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Found 500 results
  1. News Article
    The backlog in routine hospital treatments in England has reached its lowest level for two years. Data for the end of April showed the waiting list dropped to 7.39 million, down from 7.42 million in March. But it is nine years since the NHS has met its target of 92% of patients being seen in 18 weeks – currently it is just below 60%. The government has made meeting the target one of its key missions for this parliament – and on Wednesday announced above-inflation rises for the NHS in the coming years to help achieve it. Responding to the latest figures, Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting, said: "We are putting the NHS on the road to recovery." And he added this was "just the start" as the extra investment announced in the spending review, which will see the NHS budget rise by 3% a year in the next three years, combined with reforms that will be announced in the 10-year plan due next month, would help build on what has been achieved. The drop in the numbers on the waiting list, which covers people waiting for routine treatments like hip and knee operations, came after March saw a rise in numbers – the first time in six months the waiting list had gone up. Although a little bit of fluctuation from month to month is normally seen, the government said it was clear the numbers waiting were on a downward trend. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 June 2025
  2. Event
    We know acute mental health wards are not safe for patients or staff. Efforts to reduce coercion and restrictive practice are often complex and are poorly implemented. Services continue failure to understand incidents and the dynamic milieu of wards in real-time. The staffing and skill mix of services are under constant pressure. Recent research, #WardSonar, has successfully focused on enabling patients to highlight when the pressure on wards is building and can predict when incidents might occur. The challenge remains enabling staff to listen to and respond to real-time data. Register
  3. Content Article
    This update presents statistics from the Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service, a national NHS system for the recording and analysis of patient safety events that occur in healthcare. The LFPSE definition of a patient safety incident is something unexpected or unintended has happened, or failed to happen, that could have or did lead to patient harm for one or more person(s) receiving healthcare. This report shares the patient safety incident data from January to March 2025. Count of Event Types in LFPSE – based on patient safety event records from January 2025 to March 2025 LFPSE brings the feature to record patient safety event types beyond incidents. Recorders can now also upload patient safety risks, outcomes, and instances of good care. This is to ensure the database contains more instances of care that the healthcare system can learn from instead of only detailing errors involving patients. In the current period, 832,301 events were recorded to LFPSE, the majority of which were recorded as patient safety incidents (96.73%). Count of patient safety incidents by maximum physical harm – based on patient safety incident records from January 2025 to March 2025 Grading the degree of harm to a patient resulting from a patient safety incident can be a challenge for recorders, but by grading patient safety incidents according to the harm they cause patients, local organisations can ensure consistency and comparability of data. This consistent approach locally will enable LFPSE to compare, analyse and learn from data nationally. This grading can also be used to “triage” incidents for review both locally and nationally, ensuring the most serious events are looked at first. LFPSE also allows for grading of the psychological harm associated with the recorded patient safety incidents. This is an experimental field which seeks to explore if responses to safety incidents need to be different if psychological harm is considered separately from physical harm, rather than rolling them together into one measure, as was done in the previous National Reporting Learning Service (NRLS). Currently, NHS England states that there is low confidence in the grading of psychological harm, as users familiarise themselves with its use, and as such, it is excluded from this report.
