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Found 2,335 results
  1. News Article
    The government has been criticised for failing to respond to a damning parliamentary report that accused ministers of mishandling the early stages of the pandemic. The report, compiled by the Health and Science and Technology Committees, found the government’s initial response to Covid-19 “amounted in practice” to the pursuit of herd immunity, with the delayed decision to lock down ranking as one of the “most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”. More than 50 witnesses contributed to the cross-party report, including ministers, NHS officials, government advisers and leading scientists, with the authors saying it was was “vital” that lessons were learnt from the failings of the past 18 months. The findings from the joint inquiry were published on 12 October and a deadline for an official government response was set for 12 December. However, that date has now passed and the committees have yet to formally hear back from ministers, according to the parliamentary website, which states that a response is now “overdue”. Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said the government’s failure to “meet a very reasonable deadline” called into question the willingness of ministers to engage with the coming independent public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic. "The government have had months to get a response delivered to the Health and Science and Technology committees following their lessons leant from the pandemic report,” said Jo Goodmand, co-founder of the campaign group. “Unfortunately those of us who have lost loved ones are far too used to this with responses to FOIs late and it taking far too long to announce the inquiry. Read full story Source: 30 December 2021
  2. News Article
    The health secretary, Sajid Javid, has warned MPs he may need to “constrain” the Covid testing system over the next fortnight, as demand for lateral flow kits surges. Ministers have repeatedly encouraged members of the public to test themselves using a lateral flow device (LFD) before attending gatherings or meeting vulnerable relatives. However, test kits have repeatedly been unavailable online in recent days, and many pharmacies have complained of being unable to secure them. Labour has accused the government of presiding over a “shambles”, with many members of the public struggling to obtain tests despite ministers putting testing at the centre of efforts to control the spread of Omicron. Demand for the tests has also been boosted by a change in quarantine rules that allows people to emerge from self-isolation after seven days instead of 10, as long as they carry out two negative lateral flow tests. In a letter sent to MPs on Wednesday evening, Javid acknowledged the intense strain being put on the system as cases of the Omicron variant continue to increase, with 183,037 new infections recorded on Wednesday. “In light of the huge demand for LFDs seen over the last three weeks, we expect to need to constrain the system at certain points over the next two weeks to manage supply over the course of each day, with new tranches of supply released regularly throughout each day,” he wrote. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 November 2021
  3. News Article
    Data from a new study suggests that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can persist in different parts of the body for months after infection, including the heart and brain. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found the virus can spread widely from the respiratory tract to almost every other organ in the body and linger for months. The researchers described the study as the "most comprehensive analysis to date" of the virus's persistence throughout the body and brain. They performed autopsies on 44 patients who died either from or with COVID-19 to map and quantify virus distribution across the body. Daniel Chertow, principal investigator in the NIH’s emerging pathogens section, said along with his colleagues that RNA from the virus was found in patients up to 230 days after symptom onset. The findings, released in a pre-print manuscript, shed new light on patients who suffer from Long Covid. The study found that the virus had replicated across multiple organ systems even among patients with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19. While the "highest burden" of infection was in the lungs and airway, the study showed the virus can "disseminate early during infection and infect cells throughout the entire body,” including in the brain, as well as in ocular tissue, muscles, skin, peripheral nerves and tissues in the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endocrine and lymphatic systems. "Our data support an early viremic phase, which seeds the virus throughout the body following pulmonary infection," the researchers wrote. Read full story Source: The Hill, 27 December 2021
  4. News Article
    Patients are dying in hospital without their families because of pressure on NHS services, hospices have told The Independent. A major care provider has warned that it has seen a “huge shift” in the number of patients referred too late to its services. The warning comes as NHS England begins a new £32m contract with hospices to help hospitals discharge as many patients as possible this winter. NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the health service was preparing for an Omicron-driven Covid wave that could be as disruptive as, or even worse than, last winter’s crisis. Hospices are already dealing with a “huge volume of death and patients needing support”, according to the head of policy at Hospice UK, Dominic Carter. He told The Independent that hospices had seen a huge shift in the number of patients referred to their services too late, when they are in a “very serious” state of health. He added: “We don’t really know what kind of support is actually out there for those people, while hospitals have difficulties and deal with challenges around backlogs and Covid. There are lots of people that have been in the community, where hospices are trying to reach them but aren’t always able to identify who needs that care and support. “They’re really important, those five or six final days, for the individual and their families. Yet this is spent in crisis rather than being helped as much as possible in a comfortable environment by the hospice ... [instead] an ambulance is called, and they’re having to be cast into hospital.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 26 December 2021
