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People are dying in the back of ambulances and up to 160,000 more a year are coming to harm because they are stuck outside hospitals unable to be offloaded to A&E, a bombshell report has revealed. Patients are also dying soon after finally getting admitted to hospital after spending long periods in the back of an ambulance, while others still in their own homes are not being saved because paramedics are trapped at A&E and unable to answer 999 calls, said the report by NHS ambulance service bosses in England. In addition, about 12,000 of the 160,000 are suffering “severe harm” such as a permanent setback to their health. These include people with life-threatening health emergencies such as chest pains, sepsis, heart problems, epilepsy and COVID-19 because growing numbers of paramedics are having to wait increasingly long times to hand over a patient to A&E staff. Labour and the Liberal Democrats said the “staggering” extent of damage to patients’ health underlined the risks posed by the deepening crisis facing NHS ambulance services. The report, seen by the Guardian, has been drawn up by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) and is based on official NHS figures, which until now were secret. AACE represents the chief executives of England’s 10 regional ambulance services, all of which have had to declare an alert in recent months after being faced with unprecedented demands for help. It concludes that: “When very sick patients arrive at hospital and then have to wait an excessive time for handover to emergency department clinicians to receive assessment and definitive care, it is entirely predictable and almost inevitable that some level of harm will arise. “This may take the form of a deteriorating medical or physical condition, or distress and anxiety, potentially affecting the outcome for patients and definitely creating a poor patient experience.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 November 2021

There have been more than 30 serious security breaches at NHS hospital mortuaries in the past five years, The Independent can reveal. The figures come as local MPs demand a public inquiry into the crimes of NHS electrician David Fuller who sexually abused 100 corpses, including three children, over a period of 12 years. The calls for a full inquiry have also been backed by Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth who said on Friday: “It is important the secretary of state listens to the concerns of the local MP and the families of those who have been involved, and establishes a full, swift public inquiry, so that lessons can be learned from this appalling incident and ensure this is never repeated.” Fuller, aged 67, pleaded guilty on Thursday to the murders of two women, Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987. Detectives searching Fuller’s home found four million images of sexual abuse he had downloaded from the internet on computer hard drives. They also found footage he had filmed of himself carrying out attacks on the bodies of women at the now-closed Kent and Sussex Hospital and the Tunbridge Wells Hospital, where he had worked since 1989. Read full story Source: The Independent, 5 November 2021

A man who murdered two women 34 years ago went on to sexually abuse 100 female corpses in hospital mortuaries, taking videos and images of his crimes, HSJ can reveal. David Fuller was employed as an electrician and later a maintenance supervisor at the now closed Kent and Sussex Hospital, in Tunbridge Wells, and later the Tunbridge Wells hospital in Kent. Over a period of 12 years from 2008 to 2020 he used his access to the hospital mortuaries to sexually abuse the bodies of women and girls. HSJ first learned of David Fuller’s crimes in June this year, but agreed to a request by Kent police not to publish before his trial concluded. They can now reveal all that they discovered. Police have identified 80 victims – from mortuary records and name tags visible in some of the photos and videos Mr Fuller took of the abuse – but 20 are currently unidentified. Mr Fuller’s mortuary offences – which he admitted at a court hearing last month – only came to light when he was arrested for the 1987 murders of Caroline Pierce and Wendy Knell. Police searching his home in Heathfield, East Sussex, discovered millions of videos and photographs, some clearly showing him abusing the bodies. To many of his colleagues at Tunbridge Wells Hospital, David Fuller was an affable and helpful maintenance supervisor who was always willing to carry out small tasks and was the “go to” man if a problem needed sorting. His arrest on murder charges last December was greeted with shock and disbelief by those who knew him. Both the families of the women violated by Mr Fuller and some staff at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells are expected to need psychological help to deal with the enormity and nature of Fuller’s crimes. Families will be offered a range of support, including psychiatric counselling, and will also be given a letter from Mr Scott, with a personal apology and containing an invitation for them to contact the trust if they want to. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 November 2021

