Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Screening'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 166 results
  1. News Article
    An invitation to a cervical screening test upon your 25th birthday has become a necessary but often unwanted coming-of-age present. Despite years of education and advocacy about the benefits of screening, many women still do not attend. About 16 million women in the UK aged 25-64 are eligible for testing, but only 11.2 million took a test in 2022, the lowest level in a decade. There unfortunately remains a false narrative that there are good reasons to be nervous about cervical screening tests. In reality, the test is not physically painful for the vast majority of women, although it can be a bit uncomfortable. However, the test can be needlessly emotionally painful, and for no good reason. This is in part because some women go through the experience of sitting with legs spread apart and “private parts” out, and then hear the nurse call for “the virgin speculum” to be used. This is the archaic and unnecessarily sexualised term for the extra-small speculum. It should have no place being used in 2023, and it clearly creates feelings of vulnerability. Next week it is Cervical Cancer Awareness week, and campaigners are hoping to shine a light on barriers to cervical screening testing that must be removed. By creating feelings of vulnerability around testing, we are allowing cervical cancer to continue to go undetected. All women should be aware of the importance of attending their cervical screening test and do so with confidence, regardless of their sexual status. This will play a valuable role in reducing the mortality rate. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 January 2023 Further hub reading: Doctors’ shocking comments reveal institutional misogyny towards women harmed by pelvic mesh Misogyny is a safety issue: a blog by Saira Sundar Gender bias: A threat to women’s health (August 2020)
  2. News Article
    Prostate cancer patients across the UK face a “postcode lottery” of care, a charity has warned, with men in Scotland almost three times more likely to be diagnosed at a late stage compared with men in London. Prostate Cancer UK said the proportion diagnosed when the disease may be too advanced to treat varied hugely depending on where patients lived. Health leaders called the findings “shocking”. In Scotland, more than a third (35%) of men are only diagnosed when the disease is classed as stage 4, meaning the cancer has spread to another part of the body – known as metastatic cancer. In London, the figure is 12.5%. Chiara De Biase, director of support and influencing at Prostate Cancer UK, said, "We can’t say for sure what’s behind this gap in diagnosis, but it’s clear that men are more likely to be diagnosed at an earlier stage in areas with higher rates of PSA blood testing. That means the key way to tackle this is by raising awareness – especially in places like Scotland which are worst-affected." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 January 2023
  3. News Article
    The NHS is set to eliminate hepatitis C in England by 2025 due to targeted screening campaigns for those at risk and effective drug treatments, according to health officials. NHS England said the measures are helping to dramatically cut deaths from the virus five years ahead of global targets. Deaths from hepatitis C – including liver disease and cancer – have fallen by 35% since NHS England struck a five-year deal worth almost £1bn to buy antiviral drugs for thousands of patients in 2018. The World Health Organization’s target of a 10% reduction in hepatitis C-related death by 2020 has been exceeded threefold in England. An NHS screening programme launched in September is also enabling up to 80,000 people unknowingly living with the disease to get a diagnosis and treatment sooner by searching health records for key risk factors, such as historic blood transfusions or HIV. Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, said the health service was “leading the world” in the drive to save lives and eliminate hepatitis C while also tackling health inequalities. He said: “Thanks to targeted screening and because the NHS has a proven track record of striking medicine agreements that give patients access to the latest drugs, we are on track to beat global targets and become the first country to eliminate hepatitis C.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 December 2022
  4. Content Article
    In the UK, the focus of osteoporosis care in the NHS has been on people who have sustained a fragility fracture as a result of their underlying condition. Not much has been done to try and prevent the first fracture by promoting good bone health and proactively identifying people at higher risk. This report by the APPG on Osteoporosis and Bone Health presents the results of its inquiry into primary care provision for people with osteoporosis and those at high risk of fracture, launched in March 2022. The inquiry aimed to establish the current quality of care being offered to patients.
