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Found 844 results
  1. News Article
    Angry exchanges between paramedics and A&E staff in Liverpool have broken out after new measures were deployed to hold and treat patients in the back of ambulances. Sources said there have been “Mexican standoff” situations at Aintree Hospital in recent days, after hospital staff insisted patients who had been brought inside should be returned to ambulance vehicles. Staff at North West Ambulance Service told HSJ they were informed of a new protocol last week, which said patients should be kept in the back of ambulances if the corridor of the emergency department is full with patients. There have been repeated orders from NHS England and the Care Quality Commission over the past year for hospitals to ensure patients can be offloaded by ambulance crews, even if they fear they do not have adequate staffing or beds to accept them. One senior source at NWAS said: “To see a new protocol like this is absolutely unprecedented. I very much doubt the execs had approved it. “We’ve had Mexican standoff situations over the weekend with crews who have brought patients into ED being told to take them back out to their vehicles, but they’ve refused to do this as it means they cannot cohort. “We completely accept that taking extra patients means the ED and hospital staff have to deal with additional and unacceptable risk, but holding ambulances is not the solution because the risks to patients out in the community are even greater. Despite repeated instructions from NHS England and the CQC this still doesn’t seem to be understood.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 October 2022
  2. News Article
    Staff at accident and emergency departments across Scotland have expressed “deep concern” at the daily “excessively long waiting times” that are forcing a record number of patients to wait more than 12 hours, according to a leading NHS consultant. Dr John-Paul Loughrey, vice-chair of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Scotland national board, warned that while such long waits were once regarded as “never events,” they are now daily occurrences. Amid fears the delays will spike significantly over the winter months, especially with another wave of Covid-19 expected, Dr Loughrey said staff were already “burned out,” “exhausted,” and “overwhelmed with a system facing increasing strain.” The latest weekly data on A&E treatment shows that in the week ending 2 October, the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours had soared by 45% week-on-week. “There is deep concern among staff around the excessively long waiting times,” Dr Loughrey said. “The weekly data that show significant increases in long waits translates to real patients on the ground or in the community who are seeking urgent and emergency care. “The system is failing them. We know that long waiting times are associated with patient harm and even death. Staff face moral injury daily, but they are working incredibly hard and doing all they can to minimise this harm to patients.” Read full story Source: The Scotsman, 16 October 2022
  3. News Article
    An 88-year-old woman with dementia was physically and mentally abused at a luxury care home charging residents close to £100,000 a year, the Guardian can reveal. Staff misconduct was exposed by secret filming inside the home run by Signature Senior Lifestyle, which operates 36 luxury facilities mostly in the south of England. It has admitted that Ann King was mistreated at Reigate Grange in Surrey earlier this year. Distressing footage from a covert camera inside her room shows: Care staff handling King roughly, causing her to cry out in distress. On one occasion she was left on the floor for 50 minutes. King being taunted, mocked and sworn at when she was confused and frightened. The retired nurse being assaulted by a cleaner, who hits her with a rag used to clean a toilet while she is lying in bed. The cleaner threatening to empty a bin on the pensioner’s head and making indecent sexual gestures in her face. The abuse was exposed by King’s children, Richard Last and Clare Miller. They became so concerned about her wellbeing at the care home, where she lived from January 2021 to March 2022, that they installed a hidden camera on her bedside table. They have shared the footage because they fear what happened to their mother may not be an isolated incident, and because: “She has always been horrified by this type of thing and we felt she would have wanted us to show this is going on.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 October 2022
  4. News Article