"What has happened to us is home-grown, institutionalised female genital mutilation," says Mary Lodato, 63, a mother of three and a university researcher, from Kettering in Northamptonshire. "It has been a systemic failure in health and care and it was totally avoidable." What Mary is referring to are complications due to implanted surgical mesh, designed to treat post-childbirth pelvic damage in women, which has left thousands effectively crippled as the material disintegrated inside their bodies, and sheared into the tissue, causing a range of devastating symptoms including pain, difficulty walking and sexual dysfunction. An eight-year Good Health campaign to get official recognition of the problem led to the establishment of a government inquiry under the leadership of former Conservative health minister Baroness Julia Cumberlege. Although the inquiry report was published in July 2020, some of its key recommendations have still not been implemented, leaving thousands of women suffering and not getting the help they need. Seven specialist NHS mesh removal clinics were meant to open in April this year in London, Cambridge, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leicester. But the affected women claim a shortage of specialists has meant that only two are functioning — at University College London Hospital and Southmead Hospital in Bristol (which was not on the original list). They also say that it's extremely difficult to get a referral to one of these new centres and even if they do, waiting times can stretch into years. "To the doctors who originally treated us, these operations weren't anything major — but to us it was a catastrophically painful loss of work, family life and intimacy," says Mary. Mary's story is one familiar to almost 10,000 women who have joined an anti-mesh group called Sling the Mesh, and a number of other support organisations. Read full story Source: Mail Online, 1 November 2021 Blogs from Kath Sansom, Sling the Mesh Regulatory flaws: Women were catastrophically failed in the mesh, Primodos and Sodium Valproate tragedies Ineffective medical device recalls are a patient safety scandal

A decade after scientists identified a link between certain implants and cancer, the US Food and Drug Administration has ordered “black box” warnings and a new checklist of risks for patients to review. Federal regulators have placed so-called black box warnings on breast implant packaging and told manufacturers to sell the devices only to health providers who review the potential risks with patients before surgery. Both the warnings and a new checklist that advises patients of the risks and side effects state that breast implants have been linked to a cancer of the immune system and to a host of other chronic medical conditions, including autoimmune diseases, joint pain, mental confusion, muscle aches and chronic fatigue. Startlingly, the checklist identifies particular types of patients who are at higher risk for illness after breast implant surgery. The group includes breast cancer patients who have had, or plan to have, chemotherapy or radiation treatments. That represents a large percentage of women who until now were encouraged to have breast reconstruction with implants following their treatment. Reactions to the new requirements were mixed. While some doctors welcomed the new warning system, others worried that the potential risks and side effects would not be conveyed adequately by plastic surgeons who were eager to reassure patients the procedure is safe and that the new checklist would be handled in a dismissive manner. But Dr. Mark Clemens, a professor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who serves a liaison to the F.D.A. for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Society, said the black box warning and checklist represented “a huge step forward for patient safety and implants.” Read full story Source: The New York Times, 27 October 2021

Patients are being put at "catastrophic risk" of harm due to ambulance handover delays, health bosses say. West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) has raised its risk rating for such delays to its highest level for the first time in its history. The risk rating shows the trust believes patient harm is "almost certain" due to the handover hold-ups. Mark Docherty, director of nursing and clinical commissioning, said it was a "completely unacceptable situation". It comes as a patient died after waiting more than five hours in the back of an ambulance in Worcestershire. At a meeting on Wednesday, the ambulance service's board of directors heard the amount of time being lost to delays had reached previously unseen levels, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said. Mr Docherty warned the situation was set to get worse over the coming months as a result of winter pressures. "Despite everything we are doing by way of mitigation, we know that patients are coming to harm as a result of delays," he said. "We know that there are patients that are having significant harm and indeed, through our review of learning from deaths, we know that sadly some patients are dying before we get to them." Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 October 2021

A nurse from scandal-hit Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital ordered a pregnant woman to take medication she was allergic to. Christine Speake, who had worked in the NHS for almost 40 years as a midwife and nurse, has been struck-off the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register after a tribunal heard she told the mother to “just take it” and then tried to cover-up her mistake after the woman suffered a reaction. The NMC hearing was told the 11-week pregnant patient and her unborn child could have died after being prescribed the Buscopan by a junior doctor to treat severe nausea and vomiting in January 2019. The woman – named only as 'Patient A' – was given the drug by Speake despite her allergy being included in her medical records. Speake was employed as a sister on the gynaecology ward at the Princess Royal Hospital. When the mother questioned what she was being given, Speake, who has worked as a midwife and nurse since 1985, snapped "just take it". The panel heard Patient A then had a violent reaction and broke out in a rash and started vomiting. But Speake, who realised her mistake, then failed to tell her colleagues in a bid to “cover up” what she had done and later resigned, the NMC tribunal heard. Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 October 2021

