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Found 290 results
  1. News Article
    After lockdown raided the savings of hairdresser and gym instructor Lucie Wilby, a lengthy wait for a hip replacement dealt another blow to her family’s finances. “We’re in a lot of debt because of it and that’s a combination of Covid and obviously surgery [and] waiting times,” the 53-year-old mother from Cornwall says. “If I hadn’t had to wait six months, we’d be nowhere near this issue.” Like many of the 6.6 million people on an NHS waiting list, work had become painful and eventually impossible for Wilby as the backlog in treatment forces people to cut their hours or stop employment altogether. “By the time of the operation, I was barely walking and I’m self employed,” she says. “It took about three years to get diagnosed. That’s one of the major problems – it’s not just the waiting time for the operation once you’re on the list, it’s the waiting time for diagnosis.” While tax cuts and even trans issues may have stolen the limelight in the Tory leadership race, the struggle to get a grip of record NHS backlogs post-Covid is having a huge economic, as well as human, cost. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 7 August 2022
  2. News Article
    Nine in 10 NHS dental practices across the UK are not accepting new adult patients for treatment under the health service, a BBC investigation has found. BBC's research shows no dentists taking on adult NHS patients could be found in a third of the UK's top-tier councils. And eight in 10 NHS practices are not taking on children. The Department of Health said it had made an extra £50m available "to help bust the Covid backlogs" and that improving NHS access was a priority. BBC News contacted nearly 7,000 NHS practices - believed to be almost all those offering general treatment to the public. The British Dental Association (BDA) called it "the most comprehensive and granular assessment of patient access in the history of the service". While NHS dental treatment is not free for most adults, it is subsidised. The BBC heard from people across the UK who could not afford private fees and said the subsidised rates were crucial to getting care. The lack of NHS appointments has led people to drive hundreds of miles in search of treatment, pull out their own teeth without anaesthesia, resort to making their own improvised dentures and restrict their long-term diets to little more than soup. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 August 2022
  3. News Article
    A cancer sufferer who says she faced a wait of 31 hours in A&E has compared the emergency department to "a cattle market". Tracy Summerson, who had nausea and a fever, was eventually admitted to Lincoln County Hospital last week. Ms Summerson said there were more than 30 other patients who waited a similar amount of time. The hospital said despite long waits, those who needed immediate care were "able to be seen and looked after". Ms Summerson, from Scopwick near Metheringham, described the scene as "just crammed, you were like cattle in a market". Ms Summerson, who has stage four malignant melanoma, said: "There was people coming with sick bowls being sick next to you. "When you are immune-suppressed you're supposed to go in a side room out of germs way, but they needed all the rooms for consultations." The family of an 83-year-old woman also contacted the BBC to say she waited more than 40 hours in a wheelchair in her nightdress after being taken to the hospital with a suspected brain bleed. The trust added: "We continue to see an increasing demand on our urgent and emergency care services coupled with patients staying much longer in our hospitals than previously experienced." Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 August 2022
  4. News Article
    The NHS’s only gender identity clinic for children has been found to be neither “safe nor viable” and is set to be replaced by regional hubs. A damning report into gender identity services run by the Tavistock and Portman Foundation Trust has found that the model is putting children at “considerable risk”. An interim report by Dr Hilary Cass said that children and young people are being subjected to “lengthy” waits for access to gender dysphoria services, and are not receiving support during this time. The report said a “fundamentally different” service model that can provide timely and appropriate care for children is needed, and recommended that the NHS launch local specialist centres. Her full report is due to be published next year, but has so far warned that the long waiting lists for gender-questioning children and young people are “unacceptable”. The review said it was not yet able to provide recommendations on the use of puberty blockers and feminising or masculinising hormones, due to gaps in the evidence. A report from safety watchdog the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch in April warned that CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services) had been forced to “hold the risk” while caring for children who are waiting to access specialist gender-dysphoria (GID) services. It added: “There is a lack of capacity and capability to ensure proactive risk assessment of the health of patients waiting on the GIDS waiting list.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 28 July 2022
