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Found 2,335 results
  1. News Article
    Boris Johnson’s plans to test millions of schoolchildren for coronavirus every week appear to be in disarray after the UK regulator refused to formally approve the daily testing of pupils in England, the Guardian has learned. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) told the government on Tuesday it had not authorised the daily use of 30-minute tests due to concerns that they give people false reassurance if they test negative. This could lead to pupils staying in school and potentially spreading the virus when they should be self-isolating. The regulator’s decision undermines a key element of the government’s strategy to bring the pandemic under control – and is bound to raise fresh questions about the tests, and the safety of the schools that have been asked to use them. Prof Jon Deeks, a biostatistician of the University of Birmingham and Royal Statistical Society, described the use of rapid tests in this context as “ridiculous and dangerous” and welcomed the MHRA’s stance. He said: “It is really important that we have confidence in the safety and effectiveness of tests for Covid-19 and all other diseases - this is the responsibility of our regulator. “This clarification of the unsuitability of lateral flow tests for saying people are not infected with SARS-CoV-2 from the MHRA demonstrates that they are taking their responsibility seriously to ensure that tests are used in a safe way." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 January 2021
  2. News Article
    Fake news is likely to be causing some people from the UK's South Asian communities to reject the Covid vaccine, a doctor has warned. Dr Harpreet Sood, who is leading an NHS anti-disinformation drive, said it was "a big concern" and officials were working "to correct so much fake news". He said language and cultural barriers played a part in the false information. Dr Sood, from NHS England, said officials were working with South Asian role models, influencers, community leaders and religious leaders to help debunk myths about the vaccine. Much of the disinformation surrounds the contents of the vaccine. He said: "We need to be clear and make people realise there is no meat in the vaccine, there is no pork in the vaccine, it has been accepted and endorsed by all the religious leaders and councils and faith communities." "We're trying to find role models and influencers and also thinking about ordinary citizens who need to be quick with this information so that they can all support one another because ultimately everyone is a role model to everyone", he added. Dr Samara Afzal has been vaccinating people in Dudley, West Midlands. She said: "We've been calling all patients and booking them in for vaccines but the admin staff say when they call a lot of the South Asian patients they decline and refuse to have the vaccination. "Also talking to friends and family have found the same. I've had friends calling me telling me to convince their parents or their grandparents to have the vaccination because other family members have convinced them not to have it". Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 January 2021
  3. News Article
    Nearly a quarter of a million people have been waiting more than a year for operations and other hospital procedures, HSJ has learned. Official NHS England data for November, released on Thursday, showed 192,000 patients had been waiting for treatment for more than a year. However, figures leaked to HSJ of weekly data up to 3 January showed a steep increase to 223,000 patients — the highest reported so far throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and before. According to the leak, just under 4.2 million people are waiting for treatment, of which year-long waiters comprise 5.4%. The data also showed 175 patients across England had waited more than two years for treatment. In February, before the pandemic, 1,613 patients were waiting more than a year — meaning there has been a 138-fold increase. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 January 2021
  4. News Article
    More than one in 10 hospital nurses are now off work in areas hard-hit by covid, according to internal data leaked to HSJ. The data shows the toal absence rate among acute trust nurses has risen steadily over the last month. Nationally the total absence rate among acute trust nurses was 9.7% as of Monday, up from around 7% at the start of December, pushed up by rapidly rising absences due to covid. These make up more than half of total absences, and have now hit rates last seen in early May. Senior NHS sources said staff absences are severely compounding operational pressures in the hardest hit regions, limiting hospitals’ capacity to operate more than is suggested in official bed capacity figures. The highest rate was in the East of England where 11.4% of nurses off work, with coronavirus accounting for 7.5%. This is likely to mask even higher rates in particular hospitals, services and wards. Read full story Source: HSJ, 14 January 2021
  5. News Article
    Younger people who think they are “invincible” need to be aware of the shocking life-changing reality of long Covid, according to health professionals who are living with the condition. Long Covid, also known as post-Covid syndrome, is used to describe the effects of COVID-19 that continue for weeks or months beyond the initial illness. Speaking at the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus, Dr Nathalie MacDermott, 38, said neurologists believe Covid has damaged her spinal cord and she can only walk about 200 metres without some form of assistance. She said the damage has affected her bladder and bowel too, causing urinary tract infections, and she gets pain in her arms and has weakness in her grip. Dr MacDermott, a clinical doctor sub-specialising in paediatric infectious diseases in the NHS, told MPs there needs to be “better recognition” from employers that long Covid is a “genuine condition” and that people may need to be off work for a significant period of time. She added: “And I think we need better recognition in the public, particularly the younger public who think that they’re invincible. “I’m 38 and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to walk properly without crutches again. Will this continue to get worse? Will I end up in a wheelchair?” Read full story Source: 12 January 2021, Lancashire Post
