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Found 2,335 results
  1. News Article
    Newborn babies could be at a higher risk of a deadly bacterial infection carried by their mothers than previously thought. Group B Strep or GBS is a common bacteria found in the vagina and rectum which is usually harmless. However, it can be passed on from mothers to their newborn babies leading to complications such as meningitis and sepsis. NHS England says that GBS rarely causes problems and 1 in 1,750 babies fall ill after contracting the infection. However, researchers at the University of Cambridge have found that the likelihood of newborn babies falling ill could be far greater. They claim one in 200 newborns are admitted to neonatal units with sepsis caused by GBS. Pregnant women are not routinely screened for GBS in the UK and only usually discover they are carriers if they have other complications or risk factors. Jane Plumb, co-founded charity Group B Strep Support with her husband Robert after losing their middle child to the infection in 1996. She said: “This important study highlights the extent of the devastating impact group B Strep has on newborn babies, and how important it is to measure accurately the number of these infections. “Inadequate data collected on group B Strep is why we recently urged the Government to make group B Strep a notifiable disease, ensuring cases would have to be reported. “Without understanding the true number of infections, we may not implement appropriate prevention strategies and are unable to measure their true effectiveness.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 29 November 2023 Further reading on the hub: Leading for safety: A conversation with Jane Plumb, Founder of Group B Strep Support
  2. News Article
    Opt-out blood tests for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C will be rolled out to a further 46 hospitals across England, the government has announced. Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the new £20m programme would lead to earlier diagnoses and treatment. Under the scheme, anyone having a blood test in selected hospital A&E units has also been tested for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, unless they opted out. The trials have been taking place for the last 18 months in 33 hospitals in London, Greater Manchester, Sussex and Blackpool, where prevalence is classed by the NHS as "very high". Figures released by the NHS earlier show those pilots have identified more than 3,500 cases of the three bloodborne infections since April 2022, including more than 580 HIV cases. Ms Atkins said: "The more people we can diagnose, the more chance we have of ending new transmissions of the virus and the stigma wrongly attached to it." She added that rolling out the tests to more hospitals would help ensure early diagnoses so people "can be given the support and the medical treatment they need to live not just longer lives but also higher quality lives". Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 November 2023
  3. News Article
    People with Covid-19 were discharged to care homes over fears about the NHS getting “clogged up”, the pandemic inquiry has heard. Professor Dame Jenny Harries, England’s deputy chief medical officer during the pandemic and now head of the UK Health Security Agency, told the inquiry of how an email she sent in mid-March 2020 described the “bleak picture” and “top line awful prospect” of what needed to happen if hospitals overflowed. Discharging people to care homes – where thousands of people died of Covid – has been one of the central controversies when it comes to how the Government handled the pandemic. On Wednesday, the Covid inquiry was read an email exchange between Rosamond Roughton, an official at the Department of Health, and Dame Jenny on March 16 2020. Ms Roughton asked what the approach should be around discharging symptomatic people to care homes, adding: “My working assumption was that we would have to allow discharge to happen, and have very strict infection control? Otherwise the NHS presumably gets clogged up with people who aren’t acutely ill.” Ms Roughton added that this was a “big ethical issue” for care home providers who were “understandably very concerned” and who were “already getting questions from family members”. In response, Dame Jenny emailed: “Whilst the prospect is perhaps what none of us would wish to plan for, I believe the reality will be that we will need to discharge Covid-19 positive patients into residential care settings for the reason you have noted. “This will be entirely clinically appropriate because the NHS will triage those to retain in acute settings who can benefit from that sector’s care. “The numbers of people with disease will rise sharply within a fairly short timeframe and I suspect make this fairly normal practice and more acceptable, but I do recognise that families and care homes will not welcome this in the initial phase.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 29 November 2023
  4. News Article
    The number of people with norovirus in hospital in England is 179% higher than the average at this time of year, official data shows, as the NHS comes under mounting winter pressure. Admissions caused by the vomiting and diarrhoea-causing norovirus have surged and cases of other seasonal viruses are also rising, according to NHS England figures. Health chiefs said the impact on hospitals from seasonal viruses was likely to be worsened by the current cold weather. “We all know somebody who has had some kind of nasty winter virus in the last few weeks,” said Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s medical director. “Today’s data shows this is starting to trickle through to hospital admissions, with a much higher volume of norovirus cases compared to last year, and the continued impact of infections like flu and RSV in children on hospital capacity – all likely to be exacerbated by this week’s cold weather.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 November 2023
  5. Content Article
    The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted systemic weaknesses in the healthcare system. This survey of 3,067 registered nurses working in New Jersey used the Donabedian framework to identify challenges related to providing safe care during the pandemic. Respondents identified several organisational factors, including inadequate resources and staffing, which adversely impacted their ability to adhere to patient safety and infection prevention and control protocols during the pandemic.
