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Showing results for tags 'Secondary impact'.
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Content ArticleApproximately 10% of patients with COVID-19 experience symptoms beyond 3–4 weeks. Patients call this 'long covid'. Greenhalgh et al. sought to document the lived experience of such patients, their accounts of accessing and receiving healthcare, and their ideas for improving services. They held 55 individual interviews and 8 focus groups with people recruited from UK-based long Covid patient support groups, social media and snowballing. Participants were invited to tell their personal stories and comment on other stories.
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Content Article"Cancel everything” has trended as a hashtag during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and for good reason. The pandemic has touched virtually every aspect of society, substantially altering, and at its onset halting, the very ways nearly every person in the United States works, learns, lives, and maintains health. The practice of surgery has not been immune, with emergency declarations by many states to suspend elective procedures and office visits in mid-March. While only temporary, this abrupt cessation of surgery has had far-reaching implications that can inform future approaches in the context of both crisis and uncertainty as Meredith et al. reflect on in this JAMA article.
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Content ArticleTrusts and frontline staff are working flat out to restore those services which were necessarily interrupted to cope with the first peak of the pandemic. NHS Providers' Restoring services: NHS activity tracker highlights detailed examples of the innovations trusts and their staff developing to improve capacity, and respond to unmet demand despite the constraints created by COVID-19, and the need to prepare for additional winter pressures.
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Content ArticlePatient Safety Learning’s response to the announcement by the NHS on the 7 October 2020 of a new five-part package of measures to boost support for Long Covid patients.
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Content ArticleAs the pandemic approached England in early 2020, government policy decisions ensured most people stayed at home and NHS hospitals were largely protected. Yet some lives were not saved that should have been and England subsequently experienced the highest levels of excess mortality in Europe. Now as we head towards a winter living with COVID-19, a new hospital discharge policy suggests the English NHS has not learned from early mistakes and may be putting the lives of vulnerable people at risk.
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Content Article'Long Covid' is a term is used to describe individuals who continue to suffer from COVID-19 symptoms outside of the two-week period in which they are believed to be infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed this two-week period as enough time for the virus and its symptoms to be able to come and go, yet studies are revealing cases in which symptoms are persisting well outside of this window. Survivors may have a chronic debilitating illness for many months.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic will impact the health of many people in England and unfortunately many people will lose their lives. This paper from the Department of Health and Social Care, Office for National Statistics, Government Actuary’s Department and Home Office, provides a summary of research and analysis, discussing and estimating the health impacts (both excess deaths and morbidity) from the pandemic.
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Content ArticleThe Health and Social Care Committee is calling for urgent action to assess and tackle a backlog of appointments and an unknown patient demand for all health services, specifically across cancer treatments, mental health services, dentistry services, GP services and elective surgery. MPs say a compelling case has been made for the nationwide routine testing of all NHS staff and they are yet to understand why it cannot be introduced.
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Content ArticleIn the UK, people affected by dementia have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. From the high death rate in care homes, to the significant cognitive decline for people who live in the community, to the rising mental health challenges for unpaid carers, the pandemic has had a severe impact, while exposing our fragmented social care system for all to see. Alzheimer’s Society is the UK’s leading dementia charity, and in this report they bring together evidence from a wide range of sources to shine a light on the impact of COVID-19 on people who have dementia and those who care for them.
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Content Article
First, Do No Harm — But in a Pandemic, How? (25 September 2020)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Blogs
As hospitals in the US braced for the onslaught of coronavirus cases this past spring, they radically restructured and reorganised to help ease the burden on staff and minimise transmission within the hospital. Along with ceasing elective surgeries and transforming floors to allow for care of intubated patients, visitors were forbidden from entering hospitals with few exceptions. Now, several months removed from the peak of the pandemic, a limited number of visitors are allowed at a time. While limiting visitors allows some additional element of physical distancing, how much does a ban actually help our patients, and how much does it hurt them — especially mothers-to-be in the vulnerable perinatal period? Is it possible to limit visitor-spread virus while allowing our patients the dignity and the peace of companionship during one of the most stressful periods of their lives? In this blog, Byrne and Goldfarb look at the consequences of limiting visitors during the pandemic and considers the negative effect this may have on the health of the patient. -
Content ArticleThis population-based study of all Ontario nursing home residents found increased prescribing of psychotropic drugs at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that persisted through September 2020. Increases in prescribing were out of proportion to expected secular trends, and distinct from observed prescribing changes in other drugs during the pandemic. The authors suggest that the findings underscore the urgency of balancing infection prevention and control measures in nursing homes with the mental wellbeing of residents.
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Content ArticleAntipsychotic drugs are used to treat agitation, aggression, and psychosis in dementia when alternative strategies have failed. Their use has been reduced because of concerns about safety and limited efficacy. Drawing on data that the NHS publishes on a monthly basis on patients registered with a dementia diagnosis in England, this article considers evidence of an increase in antipsychotic prescribing to people with dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Content ArticleUrgent action is needed in the NHS to meet a ballooning backlog of procedures put on hold during the pandemic and build a more resilient health care system. This report from Reform, produced jointly with Edge Health, shows the scale of the challenges the NHS faces: 6 million fewer patients were referred to treatment in 2020 than in 2019 • 10 million patients could be on a waitlist by April By April, 52-week waits for care are projected to have risen 12,008% since March 2020 (by December they had already risen by 7139%) Cancellations of diagnostic testing and delayed treatment may lead to 1,660 extra deaths from lung cancer alone.