  6. News Article
    Patients are missing out on potentially life-saving organ transplant surgery because hospital intensive care beds are filled by coronavirus patients, The Independent has learnt. Major organ transplant centres in London, as well as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, have been forced to close their doors to transplant cases because of a lack of beds, the increased risk to patients, and the need to redeploy doctors and nurses to the coronavirus front line. The impact on organ transplant services follows hundreds of urgent cancer operations being delayed in London and across the country, as NHS trusts run out of spare beds to treat non-Covid patients. Most routine operations have also been stopped in the hardest-hit areas. Teacher Shona McFadyen was diagnosed with liver cancer in December 2018 and needs an urgent liver transplant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. She has already waited 22 months for her surgery. She told The Independent: “It’s not the hospital’s fault. I get that. But it just adds to the feeling of hopelessness and it feels like as patients we have been forgotten about. It is life and death for us.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 13 January 2021
  7. News Article
    Some High Street pharmacies in England will start vaccinating people from priority groups on Thursday, with 200 providing jabs in the next two weeks. Six chemists in Halifax, Macclesfield, Widnes, Guildford, Edgware and Telford are the first to offer appointments to those invited by letter. But pharmacists say many more sites should be allowed to give the jab, not just the largest ones. More than 2.6 million people in the UK have now received their first dose. Across the UK, the target is to vaccinate 15 million people in the top four priority groups - care home residents and workers, NHS frontline staff, the over-70s and the extremely clinically vulnerable - by mid-February. The vaccines – made by either Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech – are being administered at hospitals, care homes, GP surgeries and vaccination centres. It comes as the UK saw its highest number of daily reported coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began, with the government announcing a further 1,564 deaths of people within 28 days of a positive Covid test. On Wednesday evening, the Scottish government published its detailed 16-page plan for rolling out the vaccine, including details of how many vaccines it expects to receive every week until the end of May. Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 January 2021
  8. News Article
    NHS England has asked hospitals across the country to open hundreds more intensive care beds so they can take in patients from the hardest hit areas, to prevent those patches having to ration access. A letter sent to dozens of acute trusts today by NHS England asks them to enact their “maximum surge” for critical care from tomorrow, opening up hundreds of beds, which will rely on them redeploying staff and cancelling more planned care. The letter is to trusts in the Midlands but HSJ understands a similar approach is being taken in the other regions where critical care is not currently under as much pressure as London, the East of England and the South East. The message to surge capacity to support a “national critical care service” was reinforced to trusts nationwide in a call with Keith Willett, NHS England covid incident director, also on Wednesday. The letter, from the NHSE Midlands regional team, said there had been a national request for the region to surge beyond its own needs to support London and the East of England. “Significant” numbers are likely to be transferred, HSJ was told. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 January 2021
  9. News Article
    People who recover from coronavirus have a similar level of protection against future infection as those who receive a Covid vaccine – at least for the first five months, research suggests. A Public Health England (PHE) study of more than 20,000 healthcare workers found that immunity acquired from an earlier Covid infection provided 83% protection against reinfection for at least 20 weeks. The findings show that while people are unlikely to become reinfected soon after their first infection, it is possible to catch the virus again and potentially spread it to others. “Overall I think this is good news,” said Prof Susan Hopkins, a senior medical adviser to PHE. “It allows people to feel that prior infection will protect them from future infections, but at the same time it is not complete protection, and therefore they still need to be careful when they are out and about.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 January 2021 Public Health England press release
  10. News Article
    COVID-19 patients in England's busiest intensive care units (ICUs) in 2020 were 20% more likely to die, University College London research has found. The increased risk was equivalent to gaining a decade in age. By the end of 2020, one in three hospital trusts in England was running at higher than 85% capacity. Eleven trusts were completely full on 30 December, and the total number of people in intensive care with Covid has continued to rise since then. The link between full ICUs and higher death rates was already known, but this study is the first to measure its effect during the pandemic. Tighter lockdown restrictions are needed to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, says study author Dr Bilal Mateen. Researchers looked at more than 4,000 patients who were admitted to intensive care units in 114 hospital trusts in England between April and June last year. They found the risk of dying was almost a fifth higher in ICUs where more than 85% of beds were occupied, than in those running at between 45% and 85% capacity. That meant a 60-year-old being treated in one of these units had the same risk of dying as a 70-year-old on a quieter ward. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine sets 85% as the maximum safe level of bed occupancy. However, the team found there was no tipping point after which deaths rose - instead, survival rates fell consistently as bed-occupancy increased. This suggests "a lot of harm is occurring before you get to 85%". Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 January 2021
