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Found 1,471 results
  1. News Article
    One of the NHS’ largest hospital trusts is being investigated over “possible gross negligence manslaughter” after a baby died 24 hours after her birth. Polly Lindop died at St Mary’s Hospital on 13 March and Greater Manchester Police have now launched a probe into her death. Police said its major incident team launched the investigation into “possible Gross Negligence manslaughter” after concerns were raised to the force and local coroner. DCI Mark Davis of GMP’s major incident team said: “First, I want to express my condolences to the parents of Polly at what is an extremely difficult time for them. Our thoughts will remain with them as we carry out our investigation. “A number of hospital staff have been spoken to as witnesses by officers and no arrests have been made at this time. “The hospital trust has been fully cooperative with the police and all relevant authorities have been kept informed. The investigation into Polly’s death is on-going and her family will continue to be kept updated in relation to any significant developments.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 5 June 2023
  2. News Article
    Patients diagnosed with cancer in 2020 had “significantly lower” survival rates in Scotland a year after having their cases confirmed compared with the previous year, a report has found. The increase in deaths was an indirect result of the pandemic as coronavirus dissuaded people from getting check-ups or visiting physicians. Many cancer screening programmes were also paused and infection control measures in healthcare settings caused delays in both diagnosis and treatment. Andrew Elder, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said the government’s decision to pause screening programmes was “understandable in the extreme circumstances”, but added that the figures were “concerning”. He said: “Fewer and later presentations by patients who may have had more advanced disease clearly have had sometimes tragic consequences that are now being identified in the data.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 31 May 2023
  3. News Article
    The depth of suffering in care homes in England as Covid hit has been laid bare in a court case exposing “degrading” treatment with residents being “catastrophically let down”. Care levels at the Temple Court care home in Kettering collapsed so badly in April 2020, when ministers rushed to free up NHS capacity by discharging thousands of people, that residents were left lying in their own faeces, dehydrated, malnourished and suffering necrotic, infected wounds, the Care Quality Commission found. Fifteen of its residents died with Covid in the first weeks of the pandemic. The case foreshadows the UK Covid-19 public inquiry module on the care sector, which next year will test Matt Hancock’s claim to have thrown “a protective ring around social care”. The prosecution resulted in a £120,000 fine handed down at Northampton magistrates court last week. The operator, Amicura, apologised but said it had been “acting in the national interest and supporting the NHS by accepting patients discharged from hospitals into care homes under government policy”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 May 2023
  4. News Article
    A 14-year-old girl who should have been under constant supervision at a mental health hospital died after a member of staff on his first shift left her unattended, an inquest has heard. Ruth Szymankiewicz died at Taplow Manor Hospital in Maidenhead on 12 February 2022 after a care worker responsible for her one-to-one supervision “sporadically” left his post, the hearing was told. It also emerged at the hearing that the care worker, who is now abroad, was allegedly using a fake name. Detectives are investigating him as part of a fraud investigation although he has not yet been interviewed by police. After Ruth’s death, the Care Quality Commission launched a criminal investigation. In an update to the coroner, it said that the investigation was looking at whether the provider had “brought about avoidable harm or exposure to risk” in relation to the young girl’s death. Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 May 2023
  5. News Article
    Health inspectors considered shutting down a maternity unit earlier this year over safety concerns. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) instead called for "immediate improvements" following a visit to the William Harvey hospital in Ashford, Kent. Helen Gittos, whose newborn daughter died in the care of the East Kent Hospitals Trust, said there were "fundamental" problems at the trust. The inspection of East Kent's William Harvey hospital laid bare multiple instances of inadequate practices at the unit, including staff failing to wash their hands after each patient, and life-saving equipment not being in the right place. Days after the visit, the watchdog raised safety concerns and threatened the trust with enforcement action to ensure patients are protected. Ms Gittos, whose baby Harriet was born at the East Kent trust's Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in 2014 and died eight days later, said: "When my daughter Harriet was born, the then head of midwifery was so concerned about safety that she thought that the William Harvey in particular should be closed down." She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Here we are, almost nine years later, in a similar kind of situation. What has been happening has not worked. "I keep being surprised at how possible it is to keep being shocked about all of this, but I am shocked, that under so much scrutiny, and with so much external help, it's still the case that so much is not right. "The problems that are revealed are so fundamental that we have to do things differently." Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 May 2023
  6. News Article
