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Found 2,335 results
  1. News Article
    A key expansion of services for patients recovering from coronavirus has been delayed by several months, HSJ has learned. In July, NHS England hailed a “ground breaking” new service with the launch of a website with information for patients on how to recover from covid following hospital discharge. It promised a second phase of the service would allow patients to be connected with health professionals for more tailored support, to be launched “later this summer”. But in a memo sent to professional bodies on 30 October, NHSE said the national roll-out was delayed until at least January 2021, with no date confirmed for the launch beyond that. Documents on the website itself said a “first cohort of patients from Leicester will begin to work through the programme” in November, with a further rollout scheduled for early December, followed by a “refresh” in January 2021 and a “full national rollout accessible across the country” at an unspecified date beyond that. The second phase is seen as vital for ensuring that people with covid receive personalised support to help them recover from its debilitating effects, especially as a separate face-to-face rehabilitation programme was scrapped due to costs. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 November 2020
  2. News Article
    Eight months after phrases such as “stay at home,” “flatten the curve” and “social distancing” started to become part of our daily vocabulary, people are experiencing a type of burnout experts call COVID-19 fatigue. “By this point, we know people are tired — tired of missing family and friends, tired of not having a routine, of not going into the office,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Division of Infectious Diseases. “Whatever disruptions to a person’s normal life have occurred, there is no denying the mental, physical and emotional toll people are experiencing. What we’ve learned — and what we keep learning — is how to combat burnout in safe ways that minimize the spread of the virus and enable us to feel some sense of normalcy.” Figuring out how to safely navigate the new normal is more important than ever, explain UAB experts, particularly heading into more vulnerable and trying winter months that present unique challenges. Read full story Source: University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, 6 November 2020
  3. News Article
    The NHS will launch a network of more than 40 ‘long COVID’ specialist clinics within weeks to help thousands of patients suffering debilitating effects of the virus months after being infected. The clinics, due to start opening at the end of November, will bring together doctors, nurses, therapist and other NHS staff to physical and psychological assessments of those experiencing enduring symptoms. NHS England has provided £10 million to fund the pioneering clinics, which will see patients who have been hospitalised, officially diagnosed after a test or reasonably believe they had COVID-19. Ten sites have been earmarked for the Midlands, seven in the North East, six in the East of England, South West and South East respectively, five in London and three in the North West. Patients will be able to access services through a GP referral or referral from other healthcare professional, allowing doctors an opportunity to rule out any other possible underlying causes for symptoms, such as suspected stroke, lung cancers or respiratory conditions. The NHS has also launched a new taskforce, with patients, charities, researchers and clinicians, to help manage the NHS approach to ‘long COVID’ and produce information and support materials for patients and healthcare professionals to develop a wider understanding of the condition. NHS Chief Executive Sir Simon Stevens said: “Long COVID is already having a very serious impact on many people’s lives and could well go on to affect hundreds of thousands. “That is why, while treating rising numbers of patients who are sick with the virus and many more who do not have it, the NHS is taking action to address those suffering ongoing health issues." “These pioneering ‘long COVID’ clinics will help address the very real problems being faced by patients today while the taskforce will help the NHS develop a greater understanding of the lasting effects of coronavirus.” Read full press release Source: NHS England, 15 November 2020
  4. News Article