  5. News Article
    Some patients waiting for an endoscopy in Guernsey may be "at risk" because of a large backlog in procedures, the States medical director has warned. The government has announced a tender process to bring in clinicians to help clear the list, which is three times longer than before the Covid pandemic. More than 430 people were on the gastroenterology waiting list as of Tuesday, Dr Peter Rabey said. "We're worried that there is risk to patients in waiting too long," he said. "Although a lot of patients who get an endoscopy have completely normal results, and some have benign disease which can be treated with tablets and things, there will be some patients who might have cancer and we need to find out as best as possible". Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 December 2022
  6. News Article
    The government is setting up 19 more diagnostic centres in communities across England to help tackle the Covid backlog. Ninety one are already open and have delivered more than 2.4 million tests, checks and scans since last summer, ministers say. It is hoped the centres will speed up access to services for patients, thereby reducing waiting times. Seven million people in England are now waiting for hospital treatment. GPs can refer patients to community diagnostic centres so that they can access life-saving checks and scans, and be diagnosed for a range of conditions, without travelling to hospital. Some are located in football stadiums and shopping centres and can offer MRI and CT scans, as well as x-rays. In September, according to the government, the hubs delivered 11% of all diagnostic activity - and its ambition is for 40% to be achieved by 2025. Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 December 2022
  7. Content Article
    This cross-sectional study in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine aimed to understand the relationship between financial conflicts of interest and recommendations for atrial fibrillation (AF) screening in the UK. The authors looked at whether the UK media recommend for or against screening for AF and the financial conflicts of interests of AF screening commentators. The authors found that the vast majority of UK media promotes screening for AF, in contrast to the position of the independent UK National Screening Committee, which recommends against screening. Most commentators, internal NHS organisations and UK charities promoting screening had a direct or indirect financial conflict of interest. Independent information was rare and the reasons for this are unknown. They recommend readers consider the potential impact of financial conflicts on recommendations to screen.
  8. News Article
    All GP practices in England will be able to book cancer tests directly for their patients from later this month, NHS bosses say. The option of GPs booking CT scans, ultrasounds and MRIs has been gradually rolled out in recent years, as community testing centres have opened. NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard will announce later all GPs will now be able to do this. GPs have previously relied on referring on to specialist hospital doctors. Before referring, they have to identify clear symptoms the patient may have a specific type of cancer. But only one out of every five cancer cases is diagnosed through these urgent GP referrals. Patients with less clear symptoms face long waits for check-ups or are diagnosed only after presenting at an accident-and-emergency (A&E) unit or being referred to hospital for something else. And Ms Pritchard will tell delegates at the NHS Providers annual conference of health managers, in Liverpool, today, she hopes the new initiative will lead to tens of thousands of cancer cases every year being detected sooner. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 November 2022
  9. News Article
    Scientists are launching a trial screening programme for type 1 diabetes in the UK to detect the disease earlier and reduce the risk of life-changing complications. About 20,000 children aged between 3 and 13 are being invited to take part in the Early Surveillance for Autoimmune Diabetes (Elsa) study, with recruitment opening on Monday. The aim is to assess children’s risk of developing type 1 diabetes at the earliest stage possible to ensure a quick and safe diagnosis, and reduce the number being diagnosed when they are already seriously ill. Parth Narendran, a professor of diabetes medicine at the University of Birmingham, said: “As general population screening programmes for type 1 diabetes emerge around the world, we need to explore how best to screen children here in the UK.” Dr Elizabeth Robertson, the director of research at Diabetes UK, which is co-funding the study with the not-for-profit organisation JDRF, said: “Identifying children at high risk of type 1 diabetes could put them and their families on the front foot, helping ensure a safe and soft landing into an eventual diagnosis, avoiding DKA and reducing the risk of life-altering complications.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 November 2022
  10. News Article
    Routine screening for bipolar disorder should be ingrained into the NHS, alongside specialist training to help identify the condition and reduce the average nine-and-a-half-year wait to get a diagnosis, experts say. A report by the Bipolar Commission, which brings together academics and other experts in the field, also recommended appointing a national director of mood disorders to ensure everyone has access to a 12-week psychoeducation course, and a specialist doctor to oversee their prescriptions and ongoing care. More than 1 million people in the UK are estimated to have bipolar disorder, which leads to extreme changes in mood and energy levels far beyond most people’s experiences of feeling happy or a bit down. Yet many spend years chasing a diagnosis, or having been misdiagnosed with depression, meaning they cannot access key treatments such as lithium and lamotrigine that help to stabilise mood. According to the report, which was based on an 18-month programme of interviews, surveys and desktop research, many people face a “dangerous” delay in getting diagnosed, with an average wait of nine and a half years. During this time, just over one in three people claimed to have attempted suicide, while those who were misdiagnosed were also more likely to be repeatedly admitted to hospital, the report found. Even once a diagnosis of bipolar disorder is made, the current way most patients are treated – where they are only referred to a psychiatrist if they become seriously unwell – is failing, says Prof Guy Goodwin, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford and co-chair of the commission. “Psychiatric services see people when they are acutely ill … but, once recovered, people are discharged back to the care of their general practitioner. And that model we simply think doesn’t work,” Goodwin said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 November 2022
  11. Content Article
    Bipolar UK's 'Bipolar Minds Matter' report calls for an immediate restructure of the healthcare system that is failing millions affected by bipolar, and puts forward the case for developing a dedicated care pathway so that people with bipolar can have access to specialist treatment and continuity of support over a lifetime. 
