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Found 165 results
  1. News Article
    England’s NHS Ombudsman has warned that cancer patients could be put at risk because of over-stretched and exhausted health staff working in a system at breaking point and delays in diagnosis and treatment. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) revealed that between April 2020 and December 2023, his Office carried out 1,019 investigations related to cancer. Of those 185 were upheld or partly upheld. Issues with diagnosis and treatment were the most common cancer-related issues investigated by PHSO. These issues included treatment delays, misdiagnosis, failure to identify cancer, the mismanagement of conditions, and pain management. Complaints about cancer care also included concerns about poor communication, complaint handling, referrals, and end-of-life care. Most investigations were about lung cancer, followed by breast cancer and colorectal cancer. The Ombudsman recently closed an investigation around the death of Sandra Eastwood whose cancer was not diagnosed for almost a year after scans were not read correctly. The delay meant she missed out on the chance of treatment which has a 95% survival rate. In 2021, PHSO published a report about recurrent failings in the way X-rays and scans are reported on and followed up across the NHS service. Mr Behrens said, “What happened to Mrs Eastwood was unacceptable and her family’s grief will no doubt have been compounded by knowing that mistakes were made in her care. “Her case also shows, in the most tragic of ways, that while some progress has been made on my recommendations to improve imaging services, it is not enough and more must be done. “Government must act now to prioritise this issue and protect more patients from harm.” Read full story Source: Parliamentary Health and Health Service Ombudsman, 9 March 2024
  2. Content Article
    Elective care refers to when patients receive non-urgent treatment, normally in hospital, including, tests and scans, outpatient care, surgery and cancer treatment. The NHS is currently seeing long waiting times for some elective procedures, with the Government setting an ambition to reduce elective waiting times to less than a year by 2025. Increased waiting times mean patients have to wait longer for the care they need. This can lead to patients suffering increased pain, their condition may worsen, or they may develop other illnesses associated with the reason that they are waiting for elective care. This can cause both physical harm and mental distress to patients, their families, and carers. The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) Senior Safety Investigator, Neil Alexander, blogs about the challenges facing the NHS in tackling the elective care backlog and how learning from our investigation reports may be able to help the NHS rise to this challenge.
  3. Content Article
    Spina bifida develops early in the embryonic stage of pregnancy but is not usually detected until the midterm (20 week) ultrasound scan.  Shine conducted a survey to assess the antenatal care experiences of parents to children with spina bifida. Volunteers were recruited via social media and 71 eligible (UK-based) responses were received, revealing numerous elements of antenatal care in need of significant improvement. Shine have published the findings and recommendations for improving antenatal diagnosis and care for spina bifida. 
  4. News Article
    Mothers of babies who died or suffered brain damage from a Group B Strep (GBS) infection say routine screening is needed. Oliver Plumb, from the charity Group B Strep Support, said it was a "small number of babies" exposed to the bacteria that developed a serious and potentially fatal infection. He said around 800 babies a year developed the infection - which is about two babies a day - and about one a week will die, while another a week will be left with a lifelong disability. "It's a heart-breaking start to life for families and that often the first they hear of Group B Strep is when their baby is sick or in intensive care". The charity has called for GBS to be a notifiable disease to make it a legal responsibility for infections to be reported. It added that current figures could be "missing around one fifth of the infections". There was a "postcode lottery" in terms of how many families will hear about GBS, he said. The charity also backed calls for screening. "In the UK we don't sadly have a routine testing programme, that's at odds with much of the rest of the high-income world. " A DHSC spokesperson said a public consultation on the notifiable diseases list was carried out last year. "DHSC and UKHSA are considering the responses and confirmation of any changes will be published in due course," they said. Several reasons for not recommending routine screening have been given by the committee, including that results can change in the last few weeks of labour, and that GBS does not cause infection in every baby. Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 February 2024 Further reading on the hub: Leading for safety: A conversation with Jane Plumb, Founder of Group B Strep Support
  5. Content Article
    Preventable conditions are costing the NHS and wider society hundreds of billions of pounds and leading to reduced quality of life for large numbers of people. This paper from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change proposes ways in which the NHS can use existing tools for screening and preventing ill health, to make the UK healthier and more productive and reduce pressure on the health system. It suggests a prevention programme that uses AI to highlight risk factors and screen individuals most likely to develop chronic health conditions.
