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Found 185 results
  1. News Article
    One of the central ideas in the 10-Year Health Plan is “not novel” and could be damaging if it imposes a “one size fits all” model, a community health leader has told HSJ. Steph Lawrence was, until last year chief nurse at Leeds Community Healthcare Trust, which has been celebrated by Labour leaders for its development of integrated care and out-of-hospital working. Next month, she becomes chief executive of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing, representing staff who will need to be central to a “neighbourhood health service” – a proposal due to feature heavily in the government’s 10-Year Health Plan. She spoke to HSJ before taking up the post. Asked about neighbourhood health (NH), she warned: “I don’t think this is a new idea. I don’t think this is anything novel. In Leeds, we have had integrated neighbourhood teams since about 2012 or 2013… “It’s the right thing to do. But [what] worries me is that every neighbourhood will be different, and therefore one size is never going to fit all… “Sometimes we get this impression that if we put teams together in one place, they’ll naturally get on and work together. That isn’t how it works. It works by developing relationships and making sure you focus on the person, not what the service needs”. The nurse leader’s comments come amid fears the plan, expected next month, may encourage a takeover of community and other services by acute providers. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 June 2025
  2. News Article
    The ‘inability or unwillingness’ of some NHS and social care providers to work together has contributed to an ‘unimaginable’ deterioration in emergency care performance, according to NHS England The claim is made in the urgent care recovery plan for 2025-26, released by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. The plan includes a new target to reduce 12-hour accident and emergency waits and pledges to invest £370m of capital funding in improving urgent care and mental health facilities. The plan said, “Each part of the system has responsibility for improving urgent and emergency care performance. However, blame shunting has become a feature in some poorly performing systems and can no longer be tolerated." National urgent care director Sarah-Jane Marsh told HSJ that “the duty to collaborate and work together and do the best for patients is on all trust boards, and it shouldn’t rely on some overseer to make sure that happens. It’s a fundamental part of being a leader”. Trusts will be told to ensure the proportion of patients waiting over 12 hours for admission, transfer or discharge from A&E remains less than 10%. The 45-minute “maximum” ambulance handover time will become mandatory across all trusts ahead of winter, according to the plan. Chief executive of the College of Paramedics, Tracy Nicholls, said, “The plan sets out progressive structural proposals that have the potential to enhance public safety and strengthen paramedic autonomy. However, it may underestimate key challenges, including workforce readiness, the capacity of the mental health system, and practical implications of the Right Care, Right Person model. Without urgent alignment of funding, training, and alternative care pathways, there is a real risk that paramedics could be left navigating a reform process that shifts responsibility without equipping them with the necessary tools and support. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 June 2025 Related reading on the hub: How corridor care in the NHS is affecting safety culture: A blog by Claire Cox My experience of the 'Wait 45' policy - Florence in the Machine A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift
  3. News Article
    A failure to fix England's social care system is costing the country in financial and human terms, cross-party MPs have warned. Doing nothing to reform social care for older and disabled adults is an "active" and "untenable" decision, according to a report from Health and Social Care Select Committee. It says successive governments have put too much emphasis on the cost of reforming the system, and future plans will be doomed to fail unless the government understands and measures the "cost of inaction". The government, which has set up an independent commission which has just started work, said it had "hit the ground running" but acknowledged there was "much more to do". "Taxpayers are currently paying £32 billion a year for a broken system" propped up by contributions from unpaid carers "equivalent to a second NHS", the report said. The committee found that social care is consuming an increasing proportion of councils' budgets, crowding out spending on other services. It added that social care makes up an integral part of the government's NHS reforms and cannot be a separate process. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 May 2025
  4. News Article
