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Found 1,491 results
  1. News Article
    Staff mistakes in a private laboratory may have caused 23 extra deaths from Covid-19. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) made the claim in a report into errors at the Immensa lab in Wolverhampton. It said as many as 39,000 positive results were wrongly reported as negative in September and October 2021. The mistakes led to "increased numbers of [hospital] admissions and deaths", the report, published on Tuesday, concluded. Thousands of people, many in the South West, were wrongly told to stop testing after their results were processed by Immensa. The Wolverhampton laboratory was used for additional testing capacity for NHS Test and Trace from early September 2021, but testing was suspended on 12 October following reports of inaccurate results. Experts said high case rates in some areas were down to people unwittingly infecting others when they should have been isolating. UKHSA experts said the mistakes could have led to as many as 55,000 additional infections in areas where the false negatives were reported. "Each incorrect negative test likely led to just over two additional infections," the report said. "In those same geographical areas, our results also suggest an increased number of admissions and deaths." Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 November 2022
  2. News Article
    A review of the clinical records of 44 patients who died under the care of former neurologist Michael Watt has found "significant failures in their treatment" and "poor communication with families". While this review looked at a sample of cases in which people died, potentially thousands more could be affected. The review arises from a 2018 recall of 2,500 outpatients who were in Dr Watt's care at the Belfast Health Trust. About one in five patients had to have their diagnoses changed. This separate review into 44 deaths was conducted by the Royal College of Physicians at the request of the regulator, the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA). It highlighted concerns over clinical decision-making, prescribing and diagnostics. It reveals a misdiagnosis rate of 45% among this group of patients, twice that for living patients. Speaking to BBC News NI, the RQIA's chair, Christine Collins, said the outcome of the review was "shocking and gut-wrenching as so many had experienced unpleasant deaths which they ought not to have done". Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 November 2022
  3. News Article
    Poorer women in Britain have some of the highest death rates from cancer in Europe, an in-depth new World Health Organization study has found. They are much more likely to die from the disease compared with better-off women in the UK and women in poverty in many other European countries. Women in the UK from deprived backgrounds are particularly at risk of dying from cancer of the lungs, liver, bladder and oesophagus (foodpipe), according to the research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the WHO’s specialist cancer body. IARC experts led by Dr Salvatore Vaccarella analysed data from 17 European countries, looking for socioeconomic inequalities in mortality rates for 17 different types of cancer between 1990 and 2015. Out of the 17 countries studied, Britain had the sixth-worst record for the number of poor women dying of cancer. It had the worst record for oesophageal cancer, fourth worst for lung and liver cancer and seventh worst for breast and kidney cancer. However, the UK has a better record on poor men dying of cancer compared with their counterparts in many of the other 16 countries. It ranked fifth overall, second for cancer of the larynx and pharynx, and third for lung, stomach and colon cancer. That stark gender divide is most likely because women in the UK began smoking in large numbers some years after men did so, the researchers believe. They pointed to the fact that while cases of lung cancer have fallen among men overall in Britain, they have remained stable or increased among women, and gone up among women from deprived backgrounds. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 November 2022
  4. News Article
    A report commissioned by Jeremy Hunt before he became Chancellor has highlighted how the pandemic ’stopped progress on patient safety in its tracks’ and called for more accurate data to be published on a range of measures. The National State of Patient Safety was funded by Mr Hunt’s Patient Safety Watch charity and produced by Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation. It highlights a rise in rates of MRSA and C. difficile since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, as well as an increase in deaths due to venous thromboembolism and hip fractures. The report said the pandemic had also exacerbated issues associated with staff wellbeing, claiming there had been “notable rises” in staff burnout and ill-health. The researchers described problems with the breadth and accuracy of available patient safety data and highlighted that only 44% of trusts currently fulfilled the obligation to report their own estimated number of avoidable deaths. Although the report added that “data on rates of avoidable deaths are not a panacea”, it described them as a “snapshot of safety and harm and are most usefully used to initiate further work to understand the causes of unwarranted variation”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 November 2022
  5. News Article