    A video of an NHS trust’s flamboyant head office complete with a £1,000 coffee machine, sleeping pods and a “great view” has triggered fury from doctors and nurses. Barts Health, which covers hospitals in east London as well as St Bartholomew’s in the City, shared a TikTok video of its corporate office in Canary Wharf. The video, which has since been deleted, showed a luxury coffee machine, “wellbeing rooms” on each floor, free snacks and curved computer screens. However, doctors working at Barts reacted angrily and compared the video with their own facilities. One junior doctor shared a photo of a cramped locker room in the same trust. They wrote on Twitter: “Bags on the floor as ‘no lockers available for juniors’. This tiny room is the entirety of the space available to get changed into mandatory uniform/scrubs – nightmare at shift changeover.” Another shared a picture of their “handmade rest facility” – a row of chairs with paper towels for a pillow. The British Medical Association’s Junior Doctors Committee said it was “sobering” to see the “no expenses spared” approach in the trust’s corporate office. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 11 October 2022
  5. News Article
    A shocking undercover investigation has laid bare appalling failures in patient care on Britain’s mental health wards. Reporters from Channel 4’s Dispatches programme spent three months secretly filming at one of the UK’s biggest mental health trusts – Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. The footage reveals horrifying abuses of vulnerable residents on two acute mental health wards. It includes patients being dragged across the floor, pinned down by staff, mocked while they are in distress and humiliated. On one occasion, a patient who is at high risk of suicide and supposed to be under constant supervision is left unattended and makes an attempt on their own life. Another chaotic scene involves staff trying to locate a crucial bag of specialist cutting devices to save the life of a female patient who got hold of a ligature, after a carer failed to keep watch. In one distressing example, a young woman being treated for anorexia – who is heard hyperventilating with fear – is dragged across the floor by her arms. When she is later discovered making a suicide attempt, she is pinned down by five carers for 40 minutes. As the woman lies sobbing on the floor, one of the staff members discusses the success of his latest diet. Another carer laughs as she marks the rhythm of the woman’s laboured breathing with her hands. The damning footage raises fresh concerns about the state of treatment for the most mentally unwell in this country. While the Essex Trust is just one of 54 across England, mental health professionals and families warn that such failures are widespread. Former mental health nurse Julie Repper, director of imROC, an organisation that helps improve patients’ experiences in mental health services, describes events in the film as ‘literally abusive’. "I asked the peer support workers we train about their experiences of the system, and they described seeing repeated ligaturing, people being dragged by their feet and being restrained. It’s ubiquitous". "These units are supposed to keep people safe, but this film shows they’re not. Everybody has a stake in seeing this improve, because every single one of us may become overwhelmed at some point and find we hit a crisis." Read full story Source: MailOnline, 10 October 2022
  6. News Article
    The number of concerns reported by NHS England staff through the freedom to speak up process almost tripled last year, the organisation’s latest board papers have revealed. There were 152 cases received by the internal freedom to speak up guardians in 2021-22 compared to 56 in 2020-21. This year 54 cases were received in quarter three alone. The most common concerns are related to allegations of bullying and harassment. These accounted for nearly 40% of the total. People and team management concerns accounted for a third of FTSU cases. Within the latter, there were sub-themes of breakdown in relationships, failure to offer role models and sanctioning or ignoring poor culture. This week’s report also set out the NHSE FTSU guardian’s next steps. These include appointing a lead guardian, finalising a strategy and continuing to engage with Health Education England and NHS Digital staff as they are brought into NHSE next year. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 7 October 2022
  7. News Article
    Merope Mills, an editor at the Guardian, has questioned doctors' attitudes after her 13-year-old daughter Martha's preventable death in hospital. Martha had sustained a rare pancreatic trauma after falling off a bike on a family holiday, and spent weeks in a specialist unit where she developed sepsis. An inquest concluded that her death was preventable, and the hospital apologised. Ms Mills said her daughter would be alive today if doctors had not kept information from the parents about her condition, because they would have demanded a second opinion. She added that doctors' attitudes "reeked of misogyny", citing a moment when her "anxiety" was used as an argument to not send critical care to Martha. In a statement, Prof Clive Kay, chief executive of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said he was "deeply sorry that we failed Martha when she needed us most". "Our focus now is on ensuring the specific learnings from her case are used to improve the care our teams provide - and that is what we are committed to doing." Watch video Source: BBC News, 6 October 2022 Further reading on the hub ‘We had such trust, we feel such fools’: how shocking hospital mistakes led to our daughter’s death (The Guardian) “Are you questioning my clinical judgement?” Suppressing parents’ concerns is a serious patient safety risk
