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Found 2,344 results
  1. News Article
    The UK’s most senior nurses and the nursing regulator are encouraging the profession to “speak up” if they feel unsafe at work amid the latest surge of COVID-19. The four chief nursing officers and the Nursing and Midwifery Council has today issued an open letter. Source: Nursing Times, 8 January 2021
  2. News Article
    People waiting to receive the COVID-19 vaccine say they are confused by NHS letters inviting them to travel to centres miles away from their homes. The first 130,000 letters have been sent to people aged 80 or older who live about 30 to 45 minutes' drive away from one of seven new regional centres. But patients, many of whom are shielding, questioned why they had to travel so far in a pandemic. Local jabs are available to people if they wait, the NHS said. The seven centres include Ashton Gate in Bristol, Epsom racecourse in Surrey, London's Nightingale hospital, Newcastle's Centre for Life, the Manchester Tennis and Football Centre, Robertson House in Stevenage and Birmingham's Millennium Point. Mary McGarry from Leamington Spa in Warwickshire told BBC News that her letter points to an NHS online booking page which suggests she would have to take her husband, who has cancer and a lung disease, 20 miles to Birmingham. "We're very reluctant to go into Birmingham city centre," she said. "If we can't get somebody to take us, we'd have to go on the train but we're shielding because my husband's got poor health.... we want to know why we've got to travel that far?" People will not miss out on their vaccination if they do not use the letters to make an appointment at one of the centres, the NHS said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 January 2021
  3. News Article
    A hospital's oxygen supply has "reached a critical situation" due to rising numbers of COVID-19 infections. A document shared with the BBC showed Southend Hospital has had to reduce the amount it uses to treat patients. It said the target range for oxygen levels that should be in patients' blood had been cut from 92% to a baseline of 88-92%. Hospital managing director, Yvonne Blucher, said it was "working to manage" the situation. "We are experiencing high demand for oxygen because of rising numbers of inpatients with Covid-19 and we are working to manage this," she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 January 2021
  4. News Article
    Three quarters of patients surveyed at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China had at least one ongoing symptom The majority of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus still had symptoms six months after getting ill, a new study has revealed. Over three quarters of Covid patients surveyed at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China had at least one ongoing symptom – with the most commonly reported being fatigue or muscle weakness. A total of 1,733 patients, with a median age of 57, were examined for the study between 7 January and 29 May last year. At a follow-up, 76% of patients reported at least one ongoing symptom. Read the full article here
  5. News Article
    The government’s actions in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic have received a mixed review from MPs in a report that set out the successes and failures of the UK response. Although the joint report from the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee  praised the UK’s covid vaccination programme as highly effective, it also condemned serious errors, especially delayed lockdowns and how a test, trace, and isolate system was set up. Overall, the MPs’ inquiry found that some government initiatives were examples of global best practice but that others represented “serious mistakes.” The UK’s pandemic planning was based too narrowly on a flu model that had failed to learn the lessons from the SARS, MERS, and Ebola epidemics, said the MPs, which meant that its covid planning was worse than in other countries. Delays in establishing an adequate test, trace, and isolate system hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, said the MPs, and the government’s initial decision to delay a comprehensive lockdown had revealed its then “fatalistic” assumption that it was impossible to suppress the virus, which amounted, in practice, to accepting that herd immunity by infection was inevitable. The report said that many thousands of deaths could have been avoided if the government had not let hospitals discharge people into care homes in the initial phase of the pandemic and that this showed the “longstanding failure” to give social care sufficient priority and the same attention as the NHS. Read full story Source: BMJ, 12 October 2021
  6. News Article
    The NHS faces a mounting beds crisis as care homes suffering unprecedented staff shortages are forced to stop taking patients from hospitals, health and care leaders have warned. Ministers are desperately trying to free up space in the NHS to tackle a backlog of 5.6 million people – equivalent to almost 10% of people in England – awaiting treatment. But efforts to speed up the discharge of hospital patients into the community are being hampered by care worker shortages. Britain’s largest not-for-profit care home provider, MHA, has already had to close 1 in 10 of its homes to admissions from hospitals, its chief executive, Sam Monaghan, told the Guardian. The warning comes as a comprehensive assessment on Wednesday reveals that care homes in England are facing the biggest staff shortage on record, with 105,000 positions unfilled according to the 2021 State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce report by Skills for Care, an industry body. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 October 2021
  7. News Article
