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Found 1,293 results
  1. News Article
    Hospitals are being asked to offer a wider range of gown sizes to better protect patients' dignity. It follows the experience of a patient from Wiltshire who said she was offered a gown that was "far too small" during a hospital stay in Bristol. Barbara Gale said it gaped at the back and made her feel "embarrassed". The experience sparked calls for more sizing options.. An independent study conducted by the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow in 2019 asked patients across the UK for their thoughts on the issue of hospital gowns. Consultant clinical psychologist for the NHS, Nicola Cogan, led the research and said the findings showed Ms Gale's experience was not an isolated case. She said: "We spoke to a 1,000 patients and found over two thirds reported they struggled to get a gown on themselves and 70% reported the gown did not fit". "It's not cost effective for the NHS, but also it shows that the gown is currently not fit for purpose." Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 March 2023
  2. News Article
    Demand for private GPs has soared as patients seek out face-to-face appointments with doctors at short notice. Spire Healthcare, one of the UK’s largest private healthcare providers, saw 32,000 GP appointments booked with it last year – up from 23,000 in 2021. The hospital company, which runs 125 GPs, said revenues from its private doctor appointments rose by 46% in 2022. It said demand was soaring as patients look for “fast access to longer face-to-face appointments with a GP”. On the surge in demand, Spire Healthcare boss Justin Ash told The Telegraph: “Clearly there is a well known problem of GPs being under pressure, the 8am scramble [for appointments] is a thing. People want to be able to book online and they want to be able to book at short notice.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 March 2023
  3. News Article
    The adoption of AI tools to simplify processes and workflows is slowly occurring across all industries, including healthcare — though patients largely disagree with clinicians using those tools when providing care, the Pew Research Center survey found. The potential for AI tools to diminish personal connections between patients and providers is a key concern, according to the survey, which included responses from over 11,000 adults in the USA collected in December. Patients also fear their health records could become less secure. Respondents, however, acknowledged potential benefits, including that AI could reduce the number of mistakes providers make. They also expressed optimism about AI’s potential impact on racial and ethnic biases in healthcare settings, even as the technology has been criticised for exacerbating those issues. Among respondents who believe racial biases are an issue in healthcare, about half said they think the tools would reduce the problem, while 15% said it would make it worse and about 30% said it would stay the same. Read full story Source: Healthcare Dive, 23 February 2023
  4. News Article
    A new report has condemned ‘serious issues’ with NHS referral processes, amid findings that one in five patient referrals made by GPs went into a ‘black hole’. Healthwatch England said that 21% of people they spoke to with a GP referral to another NHS service were rejected, not followed up on or sent back to general practice. The watchdog said that more support should be given to help GP and hospital teams to reduce the numbers of people returning to general practice due to ‘communication failures’ following a referral. According to the findings, the failures were due to GP teams not sending referrals, referrals going missing between services, or being either booked or rejected by hospitals without any communication. Louise Ansari, Healthwatch England’s national director, said that thousands of people told the watchdog that the process is ‘far from straightforward.’ She said: "Falling into this “referrals black hole” is not just frustrating for patients but ultimately means people end up going back to their GP or visiting crowded A&E departments to get the help they need. "This adds more burden to already stretched services, making things even harder for the doctors and nurses trying to provide care." Read full story Source: Pulse, 20 February 2023
  5. News Article
    A training programme is providing people with the skills to care for loved ones suffering from serious conditions at home in their final days. Sarah Bow's partner Gary White, from Somerset, was 55 when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2021. A team from NHS Somerset provided personalised training to Ms Bow which allowed the couple to spend the final 13 months of his life together at home. The Somerset NHS Foundation Trust social care training team made visits to the couple's home as Mr White's condition progressed, to provide advice and guidance to Ms Bow. The service was set up in November 2021 to provide free NHS standardised training and competency assessments in clinical skills to people involved in social care. Ms Bow said the scheme had helped them spend more time together doing the things Mr White enjoyed. "Being able to care for him meant we could have so many precious moments before he died," she said. The training in a variety of skills including like catheters and injections, aims to reduce hospital admissions and improve patient discharge times. Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 February 2023
  6. News Article
