodus of nurses, doctors and other staff leaving the NHS after the pandemic. This would help shore up the service as it faces the daunting task of tackling record waiting lists now totalling 4.7 million patients. Some managers said that the government’s planned 1 per cent pay rise was an “insult” and made them feel “worthless”, in responses to the survey, run by the Managers in Partnership union. Another described NHS staff as being treated like “cannon fodder” during the crisis. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 April 2021
  16. News Article
    A group of royal colleges has produced guidance for doctors seeing patients who have concerns about symptoms after receiving the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Society for Acute Medicine, and the Royal College of Physicians say that anyone who presents with symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 vaccine induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia (VITT)1 should have a full blood count to check their platelet level. Symptoms of concern include persistent or severe headaches, seizures, or focal neurology; shortness of breath, persistent chest, or abdominal pain; and swelling, redness, pallor, or cold lower limbs. The advice comes after the HSJ reported that emergency clinicians had raised concerns over a surge in patients attending emergency departments as a result of anxiety over the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Investigations by EU and UK regulators into reports of unusual blood clots after receiving the vaccine concluded that these are a “possible” and “extremely rare” side effect. Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that following the announcements, patients had been attending emergency departments after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. “I saw 21 patients with concerns in an eight hour shift, so we have to have a way of dealing with this. It was important for us to have a strategy for managing those patients that didn’t mean that they were getting over-investigated but they were getting reassurance. We also need to be aware that if somebody has significant symptoms it is always possible, given the rarity of VITT, that it is something else,” she said. Read full story Source: BMJ, 13 April 2021
  17. News Article
    Coronavirus death rates are twice as high in insecure jobs as in other professions, new research suggests. The TUC said workers on a contract that does not guarantee regular hours or income, such as zero-hours contracts or casual work, and those in low-paid self-employment, have been more at risk of infection. It’s thought that key workers such as those in social care and delivery driving, which cannot be done from home and require people to come into contact with others, are more insecure. The COVID-19 mortality rate among men in insecure occupations was 51 per 100,000 people aged 20-64, compared with 24 per 100,000 in more secure work, said the union organisation. The mortality rate among women in insecure jobs was 25 per 100,000 people, compared with 13 per 100,000 in more secure occupations. The TUC, which called the figures stark, said more research was needed to understand the links between precarious work and risk of infection and death. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 April 2021
  18. News Article
    Senior government officials have raised “urgent” concerns about the mass expansion of rapid coronavirus testing, estimating that as few as 2% to 10% of positive results may be accurate in places with low Covid rates, such as London. Boris Johnson last week urged everyone in England to take two rapid-turnaround tests a week in the biggest expansion of the multibillion-pound testing programme to date. However, leaked emails seen by the Guardian show that senior officials are now considering scaling back the widespread testing of people without symptoms, due to a growing number of false positives. In one email, Ben Dyson, an executive director of strategy at the health department and one of health secretary Matt Hancock’s advisers, stressed the “fairly urgent need for decisions” on “the point at which we stop offering asymptomatic testing”. On 9 April, the day everyone in England was able to order twice-weekly lateral flow device (LFD) tests, Dyson wrote: “As of today, someone who gets a positive LFD result in (say) London has at best a 25% chance of it being a true positive, but if it is a self-reported test potentially as low as 10% (on an optimistic assumption about specificity) or as low as 2% (on a more pessimistic assumption).” He added that the department’s executive committee, which includes Hancock and the NHS test and trace chief, Dido Harding, would soon need to decide whether requiring people to self-isolate before a confirmatory PCR test “ceases to be reasonable” in low infection areas where there is a high likelihood of a positive result being wrong. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 April 2021
  19. News Article
    Around 4.7 million people were waiting for routine operations and procedures in England in February - the most since 2007, NHS England figures show. Nearly 388,000 people were waiting more than a year for non-urgent surgery compared with just 1,600 before the pandemic began. During January and February, the pressure on hospitals caused by COVID-19 was particularly acute. NHS England said two million operations took place despite the winter peak. However, surgeons said hospitals were still under huge pressure due to the second wave of Covid, which had led to "a year of uncertainty, pain and isolation" for patients waiting for planned treatment. Speaking on a visit to Dartmouth, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government would "make sure that we give the NHS all the funding that it needs... to beat the backlog". He said the situation had been "made worse by Covid", and added: "We do need people to take up their appointments and to get the treatment that they need." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 April 2021
  20. News Article
    The NHS must think “very radically” about how it redesigns its elective pathways following the coronavirus pandemic, Sir Simon Stevens has told HSJ. Speaking at the HSJ Leadership Congress yesterday, NHS England’s chief executive said the service should ensure as much elective work is done as possible, while covid prevalence is low, while at the same time thinking about “different ways of doing things”. He declined to outline how many very long-waiters the service had or would have in coming months, explaining that some predictions have been “significantly off” in the past, and that future demand is unknown. The NHS chief stressed that other areas of the service would also face post-covid pressures, announcing a further investment in and expansion of long-covid clinics. “We want to see equivalent attention paid to the increased needs we’ve seen in mental health services, including eating disorders, and we want to make sure that the health service continues to expand its offer for long covid,” he said. “To that end we have 69 clinics identified last year, we will have 83 long covid clinics in place by the end of this month, so a significant expansion there.” There will be at least one in each integrated care system area, he said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 April 2021
