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Found 1,332 results
  1. News Article
    The trust at the centre of a maternity scandal is trying to reduce the number of births at its main maternity units by 650 a year following a highly critical Care Quality Commission (CQC) visit. East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust is looking at ways to reduce pressure on staff at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, including stopping bookings from women who are “out of area”. The unit currently has around 3,600 births a year, of which 200 are out-of-area bookings. The trust is also seeking to send more births to its other site, in Thanet. It comes after the CQC used enforcement powers to order immediate improvements at the unit, following a visit in January, when it had “significant concerns about the ongoing wider risk of harm to patients”. Earlier this year, the trust’s new chief executive, Tracey Fletcher, held what board papers describe as an “emotional” meeting with 135 midwives, other staff and senior Royal College of Midwives representatives. She was told by staff that the service at the WHH was not felt to be safe due to a lack of substantive staff, high acuity of patients and the level of activity. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 April 2023
  2. News Article
    A major acute trust has warned ahead of next week’s nursing strike that it will face ‘very severe staffing shortages’ in children’s A&E, with ‘as few as one nurse per ward’, much less critical care capacity, and fewer operating theatres open than on Christmas Day. Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust’s medical director said in a note, seen by HSJ, that the hospital would only have 60 to 70% of its critical care beds open and that “it is not possible to guarantee patient safety on our wards over the forthcoming weekend” with severe staffing shortages in “almost all areas”. The Royal College of Nursing is planning no derogations (exceptions) to its planned 48-hour walkout, from 8pm on Sunday until 8pm on Tuesday, whereas its previous action has exempted emergency care. There have been national warnings about the significant safety threat posed, but the CUH message, sent to all staff by medical director Ashley Shaw, sets out a more stark picture of critical services scaled back. It says: ”Our current information indicates there will be a severe shortage of nurses in almost all ward areas, with as few as 1 nurse per ward per shift." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 26 April 2023
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. News Article
    The safety of a ward accused of failing children has been rated as inadequate by inspectors. The care regulator warned Kettering General Hospital (KGH) in Northamptonshire over its children's and young people's services. Inspectors' worries include sepsis treatment, staff numbers, dirt levels and not having an "open culture" where concerns can be raised without fear. Since the BBC's first report in February highlighting the concerns of parents with children who died or became seriously ill at KGH, dozens more families have come forward, bringing the number to 50 to date. Inspectors found that "staff did not always effectively identify and quickly act upon patients at risk of deterioration". They said there were sometimes "delays in medical reviews being undertaken outside of normal working hours", highlighting one case where a seemingly deteriorating patient was not seen until three hours after being escalated to the on-call team. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 April 2023
  6. News Article
    A tribunal which allowed a doctor's voluntary removal from the medical register was an "unlawful corner-cutting exercise", a judge has said. Neurologist Michael Watt was at the centre of Northern Ireland's biggest recall of patients. The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) allowed him to voluntarily remove himself in 2021. It meant he would not face a public hearing about any fitness to practice issues. More 2,500 patients who were in his care had their cases reviewed - with around one in five having their diagnosis changed. Having already quashed the decision to grant removal, Mr Justice McAlinden delivered a scathing assessment of how the application was handled on Monday. In Belfast's High Court, he described the process where Dr Watt's request was heard without the necessary jurisdiction as a "fiasco". The court also heard how Dr Watt appeared to have a "get out of jail free card" where patients were denied public scrutiny of their medical care. Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 April 2023
  7. News Article
    An MPs' report is calling for faster progress to tackle "appalling" higher death rates for black women and those from poorer areas in childbirth. The Women and Equalities Committee report says racism has played a key role in creating health disparities. But the many complex causes are "still not fully understood" and more funding and maternity staff are also needed. The NHS in England said it was committed to making maternity care safer for all women. The government said it had invested £165m in the maternity workforce and was promoting careers in midwifery, with an extra 3,650 training places a year. Black women are nearly four times more likely than white women to die within six weeks of giving birth, with Asian women 1.8 times more likely, according to UK figures for 2018-20. And women from the poorest areas of the country, where a higher proportion of babies belonging to ethnic minorities are born, the report says, are two and a half times more likely to die than those from the richest. Caroline Nokes, who chairs the committee, said births on the NHS "are among the safest in the world" but black women's raised risk was "shocking" and improvements in disparities between different groups were too slow. "It is frankly shameful that we have known about these disparities for at least 20 years - it cannot take another 20 to resolve," she added.
