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Showing results for tags 'Staff factors'.
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Content ArticleOn 24 August 2022, the Employment Tribunal found that Mr Shyam Kumar, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon employed at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMB), had been disengaged from his role as a Specialist Advisor within the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on account of having made “protected disclosures” to the CQC. This means he had raised concerns with CQC about the health of patients and other important issues and had done so in the public interest. The Employment Tribunal found that the fact that he had raised these various concerns with CQC had materially influenced its decision to disengage him. It awarded him £23,000 in damages for injury to feelings, on account of what it described as “the inevitable impact” of CQC’s actions upon Mr Kumar’s reputation among his peers and the shock, confusion and concern it caused to him. The CQC has accepted these findings and apologised to Mr Kumar. CQC’s Chief Executive, Ian Trenholm, issued a public statement on 6 September 2022 about what occurred, including a recognition of the importance of the concerns Mr Kumar raised, the importance of the information raised by staff and the public generally, and the “vital role” played by Specialist Advisors in CQC’s inspections. Following this, Zoe Leventhal KC was appointed by CQC’s Executive Board to carry out an independent review into whether CQC took appropriate action as a regulator in response to the protected disclosures that Mr Kumar made, and whether it dealt appropriately with a sample of other instances where concerns have been raised with CQC.
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Content ArticleA number of serious concerns have been raised about the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, relating to patient safety, governance processes and organisational culture. The Trust has been under review by the Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board (ICB), following a junior doctor at the trust, Dr Vaishnavi Kumar, taking her own life in June 2022. In response to these concerns, a series of rapid independently-led reviews have been commissioned at the Trust. This report outlines the outcomes of the first of these reviews, which is focused on clinical safety. It identified a number of issues which require attention, setting out 17 recommendations for further action.
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Content ArticleThe Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact heavily on all our lives and one of the long-lasting, but unanticipated, impacts is the emergence of Long Covid. Whilst many people infected by Covid-19 may fully recover, significant numbers will experience varied, ongoing and debilitating symptoms that last weeks, months or years following the initial infection. This prolonged condition has been given the umbrella term Long Covid. Recognition of Long Covid was accelerated by people-led advocacy groups such Long Covid Support. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) reported that, as of 1 August 2021, 970,000 people in the UK were experiencing self-reported Long Covid. The most recent data from 2 January 2023, shows that this has increased to 2 million people This report summarises the findings of a self-selecting survey of 3,097 people with Long Covid in September and October 2022 on their experiences of work.
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Content ArticleIn this BMJ article, Ryan Essex and colleagues consider whether patients have more to gain than to lose from healthcare worker strikes in poorly functioning health systems Available research on the relationship between strikes and patient harm is limited and offers mixed results, most of which are not widely generalisable across different care settings, researchers said. Overall, the researchers in the study observed a substantial decrease in the number of admissions or care visits during strikes, with broader care delivery changes varying based on who is striking. For example, when early-career physicians strike, research suggests wait times and length of stay are unaffected or become shorter. "While patient safety obviously matters, the overly narrow framing of strikes as harmful to patients is not supported by current evidence; this also shifts focus away from the structural failings that drive strike action in the first place," "When health workers lack other avenues to enact change, failing to strike against suboptimal working conditions may actually be more harmful to patient health in the long run."
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Content ArticleHealthcare settings are high-risk environments for fatigue and staff burnout. The Need For Recovery (NFR) scale quantifies inter-shift recovery, which contributes to cumulative fatigue and may precede occupational burnout. Advanced clinical practitioners (ACPs) are an established feature of the emergency medicine workforce in the UK, however, little is known about factors affecting their inter-shift recovery, fatigue or how NFR correlates with formal burnout inventories.
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Content ArticleIn this article, published by the Betsy Lehman Center, the author reviews Dr. René Amalberti's work which explains in detail why and how groups of workers can fall into risky habits over time.