  12. Content Article
    The aim of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) is to deliver additional diagnostic capacity in England by providing quicker and more convenient access for patients and reducing pressure on hospitals.  The vision is for CDCs to be ‘one-stop shops for checks, scans and tests’, designed to achieve early diagnoses for patients and timely treatment and intervention, and are part of the offer of more place-based, person-centred approaches to care, removing some of the known barriers to access. But are CDCs living up to their promise?
  13. News Article
    Hundreds of patients with metallic implants narrowly avoided death or serious injury after being wrongly referred for MRI scans, an investigation revealed yesterday. The powerful magnets used in the machines can displace and damage metallic items such as pacemakers, ear implants and aneurysm clips. Doctors should question patients and check medical records before requesting a scan because of the risk of injury. But hospitals in England recorded 315 near-misses from April 2020 to March 2022 involving patients sent for an MRI. An MRI scan at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust was ditched after staff confirmed the skin over the patient’s pacemaker had begun heating up. Another patient – at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Trust – told staff about a metal plug implanted in their nose only after the scan had begun. Many of the incidents involved forms being filled out incorrectly on behalf of elderly and disoriented patients. At East Kent Hospitals University Trust, a patient described as ‘not compos mentis’ was given the all-clear by a care home nurse and again by a clinician for MRI – only for staff to realise at the last moment that metal clips were implanted in their chest. Information about the incidents was obtained using freedom of information requests. Helen Hughes of Patient Safety Learning, said: "It is vital that near-misses are regularly reported, their causes understood, and that this learning is acted on to prevent future avoidable harm." Read full story Source: MailOnline, 15 October 2022
  14. News Article
    Scientists have discovered that it may be possible to spot signs of dementia as early as nine years before patients receive an official diagnosis. The findings raise the possibility that, in the future, at-risk people could be screened to help select those who could benefit from interventions, or help identify patients suitable for clinical trials for new treatments. Researchers at Cambridge University published the study – funded by the Medical Research Council with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre – in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Dr Richard Oakley, associate director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said the “important” findings suggested that “for some people who go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease, memory and thinking problems can begin up to nine years before they receive a diagnosis”. He added: “This opens up the possibility of screening programmes in the future to help identify people at risk and who may benefit from interventions, and identify more people suitable for clinical trials for new dementia treatments, which are both so desperately needed.” The study’s first author, Nol Swaddiwudhipong, said: “This is a step towards us being able to screen people who are at greatest risk – for example, people over 50 or those who have high blood pressure or do not do enough exercise – and intervene at an earlier stage to help them reduce their risk.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 October 2022
  15. News Article
    Lung cancer screening should be offered to over-55s who have smoked, government advisers have said. New guidance from the UK National Screening Committee has called for a mass introduction of checks for all present and former smokers between the ages of 55 and 74. While the NHS offers routine screening for other types of cancer, including breast, bowel and cervical, there is no lung cancer screening programme. Lung cancer is the UK’s deadliest form and every year 48,000 people are diagnosed, with 35,000 deaths. The death rate is so high because it is often spotted when symptoms develop and it is too late for treatment. Only 5% of those diagnosed with lung cancer at the latest stage survive for five years, but when picked up early more than half survive. Officials have recommended targeted screening to cut death rates. It involves a CT scan which takes a detailed picture of the lungs to look for abnormalities. The National Screening Committee said that targeting all of those who have smoked would reduce deaths because 70% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 30 September 2022
  16. Content Article
    With A&E and ambulance waiting times dominating the headlines and over 6.7 million people waiting for elective surgery, prevention can unfortunately fall down the priority list. But cancer screening helps pick up cancers at an earlier and more treatable stage, improving survival rates and lessening pressure on the NHS in the long run. It is therefore important that it is not forgotten in the face of seemingly more urgent demands. 
