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Found 237 results
  1. Content Article
  2. Content Article
    This webinar discusses: how we currently respond to harm how restorative justice practices differ why restorative justice is important in this complex healthcare environment application to practice.
  3. News Article
    NHS England and Improvement have launched an independent review into the care and death of a man with learning disabilities, following concerns raised by HSJ. The regulator has appointed Beverley Dawkins to carry out an independent review of the case of Clive Treacy, as part of the learning disability mortality review programme. Clive, who died in 2017, had previously been denied a review under LeDer and, according to emails seen by HSJ, his death was never officially recorded by the programme, which is meant to record all deaths of people with a learning disability. NHS England and Improvement overturned the decision earlier this year after HSJ presented evidence of a series of failures in his care between 2012 and 2017. Today, it was confirmed to us that Ms Dawkins has been commissioned to carry out the review, and that it would review his care throughout his life, as well as his death. Read full story Source: HSJ, 23 July 2020
  4. News Article
    Hospital bosses at scandal-hit Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust were more concerned with reputation management than addressing patient safety concerns in its maternity department, according to a new NHS investigation. Families harmed by poor care at the trust have called for chairman Ben Reid to resign after the report by NHS England revealed how senior figures in the trust, including the former chief executive, tried to soften a report into maternity services that raised serious concerns over safety. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) report was not published until after the college had agreed to an “unprecedented” addendum report 12 months after its inspection in 2017, that presented the trust in a more positive light. When the final report was made public in July 2018 the addendum was placed at the front of the report. The original RCOG report warned: “Neonatal and perinatal mortality rates will not improve until areas of poor / substandard care are addressed.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 July 2020
  5. News Article
    Hundreds more cases of potentially avoidable baby deaths, stillbirths and brain damage have emerged at an NHS trust, raising concerns about a possible cover-up of the true extent of one the biggest scandals in the health service’s history. The additional 496 cases raise further serious concerns about maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust since 2000. The cases involving stillbirths, neonatal deaths or baby brain damage, as well as a small number of maternal deaths, have been passed to an independent maternity review, led by the midwifery expert Donna Ockenden. They bring the total number of cases being examined to 1,862. They will also be passed to West Mercia police, which last month launched a criminal investigation into the trust’s maternity services. Detectives are trying to establish whether there is enough evidence to bring charges of corporate manslaughter against the trust or individual manslaughter charges against staff involved. The extra 496 cases had not emerged until now because an “open book” initiative led by the NHS in 2018 asked only for digital records of cases identified as a cause for serious concerns. The vast majority of the 496 further cases were recorded only in paper documents. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 July 2020
  6. News Article
    More than 16% of people who had tested positive for coronavirus when they died were from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, new data shows. On Monday, NHS England released data showing the ethnic breakdown of people who have died with coronavirus for the first time. The statistics come days after a review was announced to examine what appears to be a disproportionate number of BAME people who have been affected by Covid-19. Last week Downing Street confirmed the NHS and Public Health England will lead the review of evidence, following pressure on ministers to launch an investigation. Discussing the review, Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said ethnicity is "less clear" than three others factors in determining who is most at risk from coronavirus. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 April 2020
  7. Content Article
  8. News Article
    Frontline NHS staff will be given specialist ‘air accident investigation’ style training to help improve the way the health service learns from patient safety incidents. Cranfield University, which has been training air, maritime and rail safety investigators for more than 40 years, is to launch the first intensive course for NHS staff responsible for investigating safety incidents in hospitals. It is part of a growing effort to install a safety science approach to avoidable harm in the NHS, with the service increasingly looking to other industries to adopt new approaches based on the science of human factors and just culture. Traditionally the NHS has focused on simpler investigations that too often miss systemic causes of mistakes and instead target individual nurses and doctors for blame. The new one week intensive course, run in partnership with the charity Baby Lifeline, will start in January and will give students a basic grounding in the science of investigation and using real-life actors and a maternity based scenario, show participants how to get to the real causes of what went wrong. Read full story Source: The Independent, 20 July 2020
  9. Content Article
  10. News Article
    The list is a dismal and shameful one - Mid-Staffordshire, Morecambe Bay, the rogue surgeon Ian Paterson, maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford. All are patient safety scandals involving tragic stories of life-changing mistreatment of patients and, in some cases, the loss of loved ones. Pledges have been made that patient safety will be put front and centre of health policy. New regulators have been put in place. But now yet another review has found the health system in England to be "disjointed, siloised and defensive" and that the culture needs a shake-up. It has called for a new patient safety champion with legal powers to be put in place. The plan is to have an individual with "real standing" outside and independent of the system, accountable to the parliamentary Health and Social Care Select Committee. The Commissioner would be expected to take up and investigate patient complaints where appropriate, and hold organisations to account - the review had stated that the failure of health authorities to respond to concerns was a recurrent theme. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 July 2020