    Young and previously healthy people with ongoing symptoms of COVID-19 are showing signs of damage to multiple organs four months after the initial infection, a study suggests. The findings are a step towards unpicking the physical underpinnings and developing treatments for some of the strange and extensive symptoms experienced by people with “long Covid”, which is thought to affect more than 60,000 people in the UK. Fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and pain are among the most frequently reported effects. On Sunday, the NHS announced it would launch a network of more than 40 long Covid specialist clinics where doctors, nurses and therapists will assess patients’ physical and psychological symptoms. The Coverscan study aims to assess the long-term impact of COVID-19 on organ health in around 500 “low-risk” individuals – those who are relatively young and without any major underlying health complaints – with ongoing Covid symptoms, through a combination of MRI scans, blood tests, physical measurements and online questionnaires. Preliminary data from the first 200 patients to undergo screening suggests that almost 70% have impairments in one or more organs, including the heart, lungs, liver and pancreas, four months after their initial illness. “The good news is that the impairment is mild, but even with a conservative lens, there is some impairment, and in 25% of people it affects two or more organs,” said Amitava Banerjee, a cardiologist and associate professor of clinical data science at University College London. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 November 2020
  5. News Article
    No single solution will stop the virus’s spread, but combining different layers of public measures and personal actions can make a big difference. It’s im­por­tant to un­der­stand that a vac­cine, on its own, won’t be enough to rapidly ex­tin­guish a pan­demic as per­ni­cious as Covid-19. The pan­demic can­not be stopped through just one in­ter­ven­tion, be­cause even vac­cines are im­per­fect. Once in­tro­duced into the hu­man pop­u­la­tion, viruses con­tinue to cir­cu­late among us for a long time. Fur­ther­more, it’s likely to be as long as a year be­fore a Covid-19 vac­cine is in wide-spread use, given in­evitable dif­fi­cul­ties with man­u­fac­tur­ing, dis­tri­b­u­tion and pub­lic ac­ceptance. Con­trol­ling Covid-19 will take a good deal more than a vac­cine. For at least an­other year, the world will have to rely on a mul­ti­pronged ap­proach, one that goes be­yond sim­plis­tic bro­mides and all-or-noth­ing re­sponses. In­di­vid­u­als, work-places and gov­ern­ments will need to con­sider a di­verse and some­times dis­rup­tive range of in­ter­ven­tions. It helps to think of these in terms of lay­ers of de­fence, with each layer pro­vid­ing a bar­rier that isn’t fully im­per­vi­ous, like slices of Swiss cheese in a stack. The ‘Swiss cheese model’ is a clas­sic way to con­cep­tu­al­ize deal­ing with a haz­ard that in­volves a mix­ture of hu­man, tech­no­log­i­cal and nat­ural el­e­ments. This article can be read in full on the WSJ website, but is paywalled. The illustration showing the swiss cheese pandemic model is hyperlinked to this hub Learn post.
  6. News Article
    Thousands of frontline workers delivering treatments where the risk of transmitting coronavirus is heightened are still being denied personal protective equipment (PPE), according to multiple unions and professional bodies. Eleven organisations, including Unison and the British Association of Stroke Physicians, believe numerous procedures have been “wrongly excluded” from the list of 13 “aerosol generating procedures” that require PPE, despite the NHS now having adequate supplies. They say their members are “facing illness and even death” while performing procedures such as chest physiotherapy, introducing feeding tubes, and assessing whether a patient can swallow safely. The unions have formed an alliance to lobby on the issue, and its chair Dr Barry Jones told HSJ: “We’ve asked ministers and the Department of Health and Social Care again and again to take action and provide PPE to frontline NHS staff carrying out procedures which are not currently listed as AGPs but which the scientific evidence shows should be. Read full story Source: HSJ, 13 November 2020
  7. News Article
    Black and Asian people are up to twice as likely to be infected with COVID-19 compared to those of white ethnicities, according to a major new report. The risk of ending up in intensive care with coronavirus may be twice as high for people with an Asian background compared to white people, data gathered from more than 18 million individuals in 50 studies across the UK and US also suggests. The report, published in the EClinicalMedicine by The Lancet, is the first-ever meta-analysis of the effect of ethnicity on patients with COVID-19. The scientists behind it said their findings should be of "importance to policymakers" ahead of the possible roll out of a vaccine. Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 November 2020
  8. News Article