Senior managers at an NHS trust are facing calls to resign from local councillors after criticism of the trust’s culture and widespread bullying. The chair of Nottinghamshire County Council's health scrutiny panel has called for the chair of Nottingham University Hospitals Trust Eric Morton to step down along with Keith Girling, the trust’s medical director. Councillor Sue Saddington, chair of the council’s scrutiny committee, said she would be writing to health secretary Sajid Javid over concerns about leadership at the trust. An investigation by The Independent and Channel 4 News earlier this year uncovered dozens of cases of negligent baby deaths and injuries costing millions of pounds in compensation. Families have accused the trust of trying to cover-up mistakes and not learning from errors. More than 30 babies have died at the trust in the past decade with 46 children left with brain damage. Read full story Source: The Independent, 13 October 2021

In a Letter to the Editor published in The Times yesterday, the All Party Parliamentary Group on First Do No Harm Co-Chair Baroness Julia Cumberlege argues in favour of the work of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) Review and its report 'First Do No Harm'. "Inquiries are only as good as the change for the better that results from their work." Read full letter (paywalled) Source: The Times, 5 January 2021

An Independent Patients' Commissioner is set to be appointed to act as champion for people who have been harmed by medicines or medical devices. Baroness Cumberlege, who recommended the new role in a landmark report earlier this year, announced that the government had budged on the issue after initial resistance. She welcomed the move saying: "Had there been a patient safety commissioner before now, much of the suffering we have witnessed could have been avoided." But she added "the risk still remains" and further urgent action is needed to protect patients from potentially harmful drugs." At an online meeting of parliamentarians, the baroness described the testimony of a victim of the medical device vaginal mesh, which has left some patients in chronic pain. The woman had told her review team: "This device took everything from me. My health, my life, my job, my dignity, my marriage, my freedom." Reflecting on this the baroness added: "The scale of suffering we witnessed means nothing short of profound change is necessary. Not necessary in a couple or three years, but necessary now." Read full story Source: Sky News, 16 December 2020

The number of women involved in an investigation into a consultant gynaecologist who "unnecessarily harmed" patients has risen to 382. University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust has written to another 110 women who were treated by Daniel Hay. Mr Hay is under investigation after eight women treated by him were found to have been "unnecessarily harmed". The latest women have been told there are "no concerns" for their health. Staff at the Royal Derby Hospital raised concerns about the consultant's care in late 2018. An initial review of 58 cases involving Mr Hay identified the eight lapses of care for which he and the trust have apologised. A broader investigation was launched and another 135 women, who had undergone surgery, were contacted to say their care was being reviewed. In September the trust wrote to a further 79 women who had received intermediate care. It has now said 110 more women, all outpatients at Ripley Hospital between April 2017 and July 2018, have now been contacted. Dr Magnus Harrison, executive medical director, said: "We have widened the review to a specific outpatient clinic... to understand the care being provided there. We are doing this proactively, rather than in response to any specific concerns, so that the review is as thorough as possible." "Each of the women have been informed that there are no concerns regarding their current health." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 December 2020

Strong leadership, challenging poor workplace culture, and ringfencing maternity funding are key to improving safety. That’s the message from two leading Royal Colleges as they respond to the independent review of maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust led by Donna Ockenden. The RCOG and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) have today welcomed the Ockenden Review and its recognition of the need to challenge poor working relationships, improve funding and access to multidisciplinary training and crucially to listen to women and their families to improve learning and to ensure tragedies such as those that have happened at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust never occur again. The Colleges have said that the local actions for learning and the immediate and essential actions laid out in this report must be read and acted upon immediately in all Trusts and Health Boards delivering maternity services across the UK. Commenting, Dr Edward Morris, President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: “This report makes difficult reading for all of us working in maternity services and should be a watershed moment for the system. Reducing risk needs a holistic approach that targets the specific challenges of fetal monitoring interpretation and strengthens organisational functioning, culture and behaviour." Read press release Source: RCOG, 10 December 2020

