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Found 1,293 results
  1. News Article
    A woman has been left to sleep in her wheelchair several nights a week and remain in bed for the rest of it due to a lack of social care in her local area. Mandy Page, 53, who lives alone in Hove, has difficulty getting into and out of bed on her own and previously had carers to provide support in the morning and evenings. However, since before Christmas she has had no care support in the evenings after the MyLife East Sussex agency told her it was no longer covering her care, and that the agency believed her care was now being provided by her local authority. Page receives dialysis three times a week at Royal Sussex county hospital, and on those days arrives home, by hospital transport, after 6pm. This means that without help getting out of her wheelchair and into bed she must sleep in the wheelchair. “It’s very stressful, because at the moment I’m in bed every day. I can’t get up without help, and I can’t get back to bed on a dialysis day,” Page said. “On a dialysis day, I go to dialysis and I’m in my wheelchair. Every other day, I’m in bed all day and all night. That’s no life. Page’s situation exemplifies the crisis in social care. England has faced chronic shortages of care workers, with a survey by Care England finding that 95% of care providers struggle to recruit and retain staff. In 2020/21, there were around 105,000 vacancies at any one time in the social care sector, and more than a third of the sector’s staff left their jobs during the year. Page says the lack of adequate social care has taken a negative toll on her quality of life, and has meant she hasn’t been able to undertake everyday tasks. Rob Persey, the executive director for health and adult social care at Brighton and Hove council, said the council had not been able to source a new provider for Page since her earlier care was withdrawn. “This is a national as well as a local problem as there are insufficient home care staff to meet demands. Various local initiatives, including additional funding, have been taken to increase the home care workforce, but so far they have only had a limited impact." “We recognise Mandy does not want respite care, and acknowledge this is a completely unacceptable situation for her,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 February 2022
  2. News Article
    NHS England’s plan to make the 111 service a ‘primary route’ into emergency departments has fallen ‘far short of aspiration’, with only a small fraction of attendances being booked through it. NHSE began recording the numbers of ED appointments booked via 111 in August 2020, as it aimed to reduce unnecessary attendances and demand on emergency services, via the programme known as “111 First”. Planning guidance for 2021-22 told local systems to “promote the use of NHS 111 as a primary route into all urgent care services”. It added that at least 70% of patients referred to ED by 111 services should receive a booked time slot to attend. Pilots experimented with making it harder for people who had not called 111 to attend A&E, although proposals to direct those people away were rejected. Data published by NHSE shows the number of ED attendances that were booked through 111, but not those referred to ED without a booking. Jacob Lant, head of policy and research at Healthwatch England, said: “Sadly, it’s clear from these figures that implementation across the country is lagging behind where we would have hoped. “Obviously this has to be seen in the context of the massive pressures on A&E departments at the moment as a result of the pandemic, but there is also a need for the NHS to really step up efforts to tell people about this new way of accessing care.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: 25 February 2022
  3. News Article
    Face-to-face GP appointments have continued to fall, despite a rallying cry for doctors to restore normal services. The proportion of GP appointments held in person fell for the third month in a row to 60.3% in January, latest data show. Data published by NHS Digital on Thursday show about 25.6 million appointments were carried out in January. Of these, some 15.4 million were face-to-face. The last time it fell below this level was August 2021, when just 57.6% of appointments were face-to-face. Pre-pandemic, the proportion of GP appointments held in person was about 80%. Dr Nikki Kanani, NHS England’s medical director of primary care, told doctors last month to “restore routine service” following the successful rollout of the booster jab campaign. Writing to GPs, she said: “It is now important that all services across the NHS, including in primary care, are able to restore routine services where these were paused in line with the Prime Minister’s request to focus all available resource on the omicron national mission.” But patient groups say the “situation hasn’t improved” and patients are still struggling to see their doctor in person. Dennis Reed, from patient group Silver Voices, said the figures were “worrying” but not surprising. “I'm still getting complaints on a daily basis that people are struggling to see their GP,” he said. Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 24 February 2022
  4. News Article