  11. News Article
    The UK government’s new policy of distributing rapid coronavirus tests to local authorities in England has divided the medical and scientific community, with some calling for the tests to be halted because they could falsely reassure people and increase the spread of COVID-19. Critics are also concerned that the policy, announced on Sunday 10 January, was being rolled out without sufficient provision for people who test positive, such as putting them in hotels and compensating them financially. Supporters say the tests are a valuable additional tool in public health interventions to identify new cases and suppress further transmission. Launching the new testing drive, England’s health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, said, “With roughly a third of people who have coronavirus not showing symptoms, targeted asymptomatic testing and subsequent isolation is highly effective in breaking chains of transmission. Rapid, regular testing is led by local authorities who design programmes based on their in-depth knowledge of the local populations, so testing can have the greatest impact.” Read full story Source: BMJ, 12 January 2021
  12. News Article
    Private hospitals are ‘pushing back’ on requests from NHS trusts to send them more NHS patients, following a change to the national contract with the independent sector, and amid high pressure from COVID-19. Manchester University Foundation Trust, one of the largest NHS providers, has reported difficulties in accessing capacity at its local Spire, BMI and Ramsay hospitals this month. It comes as the NHS is facing “unthinkable” pressures from coronavirus patients, with dozens of hospitals on the brink of being overwhelmed. Throughout most of 2020, the bulk of private providers in England were on a national block contract whereby the NHS could use as much capacity as it needed. But a new contract, agreed with oversight from the Treasury last month, is now in place between January and April, and only offers trusts a minimum volume of activity which equates to activity provided in October and November. Pressures on the NHS have since intensified to unprecedented levels, with many areas now in far greater need of the private capacity than they were two months ago. And there appears to be a misunderstanding or lack of clarity in some areas about the extent to which they can now call on private capacity. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 January 2021
  13. News Article
    A large-scale trial of a new treatment it is hoped will help stop COVID-19 patients from developing severe illness has begun in the UK. The first patient received the treatment at Hull Royal Infirmary on Tuesday afternoon. It involves inhaling a protein called interferon beta which the body produces when it gets a viral infection. The hope is it will stimulate the immune system, priming cells to be ready to fight off viruses. Early findings suggested the treatment cut the odds of a COVID-19 patient in hospital developing severe disease - such as requiring ventilation - by almost 80%. It was developed at Southampton University Hospital and is being produced by the Southampton-based biotech company, Synairgen. Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 January 2021
  14. News Article
    Many hospital staff treating the sickest patients during the first wave of the pandemic were left traumatised by the experience, a study suggests. Researchers at King's College London asked 709 workers at nine intensive care units in England about how they were coping as the first wave eased. Nearly half reported symptoms of severe anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or problem drinking. One in seven had thoughts of self-harming or being "better off dead". Nursing staff were more likely to report feelings of distress than doctors or other clinical staff in the anonymous web-based survey, which was carried out in June and July last year. Just over half reported good well-being. Victoria Sullivan, an intensive care nurse at Queen's Hospital in Romford, said she often can't sleep because she's thinking about what is happening at the hospital. Her worst moment was breaking the news of a death on the phone, she said, adding that the screams from the patient's relatives "will honestly stay with me forever". "Telling someone over the phone and all you can say is 'I'm really sorry', whilst they're crying their heart out, is quite traumatising," she said. "Although you're saying how sorry you are, in the back of your mind, you're also thinking: 'I've got three other patients I've got to go and see, the infusions need drawing up, and meds need to be given and a nurse needs support'. "The guilt is just too much." Lead researcher Prof Neil Greenberg said the findings should be a "wake-up call" for NHS managers. He said: "The severity of symptoms we identified are highly likely to impair some ICU staff's ability to provide high-quality care as well as negatively impacting on their quality of life." Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 January 2021
  15. News Article