  11. News Article
    A hospital trust at the centre of Britain’s largest ever maternity scandal has widespread failings across departments and is getting worse, the care regulator has warned as it calls for NHS bosses to take urgent action. Ted Baker, chief inspector of hospitals, urged NHS England to intervene over the “worsening picture” at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, which is already facing a criminal investigation. There are as many as 1,500 cases being examined after mothers and babies died and were left with serious disabilities due to poor care going back decades in the trust’s maternity units. Now, in a leaked letter seen by The Independent, Prof Baker has warned national health chiefs that issues are still present today across wards at the trust – with inspectors uncovering poor care in recent visits that led to “continued and unnecessary harm” for patients. He raised the prospect that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) could recommend the trust be placed into special administration for safety reasons, which has only been done once in the history of the NHS – at the former Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, where a public inquiry found hundreds of patients suffered avoidable harm and neglect because of widespread systemic poor care. In a rarely seen intervention, Prof Baker’s letter to NHS England’s chief operating officer, Amanda Pritchard, warned there were “ongoing and escalating concerns regarding patient safety” and that poor care was becoming “normalised” at the trust, which serves half a million people with its two hospitals – the Royal Shrewsbury and Telford’s Princess Royal. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 July 2020
  12. News Article
    Across the country there have been reports of “do not resuscitate” (DNR) orders being imposed on patients with no consultation, as is their legal right, or after a few minutes on the phone as part of a blanket process. Laurence Carr, a former detective chief superintendent for Merseyside Police, is still angry over the actions of doctors at Warrington Hospital who imposed an unlawful “do not resuscitate” order on his sister, Maria, aged 64. She has mental health problems and lacks the capacity to be consulted or make decisions and has been living in a care home for 20 years. As her main relative, Mr Carr found out about the notice on her records only when she was discharged to a different hospital a week later. Maria had been admitted for a urinary tract infection at the end of March. Although she has diabetes and an infection on her leg her condition was not life threatening. Mr Carr said: “My sister has no capacity to effectively be consulted due to her mental illness and would not understand if they did try to explain, so I was furious that I had not been consulted." He later learnt that the reason given by the hospital for imposing the DNR was "multiple comorbitidies". In a statement, Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust said it was fully aware of the law, which was reflected in its policies and regular training. It said: “We did not follow our own policy in this case and have the requisite discussions with the family. The template form which was completed in this case indicates that discussion with the family was ‘awaiting’. Regretfully due to human error this did not occur." Mr Carr and his sister are not alone. National charity Turning Point said it had learnt of 19 inappropriate DNARs from families, while Learning Disability England said almost one-fifth of its members had reported DNARs placed in people’s medical records without consultation during March and April. Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 July 2020
  13. News Article
    Only two out of 23 recommendations from a royal college review into a trust’s troubled maternity services can be shown to be fully implemented, a new investigation has revealed. A learning and review committee, set up by East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust, found that 11 more of the recommendations from a 2016 review by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) were “partially” implemented. But it said there was either no evidence the remaining 10 had been delivered, or there was evidence they were not implemented. The original RCOG review looked at a number of cases where babies had died as well as broader issues within the maternity service at the trust. The committee was set up after an inquest into the death of Harry Richford, who died a week after his birth in 2017 at the trust’s Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Hospital in Thanet. Many of the issues which came to light at his inquest echoed those from the RCOG report. Committee chair Des Holden, medical director of Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network, highlighted the difficulties in tracking evidence and action plans during a time when the trust had significant changes in leadership. But he said the committee felt cases where evidence could not be found or the standard of evidence gave concern, the recommendations could not be said to be met. Derek Richford, Harry’s grandfather, said on behalf of the family: “We are saddened and shocked to find that over four years after the RCOG found fundamental systemic failings and made 23 recommendations, only two have been completed. It is not good enough for them to now say ‘leadership has changed’. The main board must take responsibility and be held to account.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 July 2020
  14. News Article