  8. News Article
    A coroner has raised concerns about a mental heath trust where staff falsified records made on the night a man died. Eliot Harris, 48, died in the Northgate Hospital in Great Yarmouth, run by the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT), in April 2020. Norfolk coroner Jacqueline Lake said that, two years on, staff were still not recording observations properly. The 48-year-old, who had schizophrenia, had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act after he became agitated at his care home and refused to take medication. He was taken to Northgate Hospital and, after a period in a seclusion room, was transferred to a private room on the ward. Mr Harris was discovered unresponsive in bed during the early hours of 10 April and pronounced dead half an hour later. In a Prevention of Future Deaths Report (PFDR), Ms Lake said: "Quality audits undertaken following Eliot Harris's death, show that observations are still not being carried out and recorded in accordance with NSFT's most recent policy - more than two years following Eliot's death." She said that on the night Mr Harris died there was no nurse in charge and instead of being allocated specific tasks, staff were told to "muck in", causing confusion about job responsibilities. These issues were not resolved at the time of the inquest, she said, with no evidence provided about whether specific tasks were allocated on the night shift. Not all staff had been trained in recording observations, there was a lack of evidence about procedures for entering a patient's room over concerns for their welfare, and there was "still some way to go to make sure care plans are completed", Ms Lake said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 October 2022
  9. News Article
    A troubled trust’s inpatient wards for people with a learning disability or autism have been rated “inadequate”, with staff criticised for resorting to restraint too readily which sometimes injured patients. Care Quality Commission inspectors visited Lanchester Road Hospital in Durham and Bankfields Court in Middlesborough, run by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Foundation Trust, in May and June. They found most people were being nursed in long-term segregation and some patients had very limited interaction with staff. Among the CQC’s main criticisms was of high levels of restrictive practice used by staff, including seclusion, restraint and rapid tranquilisation. Inspectors said incidents were not always recorded and staff did not learn from them to reduce levels of restrictions in place. They also warned staff were not always able to understand how to protect people from poor care and abuse. Karen Knapton, CQC’s head of hospital inspection, said: “Three people had been injured during restraints, and 32 incidents of injury had been reported for healthcare assistants, some requiring treatment. “This is unacceptable and measures must be put in place to keep patients and staff safe.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 October 2022
  10. News Article
    A care home that will close after admitting "shortcomings in care" and failures in leadership has been labelled "not safe" by inspectors. The Elms in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire will shut later this month, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has found the service to be inadequate. In May, the BBC first reported the concerns of relatives about The Elms after their loved ones died in 2019, weeks after a meeting in which worries were raised about "poor care". Inquests into the deaths of the residents - George Lowlett, Margaret Canham and David Poole - remain ongoing. HC-One also apologised to the family of Joyce Parrott, who died in April 2020. Inspectors found "people were not safe and were at risk of avoidable harm" and described multiple occasions when people had "not received their medicines as prescribed". Other findings included: Staff had not referred all potential safeguarding events to the local authority A failure to "establish systems to ensure people were effectively safeguarded from abuse" The provider had failed to learn when things went wrong "Widespread and significant shortfalls" in leadership No reliable record of the staff that had worked at the home and a reliance upon agency staff, which "resulted in people not receiving consistent care" Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 October 2022
  11. News Article