    Bosses at Nottingham's crisis-hit maternity units are set to miss a deadline for clearing a backlog of incomplete "serious incident" investigations. Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) has 53 outstanding maternity incidents yet to be investigated. The trust had said it aimed to complete investigations by December 23. But director of midwifery Sharon Wallis says they have not progressed as quickly as she had hoped. The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the trust has managed to clear a number of those incidents - but it declared another nine in September and October. An independent review team, led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden, is examining dozens of baby deaths at the trust. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 November 2022
  6. News Article
    The NHS in England is facing a “perfect winter storm” with 10 times more people in hospital with flu than this time last year, and ambulances experiencing deadly delays when arriving at A&E with sick patients. There were an average of 344 patients a day in hospitals in England with flu last week, more than 10 times the number at the beginning of last December. And as many as 3 in 10 patients arriving at hospitals by ambulance are waiting at least 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams. Health chiefs say the crisis is leading to deaths. The figures on flu and ambulance delays were published by NHS England on Thursday and offered the first weekly snapshot of how hospitals are performing this season. Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents the healthcare system in England, said: “These figures really hammer home just how stretched services already are as we head into a perfect winter storm. Significantly higher numbers of people are in hospital because of flu compared to this time last year, coupled with the fact that Covid-19 has not gone away.” He added: “The life-saving safety net that NHS ambulance services provide is being severely compromised by these unnecessary delays, and patients are dying and coming to harm as a result on a daily basis.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 November 2022
  7. News Article
    A carer who murdered the elderly woman he was employed to look after had a history of violent crime including actual bodily harm, a report found. A safeguarding adults review over the death of a 77-year-old Devon woman in 2021 criticised working practices among organisations involved in her care. Devon and Cornwall Police did not disclose information about domestic abuse callouts involving the killer in a DBS check by the care provider. He was jailed for life in July 2022. The woman had seen her killer as "a grandson" figure, it said. The 35-year-old killer attacked his victim after she discovered he had stolen several thousand pounds from her. The had no previous employment experience of care before being taken on as her sole carer by Complete Quality Care Ltd, an independent care provider. Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 November 2022
  8. News Article
    Hospital doctors failed to share with child protection services a list of "significant" injuries a five-year-old boy suffered 11 months before he was murdered, a case review has found. Logan Mwangi had a broken arm and multiple bruises across his body when he was taken to A&E in August 2020. But a paediatric consultant said these injuries were accidental and did not make a child protection referral. Logan, from Bridgend, was murdered by his mother, stepfather and a teenager. A Child Practice Review (CPR) has looked at how different agencies were involved with Logan's family in the 17 months before his death. Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board said it welcomed the commissioning of an independent review into how it identifies and investigates non-accidental injuries. The report said that if the injuries had been shared with social services, appropriate action could have been taken to safeguard Logan. Jan Pickles, the independent chair of the review panel, said it was a "a significant missed opportunity". She added: "Had further information from health been shared it most likely, though we cannot say for sure because of hindsight bias, would have triggered a child protection assessment in line with the joint agreed guidelines, as the nature of those injuries clearly met the threshold." Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 November 2022
  9. News Article
    Ambulance crews could not respond to almost one in four 999 calls last month – the most ever – because so many were tied up outside A&Es waiting to hand patients over, dramatic new NHS figures show. An estimated 5,000 patients in England – also the highest number on record – potentially suffered “severe harm” through waiting so long either to be admitted to A&E or just to get an ambulance to turn up to help them. Ambulance officers warned that patients were dying every day directly because of the delays since the service could no longer perform its role as a “safety net” for people needing urgent medical help. “The life-saving safety net that NHS ambulance services provide is being severely compromised by these unnecessary delays and patients are dying and coming to harm as a result on a daily basis,” said Martin Flaherty, managing director of the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), which represents the heads of England’s 10 regional NHS ambulance services. Flaherty added: “Our national data for hospital handover delays during October 2022 is extremely worrying and underlines the fact that in some parts of the country efforts to reduce or eradicate these devastating and unnecessary delays are simply not working.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 November 2022
  10. News Article