    Daniel Mason was born half a century ago without hands, with missing toes, a malformed mouth and impaired vision. From an early age, he and his family had to deal with people asking about his disabilities. The impact on his life has been considerable. Daniel’s mother Daphne long suspected the cause of his problems was a powerful hormone tablet called Primodos that was given to women to determine whether they were pregnant. But when she raised her concerns with doctors, they were dismissed. Now, at last, Daphne has been vindicated with official confirmation this week that her fears were right, in the landmark review by Baroness Cumberlege into three separate health scandals that has exposed a litany of shameful failings by the NHS, regulatory authorities and private hospitals. This damning report shows again the danger of placing a public service on a pedestal, with politicians happy to spout platitudes but scared to tackle systemic problems or confront the medical establishment. But how many more of these inquiries must be held? How many more disturbing reports and reviews must be written? How many more times must we listen to ministerial apologies to betrayed patients? How much more must we hear of ‘lessons being learned’ when clearly they are largely ignored? Read full story Source: Mail Online, 9 July 2020
  15. News Article
    The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has published its response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. In its response, the MHRA said: “Today’s publication of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review is of profound importance for the MHRA, since the safety of the public is our first priority." "We therefore take this report and its findings extremely seriously. Throughout the Review’s work we have listened intently to the many distressing experiences of women and their families. We will now carefully study the findings and recommendations of the Report. We recognise that patient safety must be continually protected and that many of the major changes recommended by the Review cannot wait. We are therefore making changes without delay to ensure that we listen to patients and involve them in every aspect of our work. We are already taking steps to strengthen our collaboration with all bodies in the healthcare system and will strive to ensure that, working with these other bodies, the safety changes we advise are embedded without delay in clinical practice. We wholeheartedly commit to demonstrating to those patients and families who have shared their experiences during the Review, and anyone else who has suffered, that we have learned from them and are changing and improving because of what they have told us. We are determined to put patients and the public at the heart of everything we do." Read full statement Source: GOV.UK, 8 July 2020
  16. Content Article
    Recommendations The Government should immediately issue a fulsome apology on behalf of the healthcare system to the families affected by Primodos, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. The appointment of a Patient Safety Commissioner who would be an independent public leader with a statutory responsibility. The Commissioner would champion the value of listening to patients and promoting users’ perspectives in seeking improvements to patient safety around the use of medicines and medical devices. A new independent Redress Agency for those harmed by medicines and medical devices should be created based on models operating effectively in other countries. The Redress Agency will administer decisions using a non-adversarial process with determinations based on avoidable harm looking at systemic failings, rather than blaming individuals Separate schemes should be set up for each intervention – HPTs, valproate and pelvic mesh – to meet the cost of providing additional care and support to those who have experienced avoidable harm and are eligible to claim. Networks of specialist centres should be set up to provide comprehensive treatment, care and advice for those affected by implanted mesh; and separately for those adversely affected by medications taken during pregnancy. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) needs substantial revision particularly in relation to adverse event reporting and medical device regulation. It needs to ensure that it engages more with patients and their outcomes. It needs to raise awareness of its public protection roles and to ensure that patients have an integral role in its work. A central patient-identifiable database should be created by collecting key details of the implantation of all devices at the time of the operation. This can then be linked to specifically created registers to research and audit the outcomes both in terms of the device safety and patient reported outcomes measures. Transparency of payments made to clinicians needs to improve. The register of the General Medical Council (GMC) should be expanded to include a list of financial and non-pecuniary interests for all doctors, as well as doctors’ particular clinical interests and their recognised and accredited specialisms. In addition, there should be mandatory reporting for pharmaceutical and medical device industries of payments made to teaching hospitals, research institutions and individual clinicians. The Government should immediately set up a task force to implement this Review’s recommendations. Its first task should be to set out a timeline for their implementation. Response from Patient Safety Learning Patient Safety Learning welcomes the publication of the First Do No Harm report today from the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. The Chair of the review, Baroness Julia Cumberlege, highlighted in this that they found the healthcare system to be "disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive" to the patients effected by these issues. She also noted that: ‘The system is not good enough at spotting trends in practice and outcomes that give rise to safety concerns. Listening to patients is pivotal to that’ The report highlighted some key themes consistent with other major patient safety failures: Patients not being engaged in their care: Lacking the information required to make informed choices, awareness of how to report problems and their experiences not being recognised. Ineffective reporting: Data not being utilised to identify and address patient safety issues. Existing reporting systems not being effective enough to capture this information and share learning widely. Blame culture: Persistent failure to acknowledge when things go wrong for fear of blame, reducing the ability to address threats to patient safety. Patient Safety Learning considers that patient safety is currently treated as one of many priorities to be weighed against each other. We think it is wrong that safety is negotiable. Patient safety must be core to the purpose of healthcare, reflected in everything that it does.