    Sickle cell patients have begun receiving the first new treatment for the blood disorder in over 20 years. The inherited condition can cause severe pain and organ failure, often requiring hospital admissions. Crizanlizumab is given as a monthly infusion and is thought to cut visits to A&E by 40%. Loury Mooruth, 62, received the treatment at Birmingham City Hospital, having suffered repeated periods of intense pain for decades. During a crisis, patients often need powerful opioid painkillers but Loury, like many others, has faced suspicion when at A&E. "You know the protocol when you go in, which needles and so on. They think straight away you are a drug addict - they don't believe you," she says. She has refused to go to hospital during a crisis for the past two years because of her negative experiences. A report from MPs last year found "serious failings" in sickle cell care with some evidence of discrimination against patients. Dr Shivan Pancham, a consultant haematologist at Birmingham City Hospital, told the BBC: "Our patients often find the experience in emergency departments challenging with a lack of understanding of the severity of pain. "It is hoped with these new therapies if we reduce the likelihood of attending emergency departments, ultimately this will be much better for the patients." Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 February 2022
  5. News Article
    Researchers at the University of Derby and their regional, national and international partners are working collaboratively to develop bespoke support pathways for patients with Long Covid. Led by Dr Mark Faghy, they are currently running a series of projects to understand the determinants of recovery which captures the lived experience and informs a bigger piece of work to develop a holistic view of the key stakeholders that are required to develop pathways that can improve patient outcomes. One part of this is the launch of a new Delphi Consensus statement which seeks to obtain input from patients, researchers and any healthcare professionals to inform the approaches to support people living with long COVID. If you have an interest in this study, please click here. For more information on the current work, please contact Dr Mark Faghy (@DrMark_Faghy and M.Faghy@Derby.ac.uk) and also see: https://www.derby.ac.uk/news/2022/international-trial-aims-to-improve-the-quality-of-life-for-long-covid-patients/ “
  6. News Article
    The NHS plans to treat up to 25,000 hospital patients at home in “virtual wards” to help clear the backlog caused by the pandemic, the “living with Covid” plan has revealed. Patients will be offered acute clinical care at home, including remote monitoring and treatment, as an alternative to hospital stays. Consultants or GPs will review patients daily via digital platforms and phone calls. In some cases, patients will be provided with a wearable device to continuously monitor and report their vital signs. The NHS has set a national target of 40 to 50 virtual beds per 100,000 population, which equates to about 25,000 beds across England, according to the “living with Covid” plan published this week. The document said: “The use of ‘virtual wards’ and ‘hospital at home’ models of care have ensured that patients can be safely cared for in their own homes and that additional bed capacity can be freed up in hospitals.” Commenting on the initial rollout of virtual wards, Dr Tim Cooksley, the president of the Society for Acute Medicine, warned a “hasty” rollout could risk patient safety. He said: “Virtual wards do have the potential to be a model of the future. However, it is essential they are appropriately planned, resourced and staffed so they simply cannot be seen as a short-term mitigation measure which can be hastily rolled out mid-pandemic. Incorrect implementation could risk patient safety and significantly impact clinician and patient confidence.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 22 February 2022
  7. News Article
    Medical records contain a plethora of information, from a patient’s diagnoses and treatments to marital status to drinking and exercise habits. They also note whether a patient has followed medical advice. A health provider may add a line stating that the patient is “noncompliant” or “non-adherent,” signalling that the patient has been uncooperative and may exhibit problematic behaviours. Two large new studies in the US found that such terms, while not commonly used, are much more likely to appear in the medical records of Black patients than in those of other races. The first study, published in Health Affairs, found that Black patients were two and a half times as likely as white patients to have at least one negative descriptive term used in their electronic health record. About 8% of all patients had one or more derogatory terms in their charts, the study found. The most common negative descriptive terms used in the records were “refused,” “not adherent,” “not compliant” and “agitated.” The second study, published in JAMA Network Open, analysed the electronic health records of nearly 30,000 patients at a large urban academic medical centre between January and December 2018. The study looked for what researchers called “stigmatising language,” comparing the negative terms used to describe patients of different racial and ethnic backgrounds as well as those with three chronic diseases: diabetes, substance use disorders and chronic pain. Overall, 2.5% of the notes contained terms like “nonadherence,” “noncompliance,” “failed” or “failure,” “refuses” or “refused,” and, on occasion, “combative” or “argumentative.” But while 2.6% of medical notes on white patients contained such terms, they were present in 3.15% of notes about Black patients. Looking at some 8,700 notes about patients with diabetes, 6,100 notes about patients with substance use disorder and 5,100 notes about those with chronic pain, the researchers found that patients with diabetes — most of whom had type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with excess weight and called a “lifestyle” disease — were the most likely to be described in negative ways. Nearly 7% of patients with diabetes were said to be noncompliant with a treatment regimen, or to have “uncontrolled” disease, or to have “failed.” The labels have consequences, warns Dr. Schillinger, who directs the Center for Vulnerable Populations at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. “Patients whose physicians tend to judge, blame or vilify them are much less likely to have trust in their doctors, and in the medical system overall,” Dr. Schillinger said. “Having health care providers who are trustworthy — who earn their patients’ trust by not judging them unfairly — is critical to ensuring optimal health and eliminating health disparities.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The New York Times, 20 February 2022
  8. News Article
    A trust has had to re-examine the cases of more than 31,000 patients after they were automatically and wrongly discharged from its care because they did not have another appointment within the next six months. Dartford and Gravesham Trust in Kent has revealed that soaring waiting times post-covid meant patients who needed follow-up appointments were not offered them within six months, which before covid was a very unusual occurrence. When they passed six months, they were dropped off waiting lists altogether, due to a feature in the trust’s patient administration system designed to ensure outdated pathways are closed. It is a common feature in many such systems, HSJ was told. The trust has now “validated” more than 31,000 patients who have been in contact with it since 1 September 2021. So far, it said, it had not found evidence of harm, although some people have been recalled for clinical review or investigation, and a small number are still to be seen. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 August 2023
  9. News Article
    Patients at all general practices across England will soon benefit from new digital phone lines designed to make booking GP appointments easier. Backed by a £240 million investment, more than 1,000 practices have signed up to make the switch from analogue systems - which can leave patients on hold and struggling to book an appointment - to modern, easy-to-use digital telephones designed to make sure people can receive the care they need when they need it. It is expected every practice in the country will have the new system in place by the end of this financial year, helping put an end to the 8am rush - a key pillar of the Prime Minister’s primary care recovery plan to improve patient access to care. Patients will be able to contact their general practice more easily and quickly - and find out exactly how their request will be handled on the day they call, rather than being told to call back later, as the government and NHS England deliver on the promises made in the primary care recovery plan announced in May. If their need is urgent, they will be assessed and given appointments on the same day. If it is not urgent, appointments should be offered within 2 weeks, or patients will be referred to NHS 111 or a local pharmacy. The upgraded system will bring an end to the engaged tone, see care navigators direct calls to the right professional, and the use of online systems will provide more options and help those who prefer to call to get through. Read press release Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 18 August 2023
  10. News Article
    Making data on medical interventions easier to collect and collate would increase the odds of spotting patterns of harm, according to the panel of a recent HSJ webinar When Baroness Julia Cumberlege was asked to review the avoidable harm caused by two medicines and one medical device, she encountered no shortage of data. “We found that the NHS is awash with data, but it’s very fractured,” says Baroness Cumberlege, who chaired the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review and now co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group which raises awareness of and support for its findings. And it is that fracturing that can make patterns of harm difficult to spot. The report concluded that many women and children experienced avoidable harm through use of the hormone pregnancy test Primodos, the epilepsy drug sodium valproate, and the medical device pelvic mesh – simply because it hadn’t been possible to connect the dots. “It’s very hard to collect things together and to get an overall picture. And one of the things that we felt very strongly about was that data should be collected once, but used often,” said Baroness Cumberlege at a recent HSJ webinar. Run in association with GS1 UK, the event brought together a panel to consider how better data might help address patient safety challenges such as problems with implants. “But the big problem was they couldn’t identify who had which implants. No