  6. News Article
    Doctors must be on high alert for measles as vaccine rates among young children have dipped to a 10-year low, leaving some unprotected and risking outbreaks of the highly infectious and dangerous virus, experts say. It is the first time in decades the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has issued national guidance such as this. At least 95% of children should be double vaccinated by the age of five. But the UK is well below that target. Latest figures show only 84.5% had received a second shot of the protective measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab - the lowest level since 2010-11. Measles can make children very sick. The main symptoms are a fever and a rash but it can cause serious complications including meningitis. For some, it is fatal. The RCPCH is worried the UK is now seeing a "devastating resurgence" of virtually eliminated life-threatening diseases such as measles, because of low vaccine uptake. Read full story Source: BBC News, 22 November 2023
  7. Content Article
    Community pharmacies in Sweden have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and new routines have been introduced to address the needs of customers and staff and to reduce the risk of spreading infection. Burnout has been described among staff possibly due to a changed working climate. However, little research has focused on the pandemic's effect on patient safety in community pharmacies. The aim of this study was to examine pharmacists' perceptions of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workload, working environment, and patient safety in community pharmacies.
  8. News Article
    All children in the UK should be given a chickenpox vaccine at 12 and 18 months of age, combined with the MMR jab as one shot, the NHS is advised. It will now be up to the government to decide whether to add it to the routine immunisations children are offered. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has also recommended a temporary catch-up programme for slightly older children who've missed out on this initial rollout. Chickenpox cases dipped during the Covid pandemic due to restrictions on socialising, meaning there is currently a larger pool of children than usual who are unprotected against the highly contagious virus. Chickenpox can be more severe if you catch it for the first time as a teen or an adult rather than as a young child. Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam from the UK Health Security Agency said: "Introducing a vaccine against chickenpox would prevent most children getting what can be quite a nasty illness - and for those who would experience more severe symptoms, it could be a life saver. "The JCVI's recommendations will help make chickenpox a problem of the past and bring the UK into line with a number of other countries that have well-established programmes." Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 November 2023
  9. Content Article
    The pandemic is not gone but it is largely forgotten. Especially the first year, with its two devastating waves in which over 140,000 people died. The NHS reorganised itself completely to deliver care to the thousands of very sick Covid patients, alongside continuing care for other patients throughout. The system strained and buckled and staff were pushed to their limits and beyond. The impact continues today as the NHS is weaker, less resilient and with much longer waits than before. In this article, Christina Pagel looks back at the reality of the first year and its aftermath and hears anonymous testimony from staff at the NHS front line. “Staff sitting in literal cupboards crying alone because staff weren’t allowed to sit together & we couldn’t take all the death around us. It was utterly traumatising”
  10. News Article
    Nearly four years since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, you could be forgiven for believing the pandemic is behind us. But for many, it feels far from over. Close to two million people face a daily battle with debilitating symptoms of Long Covid – the lasting symptoms of the virus that remain after the infection is gone – with some now housebound, unable to walk and even partially blind. Alan Chambers, 49, is among those who have been grappling with the illness for years, having caught coronavirus in March 2020. Mr Chambers went from being “a fit, healthy, working member of the community who would do anything to help anyone” to being “ill and isolated in our bedroom”, blind in one eye and no longer able to walk unaided, his wife Vicki said. As of March, an estimated 1.9 million people in the UK have experienced coronavirus symptoms for more than four weeks, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. Of those, 1.5 million reported the condition had adversely affected their day-to-day activities. It comes as coronavirus case rates have shown an overall increase since July, with fears the approaching winter will bring a further surge in infections. Yet in May, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that coronavirus no longer represents a global health emergency, which was seen as a symbolic step towards the end of the pandemic. Dr Jo House, founding member and health advocacy lead at Long Covid Support, said the advocacy group now has 62,000 members, with about 250 more people joining every month. “In their words, they feel ‘forgotten, unheard, disbelieved, isolated, unemployed, disabled, immobile’. NHS England admitted to The Independent that access to necessary support, treatment and care for Long Covid patients is still lacking. It said there was “still more to do to ensure support is there for everyone who needs it”, so that patients requiring specialist assessment and treatment for Long Covid can access care in a timely way. Read full story Source: The Independent, 29 November 2023
  11. News Article