    "It would be much better if I was out there than in here," said Roger. The 69-year-old looked wistfully across Newport from the window next to his bed at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Wales. He has been here for three weeks after being admitted with an infection and although he is now well enough to leave, and desperate to do so, he can't. Roger has cerebral palsy and the impact of his recent illness means he needs extra care to be arranged before he can safely go home. Roger is not alone. "At least a quarter of patients in our care of the elderly beds are in a similar position," explained Helen Price, a senior nurse at the hospital. "It is very much a waiting game for that care to be available," she said. Hospitals in Wales are fuller than ever, according to the latest statistics. In the final week of January more than 95% of all acute beds in the Welsh NHS were occupied, which is the highest figure ever recorded. Paul Underwood, who manages urgent care in Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, said there are well over 350 patients medically fit enough to leave hospital. "Roughly a third of patients do not need to be accommodated on those sites and that's extremely difficult," he said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 February 2023
  7. News Article
    Rising numbers of patients in England are failing to collect their medicines or asking pharmacists which ones they can “do without” because they cannot afford prescription charges, a survey shows. NHS prescriptions are free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In England there are exemptions for certain items, medical conditions and specific parts of the population, but most adults have to pay. The current prescription charge is £9.35 an item. “We are deeply concerned that people are having to make choices about their health based on their ability to pay,” said Thorrun Govind, a pharmacist and chair of English pharmacy board of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), which conducted the survey. “No one should have to make choices about rationing their medicines and no one should be faced with a financial barrier to getting the medicines they need.” The findings, from a survey of 269 pharmacies, prompted the RPS to renew its call for patients with long-term conditions in England to get free prescriptions. Charges create a financial barrier to accessing medicines needed to stay well, it said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 February 2023
  8. News Article
    Emergency patients are being left open to abuse when they are at their most vulnerable because of a lack of vetting of ambulance workers, watchdog officials have warned. One watchdog official warned that abusers would even seek out work as a paramedic because it provided an “attractive environment” for exploitation. Figures show that dozens of ambulance workers have faced action over sexual assault in the past two years, while paramedics account for one in three cases of tribunal action against care professionals. But one survivors’ group warned the figures were just the “tip of the iceberg”. Paramedics who have been struck off in the past two years include one who performed a sex act in front of a patient, while another was handed a suspended prison sentence for possessing thousands of images of child pornography. Helen Vine, special adviser to the Care Quality Commission, told a recent webinar: “There is a small proportion of the population who are seeking to abuse our patients and the ambulance can be an attractive environment for that type of individual. One of the reasons for this is the ambulance sector is predominantly lone working … and ambulance services offer privileged often unsupervised access to patients who can be very vulnerable". She said the lack of checks meant offenders were able to move between providers, adding: “They test the waters and their behaviours ... if they are challenged, they will move on, however, if they are not challenged then they can hide in plain sight, and they are wearing a trusted uniform and given responsible access to that patient group. Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 February 2023
  9. 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
  10. News Article
    NHS waiting lists are unlikely to fall in 2023, and the backlog is unlikely to be significantly tackled until mid-2024 despite being one of Rishi Sunak’s priorities for this year, research suggests. The NHS has struggled to increase the number of people it is treating from its waiting lists each month due to ongoing pressures from Covid-19, although there have been signs of improvement in the past month, analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found. Max Warner, an IFS economist and one of the report’s authors, said that although the NHS had made “real progress” to reduce the number of patients waiting a very long time for care, efforts to increase overall treatment volumes had “so far been considerably less successful”. The NHS Providers’ chief executive, Julian Hartley, urged the government to introduce a fully funded workforce plan and to talk to unions about pay for this financial year as strikes were causing huge disruption to services, and risked undoing hard-won progress made on care backlogs. “Mounting pressures on acute, ambulance, mental health and community services, such as chronic workforce shortages, could hamper efforts to cut the backlog further if left unchecked,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 February 2023
  11. News Article