  6. News Article
    England’s largest hospital trust has written to GPs warning their patients face 15-week waits for routine MRIs, ultrasound and CT scans. Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust in central London said it was prioritising suspected cancer and other “urgent cases”, meaning “unfortunately waiting times for routine patients are now an average of 15-16 weeks for an appointment against a target of six weeks”. This is much worse than national averages, which December figures showed were 3.2 weeks, 2.5 weeks and 3.3 weeks for MRI, CT and ultrasound waits respectively. It its letter to GPs in Lambeth and Southwark – its main patches – GSTT said: “Current imaging referral demand outstrips capacity, despite these services consistently delivering near 120 per cent levels of activity compared to 2019-20. “The radiology service is exploring multiple routes to increase imaging capacity, including increased weekend working, insourcing and outsourcing contracts, but there is still a significant shortfall of slots every week.” In particular, it said primary care staff should expect long waits for the reporting of routine MRI scans. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 February 2024
  7. Content Article
    The promise of diagnosing conditions early is an exciting one. But there are fears among some health professionals that more screening might not be entirely helpful. In this programme, the BBC's Health Correspondent Matthew Hill finds out whether screening programmes can really help us live both better and longer lives. He asks whether diagnosing conditions decades before they might affect us causes more harm than good. He also examines what lessons from the past could tell us about the current surge in screening and considers some of the dilemmas it might present us with.
  8. Content Article
    The Care Quality Commission's (CQC) annual report on their work to enforce the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations in England has been published. The regulations protect people from the dangers of being accidentally or unintentionally exposed to ionising radiation in a healthcare setting. Errors can happen when healthcare providers use ionising radiation to diagnose or treat people. Healthcare providers must notify CQC about these. The report gives a breakdown of the number and type errors that CQC was notified about between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. The report also presents the key findings from our inspection and enforcement activity in that time.
  9. Content Article
    In October 2021 the government announced plans for new community diagnostic centres (CDCs) across England. The ambition was that these centres would provide people with increased and more convenient access to diagnostics tests, and would lead to earlier diagnosis and reduce pressure on hospitals. Two years on, with 127 centres open and 1,563,400 patients waiting for a diagnostic test as of the end of August 2023, how are community diagnostic centres getting on and what challenges are they facing?  
  10. News Article
    Women affected by a review of cervical smears in the Southern Health Trust have said they are "angry, frustrated and scared" for their future. About 17,500 patients in the trust are to have their previous smears re-checked as part of a major review of cervical screening dating back to 2008. Some of these women will be recalled to have new smear tests carried out. But the process has not started yet and will take at least six months to complete. Letters were sent out by the trust earlier this month to those affected. The Southern Trust says it expects to recall around 4,000 women for a new smear test after it reviews 17,368 historic slides. The Trust's medical director, Dr Steve Austin, told its board meeting that the review of slides was expected to start next week. It also emerged that the number of calls from concerned women has increased with many asking for more "specialist" answers. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 October 2023
  11. News Article
    Some patients in England are waiting up to two-and-a-half years for important diagnostic tests such as ultrasound, MRI and CT scans, according to figures seen by the Guardian. The longest waits were two-and-a-half years for an MRI scan, almost two years for an ultrasound and a year for a CT scan, responses to freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats show. People with heart problems are among the worst affected. Examples from NHS trusts included a 49-week wait for an echocardiogram and a 475-day wait for an angiography. Under the NHS constitution, patients should wait less than six weeks for diagnostic tests. The target is for only 1% to wait more than six weeks, but now 25% of all patients do so, according to research from the House of Commons library, commissioned by the Lib Dems. Ed Davey, the leader of the Lib Dems, said: “What this Conservative government has done to the NHS is nothing short of a national scandal. Millions are forced to wait in pain and discomfort, anxiously wondering when they will get a diagnosis, let alone treatment. “We cannot fix our economy without fixing our NHS. People can’t get back to work when they’re stuck waiting to see a GP, get a diagnosis or start treatment. The longer they wait, the worse their health gets and the greater the stress for themselves and their loved ones." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 September 2023