Patient Safety Learning Press Release 10th December 2020 Today the Independent review of maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust published its first report on its findings.[1] The report made recommendations for actions to be implemented by the Trust and “immediate and essential actions” for both the Trust and the wider NHS. The Review was formally commissioned in 2017 to assess “the quality of investigations relating to new-born, infant and maternal harm at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust”.[2] Initially it was focused on 23 cases but has been significantly expanded as families have subsequently contacted the review team with their concerns about maternity care and treatment at the Trust. The total number of families to be included in the final report is 1,862. These initial findings are drawn from 250 cases reviewed to date. This is another shocking report into avoidable harm. We welcome the publication of these interim findings and the sharing of early actions that have been identified to make improvements to patient safety in NHS maternity services. We commend the ambition for immediate responses and action. Reflecting on the report, there are a number of broad patient safety themes, many of which have been made time and time again in other reports and inquiries. A failure to listen to patients The report outlines serious concerns about how the Trust engaged and involved women both in their care and after harm had occurred. This was particularly notable in the example of the option of having a caesarean section, where there was an impression that the Trust had a culture of wanting to keep the numbers of these low, regardless of patients’ wishes. They commented: “The Review Team observed that women who accessed the Trust’s maternity service appeared to have little or no freedom to express a preference for caesarean section or exercise any choice on their mode of deliver.” It also noted a theme in common with both Paterson Inquiry and Cumberlege Review relating to the Trusts’ poor response to patients raising concerns.[3] The report noted that “there have also been cases where women and their families raised concerns about their care and were dismissed or not listened to at all”. The need for better investigations Concerns about the quality of investigations into patient safety incidents at the Trust is another theme that emerges. The review reflected that in some cases no investigation happened at all, while in others these did take place but “no learning appears to have been identified and the cases were subsequently closed with it deemed that no further action was required”. One of the most valuable sources for learning is the investigation of serious incidents and near misses. If these processes are absent or inadequate, then organisations will be unable to learn lessons and prevent future harm reoccurring. Patient Safety Learning believes it is vital that Trusts have the commitment, resources, and frameworks in place to support investigations and that the investigators themselves have the right skills and training so that these are done well and to a consistently high standard. This has not formed part of the Report’s recommendations and we hope that this is included in their final report. Lack of leadership for patient safety Another key issue highlighted by the report is the failure at a leadership level to identify and tackle the patient safety issues. Related to this one issue it notes is high levels of turnover in the roles of Chief Executive, executive directors and non-executive directors. As part of its wider recommendations, the Report suggests trust boards should identify a non-executive director who has oversight of maternity services. Good leadership plays a key role in shaping an organisations culture. Patient Safety Leadership believes that leaders need to drive patient safety performance, support learning from unsafe care and put in place clear governance processes to enable this. Leaders need to be accountable for patient safety. There are questions we hope will be answered in the final report that relate to whether leaders knew about patients’ safety concerns and the avoidable harm to women and their babies. If they did not know, why not? If they did know but did not act, why not? Informed Consent and shared decision-making The NHS defines informed consent as “the person must be given all of the information about what the treatment involves, including the benefits and risks, whether there are reasonable alternative treatments, and what will happen if treatment does not go ahead”.[4] The report highlights concerns around the absence of this, particularly on the issue of where women choose as a place of birth, noting: “In many cases reviewed there appears to have been little or no discussion and limited evidence of joint decision making and informed consent concerning place of birth. There is evidence from interviews with women and their families, that it was not explained to them in case of a complication during childbirth, what the anticipated transfer time to the obstetric-led unit might be.” Again this is another area of common ground with other recent patient safety reports such as the Cumberlege Review.[5] Patient Safety Learning believes it is important that patients are not simply treated as passive participants in the process of their care. Informed consent and shared decision making are vital to respecting the rights of patients, maintaining trust in the patient-clinician relationship, and ensuring safe care. Implementation for action and improved patient safety In its introduction, the report states: “Having listened to families we state that there must be an end to investigations, reviews and reports that do not lead to lasting meaningful change. This is our call to action.” Responding with an official statement in the House of Commons today, Nadine Dorries MP, Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety, did not outline a timetable for the implementation of this report’s recommendations. In 2020 we have seen significant patient safety reports whose findings have been welcomed by the Department of Health and Social Care but where there has subsequently been no formal response nor clear timetable for the implementation of recommendations, most notably the Paterson Inquiry and Cumberlege Review. Patient Safety Learning believes there is an urgent need to set out a plan for implementing the recommendations of the Ockenden Report and these other patient safety reports. Patients must be listened to and action taken to ensure patient safety. [1] Independent review of maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, Ockenden Report: Emerging findings and recommendations form the independent review of maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, 10 December 2020. https://www.ockendenmaternityreview.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ockenden-report.pdf [2] Ibid. [3] The Right Reverend Graham Jones, Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Issues raised by Paterson, 2020. https://assets.publishing.serv...; The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, First Do No Harm, 8 July 2020. https://www.immdsreview.org.uk/downloads/IMMDSReview_Web.pdf [4] NHS England, Consent to treatment, Last Accessed 16 July 2020. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment/ [5] Patient Safety Learning, Findings of the Cumberlege Review: informed consent, Patient Safety Learning’s the hub, 24 July 2020. https://www.pslhub.org/learn/patient-engagement/consent-and-privacy/consent-issues/findings-of-the-cumberlege-review-informed-consent-july-2020-r2683/

