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Showing results for tags 'Patient suffering'.
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Content ArticleThe Pharmaceutical Journal speaks to formerly fit and well pharmacists and technicians whose lives have been devastated by Long Covid.
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Content ArticleEmergency Department (ED) patient waiting times provide an important barometer for the wider pressures experienced in the NHS. There are currently alarming levels of crowding in our EDs, indicating that the health service is unable to meet the needs of patients with the current level of resource and capacity. In March 2022, for the first time in the history of the metric, the numbers of patients waiting 12-hours or more from decision to admit (DTA) exceeded 20,000. However the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) argue that this number represents the tip of iceberg, as far greater numbers of patients experience extreme waits of 12 hours or more from their time of arrival. To investigate this issue further, RCEM carried out a Freedom of Information (FOI) request examining the extent of very long stays in EDs, with a particular focus on the numbers of patients waiting 12 hours or more from their time of arrival. They found that the current 12-hour data is a gross underrepresentation of the reality of patient waits, as it fails to capture the vast majority of patients who have no choice but to spend extended lengths of time in EDs. It additionally conceals the patients who are discharged home after very long stays.
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News ArticleRecord numbers of chronically ill patients living with disabilities are being denied funding for their care, The Mail on Sunday has reveal. An analysis of official figures shows only a fifth of those with disabling conditions such as Parkinson's disease, dementia and spinal injury asking for Government-funded help are being granted it this year. This is the lowest figure on record, with the exception of the pandemic years when assessments stopped altogether. Every year about 160,000 people apply for NHS funding called 'continuing healthcare', money available to those with significant medical needs. Unlike social care funding, arranged for some who need looking after, continuing healthcare is only offered to those in ill health who need regular attention from medical professionals. A decade ago, 34% of these applications were successful. Today that figure is 22%. Meanwhile, separate data seen by this newspaper reveals a sharp rise in the number of assessments that are deemed to have wrongly decided against funding at a subsequent appeal. Lisa Morgan, partner at Hugh James solicitors, which specialises in helping families fight for NHS care funding, says: 'In many cases, if [the clinical commissioning group] had made the right decision in the first place, it could have saved itself thousands of pounds.' The revelations come weeks after The Mail on Sunday told of the heartbreaking stories of desperately unwell people left utterly reliant on relatives, having been refused NHS-funded care. Some have then embarked on the lengthy and costly process of appealing the decision with legal help, to be told months or years later that they should have been granted funding all along. Read full story Source: Mail Online, 11 June 2022
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Content ArticleIn this letter to the Guardian newspaper, a specialist nurse writes on an NHS service that puts women in control of pain relief, Sara Davies on the torturous pain she endured to have an intrauterine device fitted, and Lee Bennett on why it pays to speak up persistently. Have you experienced pain during a medical procedure? Share your experience along with hundreds of women to one of our community forums: Do women experience poorer medical attention when it comes to pain? Pain during IUD fitting Painful hysteroscopy
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Content Article
This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them. Bill talks to us about how patient safety and transparency have been key priorities throughout his career as an Operating Department Practitioner (ODP) and then a leader in the NHS. He highlights the need for a longer-term approach to workforce planning and talks about how leaders can set a culture that engages with and prioritises patients. -
News ArticleIn England, only a third of adults – and half of children – now have access to an NHS dentist. As those in pain turn to charity-run clinics for help, can anything stop the rot? It is over an hour before the emergency dental clinic is due to open, but Jodie Manning is taking no chances. She hasn’t been able to eat for four days – “I can’t physically bite down any more” – and is determined to get an appointment. Aged 19, she has been to hospital with severe toothache “three-and-a-half times” in the previous year. The half is when they sent her home without treatment; on the other occasions, she was kept in overnight after collapsing from pain and dehydration, when even drinking liquids hurt her swollen mouth. Morphine has become her crutch: she fell asleep in college recently after taking the powerful painkiller. Like many of those waiting grimly in line, she has been struck off by her NHS dentist after not attending for two years, even