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News ArticleThe NHS is treating nearly 3,000 sick patients a day in corridors, cupboards and cafes because emergency departments are overwhelmed, new figures have revealed. Data published for the first time has laid bare the scale of the NHS’ “corridor care” crisis, which experts warn has become “normalised” within the health service and is leaving patients being treated without “privacy or dignity”. More than 2,200 patients received care in a corridor of an A&E department every day in May, the data shows, while another 669 patients were treated in other inappropriate settings such as cupboards, cafes or toilets due to a lack of beds in emergency departments. Any patient who spends 45 minutes or more in areas deemed as clinically inappropriate – such as hallways or waiting rooms – are considered to have experienced corridor care, according to the NHS. Other examples of areas used include car parks, waiting rooms and toilets. The NHS’ corridor care crisis has been well-documented, with reports of patients dying while waiting for care. Diabetic patients have been left for hours without food, while other sick patients have said they were left on broken beds in pitch-black corridors for 24 hours with no privacy, according to a review of patient care in emergency departments in December by the group Healthwatch England. Speaking after the figures were released, health secretary James Murray said: “Corridor care is unacceptable, undignified and has no place in our NHS.” He said the new data aims to “shine a spotlight” on where the problems are greatest and stressed the “vast majority” of corridor care is in a small number of organisations. But one expert warned that corridor care had been “normalised”. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at The King’s Fund, said patients are routinely being treated “without privacy or dignity.” Read full story Source: Independent, 11 June 2026 Further reading on the hub: Corridor care improvement guide: A summary guide to support services to reduce corridor care Corridor care and long waits: what are people experiencing in A&E? Corridor care guidance needs to move beyond what “should” happen and grapple honestly with why it isn’t How corridor care in the NHS is affecting safety culture
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News Article
More than 1,300 deaths a month in England due to long A&E waits, figures suggest
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More than 1,300 patients a month in England are dying needlessly due to long A&E waits, a tenfold rise in a decade, figures suggest. There were more than 300 deaths linked to long waits every week in 2025, up from 30 a week in 2015, according to analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. The RCEM’s president, Dr Ian Higginson, said he wondered how many more deaths it would take before there was a meaningful plan to tackle the crisis. “We have to ask why this awful problem isn’t the subject of relentless focus and political conversation. The number of deaths linked to long stays in our emergency departments explicitly show the system is failing the patients it is meant to be caring for,” he said. Higginson said: “As an emergency doctor, it’s heartbreaking that patients arrive to our emergency departments in their time of need, and we can’t do our jobs properly because we are full. To make things worse we are being asked to focus on the least sick patients to try and marginally improve headline statistics, rather than on those who need our services the most. “It’s frustrating that we continue to see a lack of solutions designed to tackle the root causes of the problem. Instead, we are fobbed off with recycled ideas that haven’t ever worked, performance data that doesn’t reflect reality, and a focus on perceived ‘quick fixes’.” He added: “Whilst we welcome the government’s stated commitment to eliminate corridor care, until we prioritise patients who experience long waits for admission, we will not get to the bottom of the whole issue.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 June 2026 -
Content ArticleThe estimated number of deaths linked to long waits in Emergency Departments across England has surged almost tenfold over the past decade. That’s according to new analysis published in the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s (RCEM) ‘State of Emergency Medicine in England’ report, which conservatively estimates that there were 15,860 excess deaths associated with long waiting times in English EDs in 2025. That’s the lives of 305 people lost every week. While the number of deaths is slightly lower than 2024 (16,644), further analysis reveals that the estimated mortality figure increased almost tenfold when compared to 2015 (1,657). RCEM’s report examines the scale of overcrowding in EDs and the impact this is having on patient safety and staff. Drawing on national data, research and frontline evidence from clinicians, it highlights how long waits, high bed occupancy and a lack of patient flow continue to lead to overcrowded emergency departments. Long waits are closely linked to an increased chance of death within the following 30 days. Further analysis for the previous year concerningly reveals nearly half a million people (489,138) waited 24 hours or more in EDs across England. This has increased by around 150,000 patients in just 3 years.