    A maternity unit criticised for the preventable stillbirth of a baby is under investigation after the unexpected death of a second baby. The newborn baby died in December last year after her birth at the standalone midwifery-led unit (MLU) at Lagan Valley Hospital in Lisburn. Despite this, the unit continued to operate as normal for another three months when the South Eastern Trust temporarily paused births at the MLU. The second tragedy came four years after Jaxon McVey was stillborn when his delivery at the unit went catastrophically wrong. A post-mortem found he died as a result of shoulder dystocia – an obstetric emergency where the head is born but the shoulder becomes trapped behind the pubic bone. Jaxon’s mum, Christine McCleery, has hit out at the South Eastern Trust and raised concerns over the measures put in place following his stillbirth on Mother’s Day 2017. “I feel like they didn’t learn from Jaxon,” she said. “I don’t know if any other babies died before Jaxon, but I know one died afterwards. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Independent, 23 November 2022
  11. News Article
    A coroner has written to the health secretary warning a lack of guidance around a bacteria that could contaminate new hospitals' water supply may lead to future deaths. It follows inquests into the deaths of Anne Martinez, 65, and Karen Starling, 54, who died a year after undergoing double lung transplants at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge in 2019. Both were exposed to Mycobacterium abscessus, likely to have come from the site's water supply. The coroner said there was evidence the risks of similar contamination was "especially acute for new hospitals". In a prevention of future deaths report, external, Keith Morton KC, assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said 34 people had contracted the bacteria at the hospital since it opened at its new site in 2019. He said the bacteria "poses a risk of death to those who are immuno-suppressed" and there was a "lack of understanding" about how it entered the water system. There was "no guidance on the identification and control" of mycobacterium abscesses, the coroner said. Mr Morton said documentation on safe water in hospitals needed "urgent review and amendment". "Consideration needs to be given to whether special or additional measures are required in respect of the design, installation, commissioning and operation of hospital water systems in new hospitals," he said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 22 November 2022
  12. News Article
    When David Morganti’s case notes landed on Andrew Cox’s desk this autumn they told a devastating story — but one which was depressingly familiar to the senior coroner for Cornwall. The 87-year-old RAF veteran had fallen and hit his head in the bathroom of the house he shared with his wife, Valerie, in April. It took nine hours for paramedics to reach their home near St Austell, Cornwall. As they waited, the bleeding on his brain became gradually worse until he lost consciousness. By the time he reached hospital it was too late. An expert neurosurgeon told Cox that had he reached hospital faster, Morganti might have survived. The coroner said the effects of the injuries he suffered were likely to have been exacerbated “by a delay in the arrival of an ambulance and his subsequent admission into hospital.” It was the latest in a series of similar deaths the coroner had encountered. After Morganti’s inquest, Cox resolved to carry out a wider investigation into what appeared to be a broken system. He has now sent his findings to Steve Barclay, the health secretary, and demanded he act to prevent more deaths. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 19 November 2022
  13. News Article
    Nearly a fifth of trusts providing maternity care have been red rated for their infant mortality rates in a national audit. Twenty-three trusts were flagged for their perinatal mortality in the latest Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audit and Confidential Enquiries audit for maternity services. Trusts with mortality rates more than 5% higher than an average of peer group providers are given a red rating. The report was published last month and looked at data for 2020. Average perinatal mortality rates have been falling across England since 2013, although there is significant variation across England. Six trusts in the latest audit were red rated for both stillbirths and neonatal mortality; Buckinghamshire Healthcare; Gloucestershire Hospitals; University Hospitals Dorset; Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals; University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire; and University Hospitals of Leicester. Twenty-three trusts rated red on a combined perinatal mortality indicator (including the six listed above). For 17 of them, their mortality rates were not high enough on one of the stillbirth or neonatal measures to be red rated, but sufficiently high enough on both indicators to tip their overall extended overall perinatal rating into the red. Andrew Furlong, medical director of University Hospitals Leicester, said: “Where learnings have been identified from reviews of care, we have developed robust action plans and strengthened care practice to shape and improve future services.” These include aiming to improve access to interpreters, provide clearer medical review guidelines, and update ultrasound scanning processes, he added. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 November 2022
  14. News Article