    Thousands of patients are being recalled for urgent eye checks after regulators raised safety concerns related to a product used in cataract surgery. It is thought around 20 trusts have suspended use of the EyeCee One lenses, after the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency warned of links to higher pressure in the eye, which can cause lost vision. The MHRA has issued an alert ordering trusts to recall patients who have had surgery since October, and estimates between 2 and 4 per cent of patients could have complications. The watchdog stressed reduced vision would only occur if patients were not treated. It is thought the complications could be down to the way the implant was being used in surgery, rather than the product itself. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 February 2023
  12. News Article
    More than half a million patients a year will be treated in “hospitals at home” in an attempt to relieve pressure on A&E departments. Under the plans, elderly and frail patients who fall will be treated by video link, with ministers saying that a fifth of emergency admissions could be avoided with the right care. Health officials said the “virtual wards” would be backed up by £14 billion in extra spending on health and care services over the next two years, as the NHS tackles record backlogs, with seven million people on waiting lists. Rishi Sunak said the Urgent & Emergency Care Recovery Plan showed that the NHS was one of his “top priorities”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 29 January 2023
  13. News Article
    Two-thirds of GPs feel ‘advice and guidance’ is preventing patients who really need a referral to secondary care from getting one, according to the findings of a snapshot survey of Pulse readers. Advice and guidance (A&G) services, which involve GPs accessing specialist advice before making a referral, have become a major part of NHS England’s plans for clearing the pandemic backlog. But of the 366 GP survey respondents in England who said they had used advice and guidance, 68% said they felt the pathway is blocking necessary referrals. The survey also found that of those 366 GPs who had used A&G services: Around half (49%) said A&G was reducing referrals; More than three-quarters (78%) said it was increasing their workload; Just over half (60%) said it was requiring them to work beyond their competence; Two-thirds (68%) said A&G was resulting in patients complaining because their wish to see a consultant had been diverted. One GP who wished to remain anonymous commented: "An increasing number of referrals are being rejected for secondary care service pressure reasons rather than clinical need. [This] often duplicates GP admin work as we need to re-refer, rewriting the referral and/or enclosing further information or tests results in order to get a referral accepted." Read full story Source: Pulse, 25 January 2023 Further reading on the hub: Rejected outpatient referrals are putting patients at risk and increasing workload pressure on GPs Patient referrals and waiting lists: A ticking time bomb A child left waiting for ‘urgent’ surgery, a blog by Clare Rayner
  14. News Article
    Being placed on immunotherapy to treat Stage 4 cancer was a life-saver for Imogen Llewellyn. Three years on, the 34-year-old is currently cancer-free, but said if it was not for specialist doctors, the side effects could have killed her. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) claims Wales needs more oncology experts in A&E to recognise and treat emergencies. The Welsh government said all acute hospitals were expected to have an acute oncology service. The RCP report wants investment in emergency cancer care because of the sheer volume of patients who need urgent care during their treatment. With about a fifth of acute hospital beds occupied by people who have a cancer-related problems, they add that about a third of admissions could be avoided if same-day care were more widely available in Wales - which in turn would relieve pressure on hospitals. Dr Hilary Williams, consultant oncologist and Wales Cancer Network lead for acute oncology, said: "Wherever a patient lives in Wales, they should be able to access excellent acute oncology services. "When people think about cancer treatment, they might think about undergoing surgery or receiving chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy in an organised way, perhaps during weekday hours in a specialist centre. But what happens when an emergency arises?" Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 January 2023
  15. News Article
    A mental health trust has spent millions this year on places in “bed and breakfast” accommodation in order to discharge inpatients, HSJ has learned. South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust, which serves four London boroughs, confirmed to HSJ it had spent £3.1m since April for a range of basic bed and breakfast places, and spaces with a specialist housing association, to ease its bed shortage pressures. The trust told HSJ clinicians were often reluctant to discharge patients to street homelessness, and that people with mental health problems can be more challenging to find accommodation for. The trust’s chief executive officer David Bradley told HSJ system leaders had been asked to think “innovatively” about how to mitigate discharge problems. B&Bs are generally a cheaper and more appropriate alternative to a £500 a night mental health hospital bed for people who don’t need acute treatment and have no housing, he said. Read full story Source: HSJ, 24 January 2023
  16. News Article