    A 58-year-old woman died alone curled up in a blanket on the floor of her bedroom as she waited more than five hours for an ambulance. Relatives of Rachel Rose Gibson believe she had a heart attack at her home in Wrexham, north Wales, only a short drive away from a hospital, but died before an ambulance reached her. The Welsh ambulance service said that on the day Gibson died, its crews spent more than 700 hours waiting outside hospitals for patients to be admitted, which meant they could not respond quickly to people needing help. Family members said Gibson, a grandmother of seven, called an ambulance at 4pm on 5 April as she was coughing up blood and in chronic pain. By the time an ambulance arrived at 9.30pm, she had died. Her daughter, Nikita, 29, said: “She was lying on the floor curled up in a blanket. It haunts me to know she died alone in so much pain. “I feel like I can’t fully grieve because I’m so angry. She only lives five minutes away from the hospital, but must have been in too much pain to get into a taxi.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 May 2023
  7. News Article
    About 23,000 people died in accident and emergency departments last year, according to an estimate by Labour based on Freedom of Information requests to every NHS trust in England. Half of the trusts responded to the party’s requests and, based on that information, it calculated that just over 23,000 people had died – an increase of more than 20% on 2021, and nearly 40% on 2020. The increase in deaths corresponds with a sharp rise in NHS waiting times, as hospitals struggle with high demand and a lack of resources after the Covid-19 pandemic. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “People turning to the NHS in an emergency should know they will be seen and treated before it’s too late. The Conservatives’ failure over 13 years to properly staff or reform the NHS has a cost in lives.” Maria Caulfield, the health minister, defended the government’s record, however, saying: “We are delivering a record number of tests, speeding up discharge from hospitals, and cutting waiting lists as we also work to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, and stop the boats.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 May 2023
  8. News Article
    A Labour government would reverse the rise in the number of deaths from suicide as part of a health plan to replace pain and anxiety with a “hope of a renewed NHS”, Keir Starmer will pledge. In a speech today, the Labour leader will say his plan for reforming the NHS will focus on the biggest causes of death in the UK including suicide. He will point to coroners’ statistics showing that deaths from suicides have been rising since 2008, and reached a record high last year in England and Wales. If the party takes power Labour will reverse this rise within five years, Starmer will say. A segment of his speech previewed by the party says: “Suicide is the biggest killer of young lives in this country. The biggest killer. That statistic should haunt us. And the rate is going up. Our mission must be and will be to get it down.” Labour has not provided details on how it proposes to meet this pledge other than an aspiration to shift from “sickness to prevention”. Starmer will also propose introducing new NHS targets on cutting deaths in England from heart disease and strokes by a quarter over 10 years. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 May 2023
  9. News Article
    A baby has died and seven others were left requiring intensive care after a “usually mild” virus appeared to trigger a serious heart condition, health officials have said. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had been notified of an “unusual” increase in myocarditis –inflammation of the heart – among newborns in south Wales infected with an enterovirus over the past year. While enteroviruses are common and often asymptomatic, they are known to cause “occasional outbreaks in which an unusually high proportion of patients develop clinical disease, sometimes with serious and fatal consequences – in this instance myocarditis”, the UN health agency said. While prior to the recent cluster of cases, south Wales had experienced only two similar cases in six years, the 10 months to April saw 10 cases of myocarditis in babies under the age of 28 days who tested positive for enterovirus, according to WHO. Read full story Source: The Independent, 19 May 2023
  10. News Article
    Nineteen suspects have been identified by police as part of a new inquiry into hundreds of deaths at a hospital. An independent panel found 456 patients died after being given opiates inappropriately at Gosport War Memorial Hospital between 1987 and 2001. The new criminal investigation is being led by Kent Police after three previous ones by Hampshire Constabulary resulted in no prosecutions. Police said interviews with the suspects under caution were ongoing. Detectives are examining more than 750 patient records as part of Operation Magenta after families, who have also campaigned for judge-led "Hillsborough-style" inquests, repeatedly called for justice. Read full story Source: BBC, 17 May 2023
  11. News Article
    More than 26,000 adults with severe mental illness die prematurely each year from preventable physical illnesses, analysis by the Royal College of Psychiatrists suggests. New data from the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities shows 120,273 adults in England with severe mental illness, including psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, died before the age of 75 between 2018 and 2020. Of these, the College estimates 80,182 deaths (two in three) were potentially preventable, which is an average of 26,727 people each year. Preventable deaths include deaths from diseases like cancer and heart disease which could have been prevented with earlier detection and treatment or lifestyle changes. While adults with severe mental illness are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviours like smoking and drinking alcohol excessively, they are also less likely to access screening and treatment for a range of reasons including stigma associated with having a mental illness. While cancer is the leading cause of premature death among those with a severe mental illness, it also significantly increases the risk of dying before the age of 75 across a range of physical health conditions. Adults with severe mental illness are on average: 6.6 times more likely to die prematurely from respiratory disease 6.5 times more likely to die prematurely from liver disease 4.1 times more likely to die prematurely from cardiovascular disease 2.3 times more likely to die prematurely from cancer. Read full story Source: Royal College of Psychiatrists, 17 May 2023
