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Content ArticleThis guide by the charity Menopause Support offers advice for women who may be experiencing menopause symptoms about how to approach an appointment with their GP. It covers preparing for the appointment with research, making a note of your symptoms, how to ask questions, taking a friend or family member to support you, and further support you can request during the consultation.
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Content ArticlePeople with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, have long felt disregarded by some medical professionals who believed their pain and exhaustion to be a psychological disorder. More recently, patient activism, combined with new data on the underlying biology of the illness, has resulted in changes in treatment guidelines and a renewed focus on ME as a biologically grounded post-viral disease. This article in the Irish Times highlights patients' experiences and the challenges they face.
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Content ArticleTransitions of care between hospital departments are necessary, but they may disrupt care coordination, such as discharge planning. Family carers often serve as liaisons between the patient and healthcare professionals, but they frequently experience exclusion from care planning during intrahospital transfers (IHTs). This has the potential to decrease their awareness of patients’ clinical status, postdischarge needs and carer preparation. This study aimed to explore family carers’ perceptions about IHTs, patient and carer ratings of patient discharge readiness and carer self-perception of preparation to engage in at home care.
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News ArticleLong Covid clinics across Australia are being inundated with requests for assessments from patients struggling with ongoing symptoms, an inquiry has heard. Doctors told the federal parliamentary inquiry into long and repeated coronavirus infections that they were struggling to keep up with demand as waitlists increased. At least 10 million Australians have been infected with Covid and it is estimated 3-5% will develop Long Covid at some point. “Our waitlist is increasing because what we’ve observed is that it can take some time for the recognition of post-Covid conditions, particularly with the fatigue-predominant types, to reach us,” Royal Children’s hospital Associate Prof Shidan Tosif told the inquiry on Wednesday. Patients are usually referred to specialist clinics through a GP and while there is no official cure, symptoms can sometimes be treated on a case-by-case basis. The inquiry by the House of Representatives health committee is investigating the economic, social, educational and health impacts of long Covid and repeat infections. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 October 2022
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Content ArticleThe Stroke Association's Saving Brains campaign aims to raise awareness of thrombectomy, a game-changing surgical treatment for stroke that many patients in the UK are currently missing out on. Thrombectomy can prevent further damage occurring to the brain in people having a stroke. It is a time-critical treatment and there is variation in access to the procedure across the country, In this video, stroke patients Karen and Phil talk about their experiences of treatment. Karen was able to have a timely thrombectomy and regained full mobility immediately following the procedure. Phil wasn't able to access thrombectomy due to the service not being available in his area at weekends; as a result, his recovery has been slower and more difficult.
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News Article
IT failure disrupts patient care ‘at number of trusts’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
An IT failure has left clinicians at ‘a number of trusts’ which use the Cerner Millennium system unable to access patient records or write discharge summaries, according to an internal trust email seen by HSJ. The email, sent to staff at Barts Health Trust this afternoon, said there was a “performance issue” with Cerner PowerChart which was affecting “a number of other trusts”. The Powerchart programme is the part of the Cerner Millennium electronic patient record system used by clinicians to process document notes, request tests, view blood tests and scan reports. At least 13 trusts in the English NHS are known to use the Cerner Millennium system but it is not yet clear how many trusts aside from Barts have been affected. One clinician told HSJ the outage was “overwhelmingly unsafe” for patients. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 October 2022 -
Content ArticleIn this Health Foundation blog, senior data analyst Anne Alarilla looks at what the organisation has learned from involving patients and the public in its analytical projects. Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in research allows patients and the public to be involved in decisions about what an organisation does and how it interprets and communicates analysis. It means that research is carried out in line with the ethical principle of ‘nothing about us, without us’. In the blog, Anne outlines four key lessons: If you’re new to this, work with experienced PPIE practitioners Incorporate lived experiences when developing and refining analysis plans Ensure the people you engage with understand what you’ll do with the findings Make the findings relevant to patients and the public
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Content ArticleOur Health Our Knowledge (OHOK) is a short web-based course developed by patients and GPs to help people make healthcare choices. OHOK is available in English and Welsh, is free to use and is backed by the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Welsh Value in Health Centre/Canolfan Gwerth mewn lechyd Cymru, Realistic Medicine and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.