    A record 350,000 patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital from A&E last year, according to figures that raise fears about unsafe care as the NHS faces further waves of strike action. The figures, uncovered in an analysis by the Liberal Democrats, show a steep rise in delays since 2015, when just 1,306 patients waited 12 hours. Senior doctors described the situation as “unbearable” for patients and staff, ahead of a strike in which thousands of ambulance workers will walk out across England and Wales on Monday. The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, warned that frequent and lengthy delays in emergency medicine are “needlessly costing lives of patients” and said that the government is in “total denial” about the scale of the problem facing hospitals, social care and GP services. “The failure of the Conservative government to grip this crisis is simply unforgivable,” he said. “Instead they have shamefully allowed the situation to go from bad to worse through years of neglect and failure.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 January 2023
  17. News Article
    A growing number of patients deemed to require a hospital admission are waiting so long in A&E that they end up being discharged before being admitted to a ward, HSJ has been told. A senior emergency clinician, who has delivered improvement support to multiple emergency departments across the NHS, said such cases have become a regular occurrence – describing it as a “terrible experience” for some patients. The clinician, who asked not to be named, said: “I suspect every ED in the country are having patients who are spending 24 to 48 hours in ED under the care of a specialist, that in a better time they would have gone onto a ward. That’s happening every day in every department. “If you have been seen by the ED crew and referred to the medics who say ‘you need to be admitted to hospital’, the chances are that they are sick enough that they really do need that bed. “It’s a terrible experience [for the patients]. EDs are busy, noisy and crowded. This is not the place where, if you were feeling ill, to get better in a calm, relaxing area. This idea that somehow it’s OK because these people are not that sick, it’s pretty poor. “It feels very much like battlefield medicine – slap a patch on and try and get them back into battle as quickly as possible. It shouldn’t be the way with civilian healthcare.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 January 2023
  18. News Article
    An NHS trust has introduced pharmacy changes to help patients who are medically fit to leave hospital sooner. Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is focusing on getting TTOs (drugs To Take Out) to the pharmacy by 13:00 GMT each day. It says this reduces the length of stay for patients by several hours and can release up to 20 beds a day. "That's 20 people not waiting in the emergency department," said medical director, Professor Mark Pietroni. The plan has been called 'Early Meds to Release Beds' by the trust. Patients whose TTOs are with the pharmacy by 13:00 GMT are usually discharged about four hours later. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 January 2023
  19. News Article
    The percentage of Americans reporting they or a family member postponed medical treatment in 2022 due to cost rose 12 points in one year, to 38%, the highest in Gallup’s 22-year trend. The latest double-digit increase in delaying medical treatment came on the heels of two consecutive 26% readings during the COVID-19 pandemic that were the lowest since 2004. The previous high point in the trend was 33% in 2014 and 2019. An average 29% of U.S. adults reported putting off medical treatment because of cost between 2001 and 2021. Americans were more than twice as likely to report the delayed treatment in their family was for a serious rather than a nonserious condition in 2022. In all, 27% said the treatment was for a “very” or “somewhat” serious condition or illness, while 11% said it was “not very” or “not at all” serious. Lower-income adults, younger adults and women in the U.S. have consistently been more likely than their counterparts to say they or a family member have delayed care for a serious medical condition. In 2022, Americans with an annual household income under $40,000 were nearly twice as likely as those with an income of $100,000 or more to say someone in their family delayed medical care for a serious condition (34% vs. 18%, respectively). Those with an income between $40,000 and less than $100,000 were similar to those in the lowest income group when it comes to postponing care, with 29% doing so. Read full story Source: Gallup News, 17 January 2023
  20. News Article
    Visiting times have been extended at Dorset's hospitals during strike action so relatives and friends of patients can help. Times at general inpatient wards have been altered to be between 10:00 and 20:00 GMT on Wednesday and Thursday. Hospital bosses said help at mealtimes, for example, would allow nursing staff to focus on clinical care. All wards "will be safely staffed during the industrial action", the hospitals said. The UHD trust said: "If you wish to help your loved one at mealtimes or with any personal care, please do so - just let a member of the ward team know." Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 January 2023
  21. News Article
    GPs whose patients want to stop taking antidepressants should reduce the dose of their medication in stages to lower the risk and severity of withdrawal symptoms, the medicines watchdog has said. About one in six (16%) adult Britons experience moderate to severe depression, according to the Office for National Statistics. In England alone, 21.4m antidepressant drugs were prescribed between July and September 2022, according to the NHS Business Services Authority. A new draft quality standard for the care of adults with depression from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – the first update in 11 years – includes specific guidance to help adults come off antidepressant medication permanently. NICE’s independent advisory committee, which includes experts in treating adults with depression, recommends the staged withdrawal of antidepressants in patients who want to stop taking the drugs. A staggered reduction of medicine, known as tapering, helps to reduce withdrawal effects and long-term dependence on the medication, according to Nice. The committee said primary care and mental health professionals should follow the NICE guideline recommendations on stopping antidepressant medication, including agreeing with their patient whether it is right for them to stop taking the medication and, if so, the speed and duration of withdrawal from it. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 January 2023