doubt somebody somewhere had written this down with a fountain pen and then someone spilt the tea over it and the unique information was lost,” recalled Sir Terence Stephenson , now Nuffield professor of child health at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and chair of the Health Research Authority for England. The review he chaired therefore suggested establishing a concept of person, product place – “for everybody who had something implanted in them, we should have their name, the identifier of what had been put in, and where it had been put in. And one of my panel members said: ‘Well, how are we going to record this? We don’t want the fountain pen and the teacup.’” Ultimately the answer suggested was barcode scanning. By scanning the wristband of a patient, that on the product being implanted, and one for the hospital theatre or department at which it was being implanted, the idea was to create an immediate and easy-to-create record. For those long convinced of the virtues of barcode scanning in health, it is a welcome development Two years later, the then Department of Health launched the Scan4Safety programme, in which six “demonstrator sites” implemented the use of scanning across the patient journey. At these organisations, barcodes produced to GS1 standards – meaning they are globally unique – are present on patient wristbands; on equipment used for care, including implantable medical devices; in locations; and sometimes on staff badges. Link to full article here (paywalled)
  11. News Article
    After generations of inaction and very few novel ideas, researchers and activists are hopeful a new path is being charted in understanding and treating the crippling chronic condition “There’s an excitement at the moment,” says Andrew Horne. After decades of inaction, something is happening in endometriosis. Now, says the professor of gynaecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Edinburgh, “I do think things are changing. There are more people working on it, so it’s bringing in people from different disciplines with new ideas.” In the space of a few months, from gatherings in Edinburgh and Washington DC, labs in Sydney and Japan, there is a sense that new ideas are bubbling to the surface, including a fundamental rethinking of endometriosis not as a disease of the pelvis, but rather, says Horne, “a whole-body disease”. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when despair turned to hope in the research and patient community. There was no single breakthrough. No one person responsible. In March, the largest ever study on the genetics of endometriosis was published in Nature Genetics, which found genetic links to 11 other pain conditions as well as other inflammatory conditions. The study, involving DNA from more than 760,000 women, found ovarian endometriosis is genetically distinct from other types and indicated there may be a genetic predisposition to excessive inflammation in people with the condition. One of the researchers, Dr Nilufer Rahmioglu from the University of Oxford, described the data as a “treasure trove of new information”. Weeks later on the other side of the world, researchers from Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women attracted international attention after they grew tissue from different types of endometriosis and compared how each responded differently to treatments. Jason Abbott, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the hospital, likened the development to those made in the treatment of breast cancer three decades ago. Two weeks on from the Australian discovery, Japanese researchers found a common form of bacteria may be contributing to the growth of endometriosis via inflammation. The frisson was, by then, hard to miss. Read the full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/10/its-really-only-the-beginning-are-we-on-the-cusp-of-a-breakthrough-in-endometriosis
  12. News Article
    Teens who have been bullied by their peers, or who have considered or attempted suicide, may be more likely to have more frequent headaches than teens who have not experienced any of these problems, according to a study published in the August 2, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that bullying or thoughts of suicide cause headaches; it only shows an association. “Headaches are a common problem for teenagers, but our study looked beyond the biological factors to also consider the psychological and social factors that are associated with headaches,” said study author Serena L. Orr, MD, MSc, of the University of Calgary in Canada. “Our findings suggest that bullying and attempting or considering suicide may be linked to frequent headaches in teenagers, independent of mood and anxiety disorders.” The study involved more than 2.2 million teens with an average age of 14 years. Read the full article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/997216
  13. News Article