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News Article
Record number of people waiting for NHS diagnostic tests in England
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A record number of people are waiting for a diagnostic test on the NHS, triggering fears that delays in accessing CT and MRI scans could endanger patients’ health. A total of 1.92 million patients in England are waiting to have a test to diagnose their illness such as by an ultrasound scan, assessment of their hearing, bone scan or various tests for cancer. Demand for tests is outstripping the NHS’s ability to meet it and one in five of those on the waiting list – more than 400,000 people – are having to wait longer than the supposed six-week maximum, an analysis of diagnostic services in England has found. The rise in the waiting list for diagnostic tests contrasts sharply with the NHS’s recent success in cutting the backlog for planned hospital care to 7.1 million, which was 500,000 fewer than in July 2025. The Patients Association voiced deep unease at the situation and warned that patients’ health can deteriorate while they are waiting to have the diagnostic test needed to kickstart their treatment. “A diagnostic test is not the end of a patient’s journey – it is the beginning. Without it, treatment cannot start, conditions deteriorate, and what might have been caught early becomes something far harder to treat,” said Rachel Power, its chief executive. “When more than one in five patients is waiting beyond the NHS’s own six-week maximum, and median waiting times have risen by more than half since before the pandemic, that is deeply concerning for patients’ health. “Every week of delay is a week a condition can worsen, a patient’s ability to live day-to-day can diminish, and their anxiety about what is wrong can grow,” she added. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 June 2026 -
News ArticleHealthcare AI solutions tout their ability to identify more at-risk patients and irregularities imperceptible to physicians, all while keeping a human in the loop. But are there enough humans to handle all this additional demand brought on by AI? That’s a question healthcare leaders in the United States are grappling with as the technology expands across the industry. “You don’t want to be, say, implementing something that’s going to scan every patient for a particular disease, which costs you a lot of money if you can’t do anything about it, because you don’t have the appointments downstream to actually manage that,” said Michael Pfeffer, MD, senior vice president and chief information and digital officer of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Stanford Health Care, at Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting in April. “So you have to look at the entire workflow and value chain to see: Is it the right tool to put in?” As for keeping a human in the loop on AI, Dr. Pfeffer said that’s just not feasible — or even necessary — in every instance. Research is showing that physicians increasingly trust AI and are not going to check every summary and citation the technology makes. Where the human element becomes critical is if, say, AI detects a hospital patient is deteriorating from a lack of fluids — a human clinician then has to administer fluids. “We’ve been thinking exactly about the same thing, and we hold ‘human in the loop’ as sort of a bulwark for safety,” said Sri Adusumalli, MD, vice president and chief health information officer of Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine, during the panel discussion. “But we know we humans are terrible at vigilance of algorithms and other technology tools. So banking on humans in the loop as that bulwark is not sustainable. Plus, there are not enough humans.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: Becker's Health IT, 22 May 2026
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News Article
'My mother died without dignity in A&E'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
"Mum was denied a respectful way of dying and we have to live with these memories," says Michelle Smith. She believes her mother, Joan Howard, should have spent her final hours in comfort, pain-free, in a clean bed and surrounded by her loved ones. Instead, the blind 74-year-old was trapped in Doncaster Royal Infirmary's accident and emergency department for 27 hours, lying half the time on a trolley and then on soiled sheets in a hot and cramped cubicle. Joan, from Balby in Doncaster, was admitted on 5 December 2024 after becoming critically unwell following recent treatment for an ulcer and E. coli infection. Although NHS guidance states patients should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival to A&E, Joan remained in the resuscitation area for the first 14 hours. When she was finally moved into a cubicle in the main area, Michelle says the space was so small there was no room for a drip stand, forcing nurses to tape her mother's fluids to the wall. The standard of care continued to decline, says Michelle, with surgical and medical teams confused over who was responsible for Joan's care and the family's requests for help being ignored. She describes repeated basic care failings, including oxygen not being reconnected after transfer, urine output not being monitored, routine checks not being carried out and poor pain management. After an enema, a procedure to clear the bowel, she says her mother was left lying on the soiled sheets, forcing Michelle to source incontinence pads to relieve some of her discomfort. "I could see Mum was deteriorating in front of my eyes and I couldn't help her," recalls Michelle, a former cardiac physiologist. "No one was listening to me pleading to help my mum." Michelle says the family's distress deepened when, midway through Joan's stay, they were told that she was not going to die, contradicting earlier medical advice. Believing she was stable, relatives - including Joan's husband of 50 years - left the hospital. Joan died a short time later after spending 27 hours in A&E, and with only her daughter present. Read full story Source: BBC News, 20 May 2026 -