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Content ArticleThis resource from the Mental Health Foundation provides tips to help you protect your mental health, each one backed up by evidence from research. The leaflet gives further information on the following tips: Get closer to nature Learn to understand and manage your feelings To to someone you trust for support Be aware of using drugs and/or alcohol to cope with difficult feelings Try to make the most of your money and get help with problem debts Get more from your sleep Be kind and help create a better world Keep moving Eat healthy food Be curious and open-minded to new experiences Plan things to look forward to
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EventThis conference focuses on prehabilitation – Principles and practice, and will provide a practical guide to delivering an effective prehabilitation programme, ensuring patients are fit and optimised for surgery/treatment. This is even more important in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns which have had a negative effect on many individual’s health and fitness levels, and currently high waiting lists could be used as preparation time to ensure the best outcomes. The conference will look at preoperative/pre treatment optimisation of patients fitness and wellbeing through exercise, nutrition and psychological support. This conference will enable you to: Network with colleagues who are working to deliver effective prehabilitation for surgery/treatment. Reflect on a patient lived experience to understand how to engage patients in prehab programmes. Learn from outstanding practice in implementing a prehabilitation programme. Embed virtual prehabilitation into your programme during and beyond Covid-19. Demonstrate a business case for prehabilitation and ensure prehab services continue through and beyond the pandemic. Reflect on national developments and learning. Improve the way we support patients to prepare themselves, physically and emotionally for surgery/treatment. Develop your skills in Behaviour Change and Motivational Interviewing.. Embed virtual prehabilitation into your programme during and beyond Covid-19. Learn from case studies. Understand how you can improve emotional and psychological support. Explore the role of prehabilitation in older people. Work with patients to improve nutrition. Ensure you are up to date with the latest evidence. Self assess and reflect on your own practice. Supports CPD professional development and acts as revalidation evidence. This course provides 5 Hrs training for CPD subject to peer group approval for revalidation purposes. Register
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News ArticleNHS trusts may be forced to cancel appointments and limit visiting times in a Covid and flu “twindemic” this winter, health leaders have warned. Fears have been raised the viruses could strip back the workforce and further increase demand for services during an already busy period. It comes amid rising Covid infections in the UK. Around 1.3 million tested positive in late September, according to the latest figures, which was a 25% increase on the week before. The UK is also concerned there could be a bad flu season this year, with lower immunity across the population due to reduced exposure in the Covid pandemic. NHS leaders have warned that this background could make winter even more difficult for the health service. “I make no bones about this: we know it’s going to be a pressurised time for trusts over the next four months if not longer,” Saffron Cordery from NHS Providers, which represents trusts in England, told The Independent. The interim chief executive added: “We’re worried about Covid and we’re worried about flu.” Ms Cordery said these joint pressures – which could increase demand, strip back workforces and introduce the need for greater infection control measures – could have a knock-on effect on services. “We need to anticipate that there may well be cancellations for either outpatient appointments or routine procedures or operations, because there could be staff shortages or rising demand in emergency care – that means that those routine appointments cannot take place as quickly as we’d like,” she said. Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 October 2022
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News Article
Patients turning to A&E as wait times for NHS mental health treatment spiral
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Mental health patients are increasingly having to turn to A&E for help, experts have warned, as new research suggests nearly one in four are being forced to wait more than 12 weeks to start treatment. The Royal College of Psychiatrists said its research found 43% of adults with mental illness say the long waits for treatment have led to their mental health getting worse. Almost a quarter (23%) have to wait more than 12 weeks to start treatment, with many so desperate they turn to A&E or dial 999. The college said many people face a “hidden wait time” for starting treatment, with no publicly available data on how long people wait from their initial referral to actually starting treatment. Those surveyed for the research had a range of mental illnesses, including eating disorders, addiction, bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression. Dr Kate Lovett, the college’s presidential lead for recruitment, said: “We cannot sit idly by and watch the most vulnerable people in our society end up in crisis. Not only do spiralling mental health waiting times wreak havoc on patients’ lives, but they also leave NHS services with the impossible task of tackling rising demand.” One female patient, a 45-year-old from south London, told how she ended up in A&E after having to wait seven months to be referred to a community team. “The only other way to get help was to present to A&E, which was a traumatic experience – having to be reassessed and readmitted again and again. Turning up to A&E was the only way I could be seen regularly. No one should have to go through that.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 October 2022 -
Content ArticleAnaemia is associated with adverse outcomes of surgery. The blood loss of surgery or trauma can cause or worsen anaemia. People who have anaemia have a worse result from their operation including poorer wound healing, slower mobilisation and an increased risk of death. The Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC) perioperative anaemia guideline has been developed using a whole pathway approach. It contains recommendations for patients of all ages undergoing surgery and for healthcare professionals in both emergency and elective surgical settings and across specialties. The aim of this guideline is to ensure that the patient is at the centre of the whole process, and that everyone involved in their care carries out their individual responsibilities to minimise the risk from anaemia.