    Tina Hughes, 59, died from sepsis after doctors allegedly delayed treating the condition for 12 hours while they argued over which ward to treat her on. Ms Hughes was rushed to A&E after developing symptoms of the life-threatening illness on September 8 last year. Despite paramedics flagging to staff they suspected sepsis, it was not mentioned on her initial assessment at Sandwell General Hospital, in West Bromwich. A second assessment six hours later also failed to mention sepsis while medics disagreed over whether to treat her on a surgical ward or a high dependency unit. The grandmother-of-five was eventually transferred to the acute medical unit at 3am the next morning where sepsis was finally diagnosed, but she continued to deteriorate and was admitted to intensive care four hours later and put on a ventilator. She died the following morning. A serious incident investigation report by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust has since found there was "a delay in explicit recognition of sepsis". Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 4 October 2022
  12. News Article
    If doctors had tested a nine-year-old girl's blood sooner they may have changed the treatment she received before her death, an expert witness has confirmed to a medical tribunal. The hearing was told this was a "significant failure" in the care of Claire Roberts. Claire died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in 1996. In 2018 a public inquiry concluded she died from an overdose of fluids and medication caused by negligent care. At the time, her parents were told a viral infection had spread from her stomach to her brain. The General Medical Council (GMC) said one of the doctors involved in Claire's care, Dr Heather Steen, acted dishonestly in trying to conceal the circumstances of her death. Dr Steen denied allegations that she acted dishonestly and engaged in a cover-up. The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) heard from a defence expert witness on Monday who said doctors not checking the sodium levels in Claire's blood earlier was a "significant failure" in her care. Dr Nicholas Mann told the tribunal he would have ordered more blood tests on Claire on the morning after she was admitted to hospital but he said he did not know if this would have prevented her death. "There should have been more attention to her fluids and electrolytes on the day after admission. Whether that would have altered the final outcome I don't know but certainly it would have been sensible to do that," he said. The tribunal also heard that Claire's death was not referred to a coroner, despite this being something all of the doctors caring for her would have had a duty to do. It was also told that a letter sent to Claire's parents from the hospital in 2005 contained inaccuracies. During questioning of Dr Mann, a barrister for the GMC highlighted the involvement of Dr Steen in compiling the letter which was signed by another doctor. Tom Forster KC said it was the GMC's case that Claire's family were given incorrect information about potential causes of her death despite these not being definitively diagnosed. Read full story Source: BBC News, 3 October 2022
  13. News Article
    The latest NHS workforce figures have shown that a record number of staff voluntarily resigned from their jobs during the first quarter of this financial year. According to the data, almost 35,000 NHS workers resigned voluntarily, which was up from 28,105 during the same period in 2021, and 19,380 in 2020. It is also higher than in any equivalent first quarter over the last 10 years. The most common reason for leaving during quarter one of 2021-22 was ‘work-life balance’, with almost 7,000 NHS workers citing this as their reason for leaving their jobs. Close to 2,000 NHS workers also left in the same period in search of a ‘better reward package’, with almost 1,000 reporting ‘incompatible working relationships’. In it unclear from the NHS digital data whether they left the NHS altogether. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 3 October 2022
  14. News Article
    The NHS’ mental health director has branded abuse exposed at a city inpatient unit as “heartbreaking and shameful” and ordered a national review of safety across all providers. In a letter to all leaders of mental health, learning disability and autism providers, shared with HSJ, Claire Murdoch responded to BBC Panorama’s exposure of patient abuse at the Edenfield Centre run by Greater Manchester Mental Health FT by warning trusts they should leave “no stone unturned” in seeking to eradicate and prevent poor care. An investigation by the programme found a “toxic culture of humiliation, verbal abuse and bullying” at the medium-secure inpatient unit in Prestwich near Manchester. In response, Ms Murdoch said the mindset that “it could happen here” must be at the front and centre of national and local approaches, adding that trusts which already adopt this outlook are most likely to identify and prevent toxic and closed cultures. She also urged all boards to urgently review safeguarding of care in their organisations and identify any immediate issues requiring action now, such as freedom to speak up arrangements, complaints, and care and treatment reviews. A separate national probe into the quality of inpatient care is due to launch imminently. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 30 September 2022
  15. News Article
    Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust said a number of staff at its Edenfield Centre had been suspended after an undercover investigation found what was described as a "toxic culture" of humiliation, verbal abuse, and bullying of patients. BBC Panorama reporter, Alan Haslam, spent 3 months as a support worker at the Centre in Prestwich. Wearing a hidden camera, he said he observed staff swearing at patients, mocking them, and falsifying observation records. A consultant psychiatrist, Dr Cleo Van Velsen, who was asked by the BBC to review its footage, said it showed a "toxic culture" among staff at the Centre with "corruption, perversion, aggression, hostility, [and a] lack of boundaries". Dr Van Velsen told the BBC that staff members at the Edenfield Centre acted "like a gang, not a group of healthcare professionals". Patients at the Centre told the undercover reporter that they felt "bullied and dehumanised". Greater Manchester Police said it was working with the Crown Prosecution Service with a view to prosecuting anyone who had committed a crime. In a statement, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust said: "We are taking the allegations raised by Panorama very seriously since the BBC sent them to us earlier this month. We have put in place immediate actions to protect patient safety, which is our utmost priority. "Since then, senior doctors at the Trust have undertaken clinical reviews of the patients affected, we have suspended a number of staff pending further investigations, and we have also commissioned an independent clinical review of the services provided at the Edenfield Centre. " Read full story Source: Medscape. 29 September 2022
  16. News Article
    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has commissioned an independent review into handling of a high-profile whistleblower case, and a wider internal review of how it responds when it is given “information of concern”. The independent review will be led by Zoë Leventhal KC of Matrix Chambers and will consider how the regulator handled “protected disclosures” from University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust surgeon Shyam Kumar, alongside “a sample of other information of concern shared with us”. Mr Kumar won a tribunal against the CQC earlier this month, which found he was unfairly dismissed as a special advisor on hospital inspections after raising serious patient safety concerns. Between 2015 and his dismissal in 2019 Mr Kumar wrote to senior colleagues at the CQC with a number of concerns within his trust around bullying, patient harm and the quality of CQC hospital inspections. The tribunal drew particular attention to the two whistleblowing disclosures made by Mr Kumar about the CQC itself, which it found “clearly had a material influence on the decision to dismiss”. The CQC said in an announcement today that the independent review would aim to determine whether it took “appropriate action” in response to the information disclosed in Mr Kumar’s case and others. It will include consideration of whether the ethnicity of the people raising concerns impacted on decision making or outcome and is expected to conclude by the end of the year. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 September 2022
  17. News Article
    Evidence of abusive and inappropriate treatment of vulnerable patients at a secure mental health hospital has been uncovered by BBC Panorama. One young woman was locked in a seclusion room for 17 days, was then allowed out for a day, only to be hauled back in for another 10 days. Harley was sitting on the floor wearing pink pyjamas, with her hair tied up in neat braids, when hospital staff piled through the door one after another. Two male nurses grabbed her by the arms. "You're not giving me a chance to work with you," she screamed. "Let me get up." But it was no use. Managers at the secure mental health hospital had decided there would be - in their words - "no negotiation". As she struggled, other nurses and support staff joined in. With her arms, legs and head restrained, she was pinned to the floor, face down. Secret filming by BBC Panorama captured the moment the 23-year-old was forced into a seclusion room at the Edenfield Centre in Prestwich, near Manchester. The hidden camera had already recorded staff justifying their actions and agreeing they would not try to reason with her this time. Panorama's undercover reporter was told that Harley had previously been aggressive towards staff - but, this time they said she was being isolated for screaming and being verbally abusive. Seclusion should only be used when it is of "immediate necessity" to contain behaviour that is likely to harm others, with patients locked away for the shortest time necessary, guidelines say. England's independent healthcare regulator, the Care Quality Commission, says it should only be used in extreme cases - while the government has said the use of restrictive methods in hospitals should be reduced. But research by BBC News has found the numbers are steadily increasing. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 September 2022
  18. News Article