Health chiefs are designing an “early warning” system to detect and prevent future maternity care scandals before they happen, a health minister has said. Patient safety minister Nadine Dorries said she hoped the system would highlight hospitals and maternity units where mistakes were being made earlier. The former nurse also revealed the Department of Health and Social Care was drawing up a plan for a joint national curriculum for both midwives and obstetricians to make sure they had the skills to look after women safely. During a Parliamentary debate following the publication of a report into the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital care scandal, the minister was challenged by MPs to take action to prevent future scandals. The former health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, warned the failings at the Shropshire trust, where dozens of babies died or were left with permanent brain damage, could be repeated elsewhere. He said: “The biggest mistake in interpreting this report would be to think that what happened at Shrewsbury and Telford is a one-off — it may well not be, and we mustn't assume that it is.” Ms Dorries said: “Every woman should own her birth plan, be in control of what is happening to her during her delivery and I really hope ... this report is fundamental in how it's going to reform the maternity services across the UK going forward. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 December 2020

A GP surgery that had been told it required improvement has been shut down after an inspection found patients could be at "risk of harm". Hampshire's Brockhurst Medical Centre had already been due to close on 31 December. However, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) suspended its registration with "immediate effect" following an unannounced inspection on Monday. Patients are expected to be transferred to other practices on Saturday. In September, a CQC assessment of the practice, on Brockhurst Road in Gosport, rated it overall as "requires improvement". The issues highlighted in the report included that the practice "did not have systems for the appropriate and safe use of medicines" and "there was a risk that some patients were not receiving the care and treatment they needed". Following Monday's inspection, Garry Higgins, of the CQC, said it had taken "urgent action" to suspend the registration of the GP surgery. "We took the action because we believe if we didn't people using the service may be exposed to the risk of harm," he added. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 December 2020

Healthcare practitioners who committed child sexual abuse commonly did so under the guise of medical treatment, which went unchallenged by other staff even when unnecessary or inappropriate because of their position of trust, research has found. An independent inquiry into child sexual abuse report into abuse in healthcare settings between the 1960s and 2000s found that perpetrators were most commonly male GPs or healthcare practitioners with routine clinical access to children. As a result their behaviour was not questioned by colleagues, the children or their parents. In many cases patients’ healthcare needs related to physical, psychological and sexual abuse they suffered at home. They spoke of attending health institutions seeking treatment, care and recovery, but were instead subjected to sexual abuse. This included fondling, exposing children to adult sexuality, and violations of privacy. More than half who shared their experiences described suffering sexual abuse by penetration. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 December 2020