    A cabinet minister has refused to apologise for the government’s handing of the COVID-19 pandemic despite a new report finding that errors cost “thousands of lives”. Cabinet Office minister Stephen Barclay defended the government’s decision making to Sky News, saying: “We followed, throughout, the scientific advice. We got the vaccine deployed extremely quickly, we protected our NHS from the surge of cases.” His comments come as family members who lost loved ones to COVID-19 described the MPs’ report as “laughable” for failing to take evidence from the bereaved. The COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group criticised the parliamentary report as being “more interested in political arguments about whether you can bring laptops to Cobra meetings that it is in the experiences of those who tragically lost” family members to COVID-19. When asked, for a second time, if he would apologise by presenter Kay Burley, Stephen Barclay replied: “Well no, we followed the scientific advice, we protected the NHS, we took the decisions based on the evidence before us.” He made these comments despite the report finding that the delayed decision to lock down in spring last year was one of the “most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 October 2021
  8. News Article
    Britain’s early handling of the coronavirus pandemic was one of the worst public health failures in UK history, with ministers and scientists taking a “fatalistic” approach that exacerbated the death toll, a landmark inquiry has found. “Groupthink”, evidence of British exceptionalism and a deliberately “slow and gradualist” approach meant the UK fared “significantly worse” than other countries, according to the 151-page “Coronavirus: lessons learned to date” report led by two former Conservative ministers. The crisis exposed “major deficiencies in the machinery of government”, with public bodies unable to share vital information and scientific advice impaired by a lack of transparency, input from international experts and meaningful challenge. Despite being one of the first countries to develop a test for Covid in January 2020, the UK “squandered” its lead and “converted it into one of permanent crisis”. The consequences were profound, the report says. “For a country with a world-class expertise in data analysis, to face the biggest health crisis in 100 years with virtually no data to analyse was an almost unimaginable setback.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 October 2021
  9. News Article
    Unvaccinated pregnant women accounted for nearly a fifth of the most severely ill coronavirus patients in England in recent months, according to health officials. Between July and September, 17% of COVID-19 patients who required a special lung bypass machine while in intensive care were mothers-to-be who had not received their first vaccine dose, NHS England said. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is used when a patient’s lungs are so damaged by Covid-19 that a ventilator cannot maintain oxygen levels. While just six per cent of the women aged 16 to 49 who needed ECMO at the start of the pandemic were pregnant, nearly a third of women among that age group who required the lung bypass in recent months were unvaccinated mothers-to-be. The National Childbirth Trust (NCT) called the statistics a “damning indictment of the lack of attention given to this vulnerable group as restrictions have eased”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 October 2021
  10. News Article
    An inquest into the death of a London bus driver at London’s Nightingale Hospital during the first wave of coronavirus has heard evidence about equipment mistakes which may have harmed patients. Kishorkumar Patel, aged 58, was one of the first patients to be admitted to the field hospital at London’s Excel Conference Centre in April last year. An inquest at East London Coroner’s Court was told doctors and nurses were forced to work “leanly” because of limited staff and ventilators to help patients breathe. Mr Patel is one of 10 patients who had the wrong filter used on the ventilator machines which it is thought triggered a cardiac arrest in Mr Patel, a father of six. A serious incident report identified 10 patients were affected by the use of the wrong filter, with three said to have been harmed as a result. Read coroner's report Read full story Source: The Independent, 6 October 2021
  11. News Article
    Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn carried out a transparent review of 389 Covid infections An NHS trust has apologised to hundreds of families whose relatives caught Covid-19 in hospital and died, after a review found a lack of private rooms contributed to the spread of the virus. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, has carried out a review of all 389 cases of patients who either definitely or probably contracted Covid while in the hospital between March 2020 and February this year. Of those, 151 patients died. The trust is the only NHS trust to have carried out a full and transparent review of hospital acquired infections of Covid-19 with staff speaking with each family to understand their concerns and views. Read full article here Source: Independent
  12. News Article
    The country’s largest clinical study is being launched in Greater Manchester to investigate the best gap between first and second Covid-19 vaccine doses for pregnant women. Led by St George’s, University of London, the Preg-CoV study will provide vital clinical trial data on the immune response to vaccination at different dose intervals – either four to six weeks or eight to 12 weeks. This data will help determine the best dosage interval and reveal more about how the vaccine works to protect pregnant mothers and their babies against Covid-19. Pregnant women are more likely to develop severe Covid-19 or die from the disease but are excluded from clinical trials with new vaccines. This means there are currently very limited clinical trial data on the immune response and side effects caused by the vaccines for these women. Read the full story here Source: National Health Executive