  5. News Article
    A mother has said an NHS hospital failed to offer her daughter adequate pain relief in a pattern of poor treatment that left the teenager suicidal. Ella Copley, 17, from Tingley, West Yorkshire, has suffered from ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis), sometimes known as chronic fatigue syndrome, for seven years. She has been in Leeds General Infirmary since March, when she was taken there by ambulance with an infection later diagnosed as sepsis. Her mother, Joanne McKee, 49, said the treatment Ella had received “feels like neglect and abuse”. She has posted videos on social media of the teenager screaming in pain when medicine is given by nasogastric tube. “I don’t think they believe that her pain is real at all,” she said. McKee said doctors had told Ella she was “hypersensitive”, and suggested that she stroke a piece of material against her skin as part of a desensitisation programme. “I have just never, ever known anything so dismissive,” McKee said. In an interview with Times Radio, she added: “No one has any understanding of her conditions. That really is the issue." The charity Action for ME has written a letter to the hospital’s chief executive raising concerns over Ella’s case. In it, Sonya Chowdhury, chief executive of the charity, said she was “aware of several other situations that bear similarity with Ella’s illness and care”. Questions have been raised over the treatment of Maeve Boothby-O’Neill, who died in October last year. Her death will be the subject of an inquest in Exeter next month. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 18 July 2022
  6. News Article
    A paediatrician has been struck off for falsely diagnosing children with cancer to scare their parents into paying for expensive private treatment. Dr Mina Chowdhury, 45, caused "undue alarm" to the parents of three young patients - one aged 15 months - by making the "unjustified" diagnoses so his company could cash in by arranging tests and scans, a medical tribunal found. Chowdhury, who worked as a full-time consultant in paediatrics and neonatology at NHS Forth Valley, provided private treatment at his Meras Healthcare clinic in Glasgow. But the clinic made losses, despite "significant" potential income from third-party investigations and referrals for treatment – with patients charged a mark up fee of up to three times the actual cost. In all three cases, Chowdhury gave a false cancer diagnosis, without proper investigation, before recommending “unnecessary and expensive” private tests and treatment in London. Parents previously told the tribunal of their shock and upset at receiving Chowdhury’s diagnoses during consultations between March and August 2017. He told the parents of a 15-month-old girl - known as Patient C - that a lump attached to the bone in her leg was a "soft tissue sarcoma" and a second lump had developed. Chowdhury urged them to see a doctor in London who could arrange an ultrasound scan, a MRI scan and biopsy in a couple of days, saying: "If things are happening it is best to get on top of them early." He also warned that it would be "confusing" to return to the NHS for treatment. But the parents spoke to an A&E doctor and an ultrasound scan revealed that the lumps were likely fat necrosis. Patient C later was discharged after her bloods tests came back as normal. The child’s mother told the tribunal that she and her husband had been "very upset" at Chowdhury’s diagnosis. She was also left "angry" after she later read Dr Chowdhury’s consultation notes and realised they were a "total falsification" of what was discussed. Read full story Source: Medscape, 18 July 2022
  7. News Article
    A woman was kept in police custody for 36 hours after having a stillbirth because of suspicions she had an abortion after the legal cut-off point, it has been claimed. UK abortion providers, who supported the woman, denied she had flouted the legal deadline and warned the treatment she endured “should be unthinkable in a civilised society”, with “no conceivable” public interest in holding her. They added that the woman has been under investigation for a year and a half, but still not charged with any crime. Jonathan Lord, medical director of MSI Reproductive Choices, one of the UK’s leading abortion providers, told The Independent the woman unexpectedly delivered a stillborn foetus at home that was about 24 weeks old. Dr Lord, the co-chair of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers, who shared the woman’s story with The Independent, said: “She was shocked to give birth due to not knowing how far along pregnant she was. She was admitted to hospital. “Because healthcare colleagues were suspicious, and knew she had been in touch with us, an abortion provider, as she told them, they suspected her of having an illegal abortion and called the police. But she wasn’t over the limit for a legal abortion. Dr Lord said the experience of having an “extraordinarily unexpected” stillbirth before being taken into police custody during lockdown was “traumatic” and “distressing” for the woman. Read full story Source: The Independent, 5 July 2022