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Content Article
NHS Staff Survey Results 2022 (9 March 2023)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Culture
The NHS Staff Survey is one of the largest workforce surveys in the world and is carried out every year to improve staff experiences across the NHS. It asks staff in England about their experiences of working for their respective NHS organisations. 636,384 staff responded to the survey in 2022. The full results of the 2022 NHS Staff Survey are published on the NHS Staff Survey website. -
Content ArticleVictoria Vallance, Director of Secondary and Specialist Care, provides an update on the Care Quality Commission (CQC)’s ongoing national maternity inspection programme and offers early insight into the emerging themes, including good practice examples to support wider learning across all trusts.
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Content ArticleThis study from Jones et al. identified wide variability in the implementation of the Guardian role and concluded that optimal implementation has six components.
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Content ArticleIn light of NHS England recently losing an employment tribunal case against a senior black nurse on grounds of race discrimination and whistleblowing, Roger Kline casts light on learnings from the case for NHS board members and HR departments.
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Content ArticleThis cross-sectional study, published in Workplace Health & Safety, used secondary survey data sent to approximately 7,100 health care workers at a large academic medical centre in the United States. Instruments included: the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture a WPV scale measuring physical and verbal violence perpetrated by patients or visitors the Emotional Exhaustion scale from the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Findings suggest that improvements in hospital strategies aimed at patient safety culture, including team cohesion with handoffs and transitions, could positively influence a reduction in physical and verbal violence perpetrated by patients or visitors, and burnout among health care workers.
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Content ArticleThe Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) have published a third interim report for this investigation which focuses on staff wellbeing across the urgent and emergency care systems and the impact that this has on patient safety.
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Content ArticleThe National Guardian’s Office has published Listening to Workers – the report following its Speak Up review of NHS ambulance trusts in England. The review found the culture in ambulance trusts did not support workers to speak up and that this was having an impact on worker wellbeing and ultimately patient safety.
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Content ArticleThis report looks into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of three young adults; Joanna, Jon and Ben. They each had learning disabilities, were patients at Cawston Park Hospital and died within a 27 month period (April 2018 to July 2020). It highlights multiple significant failures in care, including excessive use of restraint and seclusion, overmedication of patients, lack of record keeping and the physical assault of patients. The report also makes a series of recommendations for critical system and strategic change, both at a local and national level.
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Content ArticleThe 2022 Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) report enables organisations to compare their performance with others in their region and those providing similar services, with the aim of encouraging improvement by learning and sharing good practice. It provides a national picture of WRES in practice, to colleagues, organisations and the public on the developments in the workforce race equality agenda The WRES provide detailed analysis to enable employers to understand how their staff experience compares with others in their region and with similar specialism.
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Content ArticleSurprises in healthcare are common and can have lasting effects on clinicians. Steven Shorrock asked clinicians to reveal aspects of their experience with implications for learning.
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Content Article
NHS England: Productive Ward (9 June 2020)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Other
The Productive Ward focuses on improving ward processes and environments to help nurses and therapists spend more time on patient care, thereby improving safety and efficiency. Productive Ward will allow healthcare teams to redesign the way they work, eliminating waste and releasing staff time to invest in patient care. Teams are enabled to maximise quality, reduce harm, develop more efficient processes, and ensure that patients feel safe and well cared for. -
News Article
Three investigations launched into trust beset by bullying and safety scandals
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Three “major” reviews are being launched into a struggling teaching trust in response to growing concerns over bullying and poor workplace culture. Birmingham and Solihull integrated care board has begun a series of investigations into University Hospitals Birmingham, whose chief executive announced he was standing down last month. The first review will get under way immediately and will focus on specific allegations made recently on BBC Newsnight. These include patient safety concerns, the “bullying” of clinicians and the issues raised by a review of 12 patient deaths undertaken by former consultant Dr Manos Nikolousis in 2017. It will be led by an “experienced senior independent clinician” from outside the local health system who is expected to report by the end of January. The second and third investigations will review the trust’s leadership and broader cultural issues respectively. The probes will be carried out with UHB and NHS England. Both are expected to report in the first half of 2023. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 December 2022 -