  17. News Article
    Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned ministers not to let the Cumberlege review “gather dust on a shelf”. The chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee told The Independent it was vital action was taken to implement the recommendations. Mr Hunt, who made patient safety a key focus of his tenure as health secretary, backed the idea of an independent patient safety commissioner that would be outside the NHS and have powers to advocate for patient issues. Mr Hunt said: “This report should be a powerful wake-up call that our healthcare system is still too closed, defensive and focused on blame rather than learning lessons. It’s truly harrowing to hear of all the women and families who live with permanent anguish because of these medicines and devices, and it has clearly taken too long for their voices to be heard.” “The NHS is one of the safest health systems in the world, and we’re all rightly in awe of our frontline heroes. But in healthcare getting it right ‘most’ times isn’t good enough because the exceptions wreak lifelong devastation on families. So we must not allow this seminal report to gather dust on a shelf: lessons must be learnt once and for all.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 July 2020
  18. News Article
    Many lives have been ruined because officials failed to hear the concerns of women given drugs and procedures that caused them or their babies considerable harm, says a review. More than 700 women and their families shared "harrowing" details about vaginal mesh, Primodos and an epilepsy drug called sodium valproate. Too often worries and complaints were dismissed as "women's problems". It says arrogant attitudes left women traumatised, intimidated and confused. June Wray, 73 and from Newcastle, experienced chronic pain after having a vaginal mesh procedure in 2009. "Sometimes the pain is so severe, I feel like I will pass out. But when I told GPs and surgeons, they didn't believe me. They just looked at me like I was mad." The chairwoman of the highly critical review, Baroness Julia Cumberlege, said the families affected deserved a fulsome apology from the government. She said: "I have conducted many reviews and inquiries over the years, but I have never encountered anything like this; the intensity of suffering experienced by so many families, and the fact that they have endured it for decades. Much of this suffering was entirely avoidable, caused and compounded by failings in the health system itself." Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 July 2020
  19. News Article
    The GMC has set out its plans to restart fitness to practise (FTP) investigations this month. Existing FTP cases will resume, where this is possible, with flexibility on timescales and on the basis of direct discussion with those involved and ‘careful consideration and agreement’ with responsible officers, the regulator said. Acknowledging that investigations are ‘difficult’ for all involved’, the GMC said it is of the view that delaying decisions any further could ‘cause additional stress’. It also said investigations would resume with the ‘understanding that many individuals and organisations remain under pressure and any potential impact needs to be proportionate’. During this period, it will continue to review concerns that are raised to protect patient safety. Read full story Source: Pulse, 3 July 2020
  20. News Article
    Former patients of rogue breast surgeon Ian Paterson may have died of “unnatural deaths” two senior coroners have said. Senior coroner for Birmingham and Solihull, Louise Hunt, and area coroner Emma Brown have said they believe there is evidence to suspect victims of Ian Paterson, who was jailed for 17 counts of wounding with intent in 2017, died unnaturally as a result of his actions. They now plan to open four inquests into the deaths of patients who died from breast cancer after being treated by Paterson. “Following preliminary investigations, the senior and area Coroner believe there is evidence to have reason to suspect that some of those deaths may be unnatural. In accordance with the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, inquests will now be opened in relation to four former patients of Mr Paterson.” Deborah Douglas, a victim of Paterson who leads a support group in Solihull, told The Independent: "I have spoken to so many women over the years who have since died. This is what I have always known and fought for. "Paterson lied about pathology reports and people did develop secondary cancers." Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 July 2020
  21. News Article
    The leader of the Morecambe Bay inquiry has spoken of his disappointment that some of the recommendations have not led to changes, and said royal colleges could inform regulators when they are commissioned to carry out care quality reviews. Bill Kirkup was speaking after HSJ revealed only a small proportion of royal college “invited reviews” were made public, and in some cases even the Care Quality Commission (CQC) had not been made aware of the reviews, or seen final reports. Trusts had commissioned dozens of them into care failings over three years. The inquiry which he chaired into maternity services at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust recommended that all external reviews of suspected service failings should be registered with the CQC and that NHS boards should have a duty to report their findings “openly”. The recommendations of the inquiry were accepted by both the government and the CQC. HSJ used freedom of information law to get copies of reports from recent years, but in many cases trusts refused to share them. Dr Kirkup, who stressd his comments did not refer to any individidual trust, said the findings highlighted a weakness in implementation of “an important recommendation”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 3 July 2020