  12. News Article
    People living with long Covid after being admitted to hospital are more likely to show some damage to major organs, according to a new study. MRI scans revealed patients were three times more likely to have some abnormalities in multiple organs such as the lungs, brain and kidneys. Researchers believe there is a link with the severity of the illness. It is hoped the UK study will help in the development of more effective treatments for Long Covid. The study, published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, looked at 259 patients who fell so ill with the virus that they were admitted to hospital. Five months after they were discharged, MRI scans of their major organs showed some significant differences when compared to a group of 52 people who had never had Covid. The biggest impact was seen on the lungs, where the scans were 14 times more likely to show abnormalities. MRI scans were also three times more likely to show some abnormalities in the brain - and twice as likely in the kidneys - among people who had had severe Covid. Dr Betty Raman, from the University of Oxford and one of the lead investigators on the study, says it is clear that those living with long Covid symptoms are more likely to have experienced some organ damage. She said: "The patient's age, how severely ill they were with Covid, as well as if they had other illnesses at the same time, were all significant factors in whether or not we found damage to these important organs in the body." Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 September 2023
  13. Content Article
    When it comes to your health, it's easy to fall into the mindset that unless you are having signs or symptoms of an illness, you can put off going to see your doctor and skip yearly exams or tests. But preventative care—such as blood tests, cancer screening, mental health check-ins, vaccinations and tests for genetic conditions—can help keep you from developing a serious illness or having to receive care at the hospital.  Speak Up™ To Prevent Serious Illness is a patient safety campaign from The Joint Commission designed to educate patients on how to find preventative care services, get past barriers and try to avoid reaching a crisis point with their health. The Joint Commission has produced a video, infographic and distribution guide as part of the campaign.
  14. News Article
    Targeted screening of patients with type 2 diabetes could more than double new diagnoses of heart conditions, a study suggests. When applied at a larger scale, such an approach could translate into tens of thousands of new diagnoses, researchers believe. Conditions such as coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation and heart failure affect millions of people worldwide, causing a large number of deaths and increasing healthcare costs. Treatments are available that can prevent stroke or acute heart failure, but systematic screening is not currently common practice. Those living with conditions such as type 2 diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – a group of lung conditions that cause breathing difficulties – are at high risk of such conditions. A team of researchers led by Dr Amy Groenewegen, from the University Medical Centre Utrecht in the Netherlands, has developed a three-step screening process to detect conditions in high-risk people at an early stage. Study author Dr Groenewegen said: “An easy-to-implement strategy more than doubled the number of new diagnoses of heart failure, atrial fibrillation and coronary artery disease in high-risk patients.” Read full story Source: Independent, 29 August 2023
  15. News Article
    At-home smear tests should be introduced in Wales, campaigners say. Love Your Period campaigners said self-sampling at home would encourage more people to have the tests. For women aged 25 to 64 a smear test is an effective way of detecting human papillomavirus (HPV) and preventing cervical cancer. According to Public Health Wales data, cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women under the age of 35, with regular screening helping to reduce the risk of getting cervical cancer by 70%. The Welsh government said it followed advice from the UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC), which is yet to make a recommendation on self-sampling. However, it said Public Health Wales (PHW) was considering how the tests could be implemented in Wales. Currently, women in Wales are invited for a screening to check for the presence of high-risk HPV every five years. Campaigner Jess Moultrie said tests should be made available to those who have experienced trauma and find the process of in-hospital smears triggering. "Being able to do it at home gives you that power, you can be a little bit more relaxed, it's not as intimidating." Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 August 2023
  16. News Article