  4. News Article
    Women who tracked their menstrual cycle using smartphone apps have been warned about the privacy and safety risks of doing so. A report from the University of Cambridge's Minderoo Centre said the apps were a "gold mine" for consumer profiling and collecting information. Academics cautioned that in the wrong hands, the data could result in health insurance "discrimination" and risks to job prospects. The apps collect information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use. Academics at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, an independent team of researchers at the university, said this data could give insights into people's health and their reproductive choices. The report added that many women used the apps when they were trying to get pregnant. Researchers said data on who is pregnant, and who wants to be, was some of the "most sought-after information in digital advertising" as it led to a shift in shopping patterns. "Cycle tracking apps (CTA) are a lucrative business because they provide the companies behind the apps with access to extremely valuable and fine-grained user data," they said. "CTA data is not only commercially valuable and shared with an inextricable net of third parties (thereby making intimate user information exploitable for targeted advertising), but it also poses severe security risks for users." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 June 2025
  5. News Article
    A computer file containing the details of cases linked to the NHS’s largest maternity scandal was “intentionally” and “maliciously” deleted, a police investigation has found. Nottinghamshire Police launched a probe earlier this year after records held by Nottinghamshire University Hospitals Foundation Trust (NUH) and linked to the alleged maternity failings were temporarily lost. The data was later recovered and 300 more cases are expected to be added to the inquiry into the scandal after a discrepancy was noted by a coroner. NUH is currently being investigated for potential corporate manslaughter after The Independent revealed babies had died or suffered serious injuries at its maternity units. The investigation into the deleted hospital data is not related to the corporate manslaughter probe. The trust is also the subject of an inquiry led by top midwife Donna Ockenden, who is investigating the cases of 2,400 families who experienced maternity care at the trust, including deaths and injuries. Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 June 2025
  6. News Article
    Almost 100 people have died and 4,000 have been harmed after equipment malfunctions in the NHS in the past three years, prompting calls for more government funding to upgrade broken and obsolete medical devices. A defibrillator advising paramedics not to administer a shock, an emergency alarm system on a neonatal ward failing, and the camera on an intubation device going dark were just three failures after which patients died. They are included in figures released for the first time by NHS England that show patients were harmed after 3,915 equipment malfunction incidents – with 87 being followed by a death – since 2022. Paul Whiteing, the chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents, said: “These are shocking statistics. Behind these numbers are real people who are needlessly harmed, the impact of which will be life-changing and traumatic. “The scale of the harm and loss of life that has resulted from basic equipment failures and malfunctions shows in stark relief the scale of the tragedy that has resulted from years of underfunding in the NHS.” The vast majority of incidents, which were logged by doctors and nurses when a device was broken, not fit for use or didn’t perform as expected, caused a low level of harm. That meant patients were unlikely to need further treatment beyond dressing changes or short courses of oral medicine. There were 522 moderate harm incidents, in which a patient’s independence could be limited for up to six months. Meanwhile, on top of the 87 deaths, 68 patients were severely harmed – meaning they could have received permanent damage from the incident, or had a reduced life expectancy. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 June 2025
  7. News Article
    NHS England has paused a major AI project after concerns were raised about how the primary care records of 57 million people were used to train it. The Joint General Practice IT Committee (JGPITC) – a collaboration between the Royal College of General Practitioners and the British Medical Association – wrote to NHSE last month to question the lawfulness of the Foresight AI project. Foresight is the result of a data sharing agreement between NHSE and a consortium of researchers brought together by the British Heart Foundation. It will be used to predict potential future outcomes for patients that could be used to identify opportunities for early intervention. In its letter, the JGPITC said it was “very surprised and extremely concerned” to learn of the project, which used the GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research dataset to train the AI model. The committee said it had “serious concerns about the lawfulness of the data use for this project” and the “apparent absence of strict governance arrangements”. An NHSE spokesperson said: “Maintaining patient privacy is central to this project and we are grateful to the Joint GP IT Committee for raising its concerns and meeting with us to discuss the strict governance and controls in place to ensure patients’ data remains secure.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 June 2025
  8. News Article