  12. News Article
    Experts are calling for "do not resuscitate" orders to be scrapped, saying they are being misused and putting people's lives at risk. One woman told BBC News that her elderly father might still be alive if the DNR in his medical file had been properly checked. When Robert Murray began choking on a piece of fruit at breakfast, staff at his care home called 999. He'd stopped breathing and the ambulance service operator immediately sent paramedics to attend. But seconds later, the care home told the dispatcher that the 80-year-old had a do not resuscitate form (DNR) in his medical records. The paramedics were stood down. Mr Murray died minutes later. However, it was all a terrible mistake. It hadn't been made clear to the ambulance service that Mr Murray was choking - the DNR was only meant to apply should he have a cardiac arrest. Mr Murray's death, at a nursing home in Eastbourne in June 2021, is an example of what experts call "mission creep" in the use of DNR - also known as DNACPR (Do Not Attempt Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation) - decisions. Researchers from Essex University say some care home residents are "being inappropriately denied transfer to hospital or access to certain medicines" due to the recommendations. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 May 2023
  13. News Article
    Hundreds of babies are dying unnecessarily because overstretched maternity services are delivering substandard care and struggling to overcome entrenched poverty and racial inequalities, a report has warned. The report by baby loss charities Sands and Tommy’s says the government’s aim to halve the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in England by 2025 is stalling, while there is no target in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Stillbirths are creeping up in England after falling in the past decade. Babies dying before and during delivery rose to just over four in every 1,000 births in 2021. Similarly, long-falling rates of neonatal deaths, where newborns die within the first four weeks of birth, are also rising. There were 1.4 deaths of newborn babies for every 1,000 births in 2021, compared with 1.3 in 2020. Robert Wilson, head of the charities’ joint policy unit, said the government and NHS need to make fundamental changes. “The UK is not making enough progress to reduce rates of pregnancy loss and baby death, and there are worrying signs that these rates are now heading in the wrong direction,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 May 2023
  14. News Article
    Grieving parents have been left waiting more than 14 months for answers about why their 12-day-old son died. Elijah was born at Merthyr Tydfil's Prince Charles Hospital on 25 February 2022 and died after being diagnosed with enterovirus and myocarditis. Joann and Christian Edwards said they were told they would have a report by the end of 2022, but are still waiting. Joann and Christian, from Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, said they were told Elijah's myocarditis was a "one off" but subsequently read about 10 babies, including one who died, getting severe enterovirus with myocarditis across south Wales. Public Health Wales (PHW) said Elijah's death was not being looked into as part of an investigation into this cluster of cases, as the dates were set at June 2022 to April 2023 to coincide with the enterovirus season. But it said it would look to include Elijah's death as part of a "wider clinical investigation" of the cases. Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 May 2023
  15. News Article
    Thrombosis UK has warned that deaths involving blood clots are higher than expected as it called for more transparency over the work hospitals are doing to reduce the risk for patients. Before the pandemic hit, hospitals were regularly publishing data on the number of patients who had been risk assessed for blood clots. In March 2020, the NHS in England took the decision to suspend the data collection on venous thromboembolism (also known as VTE) risk assessments to “release capacity in providers and commissioners to manage the Covid-19 pandemic”. But the data collection and publication is yet to resume. The charity said the data shows how many VTE cases are missed in hospitals. One bereaved man described how his mother died last year after the condition was missed. Tim Edwards, 42, said healthcare workers missed signs of the condition while Jennifer Edwards, 74, was in hospital on the south coast. Despite having many symptoms of a pulmonary embolism she was discharged home and died three days later. Mr Edwards said: ““My mother’s symptoms were missed from her admission to hospital right up to her time in the cardiology department. “She was discharged and passed away three days after phoning the NHS with shortness of breath. She should not have died. I took it upon myself to enquire about the circumstances surrounding her death and was overwhelmed by the lack of care taken. “Sadly, I know this is not an isolated case.” Read full story Source: Wales Online, 12 May 2023 Further reading on the hub: Pulmonary embolism misdiagnosis – a systemic problem (a blog from Tim Edwards) Independent review of pulmonary embolism fatalities in England & Wales – recent trends, excess deaths, their causes and risk management concerns (Tim Edwards) Jenny, and why we must learn from her misdiagnosis of pulmonary embolism National Voices: Pulmonary embolism misdiagnosis - a blog by Helen Hughes.