    Campaigners are planning to launch legal action after NHS chiefs in North Yorkshire placed limits on which adults can get referrals for autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessments. North Yorkshire and York Health and Care Partnerships introduced a pilot programme in March in which adults seeking an NHS assessment for autism or ADHD are triaged via an online screening tool. NHS chiefs say this screening process prioritises those with the most severe needs, rather than processing referrals in chronological order. These priority needs reportedly include the patient being at risk of immediate self-harm or harming others, at risk of being unable to have lifesaving hospital treatment or care placement, or an imminent risk of family court decisions being determined on diagnosis. Those who do not meet the criteria are given guidance and signposted to other support networks. But campaigners say that in practise that means that most people cannot get a referral for an assessment – GPs can no longer make referrals themselves. Read full story Source: The Big Issue, 19 July 2023 Related reading on the hub: Long waits for ADHD diagnosis and treatment are a patient safety issue
  17. News Article
    The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) by the NHS should be faster, and more frameworks should be in place to get emerging technologies to as many patients as possible, experts have told MPs. A number of senior figures from medicine and biotechnology gave evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee as part of its inquiry into cancer technology. Stephen Duffy, a professor of cancer screening at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health at Queen Mary University of London, told MPs there is “strong potential” for AI, particularly in areas such as reading mammograms for the breast screening programme. However, he warned that there will be “staff issues in terms of the number of staff needed to double-read mammograms”. He added: “Those issues aren’t going away. It seems to me that AI systems have already been shown to be very good in terms of detection of cancer on from mammograms, so they’re safe in that respect. Read full story Source: The Independent, 19 July 2023
  18. News Article
    Children with suspected ADHD and autism are waiting as long as seven years for treatment on the NHS, as the health service struggles to manage a surge in demand during a crisis in child mental health. Experts said “inhumane” waits are putting a generation of neurodiverse children at risk of mental illness as they are “pushed to the back of a very long queue” for children and adolescent mental health services (Camhs). UK children with suspected neurodevelopmental conditions faced an average waiting time of one year and four months for an initial screening in 2022, more than three times longer than the average wait for all Camhs services, according to research carried out by the House magazine and shared with the Guardian. Half of all trusts responding to a freedom of information request had an average wait of at least a year, and at one-sixth of trusts it was more than two years. The NICE guidance for autism and mental health services stipulates that no one should wait longer than 13 weeks between being referred and first being seen. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 July 2023 Related reading on the hub: Long waits for ADHD diagnosis and treatment are a patient safety issue
  19. News Article
    The quality of care that the NHS provides has got worse in many key areas and patients’ long waits to access treatment could become even more common, research has found. The coalition government’s austerity programme in the early 2010s led to the heath service no longer being able to meet key waiting time targets, the Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation said. Austerity ushered in “really concerning deterioration across the board” in the overall quality of NHS care, as judged by patients’ experience and prevention of ill-health, not just speed of access. Analysis by the two thinktanks’ joint Quality Watch programme, which monitors more than 150 indicators of care quality over time, found that in England: Fewer people with long-term heath conditions such as cancer, diabetes and depression, are getting enough help to manage their condition. Breast cancer screening rates for women aged 53-74 have fallen. It has become harder for patients to see a named GP. Only 6% of midwives think their maternity unit has enough staff to do its job properly. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 July 2023
  20. News Article
    The number of people who die after a breast cancer diagnosis has decreased by two-thirds since the 1990s, a study of more than half a million women in England has shown. The research has taken ten years to complete, says Carolyn Taylor, lead author of the study and an oncologist at the University of Oxford, UK. The analysis includes the 512,447 women in England who were diagnosed with early invasive breast cancer between January 1993 and December 2015. The results published in the BMJ found women who were diagnosed in 1993–99 had a 14.4% risk of dying within 5 years. This fell to 4.9% for women diagnosed in 2010–15. Patient involvement was important to the study, Taylor says. The scientists appointed two patient representatives to guide their research. “They helped us in the questions to be addressed. They looked at the analyses and gave comments and suggestions throughout the study. And they helped us to interpret the results in the way that patients can understand.” Read full story Source: Nature, 23 June 2023