News ArticleChildren and young people in England having a mental health crisis are spending up to three days in an A&E unit before they get a bed in a specialist unit, NHS figures reveal. One children’s nurse who works in an emergency department said such long waits for under-18s who were in acute distress were “frankly barbaric” but “becoming far more normal”. Some of those who end up stuck in A&E become so troubled and disruptive that staff are increasingly using medication to sedate them to manage their behaviour. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the delays highlighted a “catastrophic system-wide failure” by NHS mental health services to intervene to stop school-age children ending up in crisis. Seeking help at A&E was often “damaging and potentially traumatising” for them, it said. One A&E nurse said such long waits were “extremely distressing” for the patients involved and for the staff looking after them. Another said: “A&E is just seen as this big receptacle for all children who are dysregulated or in crisis. But A&E is not respite for children with mental health concerns. It can often exacerbate their trauma.” Dr Sam Jones, the research officer for mental health at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said children in mental health crisis were now often more unwell than in the past. “Alongside rising levels of poor mental health, the nature of need is changing fast. Problems are more complex and severe, more younger children are affected and rates of self-harm and eating disorders continue to rise,” Jones said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 May 2026
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News ArticleEpilepsy patients are living with the risk of having “life-threatening” seizures as drug supply problems are forcing some to skip their medication. There are hundreds of drugs, including those for epilepsy, blood pressure, blood thinning and some cancer medicines, that patients are finding harder to get hold of in England. For the 630,000 people with epilepsy living in the UK, these medicines help them safely live their lives and skipping a dose can have potentially deadly consequences. “It’s really scary to think that through no fault of my own, this could be the reason I don’t wake up in the morning,” Beth Baker-Carey told the Independent. The 28-year-old from Doncaster, who has suffered from seizures since she was two, once had ten seizures a day, but medication keeps her stable. Although medicine shortages are common, she explained it has worsened since the start of the war in Iran. The department of health and social care is aware of supply issues with some epilepsy medications, but has said these are not directly linked to the war. Ms Baker-Carey has been notified several times by pharmacies that they have no stock in recent months. “I’ve had to jump through hoops and go to different pharmacies to get medication,” she said. “A couple of times it has been quite late at night and I’ve not been able to get it. I’ve been told to just skip it for the night, which is not really wise for a person with epilepsy, skipping can be really dangerous and sometimes fatal." Read full story Source: The Independent, 6 May 2026 Further reading on the hub: Creon shortages: “It’s just another thing patients with cystic fibrosis could do without” Medication supply issues: Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS)
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News Article
The struggle to get hold of medication in England is set to get worse
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
"It's just terrifying," Chloe says. "I get panic attacks." The 29-year-old has epilepsy and is struggling to get the drugs she needs to prevent life-threatening seizures. Her Lamotrigine-based medication is one of hundreds of everyday drugs that are now extremely hard to get hold of in England. She has other medications that she can easily get, but the one that helps her to safely live her life and go to work is the one that she struggles to get access to. "In the last few weeks I haven't been able to get the right medications and my seizures came back. I fell and hit my head and have a big scar across my back now from it," Chloe says. Access to medicines in England is at its most fragile point in years. People living with heart conditions, stroke risks, eye infections, bipolar and ADHD - to name just a few - are among those unable to get the medications they depend on. Shortages are caused in part by surging global prices. However, the problem is also being exacerbated by a complicated process of funding medicines in the UK. For patients, it often means rounds of phone calls and anxiety. Chloe says she sometimes sits on the bus for several hours "going on patrol" hunting for the medication she needs. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 May 2026 Related reading on the hub: Creon shortages: “It’s just another thing patients with cystic fibrosis could do without” Medication supply issues: Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) Medication supply issues: A pharmacist’s perspective Medicines shortages: minimising the impact on patients (a blog by Catherine Picton) -
Content ArticleNHS England is repeatedly addressing the wrong problem in emergency care. This HSJ article argues that national policy focuses on A&E “front door” measures (diversion, metrics, corridor care management) rather than the true cause of long waits: a shortage of inpatient beds and poor patient flow out of hospitals.