    The proportion of people surviving cancer in the UK has doubled since the 1970s amid a “golden age” of progress in diagnosis and treatment, a report says. Half of those diagnosed will now survive for 10 years or more, up from 24%, according to the first study of 50 years of data on cancer mortality and cases. The rate of people dying from cancer has fallen by 23% since the 1970s, from 328 in every 100,000 people to 252. But cancer remains the UK’s biggest killer, the report by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) says. Progress has not been equal across all cancers, and women have not reaped as many benefits as men. There have been greater improvements in survival for men since the 1970s but survival remains higher in women. Sustained pressure in the NHS means patients wait too long to get diagnosed and start treatment. In England, only about half of cancers are diagnosed at an early stage, and this proportion has not improved for almost a decade. The CRUK chief executive, Michelle Mitchell, said: “Over the last 50 years, the proportion of the population dying from cancer has fallen by more than a fifth because of life-saving research into new ways to prevent people developing the disease, detect it earlier when they do and develop new cutting-edge treatments. “Yet cancer remains the UK’s biggest killer, causing around one in four deaths in the UK – far more than other disease groups. For people affected by cancer, this means lost time and fewer precious moments with loved ones. “As this report sets out, it is a time of both optimism and realism. We’re in a golden age for cancer research, with advances in digital, genomics, data science and AI reimagining what’s possible and bringing promise for current and future generations. “However, despite the best efforts of NHS staff, patients are waiting too long for diagnosis and treatment, and cancer survival is improving at its slowest rate in the last 50 years. This is not acceptable.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 June 2025
  9. Content Article
    The annual Cancer in the UK report summarises key data across the cancer pathway, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. It looks at where progress is being made and what challenges remain in the UK. Evidence in this report shows that improvements can be made across the cancer pathway – preventing cancers, diagnosing patients earlier and ensuring patients have access to the best treatment options – to attain outcomes that are among the best in the world. The report concludes by setting out the priority actions that are vital to addressing challenges faced by cancer services and lays out how data-led insights can strengthen our ability to beat cancer
  10. Content Article
    The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System (PA-PSRS) is the largest patient safety data repository of its kind in the United States and one of the largest globally, housing over 5 million reports submitted since 2004. This article presents data from reports submitted to PA-PSRS in 2024. In 2024, 315,418 reports were submitted to PA-PSRS, marking a 9.5% increase from 2023. Reports of serious events rose by 7.3%, while high harm events increased by 1.1%. Of all reports, 96.0% came from hospitals, while 4.0% originated from nonhospital facilities (ambulatory surgical facilities (ASFs), birthing centres, and abortion facilities). The vast majority (96.0%) were incidents, while the remaining 4.0% were classified as serious events. Preliminary 2024 reporting rates show 32.2 reports per 1,000 patient days for hospitals and 11.4 reports per 1,000 surgical encounters for ASFs, with both rates increasing by 1.1 points from 2023 Error Related to Procedure/Treatment/Test (P/T/T) remained the most frequently reported event type overall, accounting for 33.4% of reports from all facilities combined and 47.6% from nonhospital facilities. Among serious events, Complication of P/T/T was the most common type, making up 57.7% of serious event reports from all facilities combined and 71.4% from nonhospital facilities.
  11. News Article
    The US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, which he branded “corrupt”, and to instead create alternative publications run by the state. Kennedy outlined plans to launch government-run journals that would become “the preeminent journals” because National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding would anoint researchers “as a good, legitimate scientist”. The three publications Kennedy targeted are among the most influential medical journals globally, established in the 19th century and now central to disseminating peer-reviewed medical research worldwide. The Lancet and Jama each report more than 30m annual website visits, while the New England Journal of Medicine claims more than 1 million weekly readers. Read full article Source: The Guardian, 28 May 2025
  12. News Article
    Keir Starmer made slashing NHS waiting times one of his priorities, and his Labour government has already claimed it as one of its biggest achievements so far. But new data tells a different story - and the public aren't noticing an improvement. "The target was never particularly ambitious," says the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) about Labour's plan to add two million extra NHS appointments during their first year in power. In February, Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced they had achieved the feat early. He recently described the now 3.6m additional appointments achieved in their first eight months as a "massive increase". But new data, obtained by independent fact checking charity Full Fact and shared exclusively with Sky News, reveals this figure actually signalled a slowing down in new NHS activity. The data also reveals how unambitious the target was in the first place. We now know two million extra appointments over the course of a year represents a rise of less than 3% of the almost 70 million carried out in the year to June 2024. Responding to the findings, Sarah Scobie, deputy director of independent health and social care think tank the Nuffield Trust, told Sky News the two million target was "very modest". She said delivering that number of appointments "won't come close to bringing the treatment waiting list back to pre-pandemic levels, or to meeting longer-term NHS targets". Read full story Source: Sky News, 23 May 2025
  13. Content Article
    The deletions began shortly after Donald Trump took office. CDC web pages on vaccines, HIV prevention, and reproductive health went missing. Findings on bird-flu transmission vanished minutes after they appeared.  On 7 February, Trump sacked the head of the National Archives and Records Administration. More than a hundred and ten thousand government pages have gone dark in a purge that one scientist likened to a “digital book burning.” Racing to comply with executive orders banning “DEI” and “gender ideology extremism,” agencies have cut materials on everything from supporting transgender youth in school to teaching children about sickle-cell disease, which disproportionately affects people of African descent. But they have also axed records having little to do with the Administration’s ideological priorities, seemingly assisted by AI tools that flag forbidden words without regard to context.  However, a coalition of archivists and librarians are trying to save this data and knowledge. They belong to organisations such as the Internet Archive, which co-created a project called the End of Term Web Archive to back up the federal web in 2008; the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, or EDGI; and libraries at major universities such as MIT and the University of Michigan. Here's where to continue accessing important information. Data Rescue Project Restored CDC Source Cooperative Wayback Machine