    Greg Price died of complications after testicular cancer surgery, but a review of his case found missed faxes, follow-ups and botched data-sharing ultimately cost the vibrant 31-year-old Alberta man his life. All the missteps in his case meant it took 407 days from his first complaint for Price — an engineer, pilot, and athlete — to be diagnosed with cancer. He died three months after his doctor said he should see a specialist, and while he was being passed between multiple doctors, his health data often was not. Now, his sister, Teri Price, says too little has changed in medical information-sharing in the decade since her brother's death. This, despite a review of his case — the 2013 Alberta Continuity of Patient Care Study — that recommended life-saving changes to the healthcare system to avoid more experiences like his. So, she's fighting to improve the system that she says not only failed her brother, but keeps failing to change. Price says that Canadians assume that their health information is shared between doctors to keep them safe and studied to improve the system, but often, it's not. And medical front-line staff in Canada say problems persist when it comes to sharing everything from patient information to aggregate medical and staffing data. "Information tends to be broken up between the services that patients attend," said Ewan Affleck, a doctor in the Northwest Territories who has spent his career fighting for better data access, and a member of the expert advisory arm of the Pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy Group. "The cohesion and use of health data in Canada is legislated to fail." Read full story Source: CBC News, 17 November 2022
  15. News Article
    Women are four times as likely to die after childbirth in Britain as in Scandinavian countries, a study published in the BMJ has found. Researchers analysed data on the number of women who die because of complications during pregnancy in eight high-income European countries. They found that Britain had the second-highest death rate, with one in 10,000 mothers dying within six weeks of giving birth, only slightly less than in Slovakia, the worst performing. The study found that rates of “late” maternal death — when women die between six weeks and a year after giving birth — were nearly twice as high in Britain as in France, the only other country for which data was available. Heart problems and suicide were the main causes of death. Professor Andrew Shennan, an obstetrician at King’s College London, said: “Any death relating to pregnancy is devastating. Equally shocking are the avoidable discrepancies in worldwide maternal mortality. “Causes of [maternal] death are relatively consistent across the world, and largely avoidable. Most deaths are due to haemorrhage, sepsis and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. “In Europe, non-obstetric causes of death have become proportionately more common than obstetric causes, including deaths from cardiovascular disease (23%) and suicide (13%); these should be prioritised.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times. 17 November 2022
  16. News Article
    Experts have warned that Europe faces a “cancer epidemic” unless urgent action is taken to boost treatment and research, after an estimated 1m diagnoses were missed during the pandemic. The impact of Covid-19 and the focus on it has exposed “weaknesses” in cancer health systems and in the cancer research landscape across the continent, which, if not addressed as a matter of urgency, will set back cancer outcomes by almost a decade, leading healthcare and scientific experts say. A report, European Groundshot – Addressing Europe’s Cancer Research Challenges: a Lancet Oncology Commission, brought together a wide range of patient, scientific, and healthcare experts with detailed knowledge of cancer across Europe. One unintended consequence of the pandemic was the adverse effects that the rapid repurposing of health services and national lockdowns, and their continuing legacy, have had on cancer services, on cancer research, and on patients with cancer, the experts said. “To emphasise the scale of this problem, we estimate that about 1m cancer diagnoses might have been missed across Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic,” they wrote in The Lancet Oncology. “There is emerging evidence that a higher proportion of patients are diagnosed with later cancer stages compared with pre-pandemic rates as a result of substantial delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment. This cancer stage shift will continue to stress European cancer systems for years to come. “These issues will ultimately compromise survival and contribute to inferior quality of life for many European patients with cancer.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 November 2022
  17. News Article
    A senior doctor is to be removed from the medical register after she was found to have attempted to cover-up the circumstances of a young girl's death. Paediatrics consultant Dr Heather Steen was found to be unfit to practise after an investigation into the death of nine-year-old Claire Roberts in 1996. A medical tribunal examining the doctor's case ruled that the majority of allegations against her were true. Claire's mother said it was "just the start of getting full justice". "I am angry at Dr Steen for putting us through 26 years of mental torment," said Jennifer Roberts. At the time of Claire's death, her parents were told she had a viral infection that had spread from her stomach to her brain. But in 2018 a public inquiry determined that she had died from an overdose of fluids and medication caused by negligent care at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. The inquiry also concluded there had been "cover up" and the girl's death had not been referred to the coroner immediately to "avoid scrutiny". The case was then put to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), which rules on doctors' fitness to practise. When the case reached the tribunal stage Dr Steen twice applied to be voluntarily removed from the medical register and was twice refused. Had that been successful the tribunal would have been halted as she would no longer have been a doctor. However the tribunal continued and examined allegations that between October 1996 and May 2006 Dr Steen "knowingly and dishonestly carried out several actions to conceal the true circumstances" of Claire. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 November 2022