  5. News Article
    NHS staff treating Covid patients should be given much more protective facewear than thin surgical masks to help them avoid getting infected during the Omicron rise, doctors say. The British Medical Association (BMA), Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) and Doctors’ Association UK are calling for frontline personnel to be given FFP3 masks. Making the much higher-quality face masks standard issue would save the lives of health workers who fall ill as a result of treating Covid patients, the BMA said. “At this critical point in the pandemic this is extremely urgent – a matter of life and death,” said Prof Raymond Agius, the acting chair of the doctors’ union’s occupational health committee. FFP3 masks, also known as filtering facepiece respirators, have been shown in a trial in Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge to reduce the number of healthcare staff who become infected. However, the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) guidance on personal protective equipment, updated last week, only recommends their use in limited circumstances. “With a high transmissible new strain now circulating, and clear evidence that Covid-19 spreads in small airborne particles, healthcare workers must be given the best possible protection against the virus. Surgical masks don’t give the necessary protection against airborne transmission of Covid,” Agius said. The BMA has written to every hospital trust in England demanding that any health professional treating patients who are or may be Covid-positive should be routinely issued with FFP3s, which are much more expensive than the surgical masks usually provided. Surgical masks are “unsuitable” given the threat Covid poses, the BMA believes. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 December 2021
  6. News Article
    Mass lateral flow testing cut the number of people needing hospital treatment for Covid by 32% and relieved significant pressure on the NHS when the measures were piloted last year, a study has shown. Liverpool conducted the first city-wide testing scheme using rapid antigen tests in November last year, amid debate about whether or not lateral flow tests (LFTs) were accurate enough to detect the virus in asymptomatic carriers. It expanded the project to cover the whole of the Liverpool region, offering people LFTs whether or not they had symptoms. Key workers did daily tests before going to work to show they were not infectious. Now an analysis has shown that it was more successful than Liverpool’s scientists and public health teams had anticipated, after they compared Covid cases and outcomes in the region with other parts of England. Professor Iain Buchan, dean of the Institute of Population Health, who led the evaluation, said: “This time last year, as the Alpha variant was surging, we found that Liverpool city region’s early rollout of community rapid testing was associated with a 32% fall in Covid-19 hospital admissions after careful matching to other parts of the country in a similar position to Liverpool but without rapid testing. “We also found that daily lateral flow testing as an alternative to quarantine for people who had been in close contact with a known infected person enabled emergency services to keep key teams such as fire crews in work, underpinning public safety.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 December 2021
  7. News Article
    Nearly two years into the pandemic, people like me are still out of action. We need better support and more funding, writes Joanna Herman, consultant in infectious diseases in London. Joanna caught Covid in March 2020, and was by definition a “mild” case: not admitted to hospital and no risk factors for severe disease, but how it has affected her and her family is anything but mild. Having been fit and active, Joanna now finds that on bad days that she still struggle with everyday chores, and her usually quick-firing brain "remains in slo-mo ('brain fog')". For many months, it has felt as though long Covid has not been on the political agenda, but many people are still struggling with their everyday lives, and struggling to get the help they need. Why is long Covid not included in the daily statistics, or as one of the main incentives to avoid Omicron, and to get a vaccine and booster jab? It’s never mentioned, and it often feels as if sufferers don’t exist. Even if the new variant results in milder disease than previous ones, could more people still end up like Joanna? And how will an already stretched NHS cope if there are new cases of long Covid after this current viral surge? There’s a lot we still don’t know about Omicron; a fuller picture will become evident over the coming weeks and months... Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2021
  8. News Article