    People with learning disabilities are dying of coronavirus at more than six times the rate of the general population, according to “deeply troubling” figures that have prompted a government review. A report from Public Health England (PHE) found that 451 in every 100,000 people registered as having learning disabilities died after contracting Covid-19 in the first wave of the pandemic, when the figures were adjusted for age and sex. Because not all Covid deaths among people with learning disabilities are registered as such, the true figure is likely to be 692 in every 100,000, or 6.3 times the UK average, the report estimated. Campaigners said the figures showed the government had failed to protect the most vulnerable. The report found that Covid deaths among those with learning disabilities were also more widely spread across age groups, with far greater mortality rates among younger adults. Those aged 18-34 were 30 times more likely to die with the virus than their counterparts in the general population. The higher death rate is likely to reflect the greater prevalence of health problems such as diabetes and obesity among those with learning disabilities, the report said. It also noted that some learning disabilities, such as Down’s syndrome, can make people more vulnerable to respiratory infections. People with learning disabilities are also likely to have difficulty recognising symptoms and following advice on testing, social distancing and infection prevention, the report said. It may also be harder for those caring for them to recognise symptoms if these cannot be communicated, it added. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 November 2020
  9. News Article
    The number of people waiting over a year for hospital treatment in England has hit its highest levels since 2008. Patients are meant to be seen within 18 weeks - but nearly 140,000 of the 4.35 million on the waiting list at the end of September had waited over a year. Surgeons said it was "tragic" patients were being left in pain while they waited for treatment, including knee and hip operations. And others warned the situation could become even worse during winter. In recent weeks, major hospitals in Bradford, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham and Liverpool, which have seen high rates of infection, have announced the mass cancellation of non-urgent work. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 November 2020
  10. News Article
    Patients, including those with the coronavirus, are being kept “head to toe” on trolleys in accident and emergency departments in Manchester, with some forced to wait up to 40 hours for a bed. The “dangerous” situation has sparked warnings from the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine over the “potentially lethal” crowding of patients in A&Es across the country this winter. Katherine Henderson said she was “absolutely terrified” by what was happening in some departments. She said she had warned NHS England about the dangers of crowding patients in A&E but that not enough action had been taken. She told The Independent: “Crowding in A&E is unsafe, but with coronavirus it is potentially lethal. We have said this endlessly to NHS England." “Everyone agrees crowding is bad, but what they’re not doing is translating that into action.” After hearing of the situation in Manchester, she added: “Exactly what we said should not happen is happening. I am absolutely terrified by this. What more can I do? I have highlighted this risk everywhere I can over the past few months.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 November 2020
  11. News Article
    Early results from trials of a Covid vaccine developed in Russia suggest it could be 92% effective. The data is based on 20 cases of COVID-19 from 16,000 volunteers given the Sputnik V vaccine or a dummy injection. While some scientists welcomed the news, others said the data had been rushed out too early. It comes after Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine could prevent 90% of people getting Covid-19, based on a study of 43,500 people. Although the Sputnik data is based on fewer people being vaccinated and fewer cases of Covid developing during the trial, it does confirm promising results from earlier research. The Sputnik V vaccine, developed at the National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, is currently going through phase III clinical trials in Belarus, UAE, Venezuela and India. So far there are no safety issues, with Russian researchers saying there were "no unexpected adverse events" 21 days after volunteers received their first of two injections. Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 November 2020
  12. News Article
    A new NHS treatment programme targeting young people with eating disorders has been launched amid a rise in numbers needing treatment during the coronavirus pandemic. Recent NHS data showed record numbers of children and young people are currently being treated across England for eating disorders while waiting times in some places are dangerously long. On Monday, children’s charity NSPCC warned that counselling sessions for eating and body image disorders rose by 32% after lockdown was introduced in March. The new scaling up of intervention services for those with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia will mean young people can gain access to rapid specialist NHS treatment across England. The service will be rolled out to 18 sites, building on a successful trial model at King's College London, where one patient described the treatment as the “gold standard” of care. Nadine Dorries, Minister for Health, said: “Eating disorders can have a devastating impact on individuals and their families – and can very sadly be fatal. I am committed to ensuring young people have access to the services and treatment they need which can ultimately save lives." Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 November 2020