    Wes Streeting has rejected the notion of merging the delivery or funding of social care with the NHS, arguing it is better “delivered and commissioned through local government”. Speaking at the Commons health and social care committee today on the reorganisation of NHS England, the health and social care secretary was definitive that health and adult social care are best as “distinct services”. Wes Streeting told MPs: “I am now even more strongly of the view as secretary of state for health and social care that social care has different roles and responsibilities than the NHS… “[Social care is] not all about treating or preventing ill health. It’s about promoting dignity, independence, quality of life, and a range of caring functions, which I think not only are not delivered by the NHS today, but are better delivered and commissioned through local government than they would be through the NHS.” His comments come despite an ongoing government commission on social care policy by Baroness Louise Casey, reporting to the prime minister, and the hopes of some in the Labour Party for its proposed “National Care Service” to result in a “free at the point of delivery” service combined with the NHS. Combining funding pots, accountability, and delivery across the two has also been a long-standing recommendation of experts and integration projects. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 April 2025
  5. News Article
    Public satisfaction with the NHS is at a record low and dissatisfaction is at its highest, with the deepest discontent about A&E, GP and dental care. Just 21% of adults in Britain are satisfied with how the health service runs, down from 24% a year before, while 59% are dissatisfied, up from 52%, the latest annual survey of patients found. Satisfaction has fallen dramatically from the 70% recorded in 2010, the year the last Labour government left office, and the 60% found in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic. Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, which analysed the data alongside the King’s Fund, said the years since 2019 have seen “a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction. “It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey.” A&E is the NHS service the public is least happy about. Satisfaction fell from 31% in 2023 to just 19% last year – the lowest proportion in the 41 years the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey of the views of patients in England, Scotland and Wales has been carried out. Satisfaction with NHS dentistry has collapsed, too, from 60% as recently as 2019 to just 20% last year. More people (55%) are dissatisfied with dental care than with any other service. Similarly, fewer than a third (31%) of adults are satisfied with GP services. “The latest results lay bare the extent of the problems faced by the NHS and the size of the challenge for the government”, said Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund. “For too many people, the NHS has become too difficult to access. How can you be satisfied with a service you can’t get into?” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2025
  6. Event
    Following Lord Darzi’s investigation in 2024 and a ‘national conversation’ on how to fix our ‘broken’ NHS, a new 10 Year Health Plan charged with setting out government plans to deliver its three shifts – from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention – will publish in the spring. The spending review, which will set out government spending plans for the next three years, and the publication of a revised long-term workforce plan, are also expected over the coming months. About the event This King's Fund conference will explore how implementation of the three shifts can deliver improved care, outcomes and experience for the public, while ensuring our health and care system is compassionate, equitable and sustainable. Our expert speakers will outline the actions and decisions needed to transform the health service into a prevention-focused service by 2035. Conference sessions will provide practical guidance on: how the 10 Year Health Plan can support the government’s overall health mission the impact of the comprehensive spending review and radical options for how funding is allocated and flows through the system how the plan can only be delivered successfully if there is similar attention and support for adult social care managing the trade-offs, including implementing the changes and shifts over the long term while prioritising resources on current pressures building on the approach in the development of the plan to work differently with people (patients, staff and communities) and ensure services are co-designed to meet needs and deliver care that is truly patient-centred how to achieve a managed shift in resources and power away from the acute sector towards primary, community and preventive services creating digitally enabled services that are inclusive and trusted by engaging with people and communities. Register
  7. News Article
    NHS England has for the first time put a figure on the potential impact on A&E performance of eliminating discharge delays for patients going into adult social care packages. Amanda Pritchard told MPs NHSE’s analysis suggested eliminating discharge delays for patients who receive adult social care (ASC) packages when they leave hospital could “theoretically” improve the A&E four-hour target by 6 per cent points. She said the figures suggest “around two-thirds of bed days lost to delayed discharges are associated with individuals accessing adult social care, community care and/or care home services on discharge. A third of these delays – around a fifth overall - are for individuals accessing adult social care packages on discharge.” The outgoing NHSE CEO added: “Eliminating the lost bed days for just the third of delays for individuals accessing adult social care packages on discharge… if all other things were equal, including the rate of admissions and rate of flow through hospitals, theoretically… could potentially improve performance by up to 6 per cent.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 March 2025
  8. News Article