    Videos circulating on the social media platform claim that castor oil can help to treat dryness, floaters, cataracts, poor vision and even glaucoma. Doctors have issued a warning not to use castor oil as a way to treat vision problems following claims on TikTok. Castor oil is a type of vegetable oil traditionally used to treat a range of issues like skin infections. It is even a common ingredient in some over-the-counter eye drops. But dozens of TikTok videos have gone one step further, claiming that by rubbing the oil over eyelids, eyelashes and under the eye, it helps to treat dryness, floaters, cataracts, poor vision and even glaucoma. One woman said that after two weeks of use, she doesn't need to wear reading glasses as often, while another said it prevented an eye infection from progressing. Now, doctors in the US have said the oil is "not going to seep in and dissolve or fix anything". They warned that some unsterilised bottles on shop shelves may even cause irritation or infection if put directly into the eye. "Castor oil is not a cure-all. If you have concerns about your eyes, you need to see an optician," Dr Ashley Brissette, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. She said they cannot make recommendations as studies that look at the effects of eye drops which contain castor oil on dry eyes and blepharitis are of low quality, involving small sample sizes and no control groups. Dr Vicki Chan, a practising optician in Los Angeles added that castor oil has no effect on conditions that affect the inside of the eyeball. These include cataracts - an age-related condition that causes cloudy vision - floaters, and glaucoma, which occurs when fluid accumulates and damages the optic nerve. Dr Brissette added that ignoring early symptoms of glaucoma, or waiting to see it castor oil improves conditions such as cataract, can lead to permanent vision loss or complications with surgery. Instead, eating a healthy balanced diet; removing all make up before bed; wearing sunglasses outdoors and attending regular eye examinations are alternative ways to maintain eye health.
  14. News Article
    Patients in all but one integrated care system found it more difficult to contact their GP practice by phone this year compared to last year. GP patient survey data, published this month, showed the proportion of patients who found it “very” or “fairly easy” to get through by phone had fallen across almost every ICS by as much as seven percentage points. The measure fell nationally from 53 to 50%. The drop in performance comes as NHS England and the government ramp up focus on ease and speed of access to GPs as part of the primary care recovery plan, published in May. An NHSE spokesperson said: ”Despite GP teams experiencing record demand for their services, with half a million more appointments delivered every week compared to before the pandemic, the GP survey found that the majority of patients have a good overall experience at their GP practice. “However, the NHS recognises more action is needed to improve access for patients, which is why it published a recovery plan in May.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 31 July 2023
  15. News Article
    A woman treated in a hospital corridor says the lack of privacy was "wholly inappropriate" after other patients saw her without a top. Isabel Aston was taken to Princess Royal Hospital in Shropshire with pneumonia and sepsis and said she spent seven hours on a bed in a corridor. She said she felt exposed when other patients saw her changing her clothes. She explained: "People were walking in both directions [and] there aren't screens around your bed so people wanting the toilet who couldn't get out of bed were faced with the thought of using a bed pan in full view." She added that on feeling hot at one point, she wanted to change her t-shirt, but the process proved lengthy due to cannulas in her arms. "I did not have anything on underneath," she said. "I'm 64 years of age, I've probably reached an age where I'm not so self-conscious perhaps, but that could have been a much younger patient. "That could have been a patient for whom perhaps culturally they couldn't have change their t-shirt... or somebody who had mastectomy scars [and] were very self conscious. "It is wholly inappropriate for patients to be so exposed when they are so ill." The hospital trust said it aimed to maintain patients' dignity despite being under operational pressures. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 July 2023
  16. News Article
    Most NHS staff think they have too little time to help patients and the quality of care the service provides is falling, a survey reveals. Medical and nursing groups said the “very worrying” findings showed that hard-pressed staff cannot give patients as much attention as they would like because they are so busy. In polling YouGov carried out for the Guardian, 71% of NHS staff who have direct contact with patients said they did not have the amount of time they would like to have to help them. A third (34%) felt they had “somewhat less than enough time” and 37% “far less than enough time” than they wanted. Almost a quarter (23%) felt they had the right amount of time while just 3% said they had “more time” than they wanted. The survey presents a worrying picture of the intense pressures being felt at the NHS frontline. Those same personnel were asked if they thought the quality of care the service is able to offer has got better or worse over the last five years. Three-quarters (75%) said “worse”, including a third (34%) who answered “much worse”, while 17% said “about the same” and only 6% replied “better”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 July 2023
  17. News Article