Eleven patients have suffered harm after being kept waiting in ambulances outside accident and emergency departments, a review has found. South East Coast Ambulance (SECamb) Service Foundation Trust launched the review after a specific incident at Medway Foundation Trust on Monday 16 November. Although details of the incident have not been released, HSJ has been told one patient waited for nine hours before being seen in the trust’s A&E department that day. The review covered all long waits across SECAmb’s area over the last few weeks. Out of 120 cases examined, 11 patients were found to have suffered some degree of harm, SECAmb’s executive director of nursing and quality Bethan Eaton-Haskins told Kent’s health overview and scrutiny committee last week. However, the trust has not revealed which hospitals were involved. Ms Eaton-Haskins said the ambulance trust was “struggling significantly” with handovers and expecting the recent pressure experienced at Medway FT to affect the county’s other hospitals soon. However, she indicated some other trusts in Surrey and Sussex had also had long delays. Ambulance services have been concerned for some time that handover delays could pose significant problems this winter. They are thought to have contributed to the North West Ambulance Service Trust declaring a major incident earlier this month. HSJ has also been told of waits of several hours in other ambulance trusts. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 December 2020

A network of specialist surgical mesh removal centres is to be set up around England, with a launch planned for April 2021. The move implements a recommendation of the review, chaired by the Conservative peer and former health minister Julia Cumberlege, into three treatments which caused avoidable harm. These included the use of transvaginal tape and pelvic mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence. The review, which published its report in July, heard “harrowing” stories about women left with serious complications. The mesh is hard to remove and only a few surgeons in the UK are able to carry out the procedure. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 25 November 2020

Ministers are to invest millions in making Britain's maternity wards safer, it was announced on Wednesday after The Independent exposed a series of cases in which mothers and babies had suffered avoidable harm during childbirth. The new money, almost £10m, was announced as part of the spending review unveiled by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, in the Commons and will deliver new pilots of what the Treasury called “cutting-edge training” to improve practice during childbirth. Significant failings in maternity safety units across the NHS have devastated families and left some babies needing tens of millions of pounds to look after them in later life. In November last year, The Independent joined with the charity Baby Lifeline to call for a new fund to be set up after exposing the single largest maternity scandal in NHS history at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust, where dozens of babies have died or been left with brain damage. The new funding will also cover the final year of the independent investigation into the Shrewsbury trust. Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 November 2020

Several patients were harmed after leaders at an acute trust failed to act on multiple concerns being raised about a surgeon, documents obtained by HSJ suggest. The documents reveal a catalogue of governance and safety concerns over the trauma and orthopaedics department at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust in the last three years. They include an external review which described the process for investigating clinical incidents as akin to “marking your own homework” and found the T&O department at Royal Lancaster Infirmary driven by “internecine squabbles”. It comes as the trust, which is widely known for a patient safety scandal within its maternity department, also faces a major investigation into whistleblowing concerns over its urology services. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 November 2020

Lawyers have begun legal action on behalf of 200 UK women against the makers of a sterilisation device, after claims of illness and pain. The device, a small coil called Essure, was implanted to prevent pregnancies. Manufacturer Bayer has already set aside more than $1.6bn (£1.2bn) to settle claims from almost 40,000 women in the US. It has withdrawn the device from the market for commercial reasons but says it stands by its safety and efficacy. The metal coil was inserted into the fallopian tube to cause scarring, blocking the tube and preventing pregnancy. Introduced in 2002, it was promoted as an easy, non-surgical procedure - a new era in sterilisation. But many women who had the device fitted have now either had hysterectomies or are waiting for procedures to remove the device. Tracey Pitcher, who lives in Hampshire, felt she had completed her family and did not want any more children. Her doctor strongly encouraged her to have an Essure device fitted, she says. But after it had been, she began to feel very unwell. "I just started to have heavy periods, migraines, which I had only ever had when I was pregnant so they were hormonal," she says. "My back was so painful I'd wake up crying in the middle of the night with pains in my hips and my back." Tracey says she battled to persuade doctors to take her symptoms seriously. But the only information she received was from a Facebook group. "... there's nobody there, there's no support apart from people that we've found ourselves, no-one will listen, because it's just 'women's things'." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 November 2020