  8. News Article
    The government is investigating reports that growing numbers of people are developing life-changing allergies to some gel nail products. Dermatologists say they are treating people for allergic reactions to acrylic and gel nails "most weeks". Dr Deirdre Buckley of the British Association of Dermatologists urged people to cut down on gel nail use and stick to "old-fashioned" polishes. Some people have reported nails loosening or falling off, skin rashes or, in rarer cases, breathing difficulties, she said. Although most gel polish manicures are safe and result in no problems, the British Association of Dermatologists is warning that the methacrylate chemicals - found in gel and acrylic nails - can cause allergic reactions in some people. It often occurs when gels and polishes are applied at home, or by untrained technicians. Dr Buckley said: "We're seeing it more and more because more people are buying DIY kits, developing an allergy and then going to a salon, and the allergy gets worse." The allergies can leave sufferers unable to have medical treatments like white dental fillings, joint replacement surgery and some diabetes medications. This is because once a person is sensitised, the body will no longer tolerate anything containing acrylates. Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 April 2023
  9. News Article
    An all-out nurses’ strike over the May bank holiday will present “serious risks and challenges” to the NHS, a health leader has warned. Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said the “unprecedented” strike action – which will involve staff in emergency departments, intensive care units and cancer care for the first time – was “extremely worrying”. He also said the threat of coordinated industrial action with junior doctors could result in the “most difficult challenge” for the NHS to date. Sir Julian told BBC Breakfast: “If this takes place in the way that it’s been described, then it would be the first time that we’ve seen nurses not working in those key areas, which of course would present serious risks and challenges for trusts to manage and mitigate that.” Nick Hulme, chief executive of Ipswich and Colchester hospitals, told Radio 4 the latest round of nurses’ strikes will “significantly increase the risk to patients”, adding cancer patients will face greater risks as care could be delayed. He said: “If there is a delay to cancer care, some delays won’t cause significant effects, but there are many people who have been waiting far too long for care and this will only exacerbate that risk." Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 April 2023
  10. News Article
    A company which ran children's homes where residents were systemically abused also failed to prevent adults being harmed, BBC News has learned. An investigation found 99 cases of abuse at a Doncaster home for vulnerable adults in 2010. One worker even ordered a Taser to use there. The care home company - Hesley - said improvements were made at the time. But children at other Hesley homes were later reported to have been punched, kicked and fed chillies. The BBC reported in January how more than 100 reports of appalling abuse and neglect - dating from 2018 to 2021 - were uncovered at sites run by the Hesley Group. They included children being locked outside in freezing temperatures while naked, and having vinegar poured on wounds. Now the BBC has obtained confidential reports from within Hesley and the local authority which reveal wider safeguarding failings spanning more than a decade at both children's homes and placements for vulnerable young adults. Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 April 2023
  11. News Article
    Staff in hospital emergency departments in England are struggling to spot when infants are being physically abused by their parents, raising the risk of further harm, an investigation has found. Clinicians often do not know what to do if they are concerned that a child’s injuries are not accidental because there is no guidance, according to a report from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) that identifies several barriers to child safeguarding in emergency departments. Matt Mansbridge, a national investigator, said the report drew on case studies of three children who were abused by their parents, which he said were a “hard read” and a “stark reminder” of the importance of diagnosing non-accidental injuries quickly, since these are the warning sign in nearly a third of child protection cases for infants under the age of one. “For staff, these situations are fraught with complexity and exacerbated by the extreme pressure currently felt in emergency departments across the country,” Mansbridge said. He said the clinicians interviewed wanted to “see improvement and feel empowered” to ask difficult questions. “The evidence from our investigation echoes what staff and national leads told us – that emergency department staff should have access to all the relevant information about the child, their history and their level of risk, and that safeguarding support needs to be consistent and timely/ Gaps in information and long waits for advice will only create further barriers to care,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 April 2023
  12. News Article
    The leaders of acute trusts across England have told HSJ the second junior doctor’s strike ‘feels very different’ from the first stoppage, and services are much more vulnerable because of ‘thinner’ consultant coverage. They also reported that the instruction from NHS England not to proactively cancel elective procedures and apppointments has been largely ignored by trusts. The chief executive of a large trust in the east of England said they were “more concerned about clinical safety than at any time during covid surges”. A trust CEO in the North West told HSJ this week’s stoppage “feels much more risky than the previous strike. We have managed to cover rotas but we are very stretched and concerned about short notice cancellation from agencies and short term sickness after bank holiday.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 April 2023