    More than 167,000 children are believed to have lost parents or caregivers to Covid during the pandemic – roughly one in every 450 young people in the US under age 18. The count updates the October estimate that 140,000 minors had lost caregiving adults to the virus, and is four times more than a springtime tally that found nearly 40,000 children had experienced such loss. In a report titled Hidden Pain, researchers from the COVID Collaborative and Social Policy Analytics published the new total, which they derived by combining coronavirus death numbers with household-level data from the 2019 American Community Survey. The death toll further underscores the daunting task facing schools as they seek to help students recover not just academically, but also emotionally, from a pandemic that has already stretched 22 months and claimed more than 800,000 American lives. It’s an issue of such elevated concern that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, on 7 December, used a rare public address to warn Americans of the pandemic’s “devastating” effects on youth mental health. An accompanying 53-page report calls out the particular difficulties experienced by young people who have lost parents or caregivers to the virus. Bereaved children have higher rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder than those who have not lost parents, according to a 2018 study that followed grieving children for multiple years. They are more than twice as likely to show impairments in functioning at school and at home, even seven years later, meaning these children need both immediate and long-term counseling and support to deal with such a traumatic loss. “For these children, their whole sky has fallen, and supporting them through this trauma must be a top priority.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2021
  9. News Article
    Authorities were aware of discrepancies in Covid test results across England one month before the lab responsible was ordered to shut down its operations, legal papers show. An estimated 43,000 incorrect false negative tests were processed for the NHS by the Immensa laboratory in Wolverhampton between 8 September and 12 October. UK Health Security Agency became aware of an “unusual spike” in suspicious test results on 14 September, with large numbers of people testing positive on lateral flow devices but negative via PCR. It took a month before the UKHSA determined that the “likely cause was a technical issue at the Immensa laboratory”, according to court papers filed by the government in response to a lawsuit. The Independent also revealed in October how machines at the Wolverhampton lab were poorly maintained, concerns over quality control dismissed and untrained staff regularly “left to their own devices”. Samples at the site were wrongly processed or cross-contaminated, leading to incorrect test results, while faulty air conditioning and fluctuating humidity levels within the lab also led to spoiled tests, whistleblowers said. Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 December 2021
  10. News Article
    Suspected Covid outbreaks in hospitals across the UK have doubled in a week, official figures reveal – though the number of people admitted to wards with the virus is falling across much of England. As parts of the NHS battle to cope with a surge in infected staff and patients, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data show there were 66 acute respiratory infection incidents in UK hospitals in the seven days to 16 December. Coronavirus was confirmed in most of these incidents, according to a UKHSA document reviewed, by the Guardian. It represents a doubling in outbreaks compared with the previous week (33) and is the highest total recorded since the third week of January 2020. Most of the outbreaks happened in London, with 28 recorded in the last week, almost half of all those in England (62). Nine were recorded in West Midlands hospitals, six in the east of England and five in the east Midlands. Hospitals are scrambling to try to stop the highly transmissible Omicron variant spreading between patients and staff, NHS leaders said, while trying to cope with more pressure than last year. Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “The safety of staff and patients is a key priority of trust leaders, and trusts are doing everything they can to keep nosocomial [hospital-acquired] infections to a minimum, including following stringent infection control measures and social distancing rules.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2021
  11. News Article
    David Oliver, NHS consultant physician and a columnist for the BMJ makes a plea on behalf of his colleagues as they face a surge of admissions due to the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 this Christmas. "Pandemic health protection measures are not all about you and your own personal risk or appetite for it, your own ‘natural immunity’ or fitness, your own liberty or freedom. They are about protecting everyone else. It might be your own parent, grandparent or sibling that dies from COVID-19 or from lack of access to overwhelmed services. It might be your neighbour’s or someone in another town or from another social class or ethnic group, This isn’t a game and we need to take it seriously and stop posturing and point-scoring, before, once again, we have left it too late to act" Read full story Source: Byline Times, 21 December 2021
  12. News Article
    A new Covid drug designed to reduce the risk of vulnerable patients needing hospital treatment will be available on the NHS from today. Sotrovimab is a monoclonal antibody given as a transfusion to transplant recipients, cancer patients and other high-risk groups. If given quickly after symptoms develop it is should help prevent people from falling seriously ill with the disease. Initial tests suggest it should still work against the Omicron variant. "These new drugs have an important role to play," said Prof Steven Powis, the national medical director of NHS England. "If you test positive and are at high risk then we will be contacting you, and, if eligible, you will be able to get access to these new treatments." Around 1.3 million of the highest risk NHS patients are eligible to receive Sotrovimab, along with other new Covid treatments as they become available. The drug is most effective if taken in the first five days after infection and is likely to be given in clinics or to outpatients in hospital. It has been approved for use in vulnerable groups - such as those with cancer, diabetes or heart disease. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 December 2021
  13. News Article