  13. News Article
    New analysis published by the Health Foundation shows that while the waiting list for hospital care continues to grow, so too does the number of ‘missing' patients who have not yet been added to the list. There were 7.5 million fewer people referred for routine hospital care between January 2020 and July 2021 than would have been expected based on numbers prior to the pandemic. These ‘missing patients’ are in addition to the record 5.6 million people already on the waiting list. This lower than expected number of people referred for hospital care, including for routine procedures such as hip or knee surgery, is likely to be due to a number of reasons. Some people may not have sought treatment for health concerns during the pandemic, while others may have seen their GP but not yet been referred due to the pressure on hospital services during the pandemic. In some instances, care may no longer be needed. The analysis comes alongside a BBC Panorama documentary (Monday 27 September) revealing the scale of the elective care backlog and the impact delays are having on people’s lives. The Health Foundation analysis, shared with Panorama, also shows that the pandemic had a much worse effect on the hospital care provided in some areas of England than it did in others. The analysis of 42 local integrated care systems (ICSs) shows that the pandemic significantly reduced the level of routine hospital care performed across the country – in the worst affected area routine hospital care dropped by 37% while in the least affected area there was a 13% reduction. Read the full article here Source: The Health Foundation
  14. News Article
    The co-founder of a coronavirus bereaved families group has said he hopes Boris Johnson will "at long last... take us seriously" when he meets them at Number 10 today. Matt Fowler said it is vital the prime minister understand the need to start a public inquiry as soon as possible. Mr Johnson will meet members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group today - more than a year after promising to meet people whose loved ones had died. They will share how their family members caught the disease and died, and repeat calls for a public inquiry to get priority. The group plans to raise issues with the PM such as the disproportionate effect of COVID on some ethnic groups, transmission of the disease on public transport and in the workplace, the impact of late lockdowns, and failures to learn from the first wave. Boris Johnson previously said the inquiry would start in spring 2022. Read full story Source: Sky News, 28 September 2021
  15. News Article
    Hospitals in England have been given the green light to ease some of the Covid infection-control measures that have been in place during the pandemic. The changes, recommended by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), are aimed at easing pressure on the NHS. It says testing and isolating patients before planned operations can be dropped and hospitals can return to normal cleaning procedures. Social distancing can also be reduced from 2m (6ft) to 1m in some areas. UKHSA chief executive Dr Jenny Harries said the new recommendations would help local hospitals plan more elective care. "This is a first step to help the NHS treat more patients more quickly, while ensuring their safety and balancing their different needs for care," she said. Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: "As ever more people benefit from the protection of our phenomenal vaccination campaign, we can now safely begin to relieve some of the most stringent infection controls where they are no longer necessary, to benefit patients and ease the burden on hardworking NHS staff." Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 September 2021
  16. News Article
    The backlog of serious clinical incidents that need investigating is building up throughout the NHS, due to the impact of coronavirus and emergency service pressures. Concerns have been raised by commissioners in some areas over the delays. Meanwhile, patients and families who have been harmed are waiting longer to see their cases resolved and the organisations involved are not learning the lessons taught by care failures as quickly as they should. Staff redeployment or absences due to COVID-19 are among the reasons why many investigations are being delayed. As result, trusts are attempting to recruit additional investigators to manage their backlogs. Tina Ivanov, the trust’s director of quality governance, said: “Learning from serious incidents when they occur is an important part of our improvement culture. “We are increasing the number of trained investigators at the trust and have brought in additional resource to help complete the outstanding investigations. The reasons for the increase in outstanding serious incidents include staff absences and clinical pressures.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 September 2021
  17. News Article
    Anti-vaccine Facebook groups in the United States have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units. Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with COVID-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks. Some people in groups that formed recently to promote the false cure ivermectin, an anti-parasite treatment, have claimed extracting Covid patients from hospitals is pivotal so that they can self-medicate at home with ivermectin. But as the patients begin to realize that ivermectin by itself is not effective, the groups have begun recommending a series of increasingly hazardous at-home treatments, such as gargling with iodine, and nebulizing and inhaling hydrogen peroxide, calling it part of a “protocol.” The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave. Those concerns echo various local reports about growing threats and violence directed toward medical professionals in the US. In Branson, Missouri, a medical center recently introduced panic buttons on employee badges because of a spike in assaults. Violence and threats against medical professionals have recently been reported in Massachusetts, Texas, Georgia and Idaho. Read full story Source: NBC News, 24 September 2021