  22. News Article
    Hospital staff have to complete 50 separate steps on average to discharge a patient, it has emerged, as the NHS grapples with a bed-blocking crisis. On average, around 14,000 patients deemed fit to leave hospital are stuck in beds every day, according to the latest official figures. The congestion is helping to fuel the backlog in accident and emergency (A&E) departments, where more than 55,000 patients waited 12 hours or longer last month. Steve Barclay, Health Secretary, announced an additional £250 million in funding last week to buy up care beds to help discharge thousands of patients. But doctors, social care experts and families have warned discharges are being delayed by NHS “bureaucracy” and excessive form filling. Dr Matt Kneale, co-chair of the Doctors’ Association UK and a junior doctor in Manchester, said patients are held up by “numerous bottlenecks” before being sent home. “While social care shortages are the predominant issue, smaller factors stack up to create a big problem,” he told The Telegraph. Many hospitals have limits on the times their pharmacies are open, he explained, meaning patients can often be stuck on the ward all day, or an extra night, waiting for their medication. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 15 January 2023
  23. News Article
    A senior doctor has told Scottish ministers to drop “patient-blaming language” over “unnecessary attendances” at emergency departments. Lailah Peel, the deputy chairwoman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said the phrase suggested that patients were responsible for the problems and showed a misunderstanding of the issues. Patients have waited 30 hours for beds in overcrowded A&E units while ambulances have queued outside hospitals waiting to hand over patients to overstretched staff. Sturgeon, announcing measures to ease the strain, said: “To reduce the pressures in hospital and the knock-on impacts at the front door we need to do more firstly to avoid unnecessary attendances at hospital and second to speed up the discharge of patients from hospital.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 12 January 2023
  24. News Article
    More and more older people are being “warehoused” in inappropriate care beds, condemned unnecessarily to long-term care, and “lost” to health and care services, due to the rush to discharge from full hospitals and a lack of community rehab services, leaders have warned. Several senior figures in community and social care have raised the issue with HSJ, warning it has been a growing concern over the past 18 months of severe system pressure following on from acute covid peaks. The Health and Safety Investigation Branch has also raised the issue, telling HSJ inappropriate care placements are leading to harm and readmissions, while a major accountability gap remained over the safety of discharges. The average length of hospital stay has increased compared to pre-Covid, with a big jump in those staying more than three weeks. Many in the NHS put this down to a lack of social care capacity meaning more medically fit people are stuck in hospital. Senior staff in community health and social care services told HSJ hospitals were increasingly demanding rapid discharges, often as part of “surge” measures when they are very full and under pressure to reduce ambulance queues. Homecare cannot be organised, and with suitable step-down and care beds also full, trusts are instead “spot purchasing” space in unsuitable homes which may be a long journey from the person’s home area, and in a different council area. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 January 2023 Further reading HSIB interim bulletin - Harm caused by delays in transferring patients to the right place of care
  25. News Article
    NHS hospitals are discharging patients into a hotel in a bid to ease demand for beds. Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire trusts are using the hotel for patients who no longer need urgent treatment but need social care. The Integrated Care Board (ICB) for the three trusts has booked the "hotel care facility" for up to 30 patients. A spokesperson for the ICB said care services were "under significant pressure". "This temporary care facility delivered at a local hotel will help us to improve the flow of patients through our hospitals by ensuring more people can be discharged as soon as they are medically fit to leave hospital," they said. The hotel care facility was introduced in late November 2022 and will run until the end of March. It is being provided by CQC-registered homecare company Abicare. The service is being delivered by live-in care workers on a 24/7 basis with visiting clinical teams providing rehabilitation and primary care support, the ICB said. Nadra Ahmed OBE, chair of the National Care Association (NCA), told BBC Radio 4 Today she is concerned about the quality of care in a hotel setting. "This is a short-term solution- what we really need is a robust, sustainable and well-invested social care sector," she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 January 2022
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