  13. News Article
    Study finds 54 days after discharge, 69% of patients still had fatigue, and 53% were suffering from persistent breathlessness. Almost seven out of 10 patients hospitalised due to coronavirus still suffer from debilitating symptoms more than seven weeks after being discharged, according to a new study. Researchers from the University College London (UCL) division of medicine, in collaboration with with clinicians at the Royal Free London (RFL) and UCL, followed 384 patients who had tested positive and had been treated at Barnet Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital or UCLH. Collectively the average length of stay in hospital was 6.5 days. The team found that 54 days after discharge, 69% of patients were still experiencing fatigue, and 53% were suffering from persistent breathlessness. They also found that 34% still had a cough and 15% reported depression. In addition 38% of chest radiographs (X-rays) remained abnormal and 9% were getting worse. Dr Swapna Mandal, an honorary clinical associate professor at UCL division of medicine, said the data shows so-called long COVID is a real phenomenon and that further research is needed to understand how the symptoms of COVID-19 can be treated over an extended period. She said: "Patients whose COVID-19 illness is serious enough for them to require hospital care often continue to suffer significant symptoms for many weeks after their discharge." Read full story Source: Sky News, 11 November 2020
  14. News Article
    The mutated strain of coronavirus from Danish mink could have “grave consequences”, Matt Hancock warned today. The Health Secretary said the new variant was a “significant development”. And he told MPs the new form of the virus “did not fully respond to Covid-19 antibodies” - hinting it might not respond in the same way to a vaccine. The UK banned travel and freight from Denmark on Saturday, going further than the current 14-day quarantine system. Those who had already passed from Denmark to Britain in the previous 14 days must isolate for two weeks. Updating the House of Commons, Mr Hancock said: “We’ve been monitoring the spread of coronavirus in European mink farms for some time, especially the major countries for mink farming like Denmark, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands. “On Thursday evening last I was alerted to a significant development in Denmark of a new evidence that the virus had spread back from mink to humans in a variant form that did not fully respond to Covid-19 antibodies. “Although the chance of this variant becoming widespread is low, the consequences should that happen would be grave.” Read full story Source: The Mirror, 10 November 2020
  15. News Article
    The NHS is ready to start providing the new coronavirus vaccine "as fast as safely possible", Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said. Asked whether it could be available by Christmas, he said that was "absolutely a possibility" - but he expected the mass roll-out "in the first part of next year". He said vaccination clinics would be open seven days a week, and he was giving GPs an extra £150m. On Monday, early results from the world's first effective coronavirus vaccine showed it could prevent more than 90% of people from getting Covid. The vaccine has been developed by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech and is one of 11 vaccines that are currently in the final stages of testing. The UK has already ordered 40 million doses - enough to vaccinate up to 20 million people as each person will need two doses for it to work effectively. Asked how many people would need to be vaccinated before life can return to normal, Matt Hancock said: "Well the answer to that is we just don't know." "So the trials can tell you if a vaccine is clinically safe and if it's effective at protecting an individual from the disease. What we can't know, until we've vaccinated a significant proportion of the population, is how much it stops the transmission of the disease." Mr Hancock told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it would be "a mammoth logistical operation" and highlighted some of the challenges, including getting it from Belgium to the UK while not removing from a temperature of -70C more than four times. Older care home residents and care home staff are at the top of a list from government scientific advisers of who would get immunised first, followed by health workers. Mr Hancock said NHS staff would go into care homes to vaccinate residents, as well as setting up vaccination venues. Children would not be vaccinated, he said. However, Prof Sir John Bell from Oxford University said: "I would worry about not giving this to as wide a percentage of the population as we can." "I'm more of the view that we need to vaccinate further into the population and vaccinate younger people as well, partly because we don't really know what the long term effects of this disease are." The vaccine will not be released for use until it passes final safety tests and gets the go-ahead from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 November 2020