  8. News Article
    Surgery waiting lists will triple by 2030, triggering a “population health crisis”, unless there is a huge increase in NHS capacity, according to new research. Experts from Birmingham University have said efforts to reduce hospital backlogs are not enough and that it is “impossible” for the existing frontline workers to tackle increasing waiting lists. The most in-depth analysis of the challenge facing hospital waiting lists in England has revealed 4.3 million people need invasive surgery or procedures such as endoscopy, the largest number since 2007. Of these, an estimated 3.3 million are on a “hidden waiting list”, likely to need treatment but yet to be identified by the NHS due to the impact of the pandemic. More than 2.3 million people, 53% of the waiting list, are of working age, meaning their delayed diagnoses and treatments could have an impact on the economy. Without a substantial increase in NHS capacity, the team behind the work say the total figure for those waiting for surgery in England could rise to 14.6 million by 2030. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 26 June 2022
  9. News Article
    Heather Lawrence was shocked at the state she found her 90-year-old mother, Violet, in when she visited her in hospital. "The bed was soaked in urine. The continence pad between her legs was also soaked in urine, the door wide open, no underwear on. It was a mixed ward as well," Heather says. "I mean there were other people in there that could have been walking up and down seeing her, with the door wide open as well. My mum, she was a very proud woman, she wouldn't have been wanted to be seen like that at all." Violet, who had dementia, was taken to Tameside General Hospital, in Greater Manchester, in May 2021, after a fall. Her health deteriorated in hospital and she developed an inflamed groin with a nasty rash stretching to her stomach - due to prolonged exposure to urine. She died a few weeks later. Heather tells BBC News: "I don't really know how to put it into words about the dignity of care. I just feel like she wasn't allowed to be given that dignity. And that's with a lot of dementia patients. I think they just fade away and appear to be insignificant, when they're not." New research, shown exclusively to BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme, has found other dementia patients have had to endure similar indignity. Dr Katie Featherstone, from the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory, at the University of West London, observed the continence care of dementia patients in three hospitals in England and Wales over the course a year for a study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. She found patients who were not helped to go to the toilet and instead left to wet and soil themselves. "We identified what we call pad cultures - the everyday use of continence pads in the care of all people with dementia, regardless of their continence but also regardless of their independence, as a standard practice," Dr Featherstone says. Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 June 2022
  10. News Article
    A quadriplegic man was told his care funding would be revoked, after NHS officials deemed him not disabled enough to qualify for support. Simon Shaw, 54, has received 24-hour care since he was left paralysed from the neck down after a car accident in 1984. He relies on carers at night to help him with everything from turning in bed to having a drink of water. They also intervene with medical aid if he develops life-threatening complications related to his paralysis, which could happen at any time, without warning. But a recent NHS assessment controversially ruled Shaw’s health needs were not severe enough to warrant full-time medical care. Local health authority officials told him he did not meet eligibility criteria and his NHS funding would be stopped from 20 June. Shaw, from Clapham, south London, said that meant there was no money for his night-time care and he would be left unsupported from 8pm to 8am for the first time in nearly four decades. “It’s frightening, to be honest,” Shaw said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when they take my care away. “I don’t cease to exist after 8pm. I still need to get into bed, have a drink of water and use the toilet – and I can’t do any of it on my own. “There are a lot of things that can go wrong with my health and when they do, they usually need urgent attention. If there’s no one there, to be frank… it could mean death.” Mandy Jamieson, a caseworker for the Spinal Injuries Association, said: “We have noticed an increase in patients with severe disabilities being turned down for funding in recent years, particularly since the introduction of assessments via video call since the pandemic. “But I feel particularly in Simon’s case the decision that has been made is wrong. He has so many health needs that I find it incredible that they turned him down.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 June 2022