    A lack of supported housing was the biggest reason for delayed discharges from mental health hospitals in England last year, costing the NHS about £71m, according to a report. Analysis from the National Housing Federation (NHF) found that in 2023-24 there were 109,029 days of delayed discharge because mental health patients were waiting for supported housing, and the number of people stuck in hospital as a result of housing-related issues had more than tripled since 2021. In September 2024, waiting for supported housing was the single biggest reason mental health patients, fit for discharge, were unable to leave, accounting for 17% of all delays. This lack led to a strain on NHS capacity and a rise in patients being sent out of area for hospital admission, the report found. Rhys Moore, director of public impact at the NHF, said: “Not only are tens of thousands of people, who deserve the opportunity to live a healthy, happy and independent life, being failed, but the shortage of these homes is increasing pressure on public services, increasing homelessness, and costing the NHS and ultimately the taxpayer more in the long run.” A man in his 30s, who asked to remain anonymous, had struggled with drug addiction issues and was evicted shortly before he was admitted to a mental health hospital ward where he spent a number of weeks. “I feel like I’m much better off in here than in hospital,” he said. “[The hospital] felt like I was all right. The way we were talking, I could tell they thought, you’re wasting my bed, you don’t need to be here. But I had been evicted, I had nowhere to go. “I was really struggling in there, it was noisy and stressful at times. Living here, I feel like I can breathe and start getting myself back together again.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 February 2025
  9. News Article
    "I feel very angry, upset, worthless, and like my mental health and my life does not matter," says Jessie, propped up in a hospital bed. She is recording this in a video diary. Blue NHS curtains are drawn around the bed and all her possessions are stacked up in the tiny chaotic space this creates. Among the piles of boxes and bags sit the dolls she holds to keep her calm. Thirty-five-year-old Jessie spent 550 days in Northampton General Hospital. For nearly all that time, she was medically fit to leave but finding her a suitable place to go to was difficult. The BBC has followed her story for more than five months as the NHS trust took costly High Court action against her, to have her evicted from the hospital bed she was occupying. Jessie was eventually arrested and taken to a care home where she says she feels anxious. Her story is an extreme example, but it demonstrates the acute pressures faced by a care system coping with more complex cases, the knock-on effect to the NHS, and how the person at the heart of it can feel lost. North Northamptonshire Council, which is responsible for her housing and care, says it cannot comment because of an ongoing police investigation into Jessie's behaviour. The hospital says it "is not the best environment for patients who are not in need of acute medical care". The Department of Health and Social Care has told the BBC: "This is a troubling case which shows how our broken NHS discharge system is failing vulnerable people." Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 February 2025
  10. News Article
    Integrated care boards are warning they are failing to carry out health checks for vulnerable children in care because of a lack of paediatricians and rising demand, HSJ has found. ICBs are required to commission initial health assessments within 20 working days of a child entering care, arranged by a local authority, then a review six to 12 months later. HSJ has identified several ICBs warning they are not or may not meet the requirement – citing workforce pressures, complex cases and rising demand. Missing the checks for children in care risks harming their physical and mental health, school attainment and future wellbeing, according to paediatricians. A community paediatrician working in the South East told HSJ delayed assessments could have significant long-term impact — delaying intervention in developmental concerns, alcohol and drug use, oral health, immunisation and medications. “These children are incredibly vulnerable,” they said. “The quicker we get issues addressed, often putting them on SEN [special educational needs] or other support, the better they often do in school and in life.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 February 2025
  11. News Article
    The Scottish government is scrapping its plans to create a National Care Service. It is an embarrassing but perhaps predictable end to years of ambitious talk about finally coming up with a solution to the social care crisis. In a statement at Holyrood, the government tore up parts of the bill that would require major structural changes to the Scottish social care system. The downfall of the plan wasn't money or lack of ambition necessarily. And there was cross-party agreement on what needed to be done. The problem was a frustrating lack of consensus on how to get there. It is also the end of the process that has been costly too. More than £30m has already been spent on planning the policy cover the last three years. In 2021, Ms Sturgeon branded the National Care Service the "most ambitious reform since devolution". Now, the plan is in tatters, and it tells us a lot about how difficult social care reform is and what might lie in store for the Westminster government. Read full story Source: Sky News, 27 January 2025
  12. Event