  16. News Article
    In small room in the Royal Derby Hospital, there's a table bearing a laminated sign. "You are not alone," it says. It continues: "Kindness will get you through. Embrace the challenge. Look after each other. You are stronger than you think." This is the "wobble room", set aside not for patients but for front-line staff to get them away - briefly - from the intense pressure and strain experienced in the first wave of COVID-19. "We made a wobble room because that's what we needed," Kelly-Ann Gurney, an intensive-care nurse, told the BBC. "It's a room where staff could just go and sit and cry if they needed to and get it all out and then come back and 'put their face on' and get back into it again." Now the second wave is hitting the hospital, and the need for the room is just as great. Concerns are growing about the physical and mental health of front-line NHS staff. There has been no lull since the April peak of the virus as normal treatments and operations, postponed during the crisis, have returned to hospitals. Caroline Swan, a senior sister and manager of the intensive care unit at the Royal Derby, says she is ready to face what is ahead but feels very tired. "I am also very concerned. My staff are very tired and stressed out. We have a lot of sickness either due to burnout or they are unwell," she says. "A lot of staff have to self-isolate at home - and that puts a lot of strain on staffing here." Dr Magnus Harrison, medical director of the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Trust, says managing rotas is getting harder due to staff sickness and the need for some to self-isolate if family members are infected. "It is worth acknowledging what staff did in the first wave. They behaved tremendously and worked incredibly hard, and we're expecting them to do it again in winter - and Covid numbers could be higher than in the first wave. People are tired out." Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 November 2020
  17. News Article
    One in five COVId-19 patients were diagnosed with a mental illness for the first time within three months of their infection, a study has shown. Mental health experts said the findings, which were based on an analysis of the electronic medical records of 69 million people in the US, suggest that coronavirus survivors could have an increased risk of developing psychiatric disorders. Of the almost 70 million people whose records were examined in the study, 62,354 individuals had confirmed COVID-19 cases. Researchers at the University of Oxford and the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre found that one in five of these patients went on to receive a first time diagnosis of anxiety, depression or insomnia within 90 days of testing positive for the virus. This was roughly twice as high as the figure for other individuals over the same time frame, according to the researchers. People with a history of mental health disorders who contracted the virus were also discovered to be more likely to have new psychiatric diagnoses. Paul Harrison, a psychiatry professor at the University of Oxford who led the research, said: "People have been worried that COVID-19 survivors will be at greater risk of mental health problems, and our findings in a large and detailed study show this to be likely. Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 November 2020
  18. News Article
    The NHS will rollout twice-weekly asymptomatic testing for all patient-facing staff by the end of next week, according to a letter from NHS medical director Stephen Powis. Government said only last week that universal asymptomatic staff testing would start in December, but government has now agreed it will bring this forward to this week for a first tranche of 34 trusts; and all others next week. The tests at 34 trusts this week will cover “over 250,000 staff,” Professor Powis said. He set out plans for the new testing regime in a letter to Commons health and social care committee chair Jeremy Hunt who has been pressing the government for routine staff testing since the summer. “Staff will be asked to test themselves at home twice a week with results available before coming into work,” Professor Powis said. The new testing regime can start following “further scientific validation of the lateral flow testing modality last week, and confirmation over the weekend from Test and Trace that they can now supply the NHS with sufficient test kits”. Read full story Source: HSJ, 9 November 2020
  19. News Article