  13. News Article
    A single children’s mental health hospital with just 59 beds reported more than 1,600 “sexual safety incidents” in four years, shocking NHS figures reveal. Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead was responsible for more than half of the sex investigations reported in the 209 children’s mental health units across the country. Despite warnings at a rate of more than one a day to the health service since 2019, no action was taken to stop vulnerable NHS patients being sent to the scandal-hit unit as a result of the 1,643 sexual incident reports. The private unit is now finally due to be closed after an investigation by The Independent revealed allegations of verbal and physical abuse, prompting the NHS to withdraw patients. The hospital since said it plans to reopen as an adult unit. Figures obtained from the NHS show Huntercombe’s Maidenhead unit, Taplow Manor, was behind 57% of the 2,875 reported sexual incidents and assaults reported at England’s child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) over the past four years. Reported incidents can range from sexually inappropriate language to serious sexual assault and rape. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 April 2023
  14. News Article
    The four-day strike by junior doctors in England will have a “catastrophic impact” on NHS waiting lists, with up to 350,000 appointments and operations likely to be cancelled, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation has said. Matthew Taylor said the industrial action this week posed risks to patient safety and called on the public to avoid “risky behaviour”. “These strikes are going to have a catastrophic impact on the capacity of the NHS to recover services,” he told Sky News. “The health service has to meet high levels of demand at the same time as making inroads into that huge backlog that built up before Covid, but then built up much more during Covid." He said he hoped everyone who needed urgent care would get it, but added: “There’s no point hiding the fact that there will be risks to patients – risks to patient safety, risks to patient dignity – as we’re not able to provide the kind of care that we want to.” He called on the public to use NHS services responsibly. Read full story Source; The Guardian, 10 April 2023
  15. News Article
    The care watchdog is investigating possible safeguarding failures at an NHS trust after a documentary uncovered figures showing there were 24 alleged rapes and 18 alleged sexual offences in just three years at one of its mental health hospitals. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) told Disability News Service (DNS) that it had suspended the trust’s ratings for wards for people with learning difficulties and autistic people while it carried out checks. The figures were secured by the team behind Locked Away: Our Autism Scandal, a film for Channel 4’s Dispatches, which revealed the poor and inappropriate treatment and abuse experienced by autistic people in mental health units. None of the alleged rapes at Littlebrook Hospital in Dartford, Kent, led to a prosecution, with allegations of 12 rapes and 15 further sexual offences dropped because of “evidential difficulties” and investigations into 12 other alleged rapes and two sexual offences failing to identify a suspect. A CQC spokesperson said: “Sexual offences are a matter for the police in the first instance. “However, we take reports of sexual offences seriously and review them all, and raise these issues directly with the trust. “We do this alongside involvement from police and local authority safeguarding teams’ own investigations and monitor any actions and outcomes taken by the trust to ensure people are kept safe." Read full story Source: 30 March 2023
  16. News Article
    Exhausted after three sleepless days in labour, Jane O’Hara, then 34, screamed and burst into tears when the midwives and doctors at Harrogate District Hospital told her the natural birth she wanted was not going to happen. She ended up needing life-saving surgery and 11 pints of blood after a severe haemorrhage. Mercifully, Ivy was fine and is now a healthy 12-year-old. In recent weeks, the NHS has been rocked by the conclusions of an inquiry into the worst maternity disaster in its history: 201 babies and nine mothers died and another 94 babies suffered brain damage as a result of avoidable poor care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. This has been linked to a culture of promoting natural — that is, vaginal — birth and avoiding caesarean sections. Blame thus far has been aimed largely at the NHS — but parents have started speaking out online about what they believe has been the role of the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), a leading provider of antenatal classes in Britain, in promoting vaginal births. “I can absolutely point to key decisions that I made that were influenced by the NCT’s mantra. I was led into a position where I believed I had more control over my birth than I actually did,” says O’Hara, who is now a professor of healthcare quality and safety at the University of Leeds. She believes she was a victim of a “normal birth” ideology that was heavily promoted at the NCT classes she attended. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 10 April 2022
  17. News Article
    A scandal-hit children’s mental health hospital will close months after an investigation by The Independent uncovered claims of poor care and systemic abuse. Taplow Manor hospital, in Maidenhead, was threatened with closure by the NHS safety watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, only last week if it failed to make improvements following a damning report. Active Care Group, which runs the hospital, confirmed it would close by the end of May, saying a decision by the NHS to stop admitting patients had rendered its “service untenable”. The move comes after an investigation by The Independent and Sky News heard from more than 50 patients who alleged “systemic abuse” by the provider, while Taplow Manor is facing two police probes – one into a patient death and a second into the alleged rape of a child involving staff. Read full story Source: The Independent, 29 March 2023