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News Article
Emergency departments 'having to choose between very sick patients'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Doctors are having to choose which "very sick people" they prioritise because of the pressures on Northern Ireland's emergency departments (ED), the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has said. Department of Health (DoH) statistics for the first three months of this year show that no ED achieved targets for seeing patients within the four-hour and 12-hour benchmarks. RCEM Northern Ireland said, so far, the figures for 2026 are "the worst they have ever been" and described the state of emergency departments in Northern Ireland as "utterly horrifying". The association's vice president, Dr Michael Perry, said the environment staff are working in was making their jobs very difficult. "We're basically pleading with our policy makers and our elected representatives in our government to allow us to do our jobs," he said. "Don't put us in this position where we have to choose out of two very sick people who we prioritise," Dr Perry told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster. Nursing staff turnover in Northern Ireland's emergency departments is "vast and it is largely to do with the environment that they work in", he continued. "I've had staff very distressed where something's happened, they have tried their best to deliver the best care that they can, but because of the environment they're being forced to work in something adverse has happened." Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 April 2026 -
Content ArticleCorridor care has become one of the most significant patient safety challenges within the NHS, exposing individuals to avoidable harm and compromising their privacy, dignity, and overall clinical safety. This guide has been developed by NHS England to support clinical and operational leads by outlining the practical steps required to minimise and ultimately eliminate corridor care. Central to achieving this ambition is the adoption of GIRFT Clinical Operational Standards, which provide a consistent, trust-wide framework for timely clinical decision-making, improved patient flow across the urgent and emergency care pathway, and a reduced reliance on corridor care. It recognises the challenges trusts face in achieving this and acknowledge that elimination of corridor care is a longer-term ambition. Achieving sustainable reductions will require health and social care systems to work collaboratively to establish clear, accountable action plans. Responsibility for delivery should rest with the acute hospital Chief Executive and executive triumvirate (Chief Operating Officer, Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Medical Officer). Supporting resources: GIRFT Clinical Operational Standards Principles for providing patient care in corridors NHS England The Model ED NHS England The Model Acute Pathway NHS England » Extended emergency medicine ambulatory care (EEMAC) operating principles
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News Article
One person diagnosed with cancer every 80 seconds in UK, report reveals
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The number of people in the UK being diagnosed with cancer has reached a record high, with one person diagnosed every 80 seconds, a report reveals. Cancer Research UK found that more than 403,000 people were being diagnosed with the disease each year. The rise is largely due to a growing and ageing population, as people are more likely to develop cancer as they get older. The NHS is struggling to cope with rising demand for care. Cancer waiting times across the UK are among the worst on record, according to the report. Incidences have risen to 620 per 100,000 people, from 610 a decade ago, partly driven by rising obesity levels. The proportion of cases diagnosed early has barely changed, inching up from 54% to 55%. There have been some major successes. Death rates have fallen, and the proportion of people surviving for a decade or more has risen. But Cancer Research UK said this progress was now at risk of stalling, in part due to pressure on cancer services. It said the government’s recent national cancer plan for England was a crucial step towards improving care but there needed to be “funding and resources to translate ambition into impact”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 April 2026 -
News Article
Patients stuck in unsafe hospital for two more months
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS England has accepted it will take until the end of June to move “priority” patients out of a hospital where there are “serious safety concerns”. In a letter to integrated care board, NHS England said they should ensure the “majority” of patients in specified “priority cohorts” are moved out of St Andrew’s hospital in Northampton by the end of June. This comes six weeks after NHSE first wrote to commissioners to order residents in the hospital be moved. Nick Broughton, who recently took over as NHSE’s national director for mental health, learning disability and neurodevelopmental conditions, said: “The decision to move patients has been clinically led and based upon serious safety concerns.” St Andrew’s, the flagship hospital of one of the NHS’s biggest independent providers, was prevented from accepting new patients last summer after revelations of poor care, and an “inadequate” Care Quality Commission rating. It is subject to three ongoing police investigations, with 15 staff members arrested following abuse and neglect allegations. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 April 2026 -
News Article
NHS could face drug shortages within weeks, medicine manufacturers warn