    Pfizer and BioNTech have said that their coronavirus vaccine may be more than 90% effective, after the two pharmaceutical firms released interim data from their ongoing large-scale trial. Preliminary analysis, conducted by an independent data monitoring board, looked at 94 infections recorded so far in the vaccine’s phase 3 study, which has enrolled nearly 44,000 people in the US and five other countries. Of those participants who were infected with COVID-19, it is currently unclear how many had received the vaccine versus those who had been given a placebo. The current efficacy rate, which is much better than most experts expected, implies that no more than eight volunteers will have been inoculated. The data have yet to be peer-reviewed, and Pfizer said the initial protection rate might change by the time the study ends. The longevity of the immune response provoked by the mRNA-based vaccine also remains unknown. However, the findings are the most promising indication to date that a vaccine will be effective in preventing disease among infected individuals, handing humanity a crucial tool in tackling the pandemic. Pfizer and its German partner BioTech will continue with the phase 3 trial until 164 infections have been reported among volunteers - a figure that will give regulatory authorities a clearer idea of the vaccine’s efficacy. This number is expected to be reached by early December in light of the rising US infection rates, Pfizer said. The two companies said they have so far found no serious safety concerns and expect to seek US emergency use authorisation later this month. Read full story Source: The Independent, 9 November 2020
  20. News Article
    As many as 2,000 people could die because of Covid-related delays in the Welsh NHS, a cancer expert has said. With virus cases rising, Prof Tom Crosby, of the Wales Cancer Network, fears cancer cases missed in the first lockdown may now be harder to treat. Health Secretary Vaughan Gething said it would be "foolish" to have a plan for backlogs before the pandemic is over. But he said work was under way to address the issue with health boards. Alongside the spread of the virus, medical professionals are very worried about deaths that could occur not because of Covid, but due to the backlog of appointments and surgery it is causing. BBC Wales Investigates has been uncovering the full extent of the looming problem facing the NHS. Delays caused by the pandemic are a serious concern to Prof Crosby, who is medical director at the Wales Cancer Network. He said when the pandemic first hit, acute COVID-19 cases became the focus in hospitals at the expense of cancer, cardiac and orthopaedic appointments. "Some of the conversations we've had with patients in the clinic have been really, really challenging," he said. "Then there are thousands of patients who have not come through to the system that usually would have. Some of those are going to have had cancer, and they will not have been diagnosed now." Prof Crosby has been looking at possible outcomes for cancer patients because of delays in diagnosis and treatment. "We have done some modelling work with England, and it has suggested that between 200 and 2,000 excess deaths will occur as a result of undiagnosed or untreated cancer in Wales," he said. "I think the effects on cancer services are going to be here for two to three years." Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 November 2020
  21. News Article
    Some disabled people in the UK have been struggling to obtain essentials such as medication and breathing equipment during the Covid pandemic, research for the BBC suggests. Some 60% of those who rely on social care told a YouGov survey they were finding it hard to obtain at least one of their necessities. Charity WellChild said people felt more "forgotten than they ever have been". But ministers say the needs of disabled people were being considered. The Department of Health and Social Care says it has sufficient stocks and patients should contact their local care provider. Like one in 20 of those survey respondents who receive social care, Fi Anderson, a mother of two with muscular dystrophy from Bolton in Greater Manchester, said she has faced problems obtaining breathing apparatus. Her local hospital told her to re-use the filter for her portable ventilator, recommending she boil it, because supplies were so short. Disabled people who rely on social care - which funds equipment and other support to allow them to live independent lives - also said they had struggled to obtain personal protective equipment (PPE) such as face masks. Many of them receive funding directly to employ carers in their home, so they also need to provide them with PPE during the coronavirus crisis. The survey, which the BBC commissioned to mark the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, asked more than 1,000 people about life in the UK with a disability and how it has changed in the shadow of a pandemic. More than 65% felt their rights had regressed, and 71% said disabled people's needs had been overlooked. The Coronavirus Act, which granted the government emergency powers, gave local councils the ability to reduce care, education and mental health provision for disabled people if it became necessary during the pandemic. According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, nearly six out of 10 deaths from COVID-19 were of disabled people. Read full story Source: BBC News,
  22. News Article