    People who were hospitalised with COVID-19 and continued to experience symptoms at five months show limited further recovery one year after hospital discharge, a key finding of the Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID) has revealed. The NIHR/UKRI-funded study, led by the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, also confirmed that people who were less likely to make a full recovery from COVID-19 were female, obese, and required invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) to support their breathing during their hospital stay. The study found that one year after hospital discharge, less than three in ten patients reported they felt fully recovered, largely unchanged from at five months. The most common ongoing symptoms were fatigue, muscle pain, physically slowing down, poor sleep and breathlessness. Participants felt their health-related quality of life remained substantially worse one year after hospital discharge, compared to pre-COVID. This suggests the physical and mental health impairments reported in the study are unlikely to be pre-existing conditions. Professor Chris Brightling said: “The PHOSP-COVID study is further evidence of the UK’s ability to combine expertise across both disease area and geography to rapidly gather data to help us understand the longer term implications of Long-COVID in hospitalised patients with persistent symptoms. Our findings show that people who were hospitalised and went on to develop Long-COVID are not getting substantially better a year after they were discharged from hospital. Many patients in our study had not fully recovered at five months and most of these reported little positive change in their health condition at one year. “When you consider that over half a million people in the UK have been admitted to hospital as a result of COVID-19, we are talking about a sizeable population at risk of persistent ill-health and reduced quality of life.” Read full story Source: National Institute for Health Research, 16 November 2021
  14. News Article
    The spread of the Omicron variant, which is racing through the population at a staggering speed, has brought renewed focus to the value and reliability of the at-home lateral flow test (LFT). These rapid testing devices were initially viewed with caution by some scientists, who were concerned that the LFTs simply weren’t effective enough in detecting infections. But as more data has accumulated over the past year, the consensus around the devices has shifted and become far more positive. Research from University College London, published in October, suggested that LFTs are likely to be more than 80 per cent effective at detecting Covid, and up to 90 per cent effective for those who are most infectious. However, the emergence of Omicron has changed the conversation. Its rapid acceleration throughout the UK, with more than a million infections expected by next week, has placed the country’s key testing routes – both at-home (LFT) and lab-based (PCR) – under immense strain. “Testing capacity will almost certainly fail to keep up with Omicron,” said Dr Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “Even with best efforts we can scale supply linearly, but demand will grow exponentially.” Experts have called on the government to temporarily drop the reliance on PCR lab testing, which typically takes 24 hours or more to return a result but is seen as more reliable, in favour of the lateral flow devices. These can be taken from the comfort of your own home and give a result in a matter of minutes. “LFT will be good enough, especially on people showing symptoms,” said Alan McNally, a professor of microbial evolutionary genomics at Birmingham University. Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 December 2021
  15. News Article
    Fewer than one in three patients who have ongoing Covid symptoms after being hospitalised with the disease say they feel fully recovered a year later, according to a study that offers new insights into potential treatments. As the pandemic has unfolded, a growing body of research has revealed that Covid not only causes health problems in the short-term, but also has long-term effects. Now a study has revealed many of those who had ongoing symptoms after hospitalisation are showing little improvement, with their condition similar at about 12 months after discharge to seven months earlier. “Only one in three participants felt fully recovered at one year,” said Dr Rachel Evans, one of the co-leads of the post-hospitalisation Covid-19 study – or Phos-Covid – which is led by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, although the team says missing data means the figure could be as low as 2 in 10 or as high as 6 in 10. The research – which has yet to be peer-reviewed – reveals how the team collected both self-reported and objective measures of health, such as physical performance and organ function, among 2,320 adults about five months after they were discharged from hospital after having had Covid. They then looked at similar measures for 924 participants at about one year after discharge, 807 of whom had attended the previous follow-up. Between five months and one year after discharge, the proportion of participants reporting feeling recovered remained very similar – at just under 30% at 12 months – as did the prevalence of symptoms including breathlessness, fatigue and pain. Little or no improvement was seen for areas including organ function, physical function and cognitive impairment – or “brain fog” – with about one in 10 participants having a significant degree of the latter 12 months after discharge. “Unfortunately, we weren’t seeing improvements at one year from where people were at five months post-discharge,” said Evans. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 December 2021
  16. News Article