  18. News Article
    Scotland's Health Secretary Humza Yousaf says the NHS is facing the "biggest crisis" of its existence. There's a shortage of beds, the demand for ambulances is soaring and waits in accident and emergency departments are getting longer. On top of that, COVID-19 admissions have been rising fast as the number of infections in Scotland spiralled at the end of the summer. BBC News share five charts illustrating the enormous pressures currently being felt by NHS Scotland. Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 September 2021
  19. News Article
    Record numbers of children and young people are seeking access to NHS mental health services, figures show, as the devastating toll of the pandemic is revealed in a new analysis. In just three months, nearly 200,000 young people have been referred to mental health services – almost double pre-pandemic levels, according to the report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Experts say the figures show the true scale of the impact of the last 18 months on children and young people across the country. “These alarming figures reflect what I and many other frontline psychiatrists are seeing in our clinics on a daily basis,” said Dr Elaine Lockhart, the college’s child and adolescent faculty chair. “The pandemic has had a devastating effect on the nation’s mental health, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that children and young people are suffering terribly.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 September 2021
  20. News Article
    The Government’s out-of-date advice on Covid symptoms that should trigger a PCR test could be causing around 20,000 cases a day and needs to be changed urgently, a leading researcher has warned. Speaking with Pulse, Professor Tim Spector, who heads the ZOE Covid study at King’s College London said the picture is ‘now fairly clear’ that the most common symptoms among those now testing positive are nothing like when the pandemic began. ‘It’s the wrong message and it’s not a joke, it’s killing people,’ he told Pulse. The ZOE Covid study was first launched in March 2020 and tracks infections using an app with millions of users. According to the app, the traditional symptoms of cough, shortness of breath, and fever rank way down the list in vaccinated adults and unvaccinated children. Instead the virus is presenting more like a regular cold with runny nose, headache, sneezing and sore throat leading the way. ‘One in two people with a positive PCR test across the country lack any of the three government approved symptoms,’ he said. ‘We’re missing lots of cases.’ Read full story Source: Pulse, 17 September 2021
  21. News Article
    The entire Covid shielding programme has been “closed” for good in an announcement slipped out at night during a Cabinet reshuffle. Clinically extremely vulnerable people will “not be advised to shield again” in future despite fears of a huge winter wave, said the statement uploaded to the government website last week. Furious charities today raised fears disabled and immunosuppressed people will be “cast adrift” - while others will feel “yet again forgotten by the government”. Some 3.8million vulnerable people were advised to shield during England’s third lockdown, going outside only for exercise or health appointments. That guidance was paused on 1 April and on July 19 people were told they could follow the same rules as the rest of the population. But the ‘Shielded Patient List’ was retained for future use and ex-shielders were given special tips, such as only meeting vaccinated people. Last night, however, the government announced there will no longer be “centralised guidance” for clinically extremely vulnerable people. Read full story Source: Mirror, 16 September 2021
  22. News Article
    Life expectancy in England has fallen to its lowest level since 2011, a Public Health England (PHE) report has said. Deaths were 1.4 times higher than expected between 21 March 2020 and 2 July 2021, according to the report’s findings. The increase, largely driven by the pandemic the report said, resulted in a life expectancy decrease of 1.3 years in males, to 78.7, and a 0.9 year decrease in females, to 82.7 years - the lowest life expectancy since 2011. Life expectancy inequality is also widening between people in the most and least deprived areas. The gap in male life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas in England is 10.3 years in 2020, which is a year higher than the 2019 level. Similarly for females, this same gap was 8.3 years in 2020, 0.6 years greater than in 2019. The PHE report said the inequality gap reached its highest since it began recording data on deprivation linked life expectancy over two decades ago. Its report stated: “This demonstrates that the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities in life expectancy by deprivation. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 September 2021
  23. News Article