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    If you’ve been inspired by the Do With vision and want to work with others to shift the public sector away from its current ‘do to’ mindset and practices towards a ‘do with’ approach, please join this King's Fund online meeting. The event is free and open to anyone working in or with the public sector who wants to move towards a more humane, democratic and impactful way of working. Do With is not a new organisation or formal campaign. Instead, it hopes to be a grassroots movement for change led by the people who are part of it. As such, the event will be a space for attendees to share ideas on how they would like to deliver change and to connect people together who want to work on specific ideas. Those ideas could operate within public sector teams and organisations or within communities or both; and could operate at local, regional or national level. It is up to you and all those inspired by the Do With vision to take it forward. Register
  13. News Article
    Care experts are calling on the government to act urgently on reform of adult social care after it was revealed that long-awaited proposals may not be delivered for another three years. Ministers have announced the first step towards creating a National Care Service to ease the workload of the NHS. A new package of support for the sector includes more funding for elderly and disabled people to make home improvements and stay out of hospital. At the same time, health secretary Wes Streeting announced an independent commission led by Baroness Louise Casey would begin in the spring. The first phase, reporting next year, will recommend medium-term reforms, and the second, expected by 2028, will advise on longer-term reforms. Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said reform was long overdue, but that even if all went well, it would be the early 2030s before older people received any substantial benefit – 30 years after Japan and Germany modernised their social care systems. “That’s a source of profound regret and it leaves today’s older people and their families to make the best of a system widely agreed to be letting many down,” she said. Read full story Source: The Independent, 3 January 2025
  14. News Article
    Rachel Reeves’ Budget measures will devastate care providers, leaving vulnerable disabled and elderly people without care next year, healthcare experts are warning. The disastrous scenario could also bankrupt local authorities, care providers say. The rise in employers’ national insurance in April, together with increases in the minimum wage and national living wage, will threaten the future of care companies, according to the Homecare Association, a membership body for care providers. The association says that if care providers fold, the UK risks widespread failure of care provision, which could “leave people without care, overwhelm family carers and cripple NHS services”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 15 December 2024
  15. News Article
    Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting has said he is “shocked” by his lack of oversight of adult social care and said he is “determined to improve this” in a call with local leaders this morning. Addressing a webinar on winter pressures with NHS and care leaders, Mr Streeting said he was “shocked by poor levers and line of sight [from DHSC] into the social care system” compared with the NHS, and said this contrast was “day and night, and I’m determined to improve this”, according to sources present. Mr Streeting also stressed the importance of reform and a “plan” for social care on the call, alongside NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard this morning. The health secretary also told trust leaders to “prioritise patient safety” by focussing on improving emergency ambulance response times, addressing handover delays and tackling the longest waits in accident and emergency. He said he did not want trusts to prioritise patients who can be seen and discharged more quickly — and therefore would help meet the four-hour A&E target — above those with the greatest clinical need. Trusts were pressured to do this last winter amid efforts to meet the flagship target. In a press statement, Mr Streeting said: “We inherited a broken NHS that saw annual winter crisis as the norm. This year, we’re seeing record pressures on services as we move into December. “This winter I want to see patient safety prioritised as we brace ourselves for the coming months. I’m asking trusts to focus on ambulance delays, handovers and the longest A&E waits.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 December 2024
  16. Event
    The health and care system in England is undergoing significant change. With a new government setting its priorities, an ambitious 10-year health plan in development, and ongoing challenges such as workforce shortages and health inequalities, understanding these complexities is more important than ever. This is a two-day event led by The King’s Fund’s policy and leadership experts. Whether you’re navigating integrated care systems, grappling with social care reforms or seeking clarity on the pressures facing health and care, this event offers essential knowledge and balanced insights. Register
  17. News Article