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS faces drug shortages within weeks if the US and Iran do not strike a deal to end the conflict in the Middle East, drug makers have warned. Paracetamol, antibiotics, stroke prevention medicines and even some cancer drugs, which represent 85% of all NHS prescriptions, may be in short supply as early as June, according to Medicines UK. The company told The Telegraph it was “increasingly concerned that some chemicals and solvents used to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients are now in very short supply”. Medicines that contain paracetamol and aspirin are thought to be the most at risk because they are manufactured using by-products from the petrochemical industry, which has been affected by Tehran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The shortages may make it harder to fulfil patients’ prescriptions or make it more expensive for health services to source the medicines, the regulator warned. Richard Sullivan, professor of cancer and global health at King’s College London, warned there was a shortage of cancer drugs. He told The British Medical Journal that “disruption in supply chains for cancer drugs and consumables for robotic surgery, which uses up an awful lot of equipment every time you operate on somebody”. Dr Leyla Hannbeck, CEO of the Independent Pharmacies Association, explained that a significant proportion of pharmaceuticals rely on petroleum-derived inputs, which are used in many common medicines, from antibiotics to pain relief and chronic disease treatments. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 April 2026 Related reading on the hub: Creon shortages: “It’s just another thing patients with cystic fibrosis could do without” Medicines shortages: minimising the impact on patients (a blog by Catherine Picton) -
Content Article
The King's Fund: Social care 360 (8 April 2026)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Social care
The King's Fund has launched the latest edition of their annual Social Care 360 report. 2024/25 saw the continuation of a new trend in adult social care. Local authorities are spending more on social care, with that investment focused not just on paying higher fees to the providers who supply care, but, now, increasing the number of people who receive it as well. More people are now receiving publicly funded long-term care than at any time in the last decade. This change is due to increasing local authority spending power – the total amount that councils have to spend, both from money they raise themselves (for example, from council tax and business rates) and from central government grants. However, councils still do not have the resources to meet all the demands on them and their overall financial position is worsening. As a result, local authorities are increasing fees below the increase in costs faced by social care providers. This has potential implications for market stability, quality, and particularly private-paying clients, who are being charged much more for their care so that providers can balance their books. Taken together, the picture for social care remains precarious, then, with significant pressure on the government to ensure stability in the sector in the medium term, and on the Casey Commission to identify coherent proposals for reform in the long term. -
News Article
Child spent two months in A&E
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A child spent more than two months in A&E following a breakdown of a care placement, in what the trust described as “one of the longest waits we’ve seen”. Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust said the young person was at its Queen’s Hospital A&E for more than 70 days, while another was there for more than 30. They were both under the care of councils “outside our area”, and their care placements had broken down, the trust said. It has declined to say which councils. Both children had “complex behavioural needs” which meant they could not be moved on to children’s wards, the east London trust said. Speaking last week, it said the children had recently moved on to other placements. The trust has previously highlighted long waits for children under care at Queen’s A&E – including a wait of 44 days in 2024 – and said care placement breakdowns were the most common reason. Trust CEO Matthew Trainer said: “We’re seen as a place of safety for children and young people with mental health issues and/or challenging behavioural needs. This means several young people have experienced long waits for the right support in A&E. “It’s unacceptable and distressing for both patients and our staff, and something we’ve been discussing at our board meetings for several years, as well as working with mental health trusts and councils to see how we can reduce delays.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 April 2026 -
News ArticleMillions of people across the UK living with incontinence are facing shortages of sanitary products due to supplies being rationed by NHS trusts, according to a coalition of charities. The shortages are leading to a “pad gap” where people are having to pay for incontinence products themselves, according to an open letter from organisations including the Royal College of Nursing, Prostate Cancer UK, and Bowel and Bladder UK. Around 14 million people across the UK experience incontinence. Healthcare workers in the NHS expect to fit up to five pads a day for patients who experience incontinence, according to research, but freedom of information data from 110 NHS trusts show that more than half (53%) have a cap on the availability of products. Of these trusts, 34% have a cap of three products a day, while the remaining 66% have a cap of four products a day, which is lower than the expected need. As a consequence of the shortages, many people with incontinence and their families are forced to use their pension or personal independence payment (PIP) to purchase these products while struggling to cover other basic costs. According to the letter, these measures represent a “once in a generation opportunity to improve health outcomes for all” that will benefit people who experience incontinence and ease the burden on NHS staff and carers. Prof Alison Leary, the deputy president of the Royal College of Nursing, said she often heard from nurses who were concerned about the shortages of incontinence products. “The effective rationing of incontinence products means that staff and patients both suffer – patients do not get the dignified care they need and nursing colleagues feel they are not meeting patients’ fundamental needs,” Leary added. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2026
