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Content ArticleCovid-19 has posed a huge challenge to the delivery of safe care, both when infection rates were at their highest levels and in terms of its long-term impact on health and social care systems.[1] The pandemic has magnified existing patient safety issues, created new ones, and exposed safety gaps which require systemic responses. This month the World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new report, Implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for patient safety: A rapid review.[2] The review aims to create a greater understanding of the impact of the pandemic on patient safety, particularly in relation to diagnostic services, treatment and care management. In this blog, Patient Safety Learning, one of the international organisations who contributed to this review, provides an overview and reflections on some the key themes and issues raised in this review.
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Content ArticleCOVID-19 is associated with increased risks of neurological and psychiatric sequelae in the weeks and months thereafter. How long these risks remain, whether they affect children and adults similarly, and whether SARS-CoV-2 variants differ in their risk profiles remains unclear. This study from Taquet et al. looked at the risks of 14 different disorders in 1.25 million patients two years on from Covid, mostly in the US. It then compared them with a closely-matched group of 1.25 million people who had a different respiratory infection. In the group who had Covid, after two years, there were more new cases of dementia, stroke and brain fog in adults aged over 65; brain fog in adults aged 18-64; and epilepsy and psychotic disorders in children, although the overall risks were small. Some disorders became less common two years after Covid, including anxiety and depression in children and adults and psychotic disorders in adults. The increased risk of depression and anxiety in adults lasts less than two months before returning to normal levels, the research found.
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Content ArticleThe US's response to monkeypox fails to put patients and their care at its centre, writes Eric Kutscher in the BMJ opinion article. As a primary care and addiction medicine physician, Kutscher has been dismayed by the number of patients he has treated over the past few weeks who’ve been infected with the vaccine-preventable monkeypox virus. Most have been in considerable pain and required strong analgesics, with some unable to even sit because of their skin lesions. Yet for many, the most agonising and scarring aspect of their infection is not their physical symptoms, but the complete removal of their humanity by the medical response to monkeypox. As a medical and public health community, we are exhausted after Covid-19, and our compassion fatigue is showing in our policies and procedures for monkeypox. The spread of the virus to previously non-endemic countries was only recently declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. Unlike with Covid-19, this is not a novel virus—we have the appropriate diagnostic testing, treatment, and even vaccines that we need. Yet, just as we have failed to deploy these tools to assist in outbreaks in African nations, we are now also failing our patients from a sexual minority—patients who are already underserved and justifiably mistrusting of a medical system.
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An assurance case for COVID-19 (28 October 2021)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Blogs
The iterative processes that engineers and technicians use to address problems could have been applied by decision-makers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic writes Rick Schrenker. -
Content ArticleThe pandemic has emphasised the high risk of avoidable harm to patients, health workers, and the general public, and has identified a range of safety gaps across all core components of health systems at all levels. The World Health Organization (WHO)'s rapid review ‘Implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for patient safety’ explores impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic did have on patient safety in terms of risks and avoidable harm, specifically in terms of diagnostic, treatment and care management related issues as well as highlights the main patterns of these implications within the broader health system context.
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Content ArticlePatients often report various symptoms after recovery from acute COVID-19. Ballering et al. aimed to analyse the nature, prevalence, and severity of long-term symptoms related to COVID-19, while correcting for symptoms present before SARS-CoV-2 infection and controlling for the symptom dynamics in the population without infection. They found persistent symptoms in COVID-19-positive participants at 90–150 days after COVID-19 compared with before COVID-19 and compared with matched controls included chest pain, difficulties with breathing, pain when breathing, painful muscles, ageusia or anosmia, tingling extremities, lump in throat, feeling hot and cold alternately, heavy arms or legs, and general tiredness.
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Content ArticleThis report examines the approaches and key decisions taken by UK governments during the pandemic and the public health measures they introduced. It assesses whether these choices were timely, appropriate, and proportionate to deal with the threat and impact of COVID-19.
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Content ArticleThis research explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the ways doctors make end-of-life decisions, particularly around Do Not Attempt Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR), treatment escalation and doctors’ views on the legalisation of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
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Infographic: Long Covid explained
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Good practice and useful resources
The science behind the symptoms of Long Covid are explained in this infographic from docdroid.- Posted
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UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Opening statement (21 July 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Covid-19 Inquiry
In her opening statement, Baroness Heather Hallett, Chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, has set out her approach to running it. The Inquiry will consider and report on the preparations and the response to the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Terms of Reference provide the broad outline of the issues the Inquiry will investigate.- Posted
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Content ArticleCOVID-19 has been associated with new-onset cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes mellitus (DM), but it is not known whether COVID-19 has long-term impacts on cardiometabolic outcomes. This study from Rezell-Potts et al. aimed to determine whether the incidence of new DM and CVDs are increased over 12 months after COVID-19 compared with matched controls. The study found that CVD was increased early after COVID-19 mainly from pulmonary embolism, atrial arrhythmias, and venous thromboses. DM incidence remained elevated for at least 12 weeks following COVID-19 before declining. People without preexisting CVD or DM who suffer from COVID-19 do not appear to have a long-term increase in incidence of these conditions.