    Everyone over the age of 18 in England has been promised they can book their coronavirus booster appointment by the end of this year. In a televised address on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to deliver up to a million vaccine doses a day to ensure everyone eligible is offered a slot a month earlier than planned. As part of the "Omicron emergency national mission" he asked NHS staff "to make another extraordinary effort" to meet the new target. This will include more vaccine centres and walk-in sites with extended opening hours, "thousands" more volunteers to deliver jabs and help from the military to oversee operations. However, COVID ICU anaesthetist Dr Ed Patrick told Sky News there are already staff shortages "all over" the NHS, including intensive care, with boosters threatening to make them even worse. "It's a massive concern," he said. "You're taking a really scant resource and then you're pushing it elsewhere, which means that other services get cut." Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said she is worried about the "scale and pace" of the new rollout, as the "same nurses are already facing huge demands under existing unsustainable pressures". While Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS providers, warned the health service is "already beyond full stretch" and the changes would see more procedures postponed in the coming days. Read full story Source: Sky News, 13 December 2021
  17. News Article
    GPs and hospital leaders have been left hanging over plans to drop “non-urgent” care, and warn there’s no way to safely stem demand without impacting patients health or “swamping” the NHS further. On Monday evening the NHS published guidance for GPs and hospital leaders over expectations to deliver the government’s new deadline for all adults to be offered a booster vaccine by the new year. The guidance comes as reports surfaced on Tuesday that ministers were warned the NHS should expect a “significant” increase in hospitalisations, as modelling showed Omicron cases may reach 200,000 a day. NHS England sent letters to all GP practices and Trust chiefs on Monday evening setting out some plans to support the vaccine drive, which included opening community vaccine clinics 12 hours a day every day of the week. However, the guidance was not clear on what work GPs and trusts could specifically drop to support the drive. Several NHS leaders raised concerns over the “nightmare” of deciding what care can be reduced, in lieu of any detailed guidance from the government or NHS England, with one leader calling for “clear directive”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 December 2021
  18. News Article
    The NHS must apply Covid infection prevention and control measures more robustly if it is to avoid a steep rise in infections within healthcare settings, a senior doctor at NHS England has said. The warning came from NHS England national clinical director for antimicrobial resistance and infection prevention and control Mark Wilcox during a webinar for NHS leaders. He said that the effectiveness of the vaccination programme had led “understandably” to the NHS being more relaxed when it came to Covid IPC. However, he warned that “the effectiveness of the vaccines has diminished substantially with respect to two doses” because of the omicron variant, and that “if we carry on with the level of IPC that we have been lulled into then we will see very significant problems with nosocomial infection”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 December 2021
  19. News Article
    Coroners in England are demanding changes in a series of reports highlighting how the struggling healthcare system’s responses to the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to patients’ deaths. Coroners are obliged to write a report recommending action in any cases where they believe that this is necessary to prevent future deaths. Reports now emerging suggest that factors in deaths during the pandemic include the move by GPs to telephone consultations, the requirement for vulnerable patients to attend hospital appointments alone, and the lack of safeguards for patients in care homes. The replacement of in-person appointments by telephone consultations reduced GPs’ ability to pinpoint patients’ needs, the coroners said, and the absence of family members from consultations with vulnerable patients meant that clinicians were often unable to get a full picture of their needs. An example is in the Yorkshire and Humber region which saw an increased incidence of children with severe nutritional anaemia in 2020, resulting in two deaths. Maya Zab, who died aged 11 months, was one of the two. Language barriers had caused missed opportunities for primary carers to see Maya, but this was compounded by the pandemic, said Ian Pears, coroner. The “stay at home” message resulted in fewer one-to-one consultations and meant that healthcare professionals were unable to spot signs of her condition, while the limitation of social contact meant that other professionals and friends were unable to report concerns. Read full story Source: BMJ, 8 December 2021
  20. News Article
    Lessons learnt in relation to increasing uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine among ethnic minority groups should now be applied to the booster programme, a government progress report recommends. This includes continuing to use respected local voices to build trust and to help tackle misinformation, the report from the government’s Race Disparity Unit says. Such approaches should also be carried over to the winter flu and childhood immunisation programmes and be applied to the work to tackle longer standing health disparities. In June 2020 the minister for equalities was asked to look at why COVID-19 was having a disproportionate impact on ethnic minority groups and to consider how the government response to this could be improved. This latest report is the final one of four. Taken together the reports identified that the main factors behind the higher risk of COVIDd-19 infection for ethnic minority groups include occupation, living in multigenerational households, and living in densely populated urban areas with poor air quality and high levels of deprivations. Read full story Source: BMJ, 3 December 2021
  21. News Article