  14. Content Article
    This briefing from the Health Foundation compares trends in mortality within the UK and with 21 high-income countries, based on new research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The findings are stark, underlining deep inequalities in health between different parts of the UK and a worrying decline in UK health compared with international peers. Key points: Improvements in UK mortality rates slowed significantly in the 2010s, more than in most of the other countries studied. By 2023, the UK female mortality rate was 14% higher than the median of peer countries and the UK male mortality rate was 9% higher. For both, the gap to the median widened significantly after 2011, and the UK’s ranking relative to peer countries has now worsened. Improvements in mortality rates slowed across all UK nations and regions in the 2010s – but there are significant geographic inequalities. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have higher mortality rates than England. Scotland is performing particularly poorly – of the countries studied, in 2021 only the US had a worse mortality rate. In 2021, mortality rates were 20% higher in the North East and North West of England than in the South West. People aged 25–49 have seen a particularly pronounced relative worsening of mortality rates. In 2023, UK female mortality rates for this age group were 46% higher than the median of peer countries, while male rates were 31% higher. Of the other countries studied, only Canada and the US experienced a similar worsening of mortality rates among this age group over the 2010s. This worsening of mortality rates is a sign of ill health in the working-age population, acting as a drag on economic growth. Of the main three causes of death for people aged 25–49, mortality rates for cancers and circulatory diseases improved between 2001 and 2019, but rates worsened for deaths from external causes. Deaths from external causes explain between 70% and 80% of the divergence in UK mortality rates compared with the median of peer countries over this period. While in the 2010s alcohol-related mortality rates for people aged 25–49 plateaued or declined and mortality rates for suicide (and undetermined intent) slightly increased, the rate of drug-related deaths rose sharply. In contrast, rates of drug-related deaths continued to decline for peer countries. As a result, the drug-related mortality rate in the UK was more than three times higher in 2019 than the median of peer countries. Geographic inequalities in drug-related deaths are stark among people aged 25–49. In 2019, the drug-related mortality rate in Scotland was around 4 times higher than in England. Within England, the drug-related mortality rate in the North East was 3.5 times higher for men and almost 4 times higher for women than in London. With the UK comparing poorly with many other high-income countries, improvement is both possible and urgently needed. This will require long-term action for economic recovery in areas of long run industrial decline; a strong focus on prevention; investment in public health services and action to address risk factors such as smoking, alcohol and poor diet; and a concerted effort to tackle drug-related deaths. These actions should be brought together in a clear strategy for tackling health inequalities. The UK government’s health mission promised just such an approach, but progress so far has been slow. This needs to change or the UK’s health will fall further behind its international peers.
  15. Content Article
    This update presents statistics from the Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service, a national NHS system for the recording and analysis of patient safety events that occur in healthcare. The LFPSE definition of a patient safety incident is something unexpected or unintended has happened, or failed to happen, that could have or did lead to patient harm for one or more person(s) receiving healthcare. This report shares the patient safety incident data from October to December 2024. Count of Event Types in LFPSE – based on patient safety event records from October 2024 to December 2024 LFPSE brings the feature to record patient safety event types beyond incidents. Recorders can now also upload patient safety risks, outcomes, and instances of good care. This is to ensure the database contains more instances of care that the healthcare system can learn from instead of only detailing errors involving patients. In this period, 814,560 events were recorded to LFPSE, the majority of which were recorded as patient safety incidents (96.46%). Count of patient safety incidents by maximum physical harm – based on patient safety records from October 2024 to December 2024 Grading the degree of harm to a patient resulting from a patient safety incident can be a challenge for recorders, but by grading patient safety incidents according to the harm they cause patients, local organisations can ensure consistency and comparability of data. This consistent approach locally will enable LFPSE to compare, analyse and learn from data nationally. This grading can also be used to “triage” incidents for review both locally and nationally, ensuring the most serious events are looked at first. LFPSE also allows for grading of the psychological harm associated with the recorded patient safety incidents. This is an experimental field which seeks to explore if responses to safety incidents need to be different if psychological harm is considered separately from physical harm, rather than rolling them together into one measure, as was done in the previous National Reporting Learning Service (NRLS). Currently, NHS England states that there is low confidence in the grading of psychological harm, as users familiarise themselves with its use, and as such, it is excluded from this report.