  18. News Article
    No formal risk assessment was done on a man who beat a fellow care home resident to death, a review has found. Alexander Rawson attacked 93-year-old Eileen Dean with a metal walking stick at a care home in south-east London. Mrs Dean suffered catastrophic injuries to her head and body and died later in hospital. A review found Fieldside Care Home in Catford did not provide the specialist mental health services that Rawson - who had a history of violence - needed. Rawson, who had a history of mental health problems caused by alcoholism, was 62 when he was placed in the home a few days before Christmas 2020. He was put in the room next to Mrs Dean and, in the first week of 2021, he went into her room at night and attacked her. In a review published on Friday, the Lewisham Safeguarding Adults Board said Rawson had been moved into the home after being an inpatient at a psychiatric unit run by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. The care home was the only place that agreed to take him after his discharge from hospital. In the months before he was moved into the care home, Rawson was involved in at least 34 recorded incidents of violence or threats to patients and health staff, including a threat to kill. Before he was placed in the home, no attempts were made to find out whether Rawson had come into contact with the criminal justice system over his behaviour, the report found. It states that the care home had asked about the risks Rawson posed before they took him and had been reassured by a social worker and medical staff. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 November 2022
  19. News Article
    A new report has highlighted for the first time an apparent rise in the suicide rate for pregnant or newly postpartum women in 2020, citing disruption to NHS services due to Covid-19 as a likely cause. According to the review of maternal deaths by MBRRACE-UK, 1.5 women per 100,000 who gave birth died by suicide during pregnancy or in the six weeks following the end of pregnancy in 2020, which is three times the rate of 0.46 per 100,000 between 2017 and 2019. The number of deaths by suicide within six weeks of pregnancy in 2020 was numerically small – 10 women – but this was the same as the total recorded across 2017 to 2019. This is also despite Office for National Statistics figures showing a year-on-year fall in suicides in the population overall in 2020. In relation to the rise in suicides during pregnancy and up to a year after birth, the report states: “During the first year of the covid-19 pandemic, very rapid changes were made to health services… Mental health services were not immune from this and there was a broad spectrum of changes from teams where some staff were redeployed to other roles, through to teams that were able to operate relatively normally… “All of this occurred on a background of a recent huge expansion in specialist perinatal mental health services." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 November 2022
  20. News Article
    The death of a three-day-old baby could have been avoided if medical professionals had acted differently, a coroner concluded. Rosanna Matthews died three days after being delivered at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Kent in November 2020. The hospital trust apologised, saying the level of care for Ms Sala and her daughter “fell short of standards”. Ms Sala told the inquest midwives were "bickering" and appeared confused during her labour. She claimed that if she had been allowed to start pushing when she wanted to, instead of waiting as midwives advised, Rosanna would have lived. Rachel Thomas, then deputy head of gynaecology and midwifery, said there had been "errors in communication". Following the conclusion of the inquest, the coroner ruled Rosanna died following a “prolonged period of avoidable hypoxia”, which led to brain damage. The coroner, sitting in Maidstone, also found midwives at the hospital failed to recognise that Rosanna was already unwell with congenital pneumonia. Ms Sala said her daughter could have lived had medical professionals acted differently on the day of her birth. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 November 2022
  21. News Article
    A health visitor wrote to housing officials expressing concern about conditions in a rented flat months before a two-year-old died after his exposure to mould. An inquest in Rochdale is investigating the death of toddler Awaab Ishak who lived with his mother and father in a one-bedroom housing estate flat managed by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH). Awaab’s father, Faisal Abdullah, first reported the damp and mould in autumn 2017, a year before the birth of his son. He made numerous complaints – phoning and emailing – and requested re-housing. In December 2020 Awaab developed flu-like symptoms and had difficulty breathing. He was given hospital treatment and then discharged. Two days later his condition at home worsened and he was seen at Rochdale urgent care centre where he was found to be in respiratory failure. He was transferred to Royal Oldham hospital where, upon arrival, he was in cardiac arrest and died. It was just a week after his second birthday. A pathologist told the inquest that the child’s throat was swollen to an extent it would compromise breathing. Exposure to fungi was the most plausible explanation for the inflammation. Lawyers for the family say the inquest will consider a number of matters including concerns about mould and damp and how they were dealt with. It will also look at the sharing of information between agencies and how the family’s cultural and language requirements were taken into account. Officials from RBH have yet to give evidence at the inquest but a statement was provided to the coroner on Tuesday in which RBH admits it “should have taken responsibility for the mould issues and undertaken a more proactive response”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 November 2022