  18. News Article
    Mothers and babies are being put at risk because maternity services are still providing unsafe care, despite a series of scandals that have cost lives, the NHS ombudsman has warned. More tragedies will occur unless the health service takes decisive action to put an end to repeated and deeply ingrained problems which lead to “the same mistakes over and over again”, he said. Rob Behrens, the NHS ombudsman for England, voiced his concerns when he launched a report on Tuesday which details the failings several women experienced while giving birth. It also sets out the lessons the NHS needs to learn, but Behrens claimed that too many trusts were not doing so. Behrens voiced alarm that, although efforts have been made to improve the care mothers and their children receive, progress is too slow – and that means patients remain in danger. His report says that: “We recognise that people working in maternity services want to provide high-quality care. Culture, systems and processes can get in the way of achieving that goal. “But improvements are not happening quickly enough, and we have not seen sustainable change. We must do more to make services safer for everyone.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 March 2023 Further reading on the hub: Patient Safety Learning - Mind the implementation gap: The persistence of avoidable harm in the NHS
  19. News Article
    Dilshad Sultana was 36 weeks pregnant with her second child in 2019 when she experienced stomach pain and noticed her baby was moving less. Mrs Sultana, from Sutton Coldfield, said she had been due to have a Caesarean section on 8 July but on 20 June she started to feel pain in her abdomen and lower back. She said she was confused but that it did not feel like a contraction and called hospital staff at about 17:00 to say it felt like her baby was moving less. After following advice to rest and take pain relief, she attended hospital at about 22:30 and staff started monitoring Shanto's heart rate. It was not until almost three hours later that Shanto was delivered by emergency C-Section. Shanto suffered severe brain damage and would spent the next 22 days in intensive care, suffering seizures and multiple brain haemorrhages. Shanto now requires around-the-clock care and Mrs Sultana enlisted lawyers to pursue a care of medical negligence against the trust. Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust has admitted liability and made a voluntary interim payment allowing the family to move to a new home specifically adapted to meet Shanto's extensive care, therapy and equipment needs. Fiona Reynolds, the chief medical officer, said: "We'd like to offer our heartfelt apologies again to the family. "It's clear the standard of care we offered to them fell below those required and expected. For this, we are truly sorry." Now, Mrs Sultana is campaigning for change - she wants to see mothers listened to in maternity care and more attention paid to monitoring babies' heart rates. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 March 2023
  20. News Article
    The UK is supposed to have one of the best systems in the world for preventing vulnerable people being exploited for their organs. How then did one of its biggest hospitals become embroiled in the macabre trade of kidney harvesting? The UK’s first trial organ trafficking trial has exposed alarming vulnerabilities to a illegal trade that makes up 10% of transplants worldwide. The case has highlighted how poverty can tempt some people to sell their body parts to those willing to exploit an acute global shortage of organs for donation. The case heard that doctors at a private renal unit at London’s Royal Free hospital and the regulators, the Human Tissue Authority (HTA), were fooled by Dr Obinna Obeta, into approving his kidney transplant in July 2021. As the prosecutor, Hugh Davies, said: “If there’s a lesson to be learned here – those clinicians need to set the index of suspicion for safeguarding somewhat lower.” Dominique Martin, a professor of health ethics at Australia’s Deakin University who studies organ trafficking, said the case highlighted the need for robust vetting by hospitals and regulators. She said: “There is a level of complacency, including in the UK, the US and Australia regarding the risks of organ trafficking happening within our borders. Screening programmes may not be as strong as we assume or as consistently implemented as we might expect.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 March 2023
  21. News Article
    Police are investigating fresh allegations of sexual assault against a child patient by a care worker at a scandal-hit private mental health hospital group. It is the second time reports have been made about a former Huntercombe Group hospital after two care workers were quizzed over the alleged rape of a child at its Taplow Manor Hospital in Maidenhead last year. The latest allegations are from a patient at the group’s Ivetsy Bank Hospital, in Staffordshire, which was rated as inadequate last week. In a statement, Staffordshire Police confirmed it had received a report of sexual assault and said inquiries were ongoing. The news comes as the NHS’s safety watchdog has threatened to close Taplow Manor after hospital leaders failed to make improvements in care. The action comes after joint investigations by The Independent and Sky News found the private hospital had put the safety of young mental health patients at risk, with more than 50 patients and staff members alleging “systemic abuse” and poor care. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 March 2023
  22. News Article