    More than 250,000 dementia patients could miss out on new treatments for the disease because they do not have a formal diagnosis, according to government figures. NHS data published for the first time shows the prevalence of different types of dementia with which people in England have been diagnosed. Dementia is an umbrella term for many different conditions, affecting more than 55 million people worldwide. This week, health regulators were urged to approve two new game-changing dementia drugs, after a landmark study confirmed that donanemab slowed cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients by 35%, while last year, a second drug, lecanemab, was found to reduce the rate by 27%. The NHS primary care dementia figures estimate that there are about 708,000 people over 65 with dementia in England, but only about 450,000 have a recorded diagnosis. That means that more than 250,000 are missing out on these potential new treatments. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 July 2023
  18. News Article
    A digital NHS Health Check is to be rolled out across England from next spring, the government has announced, in an attempt to alleviate the pressure on GP surgeries. The initiative will deliver 1m checks in the first four years, according to the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). Tens of thousands of cases of hypertension are expected to be identified and hundreds of strokes and heart attacks prevented. Patients will be able to access the check via a mobile phone, tablet or computer, the DHSC said. Participants will complete an online questionnaire, enter height, weight, and the results of a cholesterol test which they can carry out at home. They will also be asked to have their blood pressure checked at a pharmacy. The results, which will be available online, will direct people to personalised advice. Referrals to GPs will only be made if further tests and treatment are needed. Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This initiative will help to reach more people and encourage them to get their blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked so that, where necessary, healthcare professionals can work with them to manage their condition. “This could play an important role in helping people live healthier for longer and saving lives in the coming years, while reducing pressure on the NHS.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 June 2023
  19. News Article
    A new type of artificial-intelligence technology that cuts the time cancer patients must wait before starting radiotherapy is to be offered at cost price to all NHS trusts in England. It helps doctors calculate where to direct the therapeutic radiation beams, to kill cancerous cells while sparing as many healthy ones as possible. Researchers at Addenbrooke's Hospital trained the AI program with Microsoft. For each patient, doctors typically spend between 25 minutes and two hours working through about 100 scan cross-sections, carefully "contouring" or outlining bones and organs. But the AI program works two and a half times quicker, the researchers say. When treating the prostate gland, for example, medics want to avoid damage to the nearby bladder or rectum, which could leave patients with lifelong continence issues. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 June 2023
  20. News Article
    Black patients at trusts most affected by 2016’s junior doctors’ strike suffered significantly more than their white or Asian counterparts, a new analysis has suggested. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysed 30-day readmission rates after the 48-hour junior doctors’ strike in April 2016. The co-authors of the research, George Stoye and Max Warner, said: “We find that patients treated in hospitals that were more exposed to the strike did not, on average, experience worse outcomes.” However, they added that black patients were “more negatively affected by exposure to the strikes than white patients in the same hospitals”. The April 2016 strike affected both elective and emergency care and was the last before the dispute ended. The current junior doctors’ strike has been ongoing since March. It also affects emergency and elective care but stoppages have been longer, with a five-day strike planned in July. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 June 2023
  21. News Article
    Doctors suffering from burnout are far more likely to be involved in incidents where patients’ safety is compromised, a global study has found. Burned-out medics are also much more likely to consider quitting, regret choosing medicine as their career, be dissatisfied with their job and receive low satisfaction ratings from patients. The findings, published in the BMJ, have raised fresh concern over the welfare and pressures on doctors in the NHS, given the extensive evidence that many are experiencing stress and exhaustion due to overwork. A joint team of British and Greek researchers analysed 170 previous observational studies of the links between burnout among doctors, their career engagement and quality of patient care. Those papers were based on the views and experience of 239,246 doctors in countries including the US, UK and others in Africa, Asia and elsewhere globally. They found that burned-out medics were twice as likely as their peers to have been involved in patient safety incidents, to show low levels of professionalism and to have been rated poorly by patients for the quality of the care they have provided. Doctors aged 20 to 30 and those working in A&E or intensive care were most likely to have burnout. It was defined as comprising emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation – a “negative, callous” detachment from their job – and a sense of reduced personal accomplishment. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 September 2022