  16. News Article
    A groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) model is being trained using NHS data from 57 million people in England in the hope it could predict disease and complications before they occur. The world-first study, spearheaded by researchers at University College London (UCL) and King’s College London (KCL), has the potential to “unlock a healthcare revolution”, officials said. The AI, known as Foresight, uses technology similar to that of ChatGPT, however, instead of predicting text, Foresight analyses a patient's medical history to forecast potential future health issues. As part of the pilot, it will be trained using eight routinely collected datasets, including hospital admissions, A&E attendances and Covid-19 vaccination rates, which have been stripped of personal information. “Foresight is a really exciting step towards being able to predict disease and complications before they happen, giving us a window to intervene and enabling a shift towards more preventative healthcare at scale,” Dr Chris Tomlinson of UCL said. Read full story Source: The Independent, 7 May 2025
  17. News Article
    More than 1 million older people a year in England are forced to wait longer than 12 hours in A&E, with many having to endure “degrading and dehumanising” corridor waits on trolleys. The number aged 60 and over waiting more than 12 hours to be transferred, admitted or discharged increased to 1.15 million in 2024, up from 991,068 in 2023. The figure was 305,619 in 2019, according to data obtained by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) under freedom of information laws. A report by the RCEM also found the risk of a 12-hour wait in an emergency department in England increased with the age of the patient. People aged 60 to 69 had a 15% chance of waiting 12 hours or more. For those aged 90 and over, the likelihood rose to 33%. “The healthcare system is failing our most vulnerable patients – more than a million last year,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the RCEM. “These people are our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. “They aren’t receiving the level of care they need, as they endure the longest stays in our emergency departments, often suffering degrading and dehumanising corridor care. It’s an alarming threat to patient safety. We know long stays are dangerous, especially for those who are elderly, and puts people’s lives at risk.” As well as long waits, the RCEM report found many older people were missing out on vital checks in A&E. Of patients aged over 75, only 16% were screened for delirium – a reversible condition linked to an increased risk of death. Fewer than half (48%) of patients were screened for their risk of falls. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 May 2025
  18. Event
    This webinar will have an emphasis on the role of local Healthwatch organisations and it will provide practical guidance on how Healthwatch can safeguard patient data, adhere to regulations, and ensure trust in healthcare services. It will be looking at: Importance of cybersecurity and data protection Role of local Healthwatch in data and cyber protection Cybersecurity threats in healthcare Best practices for data security Legal framework for data protection Collaboration with healthcare providers Who can attend? This joint event with Healthwatch England is designed for adult health and social care providers in England and are aimed at people who make decisions about the use of technology in care services. For Healthwatch staff who support this sector. This might also include: Owners Registered Managers Nurses Senior Care Staff Domiciliary Care Administrators IT Professionals Quality & Compliance Leads Register
  19. Content Article
    Most people acknowledge the limitations of discussing productivity in healthcare. The term productivity is taken from other sectors and easily applied to industrial settings but not to the complex, patient-centred business of caring for people. Productivity is essentially the output, in terms of quantity (and sometimes quality), produced relative to input. In its broadest sense in healthcare, productivity can encompass activities such as detecting diseases earlier, giving patients better quality of care, and getting better outcomes. However, it is often discussed in sweeping statistics and numbers. Despite recognising the limitations of productivity as a measure, people in healthcare continue to obsess about it and we really must stop, writes Jessamy Bagenal in this Lancet commentary, giving several compelling reasons why. 