    More than 1,000 people needing urgent cancer surgery in London have no date for their treatment, HSJ can reveal. A document leaked to HSJ showed that, at the end of last week, more than 1,000 of London’s cancer surgery patients without an appointment date were defined as P2 (priority two), meaning they needed to be seen within four weeks or risk their condition worsening. The report seen by HSJ also showed more than 300 P2 patients had their surgery postponed in the past week, a statistic NHS England London has so far refused to disclose. Hospitals in the capital are facing their highest-ever COVID-19 occupancy rates, with surgical lists at many trusts being cancelled. Meanwhile, a separate NHSE London document reported in the press this week revealed: “Most NHS Green sites [those cancer surgery sites intended to be covid-free to avoid risk to very frail patients] are now compromised with only a limited number of cases being undertaken in NHS sites this week”. The papers also said the current plans to increase indepedent sector capacity usage were “insufficient to offset the NHS shortfall”, and noted there was a two week lead-in time to move patients into private hospitals “based on clinical rotas, theatre bookings, [and] patient isolation”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 12 January 2021
  16. News Article
    GPs are being paid £1,000 to cancel second dose appointments for Covid jabs and given a script to follow to deal with angry patients amid growing chaos in the roll-out of the vaccine programme. Practices have been offered the payments to cover the workload of postponing hundreds of patients who were set to have their second dose and booking new ones in their place. NHS sources said the shift has contributed to delays in rolling out the programme. Some GPs have refused to postpone the appointments, with practice managers saying it was "too cruel" to dash the hopes of those who were booked for a second jab. In December, everyone given a first vaccine by Pfizer was told to come back for their second dose three weeks later. But the strategy was changed 10 days ago in a bid to get a first dose to more of the population more quickly. Patients are now being told they will have to wait 12 weeks for the second dose, with a reassurance from health officials that the longer gap could strengthen its effectiveness. By the time the plan was changed, around one million people had already been booked in for their second dose. GPs are now under orders to postpone such appointments and instead give the slots to those awaiting a first dose. Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 8 January 2021
  17. News Article
    More than a third of critical care units in the East of England are either at or have exceeded their maximum surge capacity, information leaked to HSJ reveals, and all but one are above their normal capacity. Data from the region’s critical care network shows that as of 11 January, seven of the region’s 19 critical care units were either at 100% of, or had exceeded, what is known as ”maximum safe surge” capacity. This represents the limit of safe care, mostly based on available staffing levels. The units have opened more beds, but they require dilution of normal staffing levels. Across the East of England, 482 of the region’s current 491 intensive care beds, after the opening of surge capacity, were occupied. This included 390 patients in intensive care with confirmed covid-19, six with suspected covid and 86 non-covid patients. It gives a regional occupancy rate of 91 per cent against total “safe surge” capacity. Published government figures show the rapid increase in demand for intensive care in the East of England in the last two weeks — the number of patients with covid in mechanical ventilation beds is more than double what it was just after Christmas. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 January 2021
  18. News Article
    Thousands of women have had abortions after falling pregnant while having difficulties accessing contraception during the pandemic, healthcare providers have warned. Sexual health clinics have been forced to shut or run reduced services while staff are transferred to work with Covid patients or have to self-isolate – with the profound disruption leaving many women unable to access their usual methods of contraception. Many women are struggling to get the most effective long-acting contraceptive choices of a coil or an implant due to these requiring face-to-face appointments which have largely been suspended as consultations are carried out remotely via phone or video call to curb the spread of COVID-19. British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK's largest abortion provider, told The Independent they provided the progestogen-only contraceptive pill to almost 10,000 women undergoing an abortion between May and October last year. Katherine O’Brien, a spokesperson for the service, said: “Many of these women will have fallen pregnant after struggling to access contraception, so there really is a huge unmet need for contraceptive services which will only worsen as lockdown and Covid continues. “We routinely hear from women during the pandemic who simply can’t access their regular method of contraception because of clinics closing or staff being deployed elsewhere or staff self-isolating.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 9 January 2021
  19. News Article
    A coronavirus patient's gut bacteria may influence the length and severity of their infection and their immune response to it, a new study suggests. A team of researchers at The Chinese University of Hong Kong examined whether the variety and quantity of microbiome played a role in COVID-19 infections. Researchers found that patients with COVID-19 were depleted in gut bacteria known to modify a person's immune response, and that this depletion appeared to persist 30 days after the virus had gone. Gut bacteria — or gut microbiome — help to digest food. But research increasingly shows that gut bacteria also affect our health. The study, published in the journal Gut, found that the composition of gut microbiome had changed in COVID-19 patients, compared to those who did not have the infection. It said that gut microbiome could be involved in the "magnitude of COVID-19 severity possibly via modulating host immune responses". Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 January 2021