though surgeries were shut to all but emergency cases during Covid. The same desperation can be seen across England, particularly in the north and east. Only a third of adults – and less than half of English children – now have access to an NHS dentist, according to the Association of Dental Groups (ADG). At the same time, three million people suffer from oral pain and two million have undertaken a round trip of 40 miles for treatment, the ADG calculated recently, calling dentistry “the forgotten healthcare service”. Tooth extraction is now the most common reason for a child to be admitted to hospital, costing the NHS £50m a year. The decline of NHS dentistry has deep roots. Years of underfunding and the current government contract, blamed for problems with burnout, recruitment and retention. Dentists are paid a flat fee for services regardless of how long a treatment takes (they get the same amount if they extract one tooth or five, for example). Covid exacerbated existing challenges, with the airborne disease posing a health risk for dentists peering into strangers’ mouths all day. As the British Dental Association put it in its most recent briefing: “NHS dentistry is facing an existential threat and patients face a growing crisis in access, with the service hanging by a thread.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 May 2022
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News ArticleHundreds of thousands of patients referred to specialists by their GPs are being rejected by hospitals and left to deteriorate because there are no appointments available. NHS waiting lists are already buckling under record-high backlogs and now delays are being compounded as local doctors struggle to even get their patients to outpatient services. Patients’ referrals are rejected by hospital trusts if there are no appointment slots available, meaning they get bounced back to the GP who is unable to help with their complex needs, leaving them without the care they desperately need. Clare Rayner, 54, from Manchester, has been left distraught by delays which have hampered the treatment she needs for complex spinal problems. She is still waiting to find out if an upcoming appointment with a neurologist is going ahead after a request for an urgent review from her GP was ignored five times. Outpatient referrals are typically classed as having an “appointment slot issue” (ASI) when no booking slot is available within a specific time frame, under the NHS e-Referral system. According to experts, the situation varies between specialities, but is reportedly particularly bad in areas such as mental health and neurology. Ms Rayner, a former medical teacher who had to retire because of ill health, said: “I’ve been sent all around the country for neurosurgery over the last few years so have been directly affected by being bounced back to my GP." “A unit in London rejected me because they said I lived too far away, which was ridiculous as they take people from all over the UK, and a local consultant just never replied to my GP’s email. Ms Rayner said she has endured “massive delays” to her care which had left her intensely frustrated. “It’s left me with significant deterioration with my spinal problems and that’s been very distressing,” she said. Helen Hughes, chief executive of charity and campaign group Patient Safety Learning, said: “NHS England needs to urgently investigate, quantify the scale of the problem and take action if we are to prevent these capacity problems resulting in avoidable harm for patients.” A target for providers to reduce ASIs to a rate of 4% or less of their total outpatient activity was set by NHS England in 2019. Guidance in subsequent years has seen a move towards the requirement for providers to implement “innovative pathways” to support prevention of ill health. Read full story Source: iNews, 22 May 2022 Related blogs on the hub: Rejected outpatient referrals are putting patients at risk and increasing workload pressure on GPs A child left waiting for ‘urgent’ surgery, a blog by Clare Rayner
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News Article
Ambulance wait times endangering patients, doctors say
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Doctors and paramedics have told the BBC that long waits for ambulances across the UK are having a "dangerous impact" on patient safety. BBC analysis found a 77% rise in the most serious safety incidents logged by paramedics in England over the past year, compared to before the pandemic. In Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the 999 system is also under "tremendous pressure", doctors say. NHS England said the safety of patients is its "absolute priority". In October, nine-year-old Willow Clark fell off her bike on a country path in Hertfordshire, cracking her helmet and leaving her with a fractured skull and a nine-inch laceration across her leg. "I could see it was a really bad accident and I was 20 minutes away from home screaming for help," said her mother Sam. "These really nice people who were passing by phoned 999. "They explained she had a severe head injury and her leg was badly hurt but we were told it would be a 10-hour wait for an ambulance and we'd have to get her to hospital ourselves." When they got to A&E, Willow was immediately transferred to the trauma department. Doctors told her family that she should not have been moved because of her back