Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Patient harmed'.
Found 1,334 results
-
News Article
Damning report on surgeon's botched operations
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A damning report has highlighted failures in how NHS Tayside oversaw a surgeon who harmed patients for years. Prof Eljamel, the former head of neurosurgery at NHS Tayside in Dundee, harmed dozens of patients before he was suspended in 2013. The internal Scottish government report into Prof Sam Eljamel, which has been leaked to the BBC, said the health board repeatedly let patients down. It outlined failures in the way Prof Eljamel was supervised and the board's communication with patients. The report was commissioned last year over unanswered questions and concerns from patients Jules Rose and Pat Kelly. Mr Kelly has been left housebound and Ms Rose has PTSD after the neurosurgeon removed the wrong part of her body. After her operation in 2013, Ms Rose discovered that Prof Eljamel had taken out the wrong part of her body. He removed her tear gland instead of a tumour on her brain. She still has not been told exactly when health bosses knew he was a risk to patients. The latest Scottish government report said she should receive an apology. The written apology she received from the board last month said it was sorry she "feels" there has been a breakdown in trust. "I actually rejected the apology," she said. Ms Rose said she wanted the chairwoman of the health board to explain why it will not offer a "whole-hearted apology" for its failures. Scottish Conservative MSP Liz Smith called for a public inquiry, saying there had been a lack of accountability and the investigation had still not got to the truth. Read full story Source: BBC News, 3 November 2022 -
Content ArticleThis article in Time reviews the documentary film 'To Err is Human', which explores the tragic outcomes of medical errors and the medical culture that allows them to persist. The film follows the Sheridans, a family from Boise, Idaho on their journey to understand how two major medical errors befell their family: one that contributed to a case of cerebral palsy, and another that involved a delayed cancer diagnosis and ended in death.
-
Content ArticleThe Department for Health and Social Care has launched an investigation into allegations made by 22 former patients of mental health units run by private firm The Huntercombe Group. The group ran at least six children’s mental health hospitals between 2012 and 2022. In this Independent article, young women who were subject to humiliating and sometimes abusive treatment talk about their time as inpatients. Some of the experiences they recount are harrowing: "I would get awoken by staff members restraining me out of bed and dragging me down to the de-escalation room to force-feed me." "Patients were left naked in their rooms under anti-ligature blankets because they wouldn’t buy anti-ligature clothing." "I distinctly remember someone saying ‘if you hit me again, I’ll hit you back ten times harder because there are no cameras in here and you can’t cry to [name of nurse] about it’."
-
News Article
‘It feels very unsafe’: the NHS staff bracing for winter as cuts loom
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Further funding cuts to the NHS will unavoidably endanger patient safety, an NHS leader warned last week after the chancellor’s promise of spending cuts of “eye-watering difficulty”. Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said his members were issuing the “starkest warning” about “the huge and growing gulf between what the NHS is being asked to deliver and the funding and capacity it has available”. The warning came as figures showed that paramedics in England had been unavailable to attend almost one in six incidents in September due to being stuck outside hospitals with patients. Service leaders say wait times for A&E and other care are being exacerbated by an acute lack of nurses, with a record 46,828 nursing roles – more than one in 10 – unfilled across the NHS. "Patients are presenting more unwell," says a GP from South Wales, "Wait times in A&E have become unmanageable, so we’re seeing patients who have waited so long to be seen they’re bouncing back to us. Things we can’t deal with, like injuries and chest pain. We tell them they have to go back to A&E. "Abuse of surgery reception and admin staff began last year and it’s just scaled up from there. We’ve had staff members who have been verbally and physically threatened and we’re struggling to recruit and retain staff – people are hired and quit in a couple days. A lot of people are going off sick with stress." Five healthcare workers describe the pressures they are facing, including ambulance stacking, rising A&E wait times and difficulties discharging patients. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 November 2022 -
Content ArticleMaternity costs make up the largest cost to the NHS in value of claims. The Early Notification Scheme provides a faster and more caring response to families whose babies may have suffered severe harm. 'The second report: The evolution of the Early Notification Scheme' provides an overview of progress made since the report into the first year of the scheme, which was published in 2019. The report updates on the progress of the key recommendations which were made in the first report and reflects on modifications and improvements made to the scheme since its launch five years ago. It provides an analysis of the main clinical themes, based on a small cohort of cases, and makes recommendations to further improve outcomes for affected families.