  16. News Article
    A simple intervention to detect and treat postpartum haemorrhage could dramatically cut maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide, a large trial led by the University of Birmingham has shown. Use of a special drape to measure blood loss during childbirth and rapid deployment of a “bundle” of existing treatments reduced severe bleeding, the need for laparotomy, or maternal death by 60% in a study done in 80 hospitals across Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania. Reporting the results in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers said that postpartum haemorrhage was detected in 93.1% of patients in the intervention and in 51.1% of those receiving usual care. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 10 May 2023
  17. News Article
    The death rates for black women in childbirth were revealed in a recent report from MPs and were described as “appalling”, yet action, not words, are needed for what could be considered breaches of the Human Rights Act. Ministers are not giving priority to reducing the gap in health inequalities, write Nicola Wainwright and Suleikha Ali in a commentary to the Times. "If the response to the review is foot-dragging from the government and senior health service officials, then legal action may be the only way to draw focus to this issue and to try to reduce the number of ethnic minority women and babies dying unnecessarily." The report, published by the women and equalities committee last month, highlights the “glaring and persistent” disparities faced by ethnic minority women compared to their white counterparts with regards to pregnancy and birth. However, these same disparities have been known and reported on for 20 years, while progress on improving the situation has been shockingly slow. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 11 May 2023
  18. News Article
    Figures showing the risk of maternal death being almost four times higher among women from black ethnic minority backgrounds compared with white women in the UK have been published. The figures, which relate to 2019 - 2021, have been released by MBRRACE-UK, a collaboration involving the University of Leicester. The MBRRACE-UK collaboration (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries), led from Oxford Population Health's National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, looked at data on women who died during, or up to six weeks after, pregnancy between 2019 and 2021 in the UK. The report showed the risk of maternal death in 2019 - 2021 was almost four times higher among women from black ethnic minority backgrounds compared with white women. Marian Knight, professor of Maternal and Child Population Health at Oxford Population Health and maternal reporting lead, said: "Persistent disparities in maternal health remain. "It is critical that we are working towards more inclusive care where women are listened to, their voices are heard, and we are acting upon what they are telling us." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2023
  19. News Article
    Delayed health checks among people with diabetes may have contributed to 7,000 more deaths than usual in England last year, a charity report suggests. The routine checks help cut the risk of serious complications like amputations and heart attacks. Diabetes UK says too many people are still being "left to go it alone" when managing their challenging condition. There are more than five million people in the UK living with diabetes, but around 1.9 million missed out on routine vital checks in 2021-22, Diabetes UK says. Disruption to care during the pandemic is likely to be a factor in the current backlog, which may be leading to higher numbers of deaths than usual in people with diabetes, it says. Between January and March 2023, for example, there were 1,461 excess deaths involving diabetes - three times higher than during the same period last year. "Urgent action is needed to reverse this trend and support everyone living with diabetes to live well with the condition," the report says. Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 May 2023
  20. News Article
    Two years ago, administrators and caregivers at St. Bernard Hospital in Chicago were stunned when they flunked a basic standard for patient safety. "It was a real jolt," said Charles Holland, the hospital's president and CEO. "We thought we were doing patient safety and we thought we were doing it well." But the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit health care watchdog organisation, found the hospital fell short on documenting and having comprehensive approaches to hand-washing, medication safety systems and fall and infection prevention. The wake-up call led Holland to hire a Patient Safety and Quality Officer and to use Leapfrog's criteria as a roadmap for improving patient safety. It worked. In its latest annual review of hospital safety, released Wednesday, Leapfrog awarded the century-old charity hospital an A. The fact that St. Bernard could turn around so quickly and so effectively without spending a fortune in the process shows that patient safety is an attainable goal, said Leah Binder, Leapfrog's president and CEO. Read full story Source: USA Today, 3 May 2023
  21. News Article