  11. News Article
    Record 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
  12. News Article
    In posts on two Facebook forums, GP Survival and Resilient GP, family doctors write anonymously, revealing their concerns about how hard they sometimes find it to get an ambulance to attend to a sick patient – and the risks that can pose. “I ended up in the back of a police car with sirens going with a stranger who’d had a probable stroke on the street. Category 2 ambulance hadn’t come after 45 minutes so flagged down a cop car. They bundled us in. “Emergency department full of waiting ambulances unable to unload and I eventually left him in the very capable hands of the stroke team. Terrifying how broken our system is and how many people had likely just walked past him before I spotted him from my car." “Our emergency care practitioner called an ambulance at 6pm on Wednesday 6 July. Very elderly gentleman. Off legs, urinary symptoms, not eating/drinking. Guess when crew arrived? This morning, Friday 8 July, around 10am – 40 hours [later]. And the ECP had to wait 35 minutes just for 999 call to be answered!” “I recently complained [to the local ambulance service] for first time ever when ambulance refused to take a very sick patient of mine into hospital that I’d assessed over the phone because ‘her obs are normal’. They weren’t but even if they had been the reliance on these alone, ignoring the medical background, the family history and my history was just wrong. “I then had to go out and see her, re-call 999 (with many hours additional delay) and she died after a few days in hospital.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 March 2023
  13. News Article
    Nine care home workers are facing trial for neglecting, verbally abusing and deliberately antagonising extremely vulnerable patients in care described as “devoid of kindness and respect” but also criminal. The six men and three women, aged 25-54, are being prosecuted after a reporter went undercover and filmed the behaviour for a BBC Panorama documentary. Opening the case at Teesside crown court in Middlesbrough, the prosecuting barrister, Anne Richardson, said the patients all resided at Whorlton Hall, a 17-bed independent specialist hospital unit near Barnard Castle, County Durham, operated by Cygnet Health Care. Richardson said caring for such residents was a “hard, demanding job, and that carers can face complex, difficult, obstreperous, and sometimes violent people who sadly do not realise what they are doing and cannot help their actions.” But they deserved to be treated with “kindness, respect and patience.” Richardson said the jury would hear evidence of ill-treatment which was “cruel and abusive”. It was “not only devoid of the respect and kindness that those residents deserved but was also a criminal offence”. It included care workers repeatedly saying words they knew to be triggers to patients, belittling those in their care and deliberately antagonising them. Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 March 2023
  14. News Article
    Five women who say they were denied abortions in Texas despite facing life-threatening health risks have sued the state over its abortion ban. Texas bars abortions except for medical emergencies, with doctors facing punishment of up to 99 years in jail. According to the lawsuit, doctors are refusing the procedure even in extreme cases out of fear of prosecution. The Center for Reproductive Justice has filed the legal action on behalf of the five women and two healthcare providers that are also plaintiffs. "It is now dangerous to be pregnant in Texas," said Nancy Northup, the centre's president. One of the women, Amanda Zurawski, said she had become pregnant after 18 months of fertility treatments. She had just entered her second trimester when she was told she had dilated prematurely and that the loss of her foetus, whom she and her husband had named Willow, was "inevitable". "But even though we would, with complete certainty, lose Willow, my doctor could not intervene while her heart was still beating or until I was sick enough for the ethics board at the hospital to consider my life at risk," Ms Zurawski said. For three days, trapped in a "bizarre and avoidable hell", Ms Zurawski was forced to wait until her body entered sepsis - also known as blood poisoning - and doctors were allowed to perform an abortion, according to the lawsuit. Ms Zurawski spent three days in intensive care, leaving the hospital after a week, the legal action says. The ordeal has made it harder for her to conceive in future, she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 March 2023
  15. News Article