News ArticleTwo clinicians who say they lost their jobs at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust after raising patient safety concerns claim the trust’s legal team brought a five-figure costs threat against them to prevent witnesses from giving evidence in a tribunal. The threat of costs liability, intended to bring the case to a halt, was made halfway through the hearing – less than 48 hours before witnesses for the trust were due to give evidence. One of the claims put forward at the tribunal hearing was that the trust had destroyed crucial evidence by deleting the email account of a former staff member. The clinicians – Samir Lalitcumar and Ahmed Ghedri – brought allegations of poor practice against current and former staff at the trust. Berkshire NHS trust claimed their allegations, including claims that the trust had deleted email evidence, were “without merit”. A fortnight into the tribunal hearing, both out-of-work medics were threatened with costs liability, known as a “drop-hands offer”, totalling more than £300,000, had they opted to proceed with their case and lost. Lalitcumar and Ghedri had brought claims of whistleblowing detriment against their former employer, Berkshire Healthcare Trust. They say they were “victimised” and unfairly dismissed as a result of having blown the whistle on dangerous care within the trust’s geriatrics services – potentially affecting upwards of 2,000 patients. Read full story Source: Computer Weekly, 7 December 2022
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News Article
Ambulance staff to strike on 21 December
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Ambulance staff across most of England and Wales will go on strike on 21 December in a dispute over pay. The coordinated walkout by the three main ambulance unions - Unison, GMB and Unite - will affect non-life threatening calls only. But it could mean people who have had trips and falls not being responded to. Members of GMB, which represents nearly a third of the 50,000-strong workforce, will then follow that up with another walkout on 28 December. It comes as Royal College of Nursing members are also preparing to go on strike on 15 and 20 December in parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The walkouts will involve paramedics as well as control room staff and support workers, with the military on standby to help out. The only service which will be completely unaffected, however, is the East of England. Under trade union rules, life-preserving care has to be provided so the two highest category calls - covering everything from heart attacks and strokes to major trauma - will still be responded to. But Matthew Taylor, of the NHS Confederation, which represents health managers, said he was worried the action would "undoubtedly" affect patient care and how quickly ambulance services could respond and may even deter people from seeking help. "The prospect of industrial action over Christmas is very concerning," he added. Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 December 2022 -
News Article
Parents of man left to die in prison say care failures will haunt them for ever
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The parents of a 25-year-old man left to die in a cell by a negligent prison nurse given responsibility for 800 inmates have told how the conditions in which their son died will haunt them for ever. The case – the 27th death in just five years at HMP Nottingham – was said to illustrate the desperate state of Britain’s understaffed and increasingly dangerous prison system. Alex Braund was being held on remand awaiting trial when he fell ill in his cell with the first signs of pneumonia on 6 March 2020. Four days later, on the morning of 10 March, after a series of ill-fated attempts by Braund’s cellmate to get prison staff to take the situation seriously, the young man collapsed. Prison staff responded to an emergency bell rung by Braund’s cellmate at 6.55am, but they initially only looked through the cell hatch, taking five minutes to enter the cell in order to give CPR. Braund was subsequently taken to Queen’s medical centre in Nottingham, where he was pronounced dead at 11.44am of cardiac arrest caused by pneumonia. The jury at an inquest at Nottinghamshire coroner’s court found there had been a “continuous failure to provide adequate healthcare”, with a prison officer told by a nurse a few hours before Braund’s death that there was “nothing to be done at this time of night”. Questioning during the hearing revealed that the nurse, who has since lost her job and been reported to the nursing and midwifery council, had amended her records on the morning of Braund’s death. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 December 2022 -
News Article
Doctors raise safety fears at Birmingham hospitals