  17. News Article
    For the first time, a US government-backed expert panel has recommended that adults under 65 should be screened for anxiety disorders. The influential US Preventive Services Task force also said that all adults should be checked for depression, consistent with past guidance. The change follows widespread warnings from experts on the mental health toll of the Covid-19 pandemic. The task force stopped short of a screening recommendation for suicide. The panel acknowledged that suicide is a leading cause of death among American adults but said there was "not enough evidence on whether screening people without signs or symptoms will ultimately help prevent suicide". The draft guidance is aimed at young and middle-aged adults, including those who are pregnant and post-partum. It envisions the mental health screening as part of routine visits with primary care physicians, said Dr Lori Pbert, a task-force member and professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School. "When you go to your primary care provider, you get screened for many, many preventive conditions - blood pressure, heart rate, all kinds of things," she said. "Mental health conditions are just important as other physical conditions, and we really need to be treating mental health conditions with the same urgency that we do other conditions." Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 September 2022
  18. News Article
    Some women in Northern Ireland are waiting more than three times longer than they should for smear test results. BBC News NI's Evening Extra programme learned that all health trusts were breaching the target of 80% of samples being reported within four weeks. The Department of Health (DoH) and Public Health Agency (PHA) said it was due to pressures on pathology services. This included a shortage of available trained staff across the UK to carry out the screening, they said. Unlike the rest of the UK, each sample in Northern Ireland has to be individually examined by a scientist. In Great Britain, HPV primary screening is used. This tests the sample of cells taken at the appointment for a virus that can cause cervical cell changes to develop into cancer. The DoH said it intended to implement this in Northern Ireland and the project involved significant work to reconfigure services. Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 September 2022
  19. News Article
    Dee Dickens, 52, from Pontypridd, made the difficult choice to seek private healthcare even though she is ideologically opposed to it. After discovering a lump in her breast she was referred for a scan on the NHS’s two-week rule for suspected cancer. But after waiting six weeks, and being continually being told the waiting time was going up, eventually to a three-month wait, she was forced to pay for her own scan and appointment privately. “In February last year, I found a lump in my breast, and went to the doctor that day. The doctor examined me and said, ‘I don’t like that.’ She said the lump was the size of the top of her index finger and she would rush me through for an urgent screening that would take no longer than two weeks. “Two weeks later, I’d heard nothing so I gave them a call. They said that because of Covid, things had slowed down and it might take four weeks. “A week later, one of my breasts had swelled up. It was itching and hot and it felt like it was infected. I felt unwell, too. But I was stressed to the gills. Every day, I was worried I was going to die. We know that we’re against the clock when it’s cancer. “I went straight back to the doctor and she rang the hospital. They said, ‘We will put your patient right at the top of the waiting list, but it will now be six weeks.’ “At six weeks, I still hadn’t heard anything, so I called the hospital. They said that I was at the top of the list still, but it would now be 10 weeks. The wait was going up because, during the worst of Covid, they hadn’t seen anyone so they were now on catchup." “I’d had enough. Every single day I was more and more worried and my mental health was worse and worse, and my family was having to deal with me crying over stupid things. been talking about going private. But I’d been resistant – we’re both very leftwing and believe passionately in the NHS. However, in the Dee made an appointment with a private clinic. She was seen immediately. “After the scan, the doctor told me that the lumps were glandular tissue. The swelling, the pain and itching – were all stress related. As soon as he said, ‘You’re not going to die,’ they stopped. “The NHS is the only thing I’m truly proud of in the UK. What worries me is I can see it disappearing, if not in my lifetime then in my children’s lifetime. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to go private. It felt absolutely awful to have to make the choice I did. “On the one hand, I knew I would have an answer. But on the other, I knew there were so many women who wouldn’t be able to do what I was doing. I felt guilty, I felt I’d put my own life above my principles." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 September 2022
  20. Content Article
    The life expectancy of people with severe mental illness (SMI) is shorter than those without SMI, with multimorbidity and poorer physical health contributing to health inequality. Screening tools could potentially assist the optimisation of medicines to protect the physical health of people with SMI. The aim of this research from Carolan et al. was to design and validate a medicines optimisation tool (OPTIMISE) to help clinicians to optimise physical health in people with SMI.