-
Content ArticleDrugwatch is a US consumer advocacy organisation that works with certified medical and legal experts to educate the public on dangerous drugs and medical devices and to empower consumers to assert their legal rights. In this article, Terry Turner, writer for Drugwatch, examines the history of the medical tech company C.R. Bard, which specialises in vascular, urology, surgery and oncology devices. Bard manufactures thousands of medical devices and sells them worldwide. The article looks at how the company was established and then examines several legal issues Bard has faced, including criminal charges stemming from medical fraud and accusations of selling defective devices that have killed patients or caused serious complications. The author looks at criminal charges concerning heart catheters to which Bard pleaded guilty. They also highlight problems with Bard's transvaginal and hernia mesh products and inferior vena cava (IVC) filters—devices designed to catch blood clots before they reach the lungs or the heart.
-
Content ArticleThis article outlines how the first trials relating to harm caused by the LifeCell Strattice biologic patch will proceed. The Strattice patch is a form of surgical mesh used to treat hernias, but unlike other polypropylene mesh devices, it is composed of pig skin preserved in a solution that chemically links together proteins in the tissue. Patients involved in the US litigation complain that they suffered painful injuries from the Strattice patch. They claim that the manufacturer knew it had problems following multiple reports from patients, but failed to act to stop its use. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received at least 450 adverse event reports on Strattice from September 1990 until September 2020. Among those reports were six patient deaths and 340 patient injuries, and many patients have had to undergo mesh removal.
-
News Article
Eighteen deaths following Tees health trusts' safety lapses
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Eighteen people died at two Teesside hospital trusts following patient safety lapses over a 12-month period. Sixteen such deaths were recorded at the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, with two at the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust. Examples of patient safety lapses include a failure to provide or monitor care, a breakdown in communication, an out-of-control infection in a hospital, insufficient staffing or a missed diagnosis. NHS England figures show that, between April 2021 and March this year, there were 16,557 incidents at the South Tees Trust, which operates James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, and Northallerton's Friarage Hospital. Thirty-four resulted in "severe" harm. Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the figures were a concern and that he planned to take them up with the South Tees Trust's chief executive. He said NHS staff worked under "the most demanding of conditions" but added: "Every person going into hospital rightly expects to receive the best treatment. Patient safety is paramount and no family wants to see a loved one suffer." Dr Mike Stewart, the trust's chief medical officer, said: "We encourage an open and transparent culture and promote the reporting of all patient safety incidents, even when there is uncertainty over a direct link between any problems in care and incidents of severe harm or death. "In the last year there were no deaths graded as definitely preventable due to a problem in the care delivered by the trust. "While our reporting has increased consistently over the last three years, the number of serious incidents has not risen, which is strong evidence of a positive safety culture." Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 October 2022 -
Content ArticleThis article describes how a radiology group in Arizona allegedly missed dozens of breast malignancies, some of which were obviously cancer. Breast surgeon Dr Beth Dupree and a team of expert radiologists identified 25 missed cancer diagnoses that required either surgery, chemotherapy, radiation or a mastectomy at Northern Arizona Healthcare between 2016 and 2018. The team felt that there was a high chance of the number of women with missed cancers being higher than those uncovered by the review, but their request to expand the investigation did not go ahead.
-
Content ArticleVaginal mesh implants were introduced in the late 1990s as a routine treatment for stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, common complications following childbirth. However, these flexible plastic scaffolds have led to life-altering complications for many women including nerve damage, chronic pain, and several reported deaths. This blog outlines the story of vaginal mesh, from the 1990s to the present day.
-
News ArticleMinisters have been urged to launch a public inquiry into the care of mental health patients after The Independent revealed allegations that patients had suffered “systemic abuse” in inpatient units. A joint investigation with Sky News found that teenagers at facilities run by The Huntercombe Group had been left with post-traumatic stress disorder by their treatment despite hundreds of warnings to regulators and the NHS. Now the government is facing calls to review all mental health care services over fears that these cases are “the tip of the iceberg”. Labour’s shadow mental health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has called for a “rapid review” by the government into inpatient mental health services, while Deborah Coles, the chief executive of charity Inquest, has called on the new health secretary Steve Barclay to launch a statutory public inquiry. Read full story Source: The Independent, 28 October 2022
-
Content ArticleThe Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) third annual conference took place on 21 September 2022. Presentations and videos from the day are now available to view and download below. Although it tied in with the World Health Organization’s World Patient Safety Day theme of medication safety, our speakers also covered: how we can drive system level change practical sessions based on our HSIB investigation education courses maternity safety insights themed around inclusivity of care opportunities for sharing and learning from Norway’s healthcare safety investigation body, UKOM.
-
Content ArticleIn this blog, The Patients Association's Chief Executive Rachel Power argues that the findings of the independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services at East Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust demonstrate the repeated failure of maternity services in England to offer safe and compassionate care to families. She outlines the key findings of the report, including catastrophic failures in the organisation's culture, team working and professionalism, and failure to listen to patients. She highlights that the lack of honesty shown by the Trust to individuals and families harmed by the hospitals' failures is shocking, and compounded the suffering felt by each family.