  21. News Article
    A cheap drug, commonly used to treat asthma, can help people at home recover more quickly from COVID-19, a UK trial has found. Two puffs of budesonide twice a day could benefit many over-50s with early symptoms around the world, said the University of Oxford research team. There are also early signs the drug could reduce hospital admissions. The NHS says it can now be prescribed by GPs to treat Covid on a case-by-case basis from today. At present, there are few options for treating people with Covid who are not in hospital, apart from paracetamol. This widely-available asthma drug works in the lungs, where coronavirus can do serious damage, and could improve the recovery of at-risk patients who are unwell with Covid at home. Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said he was "delighted" by the trial results so far and he said GPs could prescribe it after "a shared decision conversation" with patients. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 April 2021
  22. News Article
    Britain is facing a “terrifying” mental health crisis with tens of thousands more children needing specialist help since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Experts from the Royal College of Psychiatrists have warned the problem facing the country will get worse before it gets better with new analysis revealing almost 400,000 children and 2.2 million adults sought help for mental health problems during the crisis. While the effect of lockdown and coronavirus has affected people of all ages, children appear to be particularly susceptible. Some 80,226 more children and young people were referred to specialist mental health services between April and December last year, up by 28% on the same months in 2019 to 372,438. Dr Bernadka Dubicka, chairwoman of the child and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "Our children and young people are bearing the brunt of the mental health crisis caused by the pandemic and are at risk of lifelong mental illness." "As a frontline psychiatrist I've seen the devastating effect that school closures, disrupted friendships and the uncertainty caused by the pandemic have had on the mental health of our children and young people." Read full story Source: 9 April, 2021
  23. News Article
    SilverCloud, a digital mental health platform, has launched a new COVID-19 support programme – ‘Space from COVID-19’ – which it has made free and available to everyone in the UK over the age of 18 years, indefinitely. The company hopes to improve access to digital mental health services during the pandemic and beyond, to help shoulder some of the demand that now faces health services in the UK and across the globe. SilverCloud’s new programme brings together a suite of digital resources and support that will assist users in managing and improving their mental health and wellbeing, specifically in regard to the impact of COVID-19. Crucially, it removes potential barriers by being open to all, with or without a clinical referral, and is fee-free for everyone. Dr Lloyd Humphreys, Clinical Psychologist and Head of Europe for SilverCloud, told HTN: “For us, what is really important is to support people during this difficult time. Everyone is talking about the mental health impact of COVID-19, everyone is talking about the problem, but no-one is really offering a solution." Read full story Source: Health Tech Newspaper, 8 April 2021
  24. News Article
    Unpaid carers looking after terminally ill friends and relatives during the pandemic struggled to access pain relief, with some patients dying in unnecessary pain, a survey has found. The survey of 995 unpaid carers by Marie Curie also found people had difficulties getting personal care and respite nursing for loved ones. Figures show the number of people dying at home rose by 42% in the past year. Nearly two-thirds of carers surveyed by the charity said their loved one did not get all the pain relief they needed when they were dying. Susan Lowe, from Solihull, cared for her mother Sheila before she died with bowel cancer in April last year, aged 74. She said caring for her mum during lockdown was hard as "the system was just under so much pressure that we had to manage largely on our own". The public health worker says she struggled to get the right pain relief medication for her mother in her final weeks and spent hours travelling to different chemists. Susan, 50, told the BBC: "My biggest regret is that my mum died in pain - more pain than she needed to be. She really wanted to be comfortable at the end. She knew she was dying." "What she really wanted - and this is what she was assured would happen - was to be comfortable. She was told she would get the drugs that she needed for it to be as bearable as possible... I remember breaking down in tears a couple of times in the pharmacy when I was told the medication mum needed wasn't in stock." Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 April 2021
  25. News Article
    GPs should only give the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine to patients with medical conditions which put them at higher risk of developing blood clots if the benefits outweigh the risks, the UK medicines regulator has said. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued the advice to healthcare professionals regarding while it continues to review a link between the vaccine and rare blood clots. It has also added to previous advice regarding symptoms for patients to look out for following their Covid vaccination with the AZ vaccine. The new advice from the MHRA said: Administration of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in people of any age who are at higher risk of blood clots because of their medical condition should be considered only if benefits from the protection from COVID-19 infection outweighs potential risks. Anyone who experienced cerebral or other major blood clots occurring with low levels of platelets after their first vaccine dose of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca should not have their second dose. Anyone who did not have these side effects should come forward for their second dose when invited. Pregnancy predisposes to thrombosis, therefore women should discuss with their healthcare professional whether the benefits of having the vaccine outweigh the risks for them. Meanwhile, ‘anyone who has symptoms four days or more after vaccination is advised to seek prompt medical advice’. These include: a new onset of severe or persistent headache, blurred vision, confusion or seizures develop shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling or persistent abdominal pain, unusual skin bruising or pinpoint round spots beyond the injection site. Read full story Source: Pulse, 7 April 2021
×
×
  • Create New...