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Content ArticleThe Government’s aim throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been to protect the lives and livelihoods of citizens across the UK. This document sets out how the Government has and will continue to protect and support citizens by: enabling society and the economy to open up more quickly than many comparable countries; using vaccines; and supporting the NHS and social care sector. It also sets out how England will move into a new phase of managing COVID-19. The Devolved Administrations will each set out how they will manage this transition in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The global pandemic is not yet over and the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is clear there is considerable uncertainty about the path that the pandemic will now take in the UK. This document therefore also sets out how the Government will ensure resilience, maintaining contingency capabilities to deal with a range of possible scenarios.
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Content ArticleIn this episode of 'Better Never Stops', Virginia Mason Institute Senior Partner Melissa Lin interviews Dana Nelson-Peterson, Vice President of Nursing Operations at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, who shares what happens when you trust a management system and improvement process to solve your toughest challenges. Dana shares her story of leading a critical part of Virginia Mason’s Covid response.
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Covid Airborne Protection Alliance Latest News
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Coronavirus (COVID-19)
The Covid Airborne Protection Alliance – formerly the AGP Alliance – (Chaired by BAPEN's Dr Barry Jones) is calling on Governments and health services in all four nations of the UK to review and update its guidance regarding personal protective equipment (PPE) for all health and social care staff as a matter of urgency. Stay up to date with their latest news. -
Content ArticleSouth Wales pharmacist, Geraint Jones, contracted COVID-19 in April 2020. He shares an insight to his experiences over the last year after he was later diagnosed with Long Covid.
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Content ArticleThe Pharmaceutical Journal speaks to formerly fit and well pharmacists and technicians whose lives have been devastated by Long Covid.
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Content ArticlePersistent Covid-19 illness following an acute infection with SARS-CoV-2 can have both a physical and psychological impact. Pharmacists in community and primary care should be able to provide patients with appropriate advice and support to manage their symptoms.
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Content ArticleOn 23 March 2021, Long COVID Physio Chair and co-founder Darren Brown presented to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society at the “Long COVID - what it is and how to manage it” webinar. In this interactive session, you can hear first-hand from those who have experienced Long Covid as well as experts on this topic. The multi-disciplinary panel explains how you can recognise and support those who may be living with Long Covid.
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Long Covid by Geraint Jones
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Patient recovery
Geraint Jones, a healthcare worker at a hospital in Wales, shares his experiences of Long Covid. Geraint tested positive for COVID-19 in April 2020, whilst working on the COVID-positive wards in a district general hospital. This long-lasting illness is still little understood, but new research is uncovering some of the recurring symptoms that many patients experience and suggesting better options for treatment for adults and children.- Posted
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Content ArticleThe Covid-19 pandemic has led to the reorganisation of healthcare services to limit the transmission of the virus and deal with the sequelae of infection. This reorganisation had a detrimental effect on cardiovascular services, with reductions in hospitalisations for acute cardiovascular events and the deferral of all but the most urgent interventional procedures and operations. Aortic stenosis (AS) is the most common form of valvular heart disease. Once stenosis is severe, symptoms follow and the prognosis is poor, with 50% mortality within 2 years of symptom onset. Thus, timely treatment is of paramount importance. There was a large decline procedural activity to treat severe AS during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we move into an era of ‘living with’ COVID-19, plans must urgently be put in place to best manage the additional waiting list burden for treatment of severe AS. In this study, Stickels et al. used mathematical methods to examine the extent to which additional capacity to provide treatment of severe AS should be created to clear the backlog and minimise deaths of people on the waiting list.
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Content ArticleEmer Joyce is a Cardiologist at Mater University Hospital in Dublin who developed myocarditis as a result of a Covid-19 infection. This article by Professor Joyce in the European Journal of Heart Failure aims to "give a birds-eye view of the physician as patient, the sub-specialist as sub-specialist condition sufferer, the one on the far side of the bed as the one in the bed." She also looks at the pattern of previously healthy, highly active healthcare professionals developing serious long-term health issues as a result of Covid-19.
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Content ArticleAt the beginning of the pandemic, there was an important question to resolve: is coronavirus “airborne”? If it was, then this meant that the virus could transmit through the air from person to person, even over long distances, in indoor environments. We now know the answer is yes. In the 19th century diseases such as cholera and typhoid taught us the importance of water quality – coronavirus in the 21st century should provide that same realisation on the importance of air quality. Ideally, all indoor environments where people congregate should be fitted with modern, efficient ventilation systems that flush out potentially contaminated air and replace it with fresh, clean air continually. This would prevent the build-up of virus-containing aerosols and reduce the likelihood of transmission of covid-19 and other diseases such as influenza. With energy costs rising, it is vitally important to find methods of preventing virus transmission that are safe, quick to implement and affordable, writes Dr Alice Bunn in this HSJ article.
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Content ArticleThe Covid-19 pandemic has, in many ways, been healthcare’s finest hour. Clinicians performed miracles as they battled to understand a new disease, learning as they went along the techniques and approaches that gave patients the best chance of survival. But, for all this quiet heroism, the crisis also turned a harsh spotlight on the deficiencies of health systems, writes Sarah Neville in this Financial Times article.
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APPG Coronavirus evidence session: Long Covid
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Patient recovery
Recording of the recent All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)Coronavirus evidence session on Long Covid.- Posted
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Content ArticleDr Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, has warned against prematurely declaring victory over the pandemic, not only due to short-term needs but because long Covid represents an “insidious” public health emergency for millions of people. In an interview with the Guardian, Fauci urged US Congress to avoid complacency and resume funding to combat the virus as well as Long Covid, a chronic and prolonged illness that continues to elude scientists and healthcare providers.
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