    The mother of a nine-year-old girl who died from hyponatraemia has said a new inquest that started today is "an opportunity for truth". Raychel Ferguson, from Londonderry, died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in June 2001. Her parents, Ray and Marie Ferguson, have long campaigned to find out the truth about their daughter's death. Hyponatraemia is an abnormally low level of sodium in blood and can occur when fluids are incorrectly administered. Mrs Ferguson said the fact there was a second inquest "speaks to the culture of cover up that has plagued her death, involving the medical and legal professions". An inquiry in 2018 into the deaths of five children in Northern Ireland hospitals, including Raychel, found her death was avoidable. The 14-year-long inquiry into hyponatraemia-related deaths was heavily critical of the "self-regulating and unmonitored" health service. In January 2022, a new inquest opened but was postponed in October after new evidence came to light. Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 May 2023
  22. News Article
    Women are dying or suffering avoidable harm because of a failure to recognise ectopic pregnancy, one of the country’s leading experts on maternal health has said. Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Marian Knight of the University of Oxford, who leads a national research programme on maternal deaths, called for action to improve diagnosis of the acute, life-threatening condition, in which a fertilised egg implants itself outside the womb, normally in the fallopian tube. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable and if left untreated can result in the tube rupturing, causing potentially fatal internal bleeding. “We could prevent more women from dying from ectopic pregnancy because of lacking of basic recognition and management of the condition,” said Knight. The warning comes as new data obtained by freedom of information request suggests that dozens of women have experienced “severe harm” after being admitted to hospital with ectopic pregnancies in the past five years. The Mbrrace report, published last year, said eight women died from ectopic pregnancies between 2018 and 2020, all but one of whom had received suboptimal treatment. In three instances, better care might have saved their lives, the report concluded. “There’s no doubt that in the [maternal deaths] inquiry we are still seeing the same messages of ectopic pregnancy not being recognised,” said Knight. “That people either don’t pick up on the fact that they’re pregnant or get single-minded about one diagnosis.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 May 2023
  23. News Article
    Patient safety investigators have issued a warning to the NHS over writing to patients only in English after a Romanian child died following missed cancer scans. The three-year-old, of Romanian ethnicity, had an MRI scan delayed after they were found to have eaten food beforehand. When the appointment for the child’s MRI scan was made by the radiology booking team, a standard letter was produced by the NHS booking system in English asking the child not to eat before the scan, despite the family’s first language being Romanian. Staff at the trust had hand-written on the patient’s MRI request sheet that an interpreter was required. “The family recognised key details in the written information, including the time, date and location of the scan,” the report said. “However, they were not able to understand the instructions about the child not eating or drinking (fasting) for a certain amount of time before the scan.” The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) has urged NHS England to develop and implement new rules on supplying written appointment information in languages other than English. Read full story Source: The Independent, 27 April 2023
  24. News Article
    A senior GP has been struck off the UK medical register for an “utterly deplorable” litany of treatment failures and for “reprehensible” professional conduct that included leaving patients in the care of unprepared trainee doctors and operating without adequate professional insurance. At least two patients suffered “grave consequences” from inaction on the part of Surraiya Zia, including a man whose deteriorating condition was effectively ignored for six months, despite the fact that he “presented to Dr Zia frequently, sometimes up to three times within a week, with red flag symptoms,” said Samantha Gray, chairing the medical practitioners tribunal. The patient was eventually persuaded to seek private magnetic resonance imaging by his family. This showed widespread stage IV lung cancer that took his life within weeks. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 21 April 2023
  25. News Article
    A week after Donna Ockenden published her damning report on the catastrophic failures in maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust in March last year, she was contacted by families in Nottingham asking her to investigate how dozens of babies had died or been injured in their city hospitals. Six months later, Ockenden — herself a senior midwife — was put in charge of another inquiry by the government and yet again she is finding a culture of cover-ups and lies in maternity care. “Of the families that I have met in Nottingham to date, some of them have expressed concerns to me that the trust were not truthful in discussions around their cases,” she tells the Times Health Commission. “We have all the systems and structures in place that should be able to spot maternity services in difficulty and here we are again. Families are having to fight to get answers.” The woman who has done more than anyone to highlight the problems with maternity care is reluctant to use the word “crisis” but she warns: “I think that without urgent and rapid action, from central government downwards — on funding and workforce and training — mothers and their babies are not going to be able to receive the safe, personalised maternity care that they deserve and should expect". Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 21 April 2023
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