  20. Content Article
    In this podcast interview series, NHS whistleblower Peter Duffy and Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive Helen Hughes explore how the healthcare system responds when its staff raise concerns about patient safety. In each episode, Helen and Peter interview someone who has spoken up about patient safety issues in healthcare organisations, or who works to help staff raise concerns where they see unsafe care. In this episode, Beatrice Fraenkel, ergonomist and Non Executive Director at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust discusses the importance of understanding the issues that lead to poor culture and harm in healthcare organisations. She describes the Board's radical approach to establishing a Just Culture during her time as Chair of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and the huge investment needed to build trust between healthcare staff and their employers. She also talks with Peter and Helen about the importance of understanding the needs, views and emotions of people in the wider community that each trust serves. They discuss the universal impact of fear and anxiety on human behaviour and the need to ensure lessons are really understood before attempting to put solutions in place to tackle issues, on any scale. Subscribe to our YouTube podcast to keep up to date with the latest episodes. View a transcript of this interview Read a blog from Peter and Helen about the interview series
  21. Content Article
    This update highlights the significant achievements across the strategy’s national patient safety programmes. Martha’s Rule Martha’s Rule gives patients, families and staff a way to request a rapid review if they are worried that deterioration is not being addressed Piloted across 143 acute hospital sites and launched in May 2024. Between September 2024 and February 2025: - 2,389 calls made to escalate concerns; 73% from families seeking help and 47% relating to acute deterioration. 129 potentially life-saving interventions triggered, including: - 57 urgent admissions to high dependency or intensive care units - 60 transfers to specialist services (coronary care, respiratory care, return to theatre) - Changes in care for a further 336 cases, for example the introduction of a new medication such as an antibiotic. Calls unrelated to acute deterioration are also improving patient care, including: - 340 calls led to clinical concerns such as medication delays being addressed - 448 calls resolved communication issues. Maternity and neonatal care 1,499 neonatal lives saved through safer care bundle interventions, including improvements in optimal cord management and the administration of antenatal steroids 518 fewer premature babies with cerebral palsy from the administration of magnesium sulphate during pre-term labour; the estimated saving in lifetime care costs is £518 million Medicines safety 1,900 deaths prevented through medicines safety initiatives £9 million saved in admission costs Better management of long-term opioid use has significantly contributed to this. Against the 2021 baseline, data to November 2024 shows: - 596 lives saved over 2 years - a projected 1,802 lives saved from reversing the rising trend in opioid use - 3% reduction in high-dose opioid prescribing - 12,657 fewer patients a month on high-dose opioids, halving their risk of death from opioids - 5% sustained reduction in rate of opioid prescribing for chronic use. Safer use of valproate and oral anticoagulants, fewer incidents of gastric bleeding, methotrexate overdose and drug-induced acute kidney injury Early identification of deterioration (in addition to Martha’s Rule) New early warning system for staff treating children launched November 2023. Supporting 1,621 care homes to identify deterioration, reducing 999 calls, emergency admissions and length of hospital stays. Testing of PIER resources that help systems prevent, identify, escalate and respond to physical deterioration. Transforming how we learn and respond to patient safety events. Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), a revolutionary new approach to incident response that centres on maximising learning and patient safety improvement now implemented in every NHS secondary care provider and being piloted in 50+ GP practices. Embeds systems thinking and improved engagement with patients, families and staff, promoting a patient safety culture. Providers report they are better able to identify safety priorities and act quickly. Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service: full implementation by November 2024 across all NHS trusts of new national system for recording and learning from patient safety events. Real-time incident reporting across the NHS, with over 3 million patient safety events recorded each year. National medical examiner system National medical examiner system developed: local medical examiner offices cover the whole of England and Wales. Requirement for medical examiners to provide independent review of all deaths became statutory in September 2024. This system also provides enhanced support for bereaved families to ask questions and raise concerns about care, helping to identify hundreds of patient safety incidents that can then be responded to. Identifying and responding to patient safety risks The National Patient Safety Team’s statutory function to identify and act on emerging safety risks, including by issuing National Patient Safety Alerts. Annually this: - saves 160 lives - prevents 480 severe harm incidents - saves £13.5 million in treatment costs. New approach to National Patient Safety Alerts developed, including accreditation of alert issuing organisations. Building capability and capacity to address safety challenges Patient safety leadership Network of over 800 patient safety specialists created; they provide expert patient safety leadership, guidance and support at NHS organisations across England All patient safety specialists offered in-depth training in patient safety (see below) Patient safety training and education The first National patient safety syllabus launched in 2022 Over 1.47 million staff completions of the essentials for patient safety’ training Over 850,000 completions of the level 2 access to practice training. This is for staff who want to understand more about patient safety or go on to access higher levels of training Over 70,000 completions of the level 1 training for boards and senior leaders All patient safety specialists offered training in the advanced levels 3 and 4 of the syllabus – almost 500 completions to date 3,000+ digital clinical safety training completions Involving patients and the public in patient safety Framework for involving patients in patient safety published in 2021 Patient safety partner role introduced to enhance the involvement of patients in patient safety work at a national and local level From 2025/26 it will be an NHS Standard Contract requirement for all NHS trusts to have appointed and work with patient safety partners Simple steps to keep you safe during your hospital stay video and leaflet for patients developed Strengthening national patient safety systems Digital clinical safety strategy published September 2021 Primary care patient safety strategy published September 2024 Improving patient safety culture – a practical guide published July 2023 – setting out approaches for NHS organisations to improve their patient safety culture National work on assessing patient safety inequalities started to understand how harm is experienced unequally by different groups.