    Health advocates in the USA are calling on the Biden administration to declare a public health emergency over a steep rise in congenital syphilis cases. The easily treated infection has quintupled in 10 years and can have harrowing impacts on children. Congenital syphilis happens when a baby contracts syphilis from its mother. Up to 40% of babies born to untreated mothers will be stillborn or die. Others can be left with severe birth defects such as bone damage, anaemia, blindness or deafness, and “neurological devastation”. “There is not a single baby that should be born in the US with syphilis,” David Harvey, the executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, told the Guardian. “We will be judged very severely as a country and a society for allowing this to happen to babies, when it is so easy to diagnose, treat and prevent this disease.” Rates of the disease have reached a nearly 30-year high just as supplies of the preferred medication, called Bicillin L-A, are in short supply. Syphilis can be cured with between one and three shots of the medication. Pfizer is the only manufacturer of the medication, a form of the first antibiotic ever synthesized, penicillin. The company said it does not expect shortages to be resolved before 2024, and blamed low supply partly on the increase in syphilis cases. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 October 2023
  12. News Article
    The NHS has launched an investigation after it sent “priority” letters to people who died years ago, in some cases decades, urging them to book flu and Covid-19 jabs to reduce their risk of serious illness. The health service is asking eligible patients to arrange appointments for both vaccines to avoid a potential “twindemic” of flu and coronavirus this winter, which would pile further pressure on hospitals and GP surgeries. “You are a priority for seasonal flu and Covid-19 vaccinations,” the two-page letter tells recipients. “This is because you are aged 65 or over (by 31 March 2024). However, some of the letters, which contain personal information such as NHS numbers, have been sent to people who died years ago. Others have been sent to people who are not eligible for the vaccines, with no connection to the addressee. In a statement, NHS England told the Guardian it was investigating. It declined to answer questions about when the error was first discovered, what had caused it and how many people had been affected. “We have been made aware of some letters sent in error and appreciate this may have been upsetting for those who received it – we are working as quickly as possible to investigate this,” a spokesperson for NHS England said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 October 2023
  13. News Article
    The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is reviving a programme to mail free rapid coronavirus tests to Americans. Starting 25 September, people can request four free tests per household through covidtests.gov. Officials say the tests are able to detect the latest variants and are intended to be used through the end of the year. The return of the free testing program comes after Americans navigated the latest uptick in covid cases with free testing no longer widely available. The largest insurance companies stopped reimbursing the costs of retail at-home testing once the requirement to do so ended with the public health emergency in May. The Biden administration stopped mailing free tests in June. The Department of Health and Human Services also announced Wednesday that it was awarding $600 million to a dozen coronavirus test manufacturers. Agency officials said the funding would improve domestic manufacturing capacity and provide the federal government with 200 million over-the-counter tests to use in the future. “These critical investments will strengthen our nation’s production levels of domestic at-home COVID-19 rapid tests and help mitigate the spread of the virus,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. Experts say free coronavirus testing proved to be an effective public health tool, allowing people to check their status before attending large gatherings or spending time with older or medically vulnerable people at risk of severe disease even after being vaccinated. It also enables people to start antiviral treatments in the early days of infection to prevent severe disease. Read full story (paywalled) Source: Washington Post, 20 September 2023
  14. Content Article
    Carl Heneghan discusses the role of modelling in the Covid-19 pandemic.
  15. Content Article
    The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in major disruption to healthcare delivery worldwide causing medical services to adapt their standard practices. Learning how these adaptations result in unintended patient harm is essential to mitigate against future incidents. Incident reporting and learning system data can be used to identify areas to improve patient safety. A classification system is required to make sense of such data to identify learning and priorities for further in-depth investigation. The Patient Safety (PISA) classification system was created for this purpose, but it is not known if classification systems are sufficient to capture novel safety concepts arising from crises like the pandemic. This study from Purchase et al. aimed to review the application of the PISA classification system during the COVID-19 pandemic to appraise whether modifications were required to maintain its meaningful use for the pandemic context. The study found that PISA taxonomy can be successfully applied to patient safety incident reports to support the first stages in deriving learning and identifying areas for further enquiry. No incidents were identified that warranted new codes to be added to the PISA classification system, which may extend to other substantive public health crises, negating the need for additional, specific coding within such classification systems and related frameworks for similar system-wide constraints.