    At a certain point, it was no longer a matter of if the United States would reach the gruesome milestone of 1 in 500 people dying of COVID-19, but a matter of when. A year? Maybe 15 months? The answer: 19 months. The burden of death in the prime of life has been disproportionately borne by Black, Latino, and American Indian and Alaska Native people in their 30s, 40s and 50s. “So often when we think about the majority of the country who have lost people to covid-19, we think about the elders that have been lost, not necessarily younger people,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, executive vice president at the Seattle Indian Health Board and director of the Urban Indian Health Institute. “Unfortunately, this is not my reality nor that of the Native community. I lost cousins and fathers and tribal leaders." The pandemic has brought into stark relief centuries of entwining social, environmental, economic and political factors that erode the health and shorten the lives of people of colour, putting them at higher risk of the chronic conditions that leave immune systems vulnerable to the coronavirus. Many of those same factors fuel the misinformation, mistrust and fear that leave too many unprotected. Many people don’t have a physician they see regularly due in part to significant provider shortages in communities of colour. If they do have a doctor, it can cost too much money for a visit even if insured. There are language barriers for those who don’t speak English fluently and fear of deportation among undocumented immigrants. “Some of the issues at hand are structural issues, things that are built into the fabric of society,” says Enrique W. Neblett Jr., a University of Michigan professor who studies racism and health. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Washington Post, 15 September 2021
  24. News Article
    Changes to maternity services during the pandemic, including the mandatory redeployment of midwives and doctors to care for infected patients, may have affected the care given to women who had stillborn babies, a Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) investigation has found. The safety watchdog launched an investigation after the number of stillbirths after the onset of labour increased between April and June 2020. During the three months there were 45 stillbirths compared to 24 in the same period in 2019. The HSIB launched a probe examining the care of 37 cases. Among its findings the watchdog said staffing levels were affected because of the NHS response to the pandemic. In its report it said this “influenced normal work patterns and the consistency and availability of clinicians.” As an example, in one maternity unit the staffing numbers were short by three midwives due to sickness and redeployment. In another consultant presence was reduced overnight. During the pandemic both the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians criticised NHS trusts for redeploying maternity staff when mothers continued to need services regardless of the pandemic. HSIB said none of the women in its report were recorded as having the virus, but it found the pressures and changes as a result of the pandemic may have affected the care they received. The study stressed that the proportion of consultations undertaken remotely was not known and "the impact of remote consultations is not clear from this review". Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 September 2021
  25. News Article
    Surgical hubs, new technology and innovative ways of working will help tackle waiting lists and treat around 30% more elective care patients by 2023 to 2024. Backed by a new £36 billion investment in health and social care over the next 3 years, ‘doing things differently’ and embracing innovation will be the driving force to get the NHS back on track. The funding will see the NHS deliver an extra 9 million checks, scans and operations for patients across the country, but it’s not enough to simply plug the elective gaps. The NHS will push forward with faster and more streamlined methods of treatments. Surgical hubs already being piloted in a number of locations, including London, are helping fast-track the number of planned operations, including cataract removal, hysterectomies and hip and knee replacements, and will be expanded across the country. Located on existing hospital sites, surgical hubs bring together the skills and resource under one roof while limiting infection risk and providing a COVID-secure environment, with more planned to open in the coming year. The NHS has been trialling a range of new ways of working in 12 areas, backed by £160 million, to accelerate the recovery of services. This includes setting up pop-up clinics so patients can be treated quickly, in person, and discharged closer to home, as well as virtual wards and home assessments to allow patients to receive medical support from the comfort of their home, freeing up beds in hospitals. GP surgeries are using artificial intelligence to help prioritise patients most in need and identify the right level of care and support needed for patients on waiting lists. The latest cancer tests being deployed across the NHS are also helping speed up diagnosis and spot cancer early on. Thanks to the hard work of staff, a quarter of a million people were checked for cancer in June – the second highest number on record – and more than 27,000 people started treatment for cancer in the same period. Professor Steve Powis, NHS England medical director, said: "Although the pandemic is still with us and we will have to live with the impact of COVID for some time, the NHS has already made effective use of additional resources to recover services. From adopting the latest technologies to more evening and weekend working, NHS staff are going to great lengths to increase the number of operations carried out. The further funding announced this week will support staff to deliver millions more vital checks, tests and operations, so if you have a health concern, please do come forward to receive the care and treatment you may need." Read full story Source: 8 September, Department of Health and Social Care
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