A nurse is due in court charged with eight counts of murder following an investigation into baby deaths at the Countess of Chester hospital neonatal unit in Cheshire. Lucy Letby, 30, is due to appear at Warrington magistrates court on Thursday. She was arrested for a third time on Tuesday as part of the investigation into the hospital, which began in 2017. A force spokesman said: “The Crown Prosecution Service has authorised Cheshire police to charge a healthcare professional with murder in connection with an ongoing investigation into a number of baby deaths at the Countess of Chester hospital.” He said Letby was facing eight charges of murder and 10 charges of attempted murder relating to the period from June 2015 to June 2016. On Tuesday, police said parents of all the babies involved were being kept fully updated on developments and were being supported by officers. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 November 2020

Study finds 54 days after discharge, 69% of patients still had fatigue, and 53% were suffering from persistent breathlessness. Almost seven out of 10 patients hospitalised due to coronavirus still suffer from debilitating symptoms more than seven weeks after being discharged, according to a new study. Researchers from the University College London (UCL) division of medicine, in collaboration with with clinicians at the Royal Free London (RFL) and UCL, followed 384 patients who had tested positive and had been treated at Barnet Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital or UCLH. Collectively the average length of stay in hospital was 6.5 days. The team found that 54 days after discharge, 69% of patients were still experiencing fatigue, and 53% were suffering from persistent breathlessness. They also found that 34% still had a cough and 15% reported depression. In addition 38% of chest radiographs (X-rays) remained abnormal and 9% were getting worse. Dr Swapna Mandal, an honorary clinical associate professor at UCL division of medicine, said the data shows so-called long COVID is a real phenomenon and that further research is needed to understand how the symptoms of COVID-19 can be treated over an extended period. She said: "Patients whose COVID-19 illness is serious enough for them to require hospital care often continue to suffer significant symptoms for many weeks after their discharge." Read full story Source: Sky News, 11 November 2020

Hospital hotspots for COVID-19 have been highlighted in a new report by safety investigators. The report by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) makes a series of observations to help the health service reduce the spread of coronavirus in healthcare settings. Hospital hotspots for COVID-19 included the central nurses’ stations and areas where computers and medical notes were shared, the HSIB found. The investigation was initiated after a Sage report in May which found that 20% of hospital patients were reporting symptoms of Covid-19 seven days following admission – suggesting that their infection may have been acquired in hospital. In response to the report, NHS England and NHS Improvement confirmed they would publish nosocomial – another term for hospital acquired infections – transmission rates from trusts, the HSIB said. Read full story Source: Express and Star, 28 October 2020

Minority ethnic people in UK were ‘overexposed, under protected, stigmatised and overlooked’, new review finds. Structural racism led to the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus pandemic on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, a review by Doreen Lawrence has concluded. The report, commissioned by Labour, contradicts the government’s adviser on ethnicity, Dr Raghib Ali, who last week dismissed claims that inequalities within government, health, employment and the education system help to explain why COVID-19 killed disproportionately more people from minority ethnic communities. Lady Lawrence’s review found BAME people are over-represented in public-facing industries where they cannot work from home, are more likely to live in overcrowded housing and have been put at risk by the government’s alleged failure to facilitate Covid-secure workplaces. She demanded that the government set out an urgent winter plan to tackle the disproportionate impact of Covid on BAME people and ensure comprehensive ethnicity data is collected across the NHS and social care. The report, entitled An Avoidable Crisis, also criticises politicians for demonising minorities, such as when Donald Trump used the phrase “the Chinese virus”. The report, which is based on submissions and conversations over Zoom featuring “heart-wrenching stories” as well as quantitative data, issued the following 20 recommendations: Set out an urgent plan for tackling the disproportionate impact of Covid on ethnic minorities Implement a national strategy to tackle health inequalities Suspend ‘no recourse to public funds’ during Covid Conduct a review of the impact of NRPF on public health and health inequalities Ensure Covid-19 cases from the workplace are properly recorded Strengthen Covid-19 risk assessments Improve access to PPE in all high-risk workplaces Give targeted support to people who are struggling to self-isolate Ensure protection and an end to discrimination for renters Raise the local housing allowance and address the root causes of homelessness Urgently conduct equality impact assessments on the government’s Covid support schemes Plan to prevent the stigmatisation of communities during Covid-19 Urgently legislate to tackle online harms Collect and publish better ethnicity data Implement a race equality strategy Ensure all policies and programmes help tackle structural inequality Introduce mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting End the ‘hostile environment’ Reform the curriculum Take action to close the attainment gap Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 October 2020