  16. Content Article
    The only masking that’s going on is that of the government’s continued failure to get to grips with the virus, writes George Monbiot in this Guardian opinion piece. For some people, going to hospital may now be more dangerous than staying at home untreated. Many clinically vulnerable people fear, sometimes with good reason, that a visit to hospital or the doctors’ surgery could be the end of them. Of course, there have always been dangers where sick people gather. But, until now, health services have sought to minimise them. Astonishingly, this is often no longer the case. Across the UK, over the past two years, the NHS has been standing down even the most basic precautions against Covid-19. For example, staff in many surgeries and hospitals are no longer required to wear face masks in most clinical settings. Reassuring posters have appeared even in cancer wards, where patients might be severely immunocompromised. A notice, photographed and posted on social media last week, tells people that while they are “no longer required to wear a mask in this area”, they should use hand sanitiser “to protect our vulnerable patients, visitors and our staff”. Sanitising is good practice. But Covid-19 is an airborne virus, which spreads further and faster by exhalation than by touch.
  17. News Article
    Parents are being urged to get their children vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) after a “worrying” drop in uptake of key vaccines. Figures from NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) show 92.5% of children had had the first dose of the MMR jab at five years old by 2022-23, the lowest since 2010-11. The proportion of five-year-olds who had had the second jab by 2022-23 was 84.5%, also the lowest level since 2010-11. Vaccination programmes across England failed to meet the uptake recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the year 2022-23. WHO recommends that, nationally, at least 95% of children should be inoculated for diseases that can be stopped by vaccines, in order to prevent outbreaks. NHS data showed no routine vaccine programme met the threshold during the 12-month period. Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam, a consultant medical epidemiologist at UKHSA, said the downward trend was a “serious concern”. “The diseases that these vaccines protect against, such as measles, polio and meningitis, can be life-changing and even deadly,” she said. “No parent wants this for their child especially when these diseases are easily preventable. Please don’t put this off, check now that your children are fully up to date with all their vaccines due. Check your child’s red book and get in touch with your GP surgery if you are not sure.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 September 2023
  18. Content Article
    In April 2023, National Voices held a workshop with members, supported by The Disrupt Foundation, on the unequal impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. It explored how communities and groups were affected differently by both the virus itself and the measures brought in to control it.   It painted a grim picture of the ways in which the pandemic response exacerbated existing, deep-rooted inequalities across the UK and compounded the disadvantages experienced by people from minoritised communities, by disabled people and by people living with long term conditions.  Just some examples include people who are immunocompromised, who were asked to go into isolation for huge periods of time and still feel completely overlooked as control measures have been lifted. Or the use of DNRs (Do Not Resuscitate orders) which were disproportionately applied to people with learning disabilities.  With the Covid-19 Inquiry underway, it is imperative that we capture the lessons learnt from the pandemic, and use them to suggest action for the future.
  19. News Article
    Two years after launching what officials hailed as a five-year flagship project for hunting viruses among wildlife to prevent human pandemics, the US Agency for International Development is shutting down the enterprise. Hear the update from the Editor-in-Chief of The BMJ, Kamran Abbasi. Source: BMJ, 7 September 2023
  20. News Article
    Babies could be needlessly hospitalised this winter because the government has delayed a vaccine that protects them from a life-threatening virus, the UK’s top children’s doctor has warned. Dr Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said she was “frustrated” by delays in introducing a new vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which drives 30,000 hospital admissions each winter and leads to dozens of deaths. She warned the delay meant thousands of children’s operations will have to be cancelled as RSV patients fill up beds – piling further pressure on already soaring waiting lists. It comes after the UK’s most senior A&E doctor, Dr Adrian Boyle, told The Independent that the government’s failure to prepare the NHS for winter could see thousands of people die needlessly this year. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said in June that a rollout of two RSV vaccines, one for babies and one for pregnant women, would be “cost-effective”, while the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said there was a “strong case” for a jab. But it confirmed there was no timeframe for when vaccinations could start. Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 September 2023
  21. News Article