  21. News Article
    Record NHS waiting lists cannot be attributed to the pandemic as the health service has been “steadily declining” for a decade, a report says. The number of people waiting for routine hospital treatment in England has almost tripled from 2.5 million in April 2012 to 6.78 million, after reaching 4.6 million in February 2020. While Covid accelerated this trend, analysis suggests that even without the pandemic waiting lists for elective care would stand at 5.3 million. The Quality Watch report, by the Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation think tanks, says the NHS was “already stretched beyond its limits” before Covid struck. Analysis of performance figures show waiting times for scans, A&E and cancer care have been increasing for many years amid chronic staff shortages. This deterioration means thousands of cancer patients each month face unacceptably long waits for treatment — damaging their survival chances. The report found waiting times for 15 key diagnostic tests, such as MRI or CT scans, had also rocketed. In April 2012 632,236 patients were on waiting lists for these tests. This backlog increased to one million by February 2020 before hitting 1.6 million this year. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 5 September 2022
  22. News Article
    The backlog of people waiting more than two years for a routine operation in England has shrunk from 22,500 at the start of the year to fewer than 200. NHS England figures show the number of patients waiting that length of time has fallen to just 168, excluding more complex cases. Staff have been praised for carrying out the NHS elective recovery plan, published this year to tackle backlogs built up during the coronavirus pandemic. At the start of the year, more than 22,500 people had been waiting two years or longer for scans, checks and surgery. A further 51,000 who would have passed the two-year mark by the end of July have also been treated, figures show. The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, said: “It has only been possible because the NHS has continued to reform the way we deliver care, using innovative techniques and adopting pioneering technology like robot surgery, and through building new relationships and mutual aid arrangements across systems to offer patients the opportunity to be transferred elsewhere and get the care they need as quickly as possible. “The next phase will focus on patients waiting longer than 18 months, building on the fantastic work already done, and, while it is a significant challenge, our remarkable staff have shown that, when we are given the tools and resources we need, the NHS delivers for our patients.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 August 2022
  23. News Article
    A 65-year-old man died after doctors failed to notice serious abnormalities on his X-ray, an investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has revealed. The investigation comes a year after a landmark report by the Ombudsman highlighted failings in how X-rays and scans are reported and followed up in the NHS. Mr B, who was admitted to University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust in May 2019, had been unwell for several days. He was admitted to hospital suffering from abdominal pain and vomiting. An X-ray of his abdomen was taken, which two doctors said did not show any apparent abnormalities. The following day the man’s condition deteriorated. He suffered a heart attack and died. A PHSO investigation found the Trust failed to notice a blockage in his intestine on the X-ray. Because of this failure, Mr B did not receive treatment that could have saved his life. Speaking on this case Ombudsman Rob Behrens said: “The case of Mr B highlights the devastating impact mistakes like this can have. If the Trust had picked up the abnormalities on his X-ray sooner, Mr B could still be with his family today. “As the NHS faces the challenge of rebuilding after the pandemic, it must not lose momentum in improving the way X-rays and scans are handled during a patient’s care.” Progress has been made by the NHS in implementing recommendations made by the Ombudsman in the report; however, Rob Behrens has said more needs to be done to protect patients from serious harm. “Attention and buy-in from the NHS’s senior leaders is crucial if we want to see sustained and meaningful change in how X-rays and scans are managed during a patient’s care. We need more collaboration across clinical specialties, looking at the whole patient journey once a scan has been carried out. "I want to see the NHS treating complaints as a source of insight to drive improvements in patient care. Not learning from mistakes will mean missed opportunities to diagnose patients earlier. In the most serious cases, like that of Mr B, it will mean a death which should never have happened.” Read full story Source: PHSO, 20 July 2022
  24. Content Article
    The government has published the first ever Women's Health Strategy for England to tackle the gender health gap.
  25. News Article
    Women and girls across England will benefit from improved healthcare following the publication of the first ever government-led Women’s Health Strategy for England today. Following a call for evidence which generated almost 100,000 responses from individuals across England, and building on 'Our Vision for Women’s Health', the strategy sets bold ambitions to tackle deep-rooted, systemic issues within the health and care system to improve the health and wellbeing of women, and reset how the health and care system listens to women. The strategy includes key commitments around: New research and data gathering. The expansion of women’s health-focused education and training for incoming doctors. Improvements to fertility services. Ensuring women have access to high-quality health information. Updating guidance for female-specific health conditions like endometriosis to ensure the latest evidence and advice is being used in treatment. To support progress already underway in these areas, the strategy aims to: Provide a new investment of £10 million for a breast screening programme, which will provide 25 new mobile breast screening units to be targeted at areas with the greatest challenges in uptake and coverage. This will: - provide extra capacity for services to recover from the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic - boost uptake of screening in areas where attendance is low - tackle health disparities - contribute towards higher early diagnosis rates in line with the NHS Long Term Plan. Remove additional barriers to IVF for female same-sex couples. There will no longer be a requirement for them to pay for artificial insemination to prove their fertility status and NHS treatment for female same-sex couples will start with 6 cycles of artificial insemination, prior to accessing IVF services, if necessary. Improve transparency on provision and availability of IVF so prospective parents can see how their local area performs to tackle the ‘postcode lottery’ in access to IVF treatment Recognise parents who have lost a child before 24 weeks through the introduction of a pregnancy loss certificate in England. Ensure specialist endometriosis services have the most up-to-date evidence and advice by updating the service specification for severe endometriosis, which defines the standards of care patients can expect. This sits alongside the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) review of its guideline on endometriosis. Read full story Source: Gov.UK, 20 July 2022
×
×
  • Create New...