    A new report concludes that health services are “failing” children as young people face average waits of a year for an autism diagnosis. The Care Quality Commission’s annual State of Care report, published today, warned of poor care and specialist staff shortages within providers, alongside “far too long” waits for treatment. NHS Providers’ deputy CEO Saffron Cordery said trust leaders were “deeply concerned” about meeting demand, particularly in mental health services. But she added: “Their ability to do so comes against a backdrop of soaring demand, resource pressures and the poor condition of the mental health estate, much of which isn’t fit for purpose. “A cross-government approach to improving health and wellbeing is vital to protect a whole generation of children and young people at risk of being left behind.” The CQC has faced two damning reviews of its own, as well as fundamental questions about the quality of its inspections, but NHS Providers and others have said it “echoed what NHS trust leaders tell us.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 October 2024
  18. Event
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    This session aims to bring together a range of Caldicott Guardians to learn, share and explore the growing role of a Caldicott Guardian in adult social care. CGs from both local authorities and care provider organisations are invited to join. The purpose is to provide support to all those across the care sector who have the Caldicott Guardian role as part of their jobs, offer a networking, sharing and learning space for them all as well as promote the role as best practice and the importance of having one/ access to one in social care services. To encourage and explore innovation in relation to the role and influence future ways of working. Principles of CG Networks & Collaboration Collaborate and cooperate, to strengthen the Caldicott Guardian's role in data governance across social care Be open. Communicate openly about concerns, issues, or opportunities relating to Caldicott Guardians and information governance in social care. Learn, develop, and seek to achieve full potential. Share information, experience, materials, and skills to learn from each other and develop effective collaboration. Adopt a positive outlook. Behave in a positive, proactive, and timely manner. Keep the group up to date on data governance developments to Caldicott Guardians in the sector, feeding back key information and potential of new approaches/ practice Who should attend? These sessions have been designed for Caldicott Guardians working in adult social care. This can include staff in care organisations who undertake the role of Caldicott Guardian or have a Caldicott function in their job role, for example: Owners Registered Managers Nurses Senior Care Staff Administrators IT Professionals Quality & Compliance Leads Register
  19. Event
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    The webinar will be covering: Busting the myths around DSCR’s Pitfalls, tips and tricks Guidance and support for moving suppliers Incorporate changing assured supplier list. Who should attend? These sessions have been designed for adult social care providers in England and are aimed at people who make decisions about the use of technology in care services. This might include: Owners Registered Managers Nurses Senior Care Staff Administrators IT Professionals Quality & Compliance Leads. Register
  20. Event
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    The health and care system continues to face profound challenges, whether it’s staff shortages, financial pressures, all-time low public satisfaction, or record high waiting times for elective care. At this free online event, our expert panel will provide insight and context into the wider health and care landscape, the challenges the sector is facing, and the big issues they want to see progress on in 2024. In the run-up to the anticipated general election, our panel will also explore how recent trends, political parties’ policy proposals and future developments could affect those working in the sector, as well as people, patients and communities. Join the discussion and share your comments and questions about the wider challenges and opportunities facing the health and care sector. Register
  21. Content Article
    The Trade Unions Congress (TUC) is proposing a new care workforce strategy for England, developed with trade unions and informed by the voice and experiences of care workers. This strategy document sets out the critical building blocks to ensure care workers are valued and supported, as a key means of addressing the current staffing crisis and improving access to and quality of social and childcare services. The strategy proposes four key focus areas for the national care workforce strategy: Worker voices heard and valued including through sectoral collective bargaining arrangements and through the creation of National Partnership Forums in social care and childcare. Decent pay and conditions for all care workers through a collectively bargained sectoral agreement on fair pay and decent working conditions, a new sectoral minimum wage of £15 per hour, sick pay, secure contracts and full payment for all time worked, as well as access to efficient labour market enforcement mechanisms. Skills, training, and progression pathways with nationally negotiated training frameworks to ensure consistency and quality. These should be aligned with national pay structures to make sure staff are fairly renumerated and can progress as they acquire new skills and knowledge. Training must be accredited and qualifications recognised and transferrable to new employers. Protect health, safety, and wellbeing including ensuring that staffing levels are based on care and education needs and not arbitrary ratios. And a zero-tolerance approach to workplace abuse with comprehensive safeguarding and support, notably for staff who may be at increased risk of experiencing abuse and harassment including Black and migrant workers.