  22. Content Article
    In today’s digital era, data is generated at an unprecedented scale. Healthcare is no exception— data is produced continuously as a result of our interactions with healthcare organisations - community, acute and tertiary alike. The challenge for healthcare institutions and their governance systems is to utilise this rich healthcare data  effectively and efficiently to improve patient outcomes. Towards this objective, AI is emerging as a key enabling tool. Infection prevention and control (IPC) units have varied work streams - infection surveillance, patient pathway monitoring, novel pathogen intelligence, policy and guidance directives and are best poised to take a leading role in utilising healthcare data to increase the impact of these activities.   IPC is poised to embrace the transformative potential of AI, ensuring its services evolve in step with technological advances.  Achieving this will require a multi-pronged approach to support the parallel development of both AI capabilities and IPC services.
  23. Content Article
    Lord Darzi’s review into the future of the NHS  calls for a “tilt towards technology” to unlock greater productivity. But there’s a hard reality: many parts of the NHS aren’t yet ready to take advantage of what tech has to offer. Meaning, there’s a missed opportunity for trusts to streamline operations and transform care. Only one in five NHS organisations are considered “digitally mature”. And despite lots of progress in the last decade, there are still areas of the NHS relying on paper and non-digital processes. It makes embracing new technologies, such as AI, feel like an unattainable goal – one that goes beyond moving the health service from analogue to digital. As we enter this new era for the NHS, data and digital skills across the workforce will be fundamental to improving patient care, streamlining processes, and making cost savings.
  24. News Article
    Two hospital trusts have recorded high adjusted mortality rates for five of the past seven years, according to HSJ analysis of maternity safety audit findings. The annual MBRRACE (Mothers and babies: reducing risk through audits and confidential enquiries) study of perinatal mortality and stillbirths compares adjusted death rates using a range of factors — such as health conditions, deprivation, and ethnicity — and then measures each hospital against a comparator group. A trust is given a “red” rating if its adjusted death rate is at least 5% above the average of its group of trusts with similar facilities and numbers of births. HSJ analysis of the seven years for which the audit has comparable data shows there are seven trusts that had at least three “red” ratings. Several of the trusts said they believed their case-mix and populations were not fully adjusted for. Some argue they take births where the baby has a very low chance of survival because of a heart or other condition, for example, and that this is not accounted for by MBRRACE. The MBRRACE spokesperson added: “It is essential that care providers review their own data alongside other sources and conduct systematic reviews of each death using the perinatal mortality review tool. We strongly recommend this for all providers.” Pauline McDonagh Hull, a research analyst at the University of Calgary in Canada, who led a similar review of audit ratings published in the Journal of Public Health, told HSJ: “MBRRACE recommended local reviews or investigations at all those falling into red or amber bands. We need to ask whether these have been taking place, what they found, and what, if any, changes were implemented, and if they haven’t been happening, why not? “Similarly, has MBBRACE-UK, NHS England, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Care Quality Commission or anyone else followed up on these annual recommendations?” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 March 2025
  25. News Article
    President Donald Trump signed an executive order 20 March to give more latitude to federal agency heads seeking access to government data systems. The order, titled 'Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos, is written to promote “inter-agency data sharing” to root out inefficiencies. The Department of Health and Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of the Treasury and other federal agencies will be required to rescind or modify guidance that restricts access to unclassified records, data, software systems and information technology systems. It is the latest red flag for privacy experts concerned over the Trump administration’s seeming disregard for privacy norms and personal data. “This is the loudest signal yet to federal agencies that they’re expected to ignore privacy and security safeguards and give the Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] full control over the data they hold,” said John Davisson, director of litigation and senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Nominally limiting DOGE access to what is ‘consistent with law’ is meaningless when the administration is already systematically violating federal privacy laws.” Musk and the DOGE have previously accessed sensitive systems at the Treasury and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Media reports indicate they have been interested in contracting data at the CMS Acquisition Lifecycle Management system, as well as data at the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS), which contains personally identifiable information on health program beneficiaries. Read full story Source: Fierce Healthcare, 21 March 2025
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