    Staff at the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have been left ‘in fear of speaking out’ against structural changes to the organisation which they believe ‘pose a significant risk’ to the CQC’s ability to regulate health services, trade unions have told the health and social care secretary. A letter signed by senior officers of Unison, Royal College of Nursing, Unite, Prospect and the Public and Commercial Services union has called on Therese Coffey to urge the CQC to pause its organisational change and enter into “meaningful discussions” with the unions. The unions have raised concerns that organisational changes to the CQC have been drawn up by consultants with no frontline experience in health and social care, or in regulation, and that staff have had limited input into the changes. They allege that staff raising concerns about the changes have been dismissed as being “disruptive” or “negative”, and significant numbers of experienced staff have recently left the regulator. The CQC said in response to the letter that the changes it was proposing were needed to enable the regulator to “work more effectively across the health and care system”, and that it has engaged with trade unions throughout the process. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ. 23 September 2022
  19. News Article
    Tinkering around the edges, the King's Fund said. A few short-term fixes, according to the Health Foundation. And a plan that will have minimal impact, the Royal College of GPs added. These were just a handful of the reactions from those involved with the NHS. And they were not even from organisations usually at the front of the queue when it comes to criticising government policies. So why has Therese Coffey's first announcement as Health Secretary for England received such a negative response? The fact is the problems the health and care system are facing are deep-rooted. Much is made of the impact of the pandemic but the health service was already struggling before Covid hit. The pandemic has simply exacerbated the situation. At the heart of it all is a lack of staff. Addressing this is not easy and cannot be done overnight. It takes five years to train a doctor, three a nurse, which is why there is a big push on international recruitment at the moment. To free up GP appointments, pharmacists are being asked to take on some of their workload, while funding rules are being relaxed to allow GPs to use more of their money to recruit senior nurses. But there is nothing in the plan about where these new senior nurses are going to come from, which is why the Royal College of GPs has been so dismissive. It is a similar story for hospitals services, where accident-and-emergency waits, ambulance response times and the backlog in routine treatments such as knee and hip replacements have all worsened in recent years. Coffey is also introducing a £500m fund to get thousands of medically fit patients out of hospital as soon as possible. Local areas will decide how to spend the money and it could allow hospitals to pay for extra help at home for patients who need it. But it amounts to little more than a sticking plaster and is an approach already used to relieve the pressure during the pandemic. The real issue is the care sector is short of staff, with even more vacancies than in the NHS. Read full story Source: BBC News, 22 September 2022
  20. News Article
    An ambulance trust accused of withholding key evidence from coroners was previously warned its staff needed training to ‘understand the real risk of committing criminal offences’ in relation to inquests into patient deaths. North East Ambulance Service, which has been accused by whistleblowers of withholding details from coroners in more than 90 deaths, was told by its lawyers in 2019 about serious shortcomings in its processes for disclosing information, according to internal documents obtained by a campaigner. According to the documents, the lawyers said trust staff could “pick and choose” documents to release to coroners “regardless of relevance.” The following year, an audit report said the issues had not been addressed. Whistleblowers’ concerns about the trust were first reported by The Sunday Times in the spring, with a review highlighting several cases between 2018 and 2019 where key facts were omitted in disclosures to coroners. But campaigner Minh Alexander has since obtained new details of warnings that were being made to internally, from lawyers and auditors who were advising the trust. Read full story Source: HSJ, 20 September 2022
  21. News Article