  22. News Article
    Parents of babies who died at a hospital trust at the centre of a maternity inquiry say a police investigation has come "too late". West Mercia Police said it was looking at whether there was "evidence to support a criminal case" at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust. An independent review, contacted by more than 1,000 families, said it was working with police to identify relevant cases. "It's bittersweet," one mother said. "It's come too late for my daughter, she should still be here," said Tasha Turner, whose baby, Esmai, died four days after she was born at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in 2013. Ms Turner's case is part of the Ockenden Review, an independent investigation into avoidable baby deaths at the trust, which runs Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal. LaKamaljit Uppal, 50, from Telford, who is also part of the review following the death of her son Manpreet in April 2003 at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, said she hoped the police inquiry would bring some closure. "The trust put me through hell, someone should be held accountable," she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 July 2020
  23. News Article
    Inspectors have raised “new and ongoing” patient safety concerns at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust, it has emerged. The Care Quality Commission has issued a new warning notice to the Midlands trust after an inspection of the hospital earlier this month sparked concerns for the welfare of patients on its medical wards. These concerns are separate from the trust’s maternity service, which, it was revealed on Tuesday, is now facing a police investigation alongside an NHS inquiry into more than 1,200 allegations of poor maternity care dating back to the 1970s. In October, a patient at the hospital bled to death after a device used to access his bloodstream became inexplicably disconnected while he was receiving care on the renal unit. The Health Service Journal reported the latest concerns related to the inappropriate use of bed rails and risks of patients falling from beds after several incidents. The CQC is also concerned about the trust’s use of powers to detain elderly or vulnerable patients on wards. The concerns also include patients being at risk of abuse and learning from past incidents not being shared with staff. Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 July 2020
  24. News Article
    The government must set out plans for an inquiry into its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the health service ombudsman has said. This was not about blaming staff but about "learning lessons", he said. Ombudsman Rob Behrens said patients were reporting concerns about cancelled cancer treatment and incorrect COVID-19 test results. Ministers have not committed to holding an inquiry, but have accepted there are lessons to be learned. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) stopped investigating complaints against the NHS on 26 March, to allow it to focus on tackling the COVID-19 outbreak. But people had continued to phone in with these concerns, Mr Behrens said. "Complaining when something has gone wrong should not be about criticising doctors, nurses or other front-line public servants, who have often been under extraordinary pressure dealing with the Covid-19 crisis," he said. "It is about identifying where things have gone wrong systematically and making sure lessons are learned so mistakes are not repeated." Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 July 2020
  25. News Article
    A dramatic collapse in standards at a care home where a dozen people died from COVID-19 has been revealed by inspectors who discovered hungry and thirsty residents living with infected wounds in filthy conditions. Infection control was inadequate, residents with dementia were left only partially dressed and one family complained of finding their loved one smeared in dried faeces at Temple Court care home in Kettering, which is operated by Amicura, a branch of Minster Care which runs more than 70 homes in the UK. Amicura said the home had been “completely overwhelmed” by COVID-19 infections which it said arrived with 15 patients discharged from hospitals in the second half of March. They were overrun,” one relative told the inspectors. “They were short-staffed and then with the influx of people, they couldn’t cope.” Residents’ wounds had become necrotic and infected, requiring hospital treatment and several people had experienced falls, some of which resulted in injuries needing hospital treatment, the inspectors found. The conditions discovered by the Care Quality Commission on 12-13 May were so poor that surviving residents were moved out immediately. The CQC report into the service, published on Friday, found multiple breaches of the health and social care act. Northamptonshire police have launched an investigation to identify whether any offences may have been committed. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 June 2020
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