and neck injuries. She later found out that Willow had been classified as an "urgent" category three case, meaning an ambulance should have arrived within 120 minutes. Coroners and lawyers have highlighted recent cases including: Staffordshire's assistant coroner issued a 'prevention of future deaths' warning after a patient in Stoke died after waiting eight hours for an ambulance. The family of a man who died after waiting nine hours for treatment has issued a legal challenge against the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service over a "chronic shortage" of ambulances. The London Ambulance service is investigating after a man died when paramedics took almost 70 minutes to respond to a suspected heart attack. Dr Katherine Henderson, an A&E consultant and president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told the BBC's Today programme the problem with ambulance waits was "more serious than we've ever seen it". Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 May 2022 -
News Article
Chronic pain treatments are failing millions, say experts
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Relentless. Unbearable. Overwhelming. These are just some of the words used by the thousands of people who have revealed their battle with long-term, persistent pain. An exclusive survey of over 4,000 adults aged 16-75 for BBC News, carried out by research company Ipsos, suggests that a quarter of people in the UK are living with chronic pain - an often hidden and misunderstood condition. And pain specialists warn the health service is not set up to deal with such complex conditions. They say the treatments on offer are decades behind the science, leaving millions of patients without the support they need to manage their pain. Jen Proudler says chronic pain has left her grieving for "the person she was". It started four years ago with sporadic back pain. After several incorrect diagnoses, Jen was eventually told by a neurosurgeon that she had a "pretty massive" far lateral disc herniation in her spine. The pain has now spread around her body - Jen has burning pins and needles sensations down her leg, as well as sharp pain, as if being cut by a razor. Sometimes it's so bad, she can't even bear any fabric to touch it. "Our nervous system becomes more and more protective, it feels danger and sends warning signals - and those warning signals contribute to the pain," explains Dr Chris Barker, clinical director of an NHS community pain service in Ainsdale, Merseyside. He says such pain can be hard to diagnose, and the difficulty of getting the correct treatment can make things worse. "Incorrect diagnoses, delayed diagnoses, poor experiences in and out of the health system, not being believed - all of these can contribute to a more intense experience of pain." Dr Barker says the NHS is not set up to deal with such a complex condition, despite the fact it is so common. "The prevalence of pain is huge. It dwarfs most other conditions." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 May 2022 Further reading: Is pain a patient safety issue? Blog from Patient Safety Learning -
Content Article
This blog is written in time for the WHO's World Immunisation Week. It explores vaccination programmes, in particular that for COVID-19 – it's uptake, both in the UK and globally, and the negative impact the pandemic has had on vaccination programmes for other diseases. -
News Article
Woman waits six hours for ambulance after fall on her 100th birthday
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A woman has described how she spent more than six hours of her 100th birthday waiting in agony for an ambulance after slipping and fracturing her pelvis while getting ready for a family lunch. Irene Silsby was due to be picked up by her niece, Lynne Taylor, for a celebration to mark her centenary on 9 April. But she fell in the windowless bathroom of her care home in Greetham, Rutland, and staff called an ambulance at 9am after she managed to summon help. “All I remember is I was in terrible pain,” said Silsby from her hospital bed on Saturday. When asked of the ambulance delay, she said: “It’s disgusting. I don’t know how I stood it so long, the pain was so severe.” Taylor expected to meet the ambulance as she arrived 45 minutes later. But when she reached the care home, the manager said it would be a 10-hour wait, she said. What was to be her aunt’s first trip outside the care home in more than five months turned into her lying on a cold floor surrounded by pillows and blankets to keep her warm and quell some of the discomfort. Taylor, 60, recalled her aunt saying: “They’re not coming to me because they know I’m 100 and I’m not really worth it any more.” Taylor said she had never felt so scared, frustrated and worried. After calling 999 and expressing her outrage, she was told that life-threatening conditions were being prioritised. “I thought she was going to die,” she said. “I didn’t think that any frail, tiny, 100-year-old body could put up with that level of pain on the floor.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 April 2022 -