    Health experts have expressed fears over the impact tighter Covid restrictions in England could have on cancer patients as alarming new figures reveal that the number taking part in clinical trials plummeted by almost 60% during the pandemic. Almost 40,000 cancer patients in England were “robbed” of the chance to take part in life-saving trials during the first year of the coronavirus crisis, according to a report by the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), which said COVID-19 had compounded longstanding issues of trial funding, regulation and access. Figures obtained from the National Institute for Health Research by the ICR show that the number of patients recruited on to clinical trials for cancer in England fell to 27,734 in 2020-21, down 59% from an average of 67,057 over the three years previously. The number of patients recruited for trials fell for almost every type of cancer analysed. Health experts said the relentless impact of Covid on the ability of doctors and scientists to run clinical trials was denying many thousands of cancer patients access to the latest treatment options and delaying the development of cutting-edge drugs. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 December 2021
  22. News Article
    Three pharmacy and medication safety organisations are warning clinicians about a reported increase in age-related COVID-19 vaccine mix-ups. The Institute for Safe Medication Practice's National Vaccine Errors Reporting Program said it's seen a "steady stream" of mix-ups involving the Pfizer vaccine intended for kids ages 5-11 and formulations for people 12 and older. ISMP said the reports involved hundreds of children and included young children receiving formulations meant for those 12 and up or vice versa. The safety organisation said some errors were linked to vial or syringe mix-ups. In other situations, healthcare providers gave young children a smaller or diluted dose of the formulation meant for people 12 and up. "Vaccine vials formulated for individuals 12 and up (purple cap) should never be used to prepare doses for the younger age group," the organisation said. Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 7 December 2021
  23. News Article
    The former chairman of the UK competition regulator has condemned the market for PCR tests for travellers, describing it as a “rip-off jungle”. After the reimposition of the requirement to take the tests on return from abroad, Lord Tyrie accused the government of once again allowing the companies offering PCR tests to manipulate the system by making them available at unrealistic prices. “For this policy to get into a mess once might be seen as a misfortune but for it to resurface again after all the warnings over the summer would have to be described as carelessness,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “It was a scandal waiting to happen and it’s now happened and it needs very urgent action.” Last week, the Guardian revealed that a slew of the cheapest deals on PCR tests had been removed from the government website amid concerns travellers were being misled by companies advertising the coronavirus testing service for less than a £1. Private companies offering day two tests for travellers are listed on a government website for consumers to search. However, most of the deals were found to not be suitable for most travellers as they were often offered in only one location, on limited dates and only available to those who could attend in person. “It appears that some of the worst practices – misleading online advertisements, overpricing, unacceptably poor service among them – are still widespread,” said Tyrie, the former head of the Competition and Markets Authority, and the ex-chair of the Treasury select committee. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 December 2021
  24. News Article
    The NHS is forecasting there will be 230,000 new cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in England as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, official figures show. COVID-19 has increased exposure to events that could cause PTSD, an anxiety disorder triggered by very stressful, frightening or distressing events, according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It says the NHS is already facing the biggest backlog of those waiting for mental health help in its history. Forecasts cited by the college from the NHS strategy unit, which carries out NHS analysis, show there could be as many as 230,000 new PTSD referrals between 2020/21 and 2022/23 in England, which suggests a rise of about 77,000 cases a year on average. Prof Neil Greenberg, expert editor of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ new resource tool for patients with PTSD, said: “It’s a common misunderstanding that only people in the armed forces can develop PTSD – anyone exposed to a traumatic event is at risk. “It’s vital that anyone exposed to traumatic events is properly supported at work and home. Early and effective support can reduce the likelihood of PTSD and those affected should be able to access evidence-based treatment in a timely manner. Especially our NHS staff who are at increased risk as a result of this unprecedented crisis.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 December 2021
  25. News Article
    Children with poorly controlled asthma are up to six times more likely to be admitted to hospital with Covid than those without the condition, research has suggested. Scientists involved in the study said 5 to 17-year-olds in this category should be considered a priority for Covid vaccination. About 9,000 children in Scotland would benefit from the jab, researchers said. Vaccines are offered to the over-12s in Scotland, but not to younger children. In the study, poorly controlled asthma was defined as a prior hospital admission for the condition, or being prescribed at least two courses of oral steroids in the last two years. Prof Aziz Sheikh, director of the University of Edinburgh's Usher Institute and Eave II study lead, said: "Our national analysis has found that children with poorly controlled asthma are at much higher risk of Covid-19 hospitalisation. "Children with poorly controlled asthma should therefore be considered a priority for COVID-19 vaccination alongside other high-risk children." Prof Sheikh said it was important to consider both the "risks and benefits" from vaccinations. He added: "Emerging evidence from children aged five and older suggests that COVID-19 vaccines are overall well-tolerated by the vast majority of children." Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 December 2021
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