    Patients are being warned of a “shocking gap in cancer care” as new figures reveal that fewer than 3% of England’s NHS trusts met a key waiting-times target last year for cancer patients to be treated within two months of an urgent GP referral. Of 125 hospital trusts in England analysed, only three (2.4%) hit the standard of treating 85% of patients within 62 days after an urgent referral in 2022. Some trusts have not hit the standard for at least eight years. More than 66,000 patients were forced to wait more than two months for their first treatment last year after a referral, the figures reveal. One leading cancer charity said this weekend the cancer care system was not fit for purpose, with “lives left hanging in the balance”. Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dems health spokesperson, said the figures showed that even before the pandemic struck, the number of hospital trusts meeting targets was falling rapidly. “Now the situation is so bad that barely any hospitals are able to provide patients with the treatment they need on time. Ministers have consistently failed to plan ahead or provide adequate funding, while taking patients and NHS staff for granted. There is a shocking gap in cancer care from one area to another,” she said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 March 2023
  16. News Article
    There are 625,000 people on a hospital waiting list in Scotland. That figure is the highest on record and equivalent to one in nine of the population. Backlogs have soared since the Covid pandemic and more people faced with long waits are seeking private treatment. An opinion poll commissioned by BBC Scotland suggests one in five of those who replied said they - or one of their family - had paid for private medical care in the past 12 months. Most (73%) said they would have preferred to use the NHS. Linda Fyfe, from South Ayrshire, was among those not prepared to wait for NHS treatment when she needed a hip replacement. Within months Linda went from living with the "bearable" pain in her right hip to being unable to comfortably move more than 100 yards. The 75-year-old said the pain changed her whole lifestyle and she could not wait between 12 and 18 months for an operation on the NHS. The retired social work administrator was quoted £14,000 to go private in the UK but this was more than she could afford. She opted to have the same procedure done in Lithuania for about half the price. The Kaunas clinic that treated Linda said it sees about 10 people a month from Scotland and more from across the UK."I made the right decision. I couldn't have gone another year or 18 months and it might even have taken longer. Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 March 2023
  17. News Article
    Sam Hindle has 23cm of polypropylene mesh in her body and lives in constant fear that it will become unstable and cause irreversible damage. "You are in your own Battle Royale, strapped to a time bomb, and thinking when is it going to go off," she told the BBC. Sam, 46, is one of hundreds of women in Scotland who have suffered life-changing symptoms since they had a transvaginal mesh implant. After years of campaigning by the women, the Scottish government has promised it will cover the costs of mesh removal at private clinics in the UK and US. But Sam has been waiting more than two years just for a referral to the Complex Mesh Surgical Service in Glasgow to start the process. The Scottish government announced last year that it had signed a contract to allow NHS patients to visit a US expert for mesh removal surgery The contract with Gynaecologic and Reconstructive Surgery of Missouri, where Dr Dionysios Veronikis operates, follows a similar contract agreed with Spire Healthcare in Bristol. The cost of each removal procedure is estimated to be £16,000 to £23,000. But in order to access such treatment, women have to be assessed by the national service in Glasgow. Women like Sam say there are waiting years to just get referred for assessment. With further delays for appointments and then waits for surgery. Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 March 2023
  18. News Article
    When Amy Fantis gave birth to her first child two years ago, the labour was rapid, lasting only about four hours, and she was reliant on gas and air. Her second baby is due in just a few days — but the hospital has, like others around Britain, imposed a ban on the popular form of pain relief. Fantis, 36, from Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, is one of many women affected by the decision of several NHS trusts to suspend the use of the gas because of fears that midwives and doctors have been exposed to unsafe levels for prolonged periods. In some hospitals, levels of the nitrous oxide and oxygen mix are more than 50 times higher than the safe workplace exposure limits. In a survey of more than 16,600 women who gave birth last year, the Care Quality Commission found that 76% of respondents used gas and air at some point during labour. Although short-term use of the gas in childbirth is harmless to women and their babies, long-term exposure for midwives and doctors can affect the body’s ability to absorb vitamin B12, damaging nerves and red blood cells and causing anaemia. It is not believed that any NHS staff have become ill as a result of long-term exposure to gas and air. NHS England and the Health and Safety Executive recently warned other hospitals that they need to check the ventilation on maternity wards and ensure staff are kept safe. NHS England is planning to send out new guidance to trusts on the issue after a series of hospitals had to stop using the gas. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 25 February 2023