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News Article
Key stroke treatment still not available around the clock across England
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS has not made a “life-changing” treatment for stroke available around the clock across England despite ministers repeatedly promising that it would. The health service was expected to improve stroke care by making a clot removal technique called mechanical thrombectomy available everywhere in the country 24/7 from 1 April. Doctors describe it as a gamechanging intervention that, if done quickly, can help someone who has had a severe stroke avoid ending up with a serious disability as a result. However, seven of England’s 24 regional stroke centres are still not providing thrombectomy on an all-hours basis, mainly because they do not have enough doctors and other staff to do so. Experts fear the NHS’s failure to deliver universal 24/7 access to the treatment could mean patients who have a stroke overnight, in the evening or at weekends in underserved areas may become avoidably severely disabled, or may even die, because they could not have the procedure. More than 100,000 people a year in the UK have a stroke, of whom 38,000 die and many others are left with life-changing disabilities that rob them of their independence. Dr Sanjeev Nayak, a stroke specialist at the Royal Stoke hospital in Stoke, said: “A patient presenting during normal working hours in a well-served area may receive rapid, life-changing treatment, whereas the same patient presenting at night or in a different region may not receive thrombectomy at all. This creates a real postcode lottery in access to one of the most effective treatments in modern medicine.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 April 2026 -
News Article
Deaths linked to ‘overwhelmed’ department
Mark Hughes posted a news article in News
At least eight cancer patients were harmed – and in some cases potentially died – because of operational and admin failures in an “overwhelmed” hospital department, HSJ has learned. A thematic review of 15 cases from the urology department at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust said several of the patients had died, in some cases having developed metastatic cancer, following missed or late diagnoses. Others had suffered psychological harm as a result of delays. Read full article (paywalled). Source: Health Service Journal, 2 April 2026 -
News Article
Head of NHS England ‘really worried’ about medicine supplies
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The head of the NHS in England has said he is “really worried” about medicine supply issues. A number of experts have raised concerns about cost implications and supply disruption linked to the war in Iran. The NHS England chief executive, Jim Mackey, was asked during a phone-in on LBC Radio on Tuesday what contingency planning was in place because “the UK imports 75% of its medicine”. He said: “We are really worried about this. We’ve already had a couple of supply shocks in the last 12 to 18 months of key supplies.” He said a team was in place to “focus on where the risks might be through the supply chains”. Asked how much supply there was, he replied: “It depends what you’re talking about. In every area, we’ve got enough to get through for a reasonable period … so generally, a few weeks. “Because things perish and it costs money to store and various other things go out of use, you can’t hold years and years of supply. Generally, dependent on the product, we keep a reasonable period. Some of that is held centrally, some held locally.” Questioned whether, in some instances, it would be “weeks’ worth of supply”, Mackey said: “Yeah, it could be days for some products.” His remarks surprised drug and pharmacy organisations, which said they were not yet seeing any shortages related to the conflict. Henry Gregg, the chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, said: “We’re not currently seeing shortages of medicine directly linked to the conflict in the Middle East, but pharmacies are seeing disturbing spikes in prices, which can be an early indicator of challenges. “The Department of Health have issued unprecedented numbers of price concessions designed to cope with price surges, which are likely exacerbated by this current situation.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 31 March 2026 -
News Article
UK patients told ‘not to worry’ over medicine supply amid Iran war