    Nurses will be allowed to look after two critically ill COVID-19 patients at the same time after NHS bosses relaxed the rule requiring one-to-one treatment in intensive care as hospitals come under intense strain. NHS England has decided to temporarily suspend the 1:1 rule as the number of people who are in hospital very sick with Covid has soared to 11,514, of whom 986 are on a ventilator. The move comes amid concern that intensive care units, which went into the pandemic already short of nurses, are being hit by staff being off sick or isolating as a result of Covid. It follows a warning last week by Prof Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, that the Covid resurgence could overwhelm the NHS. Dr Alison Pittard, the dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care, which represents doctors in ICUs, welcomed the shift to a more “flexible” nurse/patient staffing ratio in critical care. But she said it must be used only for as long as the second wave is putting units under serious pressure. “Covid has placed the NHS, and critical care in particular, in an unenviable position and we must admit everyone for whom the benefits of critical care outweigh the burdens. This means relaxing the normal staffing ratios to meet this demand in such a way that delivers safe care, but also takes account of the impact this may have on staff health and wellbeing." “The 1:2 ratio is a maximum ratio, to be used only to support Covid activity, [and] not for planned care, and is not sustainable in the long term. This protects staff and patients”, she said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 November 2020
  23. News Article
    Widespread nursing shortages across the NHS could lead to staff burnout and risk patient safety this winter, the Royal College of Nursing has warned. The nursing union said a combination of staff absence due to the pandemic, and around 40,000 registered nursing vacancies in England was putting too much strain on the remaining workforce. The government says more than 13,000 nurses have been recruited this year. It has committed to 50,000 more nurses by 2025. It also hopes England's four-week lockdown will ease pressure on the NHS. The RCN has expressed concern that staff shortages are affecting every area of nursing, from critical care and cancer services to community nursing, which provides care to people in their own homes. The union said it was worried the extra responsibility and pressure placed on senior nurses could lead to staff "burnout", as hospitals struggle to clear the backlog of cancelled operations from the first wave of coronavirus and cope with rising numbers of new Covid patients, as well as the annual pressures that winter typically brings. Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 November 2020
  24. News Article
    Not a single resident has contracted the coronavirus at Goodwin House’s small residential facility in Northern Virginia, USA, where about 80 seniors live in homey apartments and keep their own sleeping and meal schedules. There’s been just one case at the Woodlands at John Knox Village in Broward County, Fla., where all 140 residents live in private rooms and are cared for by nurses who earn enough not to take a second job. These facilities, part of a national movement in the US to create less-institutionalised long-term care, stand out in a pandemic that has killed more than 61,000 nursing home residents in the US since March. At “Green House” homes, the best-known nontraditional model, residents are one-fifth as likely to get the coronavirus as those who live in typical nursing homes — and one-twentieth as likely to die of the disease it causes. The model has been praised by academics and doctors and seems far better suited than traditional facilities to stave off the spread of infection and the isolation that has devastated the elderly in recent months. But it remains on the fringes of a $137 billion industry. Read full story Source: The Washington Post, 3 November 2020
  25. News Article
    A mass testing pilot of the government's "operation moonshot" has begun in Liverpool. The pilot scheme will see half a million people offered tests, including a new form of rapid testing, even if they do not have symptoms, as Botis Johnson banks on technological advances to steer the nation out of a second wave of COVID-19. Around 2,000 members of the military are helping NHS staff to administer a combination of swab tests and new lateral flow tests which give results within an hour without the need of a lab. Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) tests, which can give results in as little as 20 minutes are being trialled for hospital and care home staff. But it comes as the Guardian reported that some of the technology at the heart of the scheme missed more than 50% of positive coronavirus cases in a Greater Manchester pilot. The OptiGene LAMP test identified only 46.7% of infections during a trial in Manchester and Salford last month, according to a letter from Greater Manchester's mass testing group seen by the newspaper. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said that it was "incorrect" to suggest the rapid test has a low sensitivity, adding that it had been validated in another recent pilot. Read full story Source: Sky News, 6 November 2020
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