    Ms. Martinez is a midwifery student in Tulancingo, Mexico, working in an underserved community. “There is a health care house, but there are no permanent staff,” she explained. “In my community there are many youth pregnancies, and there are no dedicated health staff who could care for women or take care of teenagers.” This shortage is partly due to a widely held misconception that midwifery is an antiquated profession, she indicated. “I met with doctors and nurses who questioned me: Why was I studying this midwife career? They didn't see room for that.” Thursday is the International Day of the Midwife, a moment to recognise the enormous contributions of midwives to health care around the world. “Not only do their capable hands bring new life into the world, they are champions of sexual and reproductive health and rights, providing voluntary contraception and other essential services, while supporting childbearing women emotionally,” said Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director, in her statement marking the day. Yet continued lack of recognition hinders not only the success of midwives but also the health and well-being of whole societies. “We will not achieve universal health coverage without them,” said Dr. Kanem, “or realize our aspirations to reduce maternal and newborn deaths, as agreed in the Sustainable Development Goals.” Read full story Source: United Nations Population Fund, 4 May 2022
  22. News Article
    Police are preparing to investigate alleged mistreatment of patients at a mental health unit. The Edenfield Centre based in the grounds of the former Prestwich Hospital in Bury is at the centre of the claims. The unit cares for adult patients. The Manchester Evening News understands that action was taken after the BBC Panorama programme embedded a reporter undercover in the unit and then presented the NHS Trust which runs it with their evidence. A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said: "We are aware of the allegations and are liaising with partner agencies to safeguard vulnerable individuals and obtain all information required to open an investigation." A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust said: "We can confirm that BBC Panorama has contacted the Trust, following research it conducted into the Edenfield Centre. We would like to reassure patients, carers, staff, and the public that we are taking the matters raised by the BBC very seriously". "Immediate action has been taken to address the issues raised and to ensure patient safety, which is our utmost priority. We are liaising with partner agencies and stakeholders, including Greater Manchester Police. We are not able to comment any further on these matters at this stage." Read full story Source: Manchester Evening News, 14 September 2022
  23. Content Article
    A research paper was published in October 2021 highlighting results of Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests sent to NHS Trusts in England. The FOI Requests asked for the number of incidents of sexual assault reported by hospitals where the victim was aged over 60, and the alleged perpetrator was a member of staff. The resulting findings were that there were at least 75 reports of sexual assault on patients over 60 by hospital staff in the past five years. The findings also show that whilst the majority of victims were female, 30% were male and that a disappointing number were reported to police – only 16. Of these, 14 were closed as “No Further Action” by the police. In this viewpoint paper published in the Journal of Adult Protection, Amanda Warburton-Wynn highlights the findings of this research.
  24. Content Article
    The ‘No Blame Culture’ being adopted by the NHS draws attention from individuals and towards systems in the process of understanding an error. This article in the Journal of Applied Philosophy argues for a ‘responsibility culture’, where healthcare professionals are held responsible in cases of foreseeable and avoidable errors. The authors argue that proponents of No Blame Culture often fail to distinguish between blaming someone and holding them responsible, They examine the idea of ‘responsibility without blame’, applying this to cases of error in healthcare. Sensitive to the undesirable effects of blaming healthcare professionals and to the moral significance of holding individuals accountable, the authors argue that a responsibility culture has significant advantages over a No Blame Culture as it can enhance patient safety and support medical professionals in learning from their mistakes, while also recognising and validating the legitimate sense of responsibility that many medical professionals feel following avoidable error, and motivating medical professionals to report errors.
  25. Content Article
    As organisations navigate the ongoing impact and fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, they must focus on strengthening the supply of our highly valued workforce and ensure that both new and existing staff are supported and encouraged to remain. In partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement, NHS Employers has refreshed their retention guidelines. There are two main objectives for this guide: first, ensuring it continues to draw on the latest learning and innovation from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced employers to critically re-examine how to retain NHS staff. Second, ensuring it supports the ambitions set out within the NHS People Promise, so that employers can work to make this a lived reality for all NHS staff. To help achieve these objectives, this guide explores the experiences of organisations NHS Employers has worked with on retention. 
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