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Whistleblowers at one of England's worst performing hospital trusts have said a climate of fear among staff is putting patients at risk. Former and current clinicians at University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Trust allege they were punished by management for raising safety concerns, a BBC Newsnight investigation found. One insider said the trust was "a bit like the mafia". The trust said it took "patient safety very seriously". It said it had a "high reporting culture of incidents" to ensure accountability and learning. Staff concerns included a dangerous shortage of nurses and a lack of communication leading to some haematology patients dying without receiving treatment. The deaths of 20 patients in the haematology department of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is run by the trust, led to a review in 2017 by consultant Emmanouil Nikolousis. Mr Nikolousis, who left the trust in 2020, told the BBC he was shocked by the failings he found and believes patients' lives could have been saved. A report by Mr Nikolousis criticised a lack of "ownership" of patients and a lack of communication among senior clinicians. In some cases this led to patients dying without having received treatment, he said. "Certainly there should have been different actions done," he said. "They could be saved. Certainly, when you don't have an action done, then you don't really know the outcome." Mr Nikolousis said he felt he had no option but to quit after his findings were ignored and his position was made "untenable". He left the NHS after 18 years. "They were trying, as they did with other colleagues, to completely sort of ruin your career," he said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 December 2022 -
News Article
Consultant refused to carry out urgent surgery at trust facing criticism from CQC
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A consultant surgeon refused to attend hospital to carry out urgent surgery at a trust which later had upper gastrointestinal surgery suspended after an unannounced Care Quality Commission visit. The CQC report into upper GI surgery at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton – based on an inspection in August – said incident reports revealed occasions when upper GI surgeons could not be contacted or refused to come into hospital to treat patients. In one case, a consultant would not come in to carry out urgent surgery, it added. Low numbers of surgeons meant the on-call rota for upper GI was shared with the lower GI surgeons. This meant an upper GI specialist was not always available immediately, despite guidance from a professional body that 24/7 subspecialty cover was needed at centres which carry out major resectional surgery. This surgery was suspended at the RSCH after the August inspection and has yet to be reinstated. Mortality at both 30 and 90 days for patients with oesophago-gastric cancer was twice the national average between 2017 and 2020 – though the trust was not an outlier – and there was an increasing number of emergency readmissions for patients who had undergone upper GI surgery, the report said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 December 2022 -
News Article
Brexit has worsened shortage of NHS doctors, analysis shows
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Brexit has worsened the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care and led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, research reveals. The disclosure comes as growing numbers of medics quit in disillusionment at their relentlessly busy working lives in the increasingly overstretched health service. Official figures show the NHS in England alone has vacancies for 10,582 physicians. Britain has 4,285 fewer European doctors than if the rising numbers who were coming before the Brexit vote in 2016 had been maintained since then, according to analysis by the Nuffield Trust. In 2021, a total of 37,035 medics from the EU and European free trade area (EFTA) were working in the UK. However, there would have been 41,320 – or 4,285 more – if the decision to leave the EU had not triggered a “slowdown” in medical recruitment from the EU and the EFTA quartet of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. The dropoff has left four major types of medical specialities that have longstanding doctor shortages – anaesthetics, children, psychiatry, and heart and lung treatment – failing to keep up with a demand for care heightened by Covid and an ageing population. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 November 2022 -
News ArticleThe NHS faces the threat of coordinated industrial action lasting several months, with results to be announced within days of strike ballots of ambulance crews and about 300,000 health workers. Junior doctors, paramedics, midwives, porters, cleaners, pharmacy technicians and physiotherapists are being balloted across the NHS. The government now faces the threat of waves of strikes across the public sector, from nurses and firefighters to civil servants and teachers. A ballot of 15,000 ambulance workers in England and Wales closes on Tuesday. The result of the GMB ballot could be announced as early as this week, with the prospect of the first national ambulance strike since the dispute of 1989-90, when police and army vehicles were brought in to transport patients. The RCN said on Saturday that the health secretary Steve Barclay had written to the union asking for officials to “come back to the table” before the planned strikes. RCN chief executive Pat Cullen said any talks needed to focus on the pay deal and that the position of her members was “negotiations or nothing”. Rachel Harrison, GMB public services national secretary, said: “Health service workers have suffered more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts, been on the frontline of a global pandemic and are now in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. “This is as much about patient safety as it is about pay. A third of GMB ambulance workers think delays they’ve been involved with have led to the death of a patient.” Read full story Source: The Observer, 27 November 2022