  19. News Article
    Children's services could be forced to close at a hospital that is accused of leaving young patients traumatised and sick through poor care. The care regulator said it had taken action to "ensure people are safe" on Skylark ward at Kettering General Hospital (KGH) in Northamptonshire. Thirteen parents with serious concerns after their children died or became seriously ill have spoken to the BBC. A BBC Look East investigation has heard allegations spanning more than 20 years about the treatment of patients on Skylark ward, a 26-bed children's unit. The BBC discovered: An independent report found staff left a 12-year-old boy - who died at KGH in December 2019 - for four hours suffering seizures, and suggests little effort was made to obtain critical care support. In April 2019, nurses allegedly dragged a "traumatised" four-year-old girl down a corridor in agony, insisting that she could walk. Medics are accused of refusing to carry out an MRI scan, which would have detected a dangerous cyst on her spine. Mothers claim to have been threatened with safeguarding referrals, with one stating a referral was made against her after she complained her son was struggling to breathe, while another likened it to blackmail. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 February 2023
  20. News Article
    Striking ambulance workers in two regions have said for the first time that they will only answer immediately life-threatening calls — abandoning previous agreements to cover some Category 2 incidents. Agreed exemptions (derogations) from ambulance strike action so far this winter have varied regionally and across different unions; but all have so far included some Category 2 cover. However, GMB told HSJ its members in the North East and North West today would cover only Category 1 calls – defined as “immediately life threatening” – during their action today. Category 2 includes more than any other category, and covers a wide range of incidents including suspected heart attacks and strokes. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 February 2023
  21. News Article
    While some people avoided seeking medical care during the worst of the pandemic, worried about the risk of infection or unable to get an appointment because hospitals and doctors were overwhelmed, now many in the USA are finding that inflation and the uncertain economy have thrown up another barrier. “We are starting to see some individuals who are putting off some care, especially preventive care, due to the costs,” said Dr. Tochi Iroku-Malize, the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the chair of family medicine for Northwell Health in New York. Choosing between going to the doctor or paying for rent and food, “the health issue is no longer the priority,” she said. With the prices of prescription drugs, hospital stays and other treatments expected to increase significantly this year and next, some doctors expect families to have an even harder time affording medical care. When Margaret Bell, 71, found that her cancer had returned four years ago, she hesitated to resume her chemotherapy because she could not afford it, and higher prices have made it even harder. She would regularly skip appointments. About one-fourth of respondents in a recent Gallup poll said they put off care last year for what they considered a “serious” condition. Read full story (paywalled) Source: New York Times, 16 February 2023
  22. News Article
    One in three prisoners in Europe suffer from mental health disorders, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said in a new report. While European prisons managed adequate COVID-19 pandemic responses for inmates, concerns remain about poor mental health services, overcrowding and suicide rates, the report stated. “Prisons are embedded in communities and investments made in the health of people in prison becomes a community dividend,” said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, regional director of the WHO regional office for Europe. “Incarceration should never become a sentence to poorer health. All citizens are entitled to good-quality health care regardless of their legal status.” The second status report on prison health in the WHO European region provides an overview of the performance of prisons in the region based on survey data from 36 countries, where more than 600,000 people are incarcerated. Findings showed that the most prevalent condition among people in prison was mental health disorders, affecting 32.8% of the prison population. The report drew attention to several areas of concern, including overcrowding and a lack of services for mental health, which represents the greatest health need among people in prison across the region. The most common cause of death in prisons was suicide, with a much higher rate than in the wider community, the report found. Read full story Source: United Nations, 14 February 2023