    Blood clots in the brain or the lungs might explain some common symptoms of "Long Covid", including brain fog and fatigue, a UK study suggests. In the study, of 1,837 people admitted to hospital because of Covid, researchers say two blood proteins point to clots being one cause. It is thought 16% of such patients have trouble thinking, concentrating or remembering for at least six months. But the research team, from the universities of Oxford and Leicester, stress: Their findings are relevant only to patients admitted to hospital. They are "the first piece of the jigsaw" but further research is needed before they can propose or test any potential treatments. They tracked cognitive problems at six and 12 months only and through tests and questionnaires, which may "lack sensitivity". Identifying predictors and possible mechanisms was "a key step" in understanding post-Covid brain fog, study author Prof Paul Harrison, from the University of Oxford, said. Leicester's professor of respiratory medicine, Chris Brightling, said: "It's a combination of someone's health before, the acute event itself and what happens afterwards that lead on to physical and mental health consequences." Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 August 2023
  22. News Article
    Fewer than 20 countries worldwide still report COVID-19 hospitalisation and ICU data to the World Health Organization (WHO), leaving the UN health body blind to the impact and evolution of the virus in most of the world, agency leaders have said. The decline in data reporting is a major setback for the WHO’s efforts to track the pandemic. Without reliable data, the WHO cannot accurately assess the burden of disease, identify new variants, or target its resources where they are most needed. “We don’t have good visibility of the impact of COVID-19 around the world,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who leads the WHO’s COVID-19 task force. “It is really important that surveillance continues, and this is on the shoulders of governments right now.” “While we are certainly not in the same situation that we were in a year ago or two years ago, SARS-Cov-2 circulates in all countries right now,” said Van Kerkhove. “It is still causing a large number of infections, hospitalisations, admissions to the ICU and deaths.” The current set of dominant COVID-19 variants can still cause the “full spectrum” of disease, from asymptomatic infections to severe disease and death, Kerkhove said. Read full story Source: Health Policy Watch, 25 August 2023
  23. News Article
    Covid vaccines should be made available for people to buy privately in Britain, leading scientists have urged, amid concerns over a new wave of the virus which could worsen in autumn and winter. Unlike flu jabs, which individuals or employers can buy for about £15 from high street pharmacies, Covid jabs are only available on the NHS in the UK. This month the UK government announced that the Covid autumn booster programme would cover a smaller pool of the population than earlier vaccination drives. The age limit has been raised from 50 to 65 and above, with some younger vulnerable groups also eligible. Covid is on the rise, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Experts raised concerns the wave could continue to grow and add to winter pressures on the NHS. Prof Adam Finn, of the University of Bristol, a member of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said Covid jabs should be available commercially. Some employers might want to offer the vaccines to their staff, he added. Speaking in a personal capacity, Finn said: “I think it will be a good idea for vaccines to be made available to those that want them on the private market. I don’t really see any reason why that shouldn’t be happening.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 August 2023
  24. News Article
    The Government has decided to cut the fee GPs are paid per Covid vaccination by a quarter, prompting BMA to issue a patient safety warning. NHS England has published the new enhanced service specification for Covid vaccines to be delivered between 1 September and 31 March next year, setting out that GPs will be paid £7.54 for each vaccine administered – down from £10.06 – and continue to be paid £10 for each housebound patient. The fee had already been reduced from £12.58 last year, when the BMA advised GPs to review whether they were still able to fulfil the ES commitments. The new specification said that practices with ‘sufficient workforce capacity so as not to impact the delivery of essential services and appropriately trained and experienced staff’ must indicate their willingness to participate in the programme before 5pm on 29 August. The Item of Service fee for flu remains £10.06 of each vaccine delivered, according to the new specification published last week. But the BMA said that that NHS England’s decision to reduce the Covid fee ‘undervalues general practice and threatens the safety of vulnerable patients’. Read the full article here: https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-areas/respiratory/25-cut-to-covid-vaccine-ios-threat-to-patient-safety-bma-warns/
  25. News Article
    Close contacts of people infected with monkeypox have criticised health officials for a lack of communication and support while they have to isolate. Public health experts and scientists have said the government needs to offer financial support to people forced to self-isolate for 21 days, as it emerged that one local council has already stepped in to provide sick pay for an infected man who could not work from home and was told he would not be paid. With cases of monkeypox on the rise in the UK – 106 were infections detected as of Friday – it’s thought hundreds of people have been told to self-isolate since the beginning of May. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it was providing daily calls for infected individuals and close contacts to offer support. However, one man from Leicester, whose housemate contracted monkeypox after visiting Gran Canaria pride festival, described UKHSA’s handling of his case as a “farce”, saying he has waited days for instruction from officials. “They couldn’t provide any meaningful or helpful information and nothing about housemates or close contacts,” the housemate told The Independent. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has meanwhile said countries should take quick steps to contain the spread of monkeypox and share data about their vaccine stockpiles. Read full story Source: The Independent, 29 May 2022
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