    Vulnerable mental health patients are being put at risk by unregulated “eating disorder coaches” who do not have the necessary qualifications, experts have said. As demand for eating disorder support soars – hospital admissions for eating disorders increased by 84% in the last five years – more people are filling gaps in NHS care. So-called eating disorder coaches, who tend to be personal trainers or dietitians recovering from the illness themselves, are charging as much as £1,000 a month for sessions to offer support to others despite having little or no training and expertise. The Guardian has found that many coaches cite short courses, which are intended as professional development for psychologists, as a qualification to practise. The National Centre for Eating Disorders (NCED) offers a number of professional training courses, accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS). The Guardian found a number of coaches were using these courses to claim they were qualified to offer professional services to people with eating disorders. Agnes Ayton, chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ eating disorders faculty, said she was “amazed” to see people “advertising themselves as experts after going on one course”. “Eating disorders sit between physical and mental health so the risks associated with eating disorders can be physically debilitating and potentially fatal,” Ayton said. “I don’t know why there is not better regulation on that because there is lots of regulation for a medical professional – but therapy is the first line of treatment for eating disorders, and if it is not delivered properly, it can be harmful or misleading.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 March 2023
  23. News Article
    Seven British patients who travelled to Turkey for weight loss surgery died after operations there, a BBC investigation into the trend has found. Others have returned home with serious health issues after having had gastric sleeve operations, during which more than 70% of the stomach is removed. The operations, used to treat morbid obesity, are carried out in the UK, but, because it can take years to get one through the NHS, some people are looking abroad for treatment. British doctors say that they're treating an increasing number of patients who have travelled to Turkey and returned with serious complications. Dr Ahmed Ahmed, a leading surgeon and member of council at the British Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society, says he's treated patients returning from Turkey who have had an entirely different operation to the one they understood they had paid for. The BBC has also been told that some people are being accepted for surgery who do not have a medical need for it. The BBC contacted 27 Turkish clinics to see if they would accept someone for treatment who was considered to have a normal BMI. Six of the clinics we approached were happy to accept someone with a BMI of 24.5 for extreme weight loss surgery. Separately, the BBC also found that some clinics who refused the treatment actually then encouraged patients to put on weight, to enable them to be accepted for surgery. One said: "You need to gain 6.7kg to have sleeve surgery. I think you can easily eat some food and then lose weight easily." Another asked: "How soon can you gain weight?" Dr Ahmed says the practices are "reckless" and "unethical". Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 March 2023
  24. News Article
    Hundreds of patients have lost their eyesight or had it irreparably damaged because of NHS backlogs, new research suggests. NHS England clinicians have filed 551 reports of patients who lost their sight as a result of delayed appointments since 2019, with 219 resulting in “moderate or severe harm”, according to an FoI request by the Association of Optometrists, which believes that hundreds more cases are unreported. Its chief executive, Adam Sampson, said sight loss was a “health emergency”, and urged ministers to introduce a national eye health strategy to enable high street and community optometrists to ease some of the burden on hospitals. He said: “There are good treatments available for common age-related eye conditions like macular degeneration but many hospital trusts simply do not have the capacity to deliver services. “Optometry is ideally placed to take away some of that burden – optometrists are already qualified to provide many of the extended services needed and are available on every high street, so patients can be treated closer to home. It’s incomprehensible and absolutely tragic that patients are waiting, losing their vision, in many parts of the country because of the way eye healthcare is commissioned.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 March 2023
  25. News Article
    Leaders at a mental health trust tolerated high levels of safety incidents and accepted verbal assurance with ‘insufficient professional curiosity’, a critical report has found. An NHS England-commissioned review into governance at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Foundation Trust has been published, reviewing the organisation’s response to serious safety concerns flagged at the former West Lane Hospital in Middlesbrough. It follows separate reports identifying “systemic failures” over the deaths of inpatients Christie Harnett, Nadia Sharif and Emily Moore. The new report, conducted by Niche Consulting, criticises board and service leaders’ handling of concerns about the regular occurrence of restraint and self-harm. More than a dozen incidents of inappropriate restraint, some seeing patients dragged along the floor, were identified in November 2018, resulting in multiple staff suspensions and some dismissals. Niche found there was a “lack of accountable leadership at all levels” and lack of evidence for decisions in response to the November 2018 incidents. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 March 2023
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