  22. News Article
    Thousands of hospital and GP appointments have been cancelled due to the public holiday surrounding the Queen's funeral on Monday. Many hospitals are to postpone outpatient appointments and planned operations because of reduced staffing, while most GP surgeries will also close. NHS hospitals in England have been urged to contact patients who could be affected, whether or not their appointment has been postponed. Some hospitals have said they will be operating as usual, while others have said that they will postpone some non-urgent appointments. Some patients and doctors have expressed concern about their appointments being postponed. One doctor told The Independent: “I have the greatest respect for the Queen ... but when patients are waiting up to two years to be seen ... really? One GP leader in London said practice staff were now getting “abuse” over the bank holiday closures. Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 September 2022
  23. News Article
    NHS bosses have been told to make sure patients can access care if GPs close on the day of the Queen's funeral. NHS England has written to local bosses saying while GP services will be able to close on the bank holiday there needs to be enough out-of-hours care. The letter also asked for scheduled Covid booster care home visits to be carried out as planned. In another letter to hospitals NHS England said it expected a rise in patients not turning up for clinics. There have been reports of some hospitals in England and other parts of the UK cancelling routine treatments due to take place on the day of the funeral too. The letter addressing GP access, signed by NHS England's director of primary care Dr Ursula Montgomery, said GP practices would be contractually able to close their core services on Monday as its a confirmed bank holiday. But it added local health boards would need to "urgently work to ensure sufficient out-of-hours services capacity is in place". The letter also said areas must make up for cancelled appointments by offering patients another appointment within two weeks and make sure patients can pick up prescriptions in advance. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 September 2022
  24. News Article
    Liz Truss has received a stark insight into the dire state of the NHS after new figures showed millions of people in England were facing often record delays to access vital healthcare. One leading NHS expert said the long waits for care, diagnostic tests and hospital beds showed that Britain’s new prime minister “inherits an NHS in critical condition”. The total number of people in England waiting for hospital treatment rose again to a record high of 6.8 million at the end of July – almost one in eight of the population. Patients are also facing long waits for accident and emergency care, cancer treatment, such as surgery or chemotherapy, and for an ambulance to arrive after a 999 call. Of the 6.8 million people on NHS England’s “referral to treatment” waiting list, 2,665,004 had been waiting for more than 18 weeks, which is the supposed maximum waiting time for procedures such as a joint replacement, hernia repair or cataract removal. In addition, 377,689 had been waiting more than a year to start their treatment, almost 22,000 more than a month before, according to the latest monthly performance data published by NHS England. The data showed that ministers and NHS bosses had failed to fulfil their pledge to eradicate two-year waits by the end of July; 2,885 such cases had not been resolved by then, despite major efforts by hospitals to meet the target. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 September 2022
  25. News Article
    GPs have warned of a ‘tsunami of demand’ this winter as patient contacts surged 200% during the pandemic. One of the largest GP providers in the UK, Modality Partnership, told The Independent it received 4.8 million calls from patients in one year alone with around a quarter going unanswered every day. The provider, which covers 500,000 patients across the country, said its practices were now working above “safe levels” with 50 appointments a day per GP, far higher than the 35 advised by the British Medical Association. Speaking with The Independent, Vincent Sai, chief executive and partner at Modality said the new health secretary Therese Coffey must “not point fingers” and “not find a scapegoat” as “every part of the system is under pressure. Every player in the health system is under the cosh.” Dr Sai said: “We believe patient contacts have increased 200 per cent, over the last few years. The expectation is that GP practices have maybe four to five patient contacts per year, but if you just look at just the number of phone calls alone, it’s showing that it’s much more now. “So something is broken somewhere...there’s more work, there are fewer people. People say I can’t get access to my GP and the hypothesis is they’re just lazy and not working, but it’s not the case.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 September 2022
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