  22. Content Article
    This is one of a series of 'Learning from safety incidents' resources published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Each one briefly describes a critical issue—what happened, what the CQC and the provider have done about it, and the steps you can take to avoid it happening in your service. This edition is about ensuring the safety of people using wheelchairs in health and social care. The CQC recently prosecuted a care home provider for exposing someone using their service to a significant risk of avoidable harm, which resulted in a life-changing injury. Incident Before the incident, the person had been experiencing difficulties with mobility and had sometimes been confused and agitated. They had been provided with an adapted wheelchair with extended footplates for their own use, and staff helped them get around in it. However, staff mainly used a standard wheelchair for communal use within the care home. On several occasions, the person's foot had come away from the footplate when using a standard wheelchair, resulting in a risk of it getting trapped. On the day of the incident, while pushing the person down a slope in a standard wheelchair, the staff member noticed resistance and found the person's foot caught underneath. The staff member replaced the person's foot on the footplate and continued the journey. Afterwards, the person complained about pain in the affected leg and was taken to hospital for further assessment. The person was found to have significant, life-changing fractures to their leg and, at one stage, it was thought it may have to be amputated. The person spent 16 weeks in bed with their leg in a cast, before being discharged from hospital to a different service. Unfortunately, they did not make a full recovery and their physical health was permanently affected by the incident. The CQC's investigation found that, although the provider knew the risks associated with the use of a communal wheelchair, the care home failed to take adequate steps to assess and mitigate those risks. Recommendations To manage the risk of injuries to people from wheelchairs, health and social care providers need to: develop and implement adequate moving and handling plans develop and implement a risk assessment specific to a person's use of a wheelchair have adequate policies and procedures to support staff in managing these risks assess a person's mental capacity to decide about using a wheelchair, especially one not provided specifically for them provide staff with the training, skills and knowledge required to safely use a wheelchair seek the support of other professionals, such as occupational therapists, where required.
  23. Content Article
    Constipation can be a life–threatening issue for people with a learning disability who are at heightened risk from complications if it is left untreated. This campaign has been developed by NHS England to support people with a learning disability, their carers and people who work in primary care to recognise the signs of constipation. Resources have been co–created with input from the Down’s Syndrome Association, Mencap and Pathways Associates to ensure that they are fit for purpose. The resources aim to: Drive awareness of the seriousness of constipation Help people recognise the signs of constipation at an early stage Empower people to take action and ensure that people with a learning disability experiencing constipation get the right health support straight away Raise awareness of the steps which can be taken to prevent constipation.