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News ArticleThe Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued two fixed penalty notices to University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust totalling £8,000 for failing to seek consent to care and treatment of someone in their care. A 55-year-old gentleman who had diagnoses of epilepsy and autism was admitted to Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham on six occasions between 12 May 2019 and 6 October 2019. He had also been deaf since birth and communicated via British Sign Language (BSL) and lip reading. These fixed penalty notices relate to the trust’s care and treatment of the patient at Good Hope Hospital in relation to three medical procedures, which occurred in September, October and November 2019. CQC found that on these three occasions, the trust did not comply with Regulation 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, requiring registered persons to obtain the consent of the relevant person when providing care and treatment to them. Regulation 11 also states if someone is 16 or over and is unable to give consent because they lack capacity, the registered person must act in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The three procedures where CQC found consent failures, were feeding tubes, aimed at providing nutritional support to the patient, who was struggling with food. Read full story Source: CQC, 7 October 2022
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Content ArticleWorld Physiotherapy is the international voice for physiotherapy, representing more than 685,000 physiotherapists worldwide, through 125 member organisations. Recognising the lack of good quality evidence relating to Long Covid and physical activity, this briefing paper aims to support healthcare professionals to provide safe and effective Long Covid rehabilitation practice, research and policy. It recommends screening for post-exertional symptom exacerbation (PACS), cardiac impairment, exertional oxygen desaturation and autonomic dysfunction before exercise is recommended to people with symptoms of Long Covid.
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News Article
Remote monitoring service to be expanded in Norfolk following success
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Norfolk Community Health and Care it is using a remote monitoring service from Inhealthcare which allows patients to monitor their vital signs at home and relay readings via a choice of communication channels to clinicians who monitor trends and intervene if readings provide any cause for concern. Analysis of the six months before and after introduction showed a significant reduction in hospital bed days, A&E attendances, GP visits and out-of-hours appointments. Lead heart failure nurse at the trust, Rhona Macpherson, spoke to Digital Health News about the impact of the services on patients and nurses. For Macpherson, the service has helped promote self-management. “We give each of the patients a set of scales, blood pressure monitor and pulse oximeter and we get them to do their observations,” she said. “So we’re promoting self-management and looking at things but also it means that we can get accurate information on what’s happening with their observations. “We then set parameters to alert if they go outside of the parameters, and it just means we can intervene much more quickly than we would do, and we can see what’s going on between our visits as well as what’s happening when we’re actually there.” The service has transformed working practices for nurses, increasing efficiency and saving valuable time. Macpherson said: “We’re using the technology to try and make ourselves a little bit more efficient, so it’s saving on the travel time and face to face visits. “We can do a lot more with telephone. We’ve got the option of using video, but telephone is actually quite useful. So it’s less face to face visits, less travel and also, we’re trying to empower the patients to do their own observations and monitor themselves, rather than us just doing it for them.” -
News Article
Patients declining two dates could be struck from waiting lists
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Patients face being removed from the NHS waiting list if they decline two dates offered to them for their treatment, new internal guidance seen by HSJ reveals. The “interim operational guidance” from NHS England says if patients decline two proposed dates for treatment, they should be moved on to “active monitoring” and removed from the NHS’s main elective waiting list. Waiting list consultant Rob Findlay said the guidance was an “abuse of national waiting times statistics”, and that “the menacing of patients [proposed in the strategies outlined in the guidance] is appalling”. The Royal College of Surgeons of England told HSJ it had not been consulted on the guidance, as it would have expected. The college said the guidance could be positive if used “sensibly” but it warned that “used poorly, it could see patients lost in the system, or banished to waiting list purgatory”. NHSE elective recovery adviser Sir Jim Mackey told HSJ the guidance was to support trusts to manage “a small number of patients who… continue to decline treatment date offers [and] to fill appointment slots so patients get seen as soon as possible”. He said there were long-waiting patients who have “refused offers of treatment alternative, sometimes multiple offers. This is absolutely their choice, but it does make access for other patients more difficult when slots are held for them”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 6 October 2022 -
News Article
Radar that checks people living with Parkinson’s in their own home
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A miniature radar system that tracks a person as they walk around their home could be used to measure the effectiveness of treatments for Parkinson’s. The disease, which affects about 145,000 people in the UK, is linked to the death of nerve cells in the brain that help to control movement. With no quick diagnostic test available at present, doctors must usually review a patient’s medical history and look for symptoms that often develop only very slowly, such as muscle stiffness and tremors. The device, about the size of a wi-fi router, is designed to give a more precise picture of how the severity of symptoms changes, both over the long term and hourly. It sits in one room and emits radio signals that bounce off the body of a patient. Using artificial intelligence it is able to recognise and lock on to one individual. Over several months it will notice if their walking speed is becoming slower in a way that indicates that the disease is becoming worse. During a single day it can also recognise periods where a person’s strides quicken, which means that it could be used to monitor the effectiveness of new and existing drugs, even where the effects last a relatively short time. “This really gives us the possibility to objectively measure how your mobility responds to your medication. Previously, this was nearly impossible to do because this medication effect could only be measured by having the patient keep a journal,” said Yingcheng Liu, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who is part of the team behind the device. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 22 September 2022- Posted
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News Article
AI eye checks can predict heart disease risk in less than minute, finds study
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
An artificial intelligence (AI) tool that scans eyes can accurately predict a person’s risk of heart disease in less than a minute, researchers say. The breakthrough could enable ophthalmologists and other health workers to carry out cardiovascular screening on the high street using a camera – without the need for blood tests or blood pressure checks – according to the world’s largest study of its kind. Researchers found AI-enabled imaging of the retina’s veins and arteries can specify the risk of cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular death and stroke. They say the results could open the door to a highly effective, non-invasive test becoming available for people at medium to high risk of heart disease that does not have to be done in a clinic. “This AI tool could let someone know in 60 seconds or less their level of risk,” the lead author of the study, Prof Alicja Rudnicka, told the Guardian. If someone learned their risk was higher than expected, they could be prescribed statins or offered another intervention, she said. Speaking from a health conference in Copenhagen, Rudnicka, a professor of statistical epidemiology at St George’s, University of London, added: “It could end up improving cardiovascular health and save lives.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 October 2022 -
Content ArticlePaul McGinness, chief executive, Lenus Health, presents new evidence showing how a digital service model can reduce respiratory-related hospital admissions and enable care at home.