  23. News Article
    Ambulance staff will need to respond to category 2 calls during strike action under new government proposals. The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a consultation on minimum service levels in ambulance services. It comes as industrial action continues across the NHS and as legislation to ensure minimum services levels in key industries during strikes is making its way through Parliament. The consultation document read: “Our proposal is that calls classed as life-threatening and emergency incidents would always receive an appropriate clinical response when there is strike action. “In England, currently, these calls are classified as category 1 (immediately life-threatening) and category 2 (emergency) calls… “On strike action days, some workers would continue their work to ensure that these calls can be answered and responded to appropriately to protect the life and health of patients.” The proposals added services must also have “adequate capacity and resourcing” in call control rooms, to ensure all emergency 999 calls to ambulance services were answered. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 February 2023
  24. News Article
    CVS Health confirmed last year it was closing half its Coram home infusion branches and firing about 2,000 nurses, dietitians and pharmacists. Their patients with life-threatening digestive disorders depend on parenteral nutrition, or PN — in which amino acids, sugars, fats, vitamins and electrolytes typically are pumped through a catheter into a large vein near the heart. A day later Optum Rx, another big supplier, announced its own consolidation. Suddenly, thousands were scrambling for their complex essential drugs and nutrients. “With this kind of disruption, patients can’t get through on the phones. They panic,” said Cynthia Reddick, a senior nutritionist laid off last summer in the CVS restructuring. “It was very difficult. Many emails, many phone calls, acting as a liaison between my doctor and the company,” said Elizabeth Fisher Smith, a 32-year-old public health instructor in New York, whose Coram branch closed. A rare medical disorder has forced her to rely on PN for survival since 2017. “It added to my mental burden,” she said Home and outpatient infusions in the USA are a growing business, as new drugs for chronic illness expand treatment options and enable patients, providers and insurers to avoid hospitalisation. But while reimbursement for expensive new drugs has attracted corporations and private equity, the industry is constrained by a lack of nurses and pharmacists. The less profitable parts of the business — and the vulnerable patients they serve — are at risk. This includes the 30,000-plus Americans who rely on parenteral nutrition — including premature infants, post-surgery patients and those with damaged bowels because of genetic defects. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Washington Post, 6 February 2023
  25. News Article
    Mesh campaigners claim Scotland's Health Secretary Humza Yousaf refused to meet them to hear their concerns. Patients blame surgical mesh products for leaving them disabled and in chronic pain and want the Scottish Government to hold an independent review into the use of the products. However, followihttps://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/mesh-campaigners-claim-humza-yousaf-29075491ng a debate in the Scottish Parliament earlier this month, the Health Secretary denied their request. Campaigner Roseanna Clarkin, of the Scottish Global Mesh Alliance, said Yousaf has refused several requests for meetings with campaigners spanning nearly two years. Roseanna, who has been left with crippling pain after mesh was used on her umbilical hernia in 2015, has blasted him for “ignoring” those affected by mesh procedures. From the late 90s until 2018, women in Scotland were treated with polypropylene mesh implants for stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. In some, it caused severe pain and life-changing side effects. While the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review called for a pause in use of vaginal mesh, the products are not banned for all procedures. The Scottish Global Mesh Alliance were behind the petition calling for an independent review which was debated at Holyrood. They want to suspend the use of all surgical mesh and fixation devices while a review is carried out. Roseanna said: “Why do they assume mesh in another part of the body would respond differently and not cause extreme pain and serious infections?” Read full story Source: Daily Record, 29 January 2023
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