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Content Article
Patient referrals and waiting lists: A ticking time bomb
Jerome P posted an article in By health and care staff
Jerome, a patient safety manager, discusses the impact the pandemic is having on patient referrals and waiting lists, and the subsequent increases in serious incidents and never events that will arise. With an already overstretched and exhausted workforce, how will these be investigated, how will this be managed? Jerome urges NHS England to give guidance.- Posted
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Content ArticleAt the beginning of 2020, before the coronavirus (COVID-19) started spreading, many people had no idea they may own a face mask in their lifetime. Today, almost everyone has one. In the Asian countries where people are used to wearing face masks, many took them in their stride. Questions lingered in other parts of the world as some expressed doubts about the value of face masks and coverings in slowing down the coronavirus spread. As face masks become the new normal in many parts of the world, many different types of masks, including home-made cloth masks, surgical masks, and cone style masks, have become more common. To an ordinary person who has little knowledge about masks, it can be challenging to determine the right mask for adequate protection. Shandong Deqi Intelligent Technology Co.,Ltd, a surgical face mask making company in China, in this article answers some of the most common questions about face masks and face protection. With all the fake news and incorrect information spreading around, they aim to separate fact from myth.
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Content ArticleHow are we ensuring that patient and staff safety is being prioritised during the pandemic? Watch the recording of the 'Leadership for patient safety during COVID-19' webinar that took place on 7 December 2020.
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Content ArticleEarlier this week, Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive, Helen Hughes, looked back over 2020, highlighting some of the big themes in patient safety we’ve seen this year and our own work in these areas. This is the first of five mini blogs, where we give an overview of each of these themes in turn. In this blog, we look at the impact COVID-19 has had on patient safety. As an additional option to the text below, you might like to watch the following short video from our Business and Policy Manager, Mark Hughes.
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Content Article
Coronavirus Recovery: Breathing Exercises
Claire Cox posted an article in Patient recovery
The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 attacks the lungs and respiratory system, sometimes resulting in significant damage. COVID-19 often leads to pneumonia and even acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a severe lung injury. Recovering lung function is possible but can require therapy and exercises for months after the infection is treated. -
Content ArticleBetween 6 May and 17 August 2020, the Patients Association asked patients about their experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in an online survey.
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Content ArticleSarah Scobie, Deputy Director of Research at the Nuffield Trust, looks at the continued high numbers of people dying at home, even as hospital deaths return to close-to-average levels, and discusses what reasons might lie behind the continued high numbers of home deaths since the onset of the pandemic. Whatever the reasons for the greater number of deaths at home, a third more people are now dying at home than prior to the pandemic. Although it is widely thought that many people prefer to die at home, this shift presents a significant challenge for community health and care services to deliver high quality care for patients, and to support families at the end of life.
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Content ArticleIf you’re a mental health professional helping frontline healthcare workers who are providing care to people affected by COVID 19, Professor Neil Greenberg, from Kings College London, offers three important things to think about: How do you prevent staff from developing mental health difficulties? How do you find out really early on in order that you can provide simple interventions? How do you provide treatment for people who unfortunately do go on and develop mental health difficulties?
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Content ArticleIn order to inform clinical and research practice in secondary care in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, an online survey was used to collect public opinions on attending hospitals. The survey link was circulated via the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Public Involvement (PPI) Leads network and social media. Data collection included self-identified risk status due to comorbidity or age, and 100 point Likert-type scales to measures feelings of safety, factors affecting feelings of safety, intention to participate in research, comfort with new ways of working and attitudes to research. Results for feelings of safety scales indicate two distinct groups: one of respondents who felt quite safe and one of those who did not. *Note: This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.
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Content ArticleCancer and multiple non-cancer conditions are considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as high risk conditions in the COVID-19 emergency. Professional societies have recommended changes in cancer service provision to minimize COVID-19 risks to cancer patients and health care workers. However, we do not know the extent to which cancer patients, in whom multi-morbidity is common, may be at higher overall risk of mortality as a net result of multiple factors including COVID-19 infection, changes in health services, and socioeconomic factors. This paper from Lai et al. predicts estimate of excess deaths in cancer patients related to the COVID-19 emergency using data from England, Northern Ireland and US.
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Content ArticleIs the Government oblivious to the avoidable harm caused to non-COVID patients as a result of disruption to health services during the pandemic? Or worse, is it trying to bury bad news? On 18 June 2020, Peter Walsh, Chief Executive, Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA), together with other organisations and experts, wrote to the Prime Minister and the First Ministers of the UK nations about avoidable harm being caused to non-COVID patients as a result of prolonged disruption to health services since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, at the time of writing this blog, there has been no response to that letter Peter asks whether the failure to acknowledge the problem and ensure that it is urgently addressed, or even to show empathy with those affected, is at best irresponsible and deeply disrespectful to all those affected or at risk, or, at worst, whether it could be a conscious decision to bury bad news and avoid responsibility.
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Content ArticleWith a lot of medical care on hold during the coronavirus pandemic, Paul Landau, founder and CEO of digital cancer care company Careology, looks at the UK’s ‘next big crisis’.