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Content Article
Three years since we launched the hub, our award-winning platform to share learning for patient safety, we have seen it grow in members, content and impact. To date, the hub has received over 565,000 visits and had over 1 million page views. It now has over 3,400 members from 80 countries working in over 1,000 different organisations, and offers 7,500 knowledge resources, viewed by people from 221 countries. We continue to highlight serious patient safety issues, celebrate patient safety achievements, provide ‘how to’ resources on good practice and offer a safe space for staff and patients to share their experiences and discuss challenges. In this blog, we would like to celebrate just some of the work we are especially proud of and highlight where we’ve been making the case for change and the many ways the hub is making an impact. -
News Article
‘Know, Check, Ask’ before you take medication urges Northern Ireland's Minister
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Both patients and healthcare staff have a central role to play in ensuring the safe use of medicines, Health Minister Robin Swann has said. Minister for Health Robin Swann was speaking at an event to mark the roll out of the ‘Know, Check, Ask’ Campaign across all healthcare sectors in Northern Ireland. The aim of the campaign is to increase awareness and understanding about the importance of using medicine safely. The call for action of the campaign is for: Patients to Know Check Ask – Before you take it: KNOW your medicines and keep an up-to-date list. CHECK that you are using your medicines in the right way. ASK your healthcare professional if you’re not sure. Health Care staff to Know Check Ask – Before you give it: KNOW your medications. CHECK you have the right: patient, medicine, route, dose and time. ASK your patient if they understand and ask your colleagues when you are unsure. Minister Swann added “I want to encourage and help patients to be more curious about their medication, know what medication they are using, how to use it safely and feel able to ask their health care professionals questions about their medicines. Patients should also feel able and confident to report problems with their medication early and so help reduce avoidable harm.” Read full story Source: Department of Health, 30 September 2022 -
Content ArticleThis poster outlines a simple point of care risk assessment that can be carried out by healthcare professionals before each interaction with a patient.
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Content ArticleThe National Quality Board (NQB) has refreshed its Shared Commitment to Quality to support those working in health and care systems. The publication provides a nationally-agreed definition of quality and a vision for how quality can be effectively delivered through ICSs. The refresh has been developed in collaboration with systems and people with lived experience and has a stronger focus on population health and health inequalities. The NQB was set up in 2009 to promote the importance of quality across health and care on behalf of NHS England and Improvement, NHS Digital, the Care Quality Commission, the Office of Health Promotion and Disparities, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Health Education England, the Department of Health and Social Care and Healthwatch England.
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News Article
‘Perilous’ shortage of homecare workers leaves patients trapped in hospitals
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A “perilous” shortage of homecare workers is the biggest reason thousands of people are languishing longer in hospital than needed, driving up waiting lists and making people sicker, figures reveal. Almost one in four people unable to be discharged – sometimes for weeks – were trapped in hospital because they were waiting for home care, as agencies hand back contracts because staff are quitting owing to low pay, leaving 15% of jobs vacant. A fifth of people unable to be discharged were also waiting for short-term rehabilitation and 15% were waiting for a bed in a care home, according to analysis of data obtained using freedom of information requests and public records by Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation. It estimated that in April this year, one in six patients were in hospital because of delayed discharge, and the discharge of patients with a hospital stay of more than three weeks was delayed by 14 days on average. “People are ending up in hospital for malnutrition and dehydration, problems which, even if you supported people a little bit at home, would stop,” said Jane Townson, the director of the Homecare Association. “More providers are having to turn down work than usual and some are having to hand back people because they can’t do it.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 October 2022