-
News ArticleChildren say they were "treated like animals" and left traumatised as part of a decade of “systemic abuse” by a group of mental health hospitals, an investigation by The Independent and Sky News has found. The Department of Health and Social Care has now launched a probe into the allegations of 22 young women who were patients in units run by The Huntercombe Group, which has run at least six children’s mental health hospitals, between 2012 and this year. They say they suffered treatment including the use of “painful” restraints and being held down for hours by male nurses, being stopped from going outside for months and living in wards with blood-stained walls. They also allege they were given so much medication they had become “zombies” and were force-fed. But despite reports to police and regulators dating back seven years, and findings by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that the units were inadequate, the NHS has still handed Huntercombe nearly £190m since 2015-16 to admit children to its mental health beds. Through witness testimony, documents obtained by Freedom of Information request and leaked reports, the investigation has uncovered: The CQC has received more than 700 whistleblowing and safeguarding reports, including “incidents of concern” and several “sexual safety” concerns. NHS England was notified of 195 safeguarding reports between 2020 and 2021. A 2018 internal report at Meadow Lodge hospital in Newton Abbot (now closed) found staff members using sexually inappropriate language in front of patients. 160 reports investigated by Staffordshire police about Huntercombe Staffordshire between 2015 and 2022. Between March 2021 and 2022, the CQC gave permission for 29 patients to be admitted to Maidenhead hospital after it was placed in special measures. Read full story Source: The Independent, 27 October 2022
-
Content ArticleSince 2013/14, there has been a growth in the volume and value of clinical negligence claims involving patients with diabetes-related lower limb complications. The majority of claims have involved patients with a diabetic foot ulcer who went on to undergo a major lower limb amputation. This thematic review by Nicole Mottolini, Clinical Fellow at NHS Resolution, looks at 92 claims of negligence for lower limb problems involving patients with diabetes. The author used qualitative analysis to identify recurrent clinical themes leading to patient harm including unacceptable delays in diagnosis, delayed referral to specialised care and failures in the Multidisciplinary Diabetic Foot Team (MDFT). Her report highlights shortcomings in diabetes foot care in England, makes recommendations to improve patient care and proposes certain standards which should be put into practice and regularly audited.
-
News ArticleHarm to patients has become “normalised” as burned-out paramedics are working without breaks, the national care watchdog has warned. Concerns over the pressures on staff at South East Coast Ambulance Service have been raised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Senior staff told the CQC that patients were being adversely affected by ambulance delays but it was now being seen as “part of the culture”. The CQC found pressures on staff within the South East Coast Ambulance Service, such as long waits outside of the emergency department, had led to low morale and staff feeling they were not valued. It said: “Staff described feeling frustrated and burnout and that senior leaders did not understand or respond to the challenges or concerns they raised. Some local senior managers described that harm to patients, caused by delays in reaching them, had become normalised as a culture.” “At times there were many outstanding category 3 [urgent] patients awaiting an ambulance or assessment by a paramedic practitioner. At busy times, these patients waited for extended lengths of time for crews and callbacks. Therefore, this group of patients were at risk of deterioration whilst they were waiting for a response.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 October 2022
-
Content ArticleAccording to a recent research study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, over a million people with diabetes in the US rationed their insulin in the past year. When people with diabetes ration their insulin, either by taking less than they need or skipping doses, it poses a serious safety risk and has a negative impact on their long-term health. This article highlights that the main cause of insulin rationing is the high cost of insulin in the US, with pharmaceutical companies increasing prices annually even though the product remains the same. It outlines the main issues caused by insulin rationing and looks at the need for reform to ensure that all Americans with diabetes are able to access adequate insulin. The author speaks to Stephanie Arceneaux who has had type 1 diabetes for 30 years. Stephanie describes her experiences of deciding whether or not to eat and therefore use more insulin, and of having to ration blood glucose test strips.