  20. News Article
    NHS England has told hospitals in the Midlands to further dilute their staffing ratios so critical care capacity can be doubled, HSJ has learned. In a letter sent on 9 January to the boards of all trusts in the region, national leaders said they needed to “dilute nursing ratios beyond the current ask of 1:2” to achieve the significant increase in capacity. In November, all trusts in England were told they could dilute staffing ratios in critical care from the standard one nurse to one patient ratio, to one nurse to two patients. Informal reports from around the country suggest some trusts have already had to move beyond these ratios. The letter said trusts had already been asked to surge capacity to 150% cent of the normal baseline on 6 January, and were expected to be at 175% today. But it said some units were still not achieving this and the region was “transferring patients to other regions.” It added: “In addition to this, you need to have well developed plans in place that can be rapidly activated to surge to 200% of baseline, which may need to be enacted in the coming days. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 January 2021
  21. News Article
    The UK’s most senior nurses and the nursing regulator are encouraging the profession to “speak up” if they feel unsafe at work amid the latest surge of COVID-19. The four chief nursing officers and the Nursing and Midwifery Council has today issued an open letter. Source: Nursing Times, 8 January 2021
  22. News Article
    People waiting to receive the COVID-19 vaccine say they are confused by NHS letters inviting them to travel to centres miles away from their homes. The first 130,000 letters have been sent to people aged 80 or older who live about 30 to 45 minutes' drive away from one of seven new regional centres. But patients, many of whom are shielding, questioned why they had to travel so far in a pandemic. Local jabs are available to people if they wait, the NHS said. The seven centres include Ashton Gate in Bristol, Epsom racecourse in Surrey, London's Nightingale hospital, Newcastle's Centre for Life, the Manchester Tennis and Football Centre, Robertson House in Stevenage and Birmingham's Millennium Point. Mary McGarry from Leamington Spa in Warwickshire told BBC News that her letter points to an NHS online booking page which suggests she would have to take her husband, who has cancer and a lung disease, 20 miles to Birmingham. "We're very reluctant to go into Birmingham city centre," she said. "If we can't get somebody to take us, we'd have to go on the train but we're shielding because my husband's got poor health.... we want to know why we've got to travel that far?" People will not miss out on their vaccination if they do not use the letters to make an appointment at one of the centres, the NHS said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 January 2021
  23. News Article
    A hospital's oxygen supply has "reached a critical situation" due to rising numbers of COVID-19 infections. A document shared with the BBC showed Southend Hospital has had to reduce the amount it uses to treat patients. It said the target range for oxygen levels that should be in patients' blood had been cut from 92% to a baseline of 88-92%. Hospital managing director, Yvonne Blucher, said it was "working to manage" the situation. "We are experiencing high demand for oxygen because of rising numbers of inpatients with Covid-19 and we are working to manage this," she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 January 2021
  24. News Article
    Three quarters of patients surveyed at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China had at least one ongoing symptom The majority of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus still had symptoms six months after getting ill, a new study has revealed. Over three quarters of Covid patients surveyed at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China had at least one ongoing symptom – with the most commonly reported being fatigue or muscle weakness. A total of 1,733 patients, with a median age of 57, were examined for the study between 7 January and 29 May last year. At a follow-up, 76% of patients reported at least one ongoing symptom. Read the full article here
  25. News Article
    The government’s actions in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic have received a mixed review from MPs in a report that set out the successes and failures of the UK response. Although the joint report from the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee  praised the UK’s covid vaccination programme as highly effective, it also condemned serious errors, especially delayed lockdowns and how a test, trace, and isolate system was set up. Overall, the MPs’ inquiry found that some government initiatives were examples of global best practice but that others represented “serious mistakes.” The UK’s pandemic planning was based too narrowly on a flu model that had failed to learn the lessons from the SARS, MERS, and Ebola epidemics, said the MPs, which meant that its covid planning was worse than in other countries. Delays in establishing an adequate test, trace, and isolate system hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, said the MPs, and the government’s initial decision to delay a comprehensive lockdown had revealed its then “fatalistic” assumption that it was impossible to suppress the virus, which amounted, in practice, to accepting that herd immunity by infection was inevitable. The report said that many thousands of deaths could have been avoided if the government had not let hospitals discharge people into care homes in the initial phase of the pandemic and that this showed the “longstanding failure” to give social care sufficient priority and the same attention as the NHS. Read full story Source: BMJ, 12 October 2021
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