  22. News Article
    A teenager died after a breathing tube was possibly squashed by a wheel of her hospital trolley during emergency surgery, an inquest has heard. Jasmine Hill, 19, had a cardiac arrest shortly after undergoing a procedure on her neck at Gloucestershire royal hospital in Gloucester. The inquest heard that a report commissioned by lawyers acting for Hill’s family referred to the tube being “squashed by the wheel of a trolley”. Hill, from Cirencester, had been readmitted to the hospital after her neck became swollen five days after a thyroidectomy – the removal of all or part of the thyroid gland – in September 2020. Doctors thought the site of the surgery in Hill’s neck, which was red and swollen, may have become infected and it was decided the wound should be cleaned under general anaesthetic. The procedure took less than an hour and the teenager went into cardiac arrest shortly after she was moved by staff from the operating table to a bed. Gloucestershire coroner’s court heard an endotracheal tube, which supports breathing, was positioned behind Hill’s head and away from her neck, fixed to a holder and connected to the ventilator. The assistant Gloucestershire coroner Roland Wooderson asked Dr Hiro Ishii, who carried out the procedure, whether he was aware that the anaesthetist had checked the position of the endotracheal tube. Ishii replied: “I didn’t make a formal inquiry at that stage.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 November 2022
  23. News Article
    A whistleblower at a mental health trust criticised over the deaths of three teenagers has said bosses ignored workers when they raised concerns. Christie Harnett and Nadia Sharif, both 17, and Emily Moore, 18, who were friends, all took their own lives within eight months of each other. The whistleblower said agency workers fell asleep on duty at Middlesbrough's West Lane Hospital and staff struggled "to keep children alive". The trust has apologised for failings. Reports into the women's care found 120 failings at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV), which ran the hospital, and other agencies. Speaking after the reports were published, the health trust worker, who did not wish to be identified, told the BBC staff were "ignored" when they tried to warn bosses about conditions in the hospital. "Staff repeatedly raised concerns with managers, some of the time we just didn't have enough staff to keep the children safe," the worker said. "We warned them something serious was going to happen, but they just ignored us. "Senior managers looked at numbers, rather than the skillset that staff actually had. "The agency staff would sometimes fall asleep on duty or watch the telly rather than engage with patients." Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 November 2022
  24. News Article
    South West Ambulance has the longest waits in the country for people to get through to the operator. It takes almost a minute on average for ambulance control to answer 999 calls compared with just five seconds for the West Midlands service. Jean and Claire Iles called 999 six times to request an ambulance for Steven Iles' internal bleeding and two of their calls were unanswered for 10 minutes "He just looked at me and he just passed away before they could even get to him," 41-year-old Claire Iles said. "I rang about 4pm and said he has gone grey, and I said if you don't come now he is going to die, and it was still 20 minutes before the ambulance turned up." She was at home with her parents in Yate, near Bristol, when her father, Steve, 63, fell ill. It took 11 hours for a South West Ambulance crew to arrive, but Jean said by that time it was too late. Mr Iles died at 17:10 GMT on 19 March from a strangulated hernia that cut off the blood supply to his heart. The trust has apologised for the distress and anxiety caused but said it remained under "enormous pressure". Read full story Source: 4 November 2022
  25. News Article
    A boss at a trust which was heavily criticised in a damning report says patients have lost confidence in the care they provide. Raymond Anakwe, executive director of East Kent Hospitals Trust, said regaining patient trust would be "possibly the largest challenge". He was speaking at a board meeting two weeks after a review found a "clear pattern" of "sub-optimal" care. Mr Anakwe said: "The reality is we have lost the confidence of our patients." He also said the trust has lost the confidence "of our local community and sadly also many staff". The trust's chief executive, Tracey Fletcher, told the meeting that she believed many staff thought "enough is enough", and that the trust has to be "brave" if it's to move forward. Stewart Baird, a non-executive director, said: "I think it's clear the buck stops here with the people sat round this table, and where there are bad behaviours in the trust, it's because we have allowed it. "Where people don't feel able to speak up, it's because we have not provided an environment for them to do that." Read full story Source: BBC News, 3 November 2022
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