  21. News Article
    Everyone who has ever smoked in England is to be offered lung screening in middle age under plans to detect and treat cancer earlier. Lung cancer kills about 35,000 people every year, and is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK, accounting for one in five. It also has one of the worst cancer survival rates, which is largely attributed to diagnoses at a late stage when treatment is less likely to be effective. Millions of people will be invited for lung checks in an effort to improve survival rates. About a million screenings of people aged 55 to 74 will be carried out every year under the programme. It follows a successful pilot of the scheme in deprived areas of the country where people are four times more likely to smoke. It resulted in more than 2,000 people being detected as having cancer, 76% of them at an earlier stage compared with 29% outside the programme in 2019. “Identifying lung cancer early saves lives, and the expansion of the NHS’s targeted lung health check programme is another landmark step forward in our drive to find and treat more people living with this devastating disease at the earliest stage,” said the chief executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 June 2023
  22. News Article
    Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be rolled out more widely across the NHS in a bid to diagnose diseases and treat patients faster. The Government has announced a £21 million funding pot that NHS trusts can apply for to implement AI tools for the likes of medical imaging and decision support. This includes tools that analyse chest X-rays in suspected cases of lung cancer. AI technology that can diagnose strokes will also be available to all stroke networks by the end of 2023 – up from 86% – and could help patients get treated faster and lead to better health outcomes. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the technology could help cut NHS waiting lists ahead of winter. Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 June 2023
  23. News Article
    A soft robotic device that moves through the body like a worm could make bowel cancer screening much more comfortable by reducing pain and and discomfort, according to the scientists developing it. Researchers at Imperial College London said they have created a new type endoscope that is soft, flexible, and capable of extending and curling on its own inside the body. Around 900,000 colonoscopies – which involves an endoscope being passed through the bottom – are performed every year in the UK, the majority of which are for screenings for bowel cancer. The procedure is invasive and more than 75% of patients develop significant pain, according to Nisha Patel, a consultant gastroenterologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London, who is running clinical trials with the device. She said: “We know patients experience either discomfort or pain during the procedure and this affects uptake of further procedures and patient experience. The experts are also hoping that compared to current endoscopes, which requires specialist skills, their self-propelling robotic version will be easier to use and could, in future, be deployed in GP surgeries or outpatient clinics. Read full story Source: The Independent, 18 June 2023
  24. Content Article
    In this interview, we speak to sociologist Dr Marieke Bigg about why she decided to write her debut non-fiction This won’t hurt: How medicine fails women. Marieke discusses how societal ideas about the female body have restricted the healthcare system’s approach to women’s health and describes the impact this has had on health outcomes. She also highlights areas where the health system is reframing its approach by listening to the needs of women and describes how simple changes, such as allowing women to carry out their own cervical screening at home, can make a big difference.
  25. Content Article
    In December 2022, Public Policy Projects brought together oncology experts and key stakeholders for a roundtable to discuss how effective partnership working in healthcare environments can reduce health inequalities in breast cancer outcomes. The objective of the roundtable was to create a series of actionable insights and recommendations for health providers to create a more resilient health and care system and, ultimately, improve breast cancer outcomes in the UK. This document is a summary of the key outcomes, insights and recommendations that were generated from the roundtable. It is not an exhaustive report of facilitating and enabling partnerships to tackle health inequalities, but rather a particular view from a group of key sector stakeholders.
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