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Patients have been advised "not to worry" about medicine supply concerns despite potential links to the conflict in Iran. While reassurances are offered, pharmacy bodies are noting early warning signs. The Independent Pharmacies Association warned the UK faces a "perfect storm of factors exacerbating medicine shortages." The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) adds that pharmacists are seeing "evidence of escalating price rises" for medicines, a potential early warning for supply constraints. Chief executive Dr Leyla Hannbeck said: “The UK pharmacy sector depends heavily on imports, particularly from India and China, and ongoing pressures, from rising energy costs to constrained raw ingredients from the Middle East conflict, are already disrupting supply and risk worsening shortages without decisive action.” Olivier Picard, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association said: “The medicine supply chain is complex and fragile and global trends and events in the Middle East have the potential to cause disruption, as it does with other products. “We have already seen evidence in recent weeks of escalating price rises for medicines for pharmacies in the UK, as the cost of ingredients goes up, and this can be an early sign of supply pressures. “Medicine supply issues vary from month to month, and pharmacies do all they can to ensure patients get the medicines they need." Read full story Source: The Independent, 31 March 2026 -
News Article
Pregnant women and cancer patients at risk from sonographer shortage
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Pregnant women and cancer patients could face “life-threatening” delays because of a worsening shortage of sonographers, experts warn. The vacancy rate for sonographers is 24.2% across England, rising to 38.2% in some areas, according to the Society of Radiographers (SoR). In addition, 1 in every 13 (7.6%) sonographers are planning to retire within the next year, the census found. Sonographers carry out ultrasound scans which are essential to pregnancy care and are also used to diagnose cancer. Pregnant women undergo scans when their baby is 12 weeks old and again at 20 weeks. Katie Thompson, SoR president and a practising sonographer, said shortages forced hospitals to pull in practitioners from other areas to keep the antenatal services going at the "expense of those other services". "Hospitals try their very best to get the three-month and five-month antenatal screening scans done on time," she said. "But when there aren't enough staff, prioritising those scans has a knock-on effect on more urgent later foetal growth scans, which in some cases need to be done within 24 or 36 hours. "Departments end up struggling to fit in patients who need these emergency scans." Read full story Source: Sky News, 28 March 2026 -
News Article
Hundreds of children stuck in hospital because of lack of community services
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Hundreds of children are in hospital unnecessarily on any given day because they do not have the right support to go home, according to an analysis of NHS England data. The discharge delays mean patients affected are missing out on childhood activities and youngsters needing hospital care are waiting for beds, the children’s commissioner’s report found. More than 260,000 young people spent three or more weeks of their childhood in hospital and 1,300 were there for more than a year. Medical advancements have meant more patients with complex or life-limiting conditions can live longer but community services such as children’s social care, housing, education and home nursing have not kept pace, it said. Dame Rachel de Souza, children’s commissioner for England, said in a statement: “For all the debate and attention given to hospitals, waiting times and social care, children are rarely mentioned. “Childhood is a short and precious time – so when a child spends months or even years confined to a hospital ward, not because they are too unwell to leave but because the right community support cannot be found, the system has failed.” De Souza said this is partly driven by a “lack of good data”. The NHS does not consistently record how many youngsters are medically fit to leave hospital but are remaining there as a result of factors external to the health service, the report said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 March 2026 -
Content ArticleEvery year millions of children in England spend time in hospital. Most children are in hospital only for a short period, often just after they are born or during brief periods of illness. However, for a number of children, hospital becomes a place they spend months and sometimes years of their lives. For the first time, this report shows how long children spend in hospital over their childhoods through new analysis of NHS data. This report sets out why children are waiting to be discharged and what their experience of delayed discharge is like. For some children, time they spend in hospital waiting to be discharged is avoidable. That is particularly true for two groups of children. First, children with serious and complex medical needs. While advances in modern medicine are making a monumental difference in giving them a stronger chance in life, the systems that surround these children – community and primary care, children’s social care, palliative care, housing and education – have not kept pace. The Children’s Commissioner’s office has focused on what this means for children who are waiting in hospital, ready to be discharged. Second, for some children admitted to hospital with social, emotional, behavioural and/or mental health needs. For children admitted with these needs but who do not meet the criteria for inpatient mental health services, their experience waiting in hospital for the right care and support in the community is similarly rooted in challenges facing health, social care and education which has resulted in them being let down, and being admitted to hospital in crisis - waiting for the right therapeutic support in the community. This report brings together data on how long children spend in hospital across their childhoods, alongside the voices and experiences of families, health and care professionals working in hospitals, hospices, community nursing teams and care providers. It sets out the issues facing children whose hospitals stays are being prolonged or more frequent because the support they need to be in the community is not in place.