News ArticleMums who have given birth at Sheffield's largest maternity unit have revealed all about the "horrible" conditions, with some parents saying they feared for their baby's lives. One mum - a midwife herself - was so concerned about her unborn baby's welfare that she and her partner temporarily moved to London just weeks before her due date. "I felt like my son and I might have died if we had the pregnancy in Sheffield," she said. Several mums have spoken to Yorkshire Live about their stories after a scathing report uncovered the scale of the issues on the Jessop Wing. CQC inspectors highlighted all manner of major issues about the care given at Sheffield Teaching Hospital's specialist maternity unit, including examples of emergency help not arriving when staff called for it. Distraught mums said they were left naked and covered in bodily fluids while others complained about being ignored for hours despite begging for pain relief. Dangerously low staffing levels exposed patients to the risk of serious harm, while midwives themselves revealed a toxic environment of a "bullying and intimidating culture" from senior management. As a Trust spokesperson said "we are very sorry" and vowed to make big improvements, we spoke to some of the families worst affected by the problems as they explained how "basic dignity and care have gone out the window". Read full story Source: 12, April 2022, Yorkshire Live
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Content ArticleThis report by the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG) examines the real-life impact of long gynaecology waiting lists on women and on the wider health system. It highlights the problems that existed in accessing NHS gynaecology services before the Covid-19 pandemic, and reveals how the situation has become far worse due to the backlog of care: Gynaecology waiting lists across the UK have now reached a combined figure of over 570,000 women across the UK – just over a 60% increase on pre-pandemic levels Gynaecology waiting lists in England have grown the most in percentage terms of all elective specialties The number of women waiting over a year for care in England has increased from 66 before the pandemic to nearly 25,000 RCOG recognises that gynaecology has often been overlooked, and calls for the specialty to be given parity in recovery plans.
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News Article
‘You lose your human rights’: Mental Health Act usage up by 12%
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
“When you’re sectioned under the Mental Health Act, you not only lose your voice, but you lose your human rights too”, Kelly a 47-year-old from Surrey tells The Independent. After experiencing a mental health crisis in 2019, Kelly was subject to a “traumatic” detention under the Mental Health Act, during which she says she was “criminalised” for being unwell. Kelly’s story comes as a new analysis of NHS data has revealed the number of people detained under the Mental Health Act increased by 12% in December 2021 compared to the 12 months prior. Major charity Mind, which carried out the analysis, has called for promised reforms to the Mental Health Act to be implemented after recommendations following a major review published in 2019. According to the analysis, the number of people subject to detention under the mental health act increased from, 10,760 in December 2020 to 12,013 December 2021. Speaking with The Independent Kelly, who has had several experiences of being detained under the Mental Health Act, described her most recent experience in 2019 as “very traumatic.” She said: “I had a very public breakdown near where I live. I had neighbours on the phone to the ambulance, and I had, you know, warrants for a psychiatrist or social worker and to enter my property. To have people invade your privacy like that, and to have a warrant to enter property, it’s almost like they’re criminalising you because you’re unwell. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 March 2022 -
News Article
'He was there four hours begging for help'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
An 86-year-old man died after lying in the road waiting more than four hours for an ambulance, his family have said. George Ian Stevenson was hit by a car near his home in Johnstown, Wrexham county, last Wednesday. His family said the first 999 call was made at 19:31 GMT, and the ambulance did not arrive until 23:37 GMT. The Welsh Ambulance Service is looking into the incident, but said that at the time of the call, all its vehicles were already committed to other patients. Two off-duty paramedics stopped to help, but were reluctant to move him in case they caused further injury. Mr Stevenson's granddaughter, Ellie Williams said on the night of the accident it was raining, freezing and foggy. She said: "Left there for four hours, begging for help, waiting for help. And that makes us so sad. "A hard-working man who has paid his taxes all his life and paid into the system has been let down when he's needed them the most, and I just can't quite comprehend what has happened to him." Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 March 2022 -
News Article
Parents sue over failures in child hearing service at NHS Lothian