-
News ArticleAn endometriosis sufferer has said her reproductive organs are so damaged by a three-year delay for surgery, it has affected her ability to have children. Claire Nicholls, 29, has been in pain for years with the condition - which involves tissue similar to the lining of the womb growing elsewhere. Ms Nicholls said she was passed from "pillar to post" and for 10 years, medical professionals did not seem to believe how much pain she was actually in. She has stage four endometriosis, which is the most severe and widespread. "The pain can be excruciating, at times I can't get out of bed and I have also had to attend the emergency department," she said. After opting to go private, her surgeon said he was unable to see many of her organs due to the amount of scarred tissue caused by the delay in surgery. "He told me the scarred tissue and adhesions were all around my organs... they couldn't remove it all as it could have damaged other organs including my bladder - it was just too severe," she said. Northern Ireland has the longest gynaecological waiting lists in the UK, according to a professional body. It is calling for two regional endometriosis centres. The report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists found 36,900 women in Northern Ireland are on a gynaecology waiting list - a 42% increase since the start of the pandemic. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 October 2022
-
News ArticleHospitals “desperate” to free up beds could be putting patients in danger, The Independent has been told. NHS trusts are being forced into “risky behaviours” in the push to free up hospital beds and A&E departments, experts have warned. It comes as new data reveals that waits for ambulance crews outside hospitals hit 26 hours in September, with more than 4,000 patients likely to have experienced severe harm due to delays. In documents leaked to The Independent, hospital leaders in Cornwall warned staff that current pressures in its emergency care system combined with ambulance delays have “tragically resulted in deaths”. Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust and the Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said in the document that ambulance delays and waits in A&E were causing a “risk to life”, and that as a result they were planning to begin discharging patients into the care of the voluntary sector. The document said: “It is likely that the risk of such support not meeting all the patients’ individual requirements is less than the risk to life currently experienced in the community when there are significant handover delays at the hospital front doors.” It comes as North West Ambulance Service launched an investigation after a patient died waiting in the back of an ambulance outside A&E, the Manchester Evening News reported. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 October 2022
-
Content Article
.jpg.d0ee98e72c544c00691a0db085e5e3af.jpg)
On his last day in office at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), outgoing Chief Investigator Keith Conradi wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care reflecting on his time at HSIB. He outlined concerns about the approach of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England to patient safety work carried out by HSIB and the need to introduce a safety management system approach at all levels of healthcare. Patient Safety Learning also shared our thoughts on the issues raised in this letter and we were keen to explore these issues, and Keith’s experience as HSIB’s first Chief Investigator, in greater depth. Here, Patient Safety Learning provides an overview of the recent interview we had with Keith Conradi on this subject. The full transcript of the interview is available to download in the attachment at the end. -
Content ArticleThis debate begins with a statement by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Dr Caroline Johnson MP, regarding the publication of the report of the independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services in East Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It is followed by questions from MPs in the chamber and the Minister's responses.
-
News ArticleParamedics in England cannot respond to 117,000 urgent 999 calls every month because they are stuck outside hospitals looking after patients, figures show. The amount of time ambulance crews had to wait outside A&E units meant they were unavailable to attend almost one in six incidents. Long delays in handing patients over to A&E staff meant 38,000 people may have been harmed last month alone – one in seven of the 292,000 who had to wait at least 15 minutes. Of those left at risk of harm, 4,100 suffered potential “severe harm”, according to the bosses of England’s ambulance services. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 October 2022
-
News ArticleSome batches of an antibiotic medicine called teicoplanin (brand name Targocid) are being urgently recalled in the UK because of possible contamination. The two affected batches are labelled 0J25D1 and 0J25D2, say safety experts. Patients and prescribers are being asked to check packs and stop using the medicine if it has either batch number. Four patients so far have suffered high fevers just hours after being given a dose from these batches. Other products containing teicoplanin are not affected by the recall. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) says the two batches of Targocid 200mg powder for making a solution to take as an injection, by infusion or by mouth, were found to contain high levels of bacterial endotoxins - a toxic compound found in bacterial cell walls that can cause inflammation-related symptoms, high fever and, in very serious cases, septic shock. Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 October 2022
-
Content ArticleReports showing that babies and mothers died or were harmed as a result of failures by, and sometimes heartless cruel treatment in, NHS maternity units are becoming worryingly common. Dr Bill Kirkup’s just-published 192-page exposé of an appalling catalogue of failings at East Kent NHS trust between 2009 and 2020 is the second in the last 12 months. As many as 45 babies and 23 mothers in East Kent died avoidably during that time because their care was substandard, his inquiry found. March brought Donna Ockenden’s grim findings about poor maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford trust. And Kirkup produced the first detailed exposition of what inadequate care of women and their offspring during childbirth looked like when in 2015 he laid bare “serious and shocking” lapses in care at Morecambe Bay trust. A fourth official inquiry, again being led by Ockenden, is under way into death, brain damage and other horrendous outcomes at the Nottingham trust. Families affected claim that, despite coroners’ findings, close scrutiny of the trust by regulators, media coverage of lapses in care and pressure for change, “babies, mothers and their families continue to be harmed”. No wonder Rob Behrens, the NHS Ombudsman, says: “The phrase ‘never again’ is starting to ring hollow.”
-
Content ArticleThis is a written statement to the House of Commons by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Dr Caroline Johnson MP, on behalf of the UK Government. It regards the publication of the report of the independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services in East Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
.jpg.d0ee98e72c544c00691a0db085e5e3af.jpg)