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More than a dozen families are seeking compensation following "significant failures" at NHS Lothian's hearing service for children. The health board apologised to more than 155 families after an independent investigation found serious problems diagnosing and treating hearing loss. Sophie was born partly deaf and failed repeated hearing tests for years. Her family say no help was offered by the paediatric audiology department at NHS Lothian who kept saying she would be fine. But her parents say she is not. Sophie is now seven. Her speech and language has not developed fully and is sometimes hard to understand. Her confidence has been affected. Her mum Sarah said: "They failed Sophie. You kind of trust what they were doing, you thought maybe she doesn't need hearing aids, maybe she will just catch up and now she's almost eight years old and she's still not caught up and you think 'OK, maybe there were mistakes made then'." An independent investigation by the British Academy of Audiology (BAA), published in December last year, found "significant failures" involving 155 children over nine years at NHS Lothian. Several profoundly deaf children were diagnosed too late for vital implant surgery. The health board has "apologised sincerely" to those affected. The BAA looked at more than 1,000 patient records finding "significant failures" in almost 14% of them. The BAA said it found "no evidence" that national guidelines and protocols on hearing tests for children had been followed or consistently applied "at any point since 2009". Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 March 2022 -
Content ArticleThe Muckamore Abbey Hospital Public Inquiry is a statutory inquiry established under the Inquiries Act 2005, to examine the issue of abuse of patients at Muckamore Abbey Hospital (MAH). It aims to determine why the abuse happened and the range of circumstances that allowed it to happen. The purpose of the Inquiry is to ensure that such abuse does not occur again at MAH or any other institution in Northern Ireland which provides similar services. This website contains all documentation, reports and news about the inquiry.
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Content ArticleThis is an Adjournment Debate from the House of Commons on the 31 January 2022 on NHS Hysteroscopy Treatment, tabled by Lyn Brown MP.
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Content Article
On Wednesday 26 January, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for First Do No Harm (APPG FDNH) held a virtual public meeting on the topic of redress schemes for those who have suffered avoidable harm linked to pelvic mesh, sodium valproate and Primodos. This meeting was an opportunity to hear from representatives of various patient groups about what victims need and what they are missing from current support mechanisms. The meeting heard from Kath Sansom, founder of the Sling the Mesh campaign. Attached is the speech she presented and results from the Sling the Mesh survey. View the recording of the public meeting -
Content ArticleSouth Wales pharmacist, Geraint Jones, contracted COVID-19 in April 2020. He shares an insight to his experiences over the last year after he was later diagnosed with Long Covid.
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Sharing his own personal experiences of harm, Richard highlights four routes where patients and families can report patient safety incidents to ensure patients' voices can be heard and, most importantly, acted upon.- Posted
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This blog calls for action on the careful review of established pain medication when a patient is admitted to hospital. Richard describes the experience of two elderly patients who suffered pain due to their long term medication being stopped when they were admitted to hospital. Pain control needs must not be ignored or undermined, there needs to be carer and patient involvement and their consent, and alternative pain control must be considered.- Posted
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News Article
Closures and soaring waiting lists: crunch time for social care services
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Social care services across England are “rapidly deteriorating”, with waiting lists soaring and councils struggling with care home closures, social services chiefs have warned. Long-term waiting lists have almost quadrupled and 1.5m hours of necessary home care were not delivered in the three months to November, amid a deepening staffing crisis going into winter. “Red lights are flashing right across our dashboard,” said Stephen Chandler, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass), which ran a survey of 85 councils. “Older and disabled people are suffering.” A survey of care workers by the trade union Unison also found that staff shortages meant people were “dying without dignity” and in some cases there were not enough staff to sit with people in their final hours. A third of those surveyed said staffing levels were “dangerously low”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 November 2021 -
News Article
NHS patients dying in back of ambulances stuck outside A&E, report says
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
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 -
Content ArticleSecond harm is the added psychological distress from an inadequate response by healthcare providers in response to medical errors or neglect. This inadequate response may require patients to seek counselling. The counselling needs of patients who have experienced second harm have received limited research attention. This Q methodology study addresses this gap in knowledge in order to further inform counselling practice.
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