  24. Content Article
    As reported recently, the Scottish Healthcare Workers Coalition called upon the Scottish Government to reinstate 'universal masking' in health and social care settings.  In this statement written in support of their campaign, an occupational safety and health practitioner, David Osborn, explains the legal requirements for risk assessments that the Government ought to have undertaken before reaching such a decision that exposes healthcare staff to the life-changing consequences associated with repeat Covid-19 infections.  He also explains the legal duty of the Government to consult with workers before implementing changes that may affect their health and safety. Neither duty (risk assessment nor prior consultation with workers) appears to have been well met, putting the Scottish Government and Health Boards in breach of UK-wide health and safety law.  The decision by the Scottish Government to withdraw the coronavirus guidance for extended use of facemasks across health and social care is clearly a matter that has significant implications for the safety of health and social care workers. It is a legal requirement under the Health and Safety at Work Act etc 1974 that employers (including Governments and their Health Boards) must do at least two things before implementing a change that may materially and substantially impact workers’ health and safety at work: They must conduct a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the proposed actions; and They must consult with all employees or their elected representatives concerning the proposed change. 1. Risk assessment To be “suitable and sufficient” the risk assessment for the abandonment of universal masking should have considered several factors such as: The fact that variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to evolve which are becoming more immune resistant and subject to vaccine escape. The opportunity for viruses to mutate in this way depends upon the sheer number of viruses in circulation within the population. The greater the number, then statistically the more likely it is that a variant could evolve with potential to partially or wholly defeat our current vaccines and greatly impair the nation’s recovery from the pandemic. It just takes for one single virus to mutate in a certain catastrophic way for this to happen – as will have been the case in Wuhan in 2019. Any responsible Government and Health Board should take all reasonably practicable steps to reduce the number of viruses circulating in the population, particularly in health and social care premises. The Scottish Government appears blind to this simple but important duty that it owes to the Scottish people and its healthcare workers in particular. Evidence is emerging that cases of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection and associated hospitalisations and deaths have increased in relative frequency as new Omicron lineages have emerged with enhanced transmissibility or immune escape characteristics. The evidence also suggests that the time interval between repeat infections is decreasing, particularly (and rather peculiarly) amongst individuals who have previously been infected with the Alpha (‘Kent’) variant which arose during the second wave (winter 2020-21). Many healthcare workers will have been infected during that period. The consequence is that these workers are (a) that these infections may recur more frequently and (b) are at greater risk from these repeat infections. It has long been established that each time a person is infected or reinfected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus they have a risk of developing Long Covid, which can have severe detrimental effect on their health and quality of life – sometimes causing debilitating, irreversible, long-term health conditions. The more times they become reinfected, the worse these conditions may be and the longer they may last. By law, the risk assessment must be recorded (on paper or electronically) and be made available to employees and their representatives immediately upon request. I therefore call upon the Scottish Government to confirm whether or not such a risk assessment was undertaken before the decision was taken to abandon universal masking. If one was done, then the Government and the Health Boards should publish it so that interested parties, such as the Coalition, can determine whether it has properly considered all relevant factors that have a direct bearing on the increased risk of healthcare worker infection and how they plan to mitigate that risk. If no such risk assessment was done, either by the Government centrally or by its Health Boards, then they have acted recklessly and unlawfully. 2. Consultation For clarity, the “consultation”, which is required by the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 and the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996, has a very clear meaning. It means: a) providing employees, or their safety representatives, with all relevant information relating to any proposed change in health and safety arrangements (including giving them sight of any risk assessments) before that change is implemented; b) allowing the employees and their representatives sufficient time to discuss amongst themselves and seek any further advice they may need to inform an opinion about the change; c) the employer must then take account any the feedback that it receives. These are serious matters. The UK Government and the devolved administrations, through inept planning for pandemics and the issue of seriously flawed guidance, failed to provide health and social care workers with the necessary PPE to prevent them inhaling airborne virus whilst they cared for highly infectious patients. It is quite understandable that our brave healthcare workers are now so aggrieved by the Government’s decision. These are the same people for whom we, the public, stood and clapped so proudly at our doorsteps during those dark days. The chaotic state of the UK’s planning and preparedness for pandemics has been laid bare at the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry. During future sessions, the Inquiry will receive evidence concerning the deception which was wrought upon healthcare workers that the flimsy paper masks they were given would keep them safe from the disease when health and safety law requires proper tested and certified respirators to be used (such as FFP3 and equivalent) when workers are exposed to dangerous microbiological hazards in their workplace. Current World Health Organization guidance still advocates that universal masking policies in health and social care premises do still have their place in Governments’ armoury of defence measures to keep healthcare workers safe. Given all that they have already been through, combined with the ongoing suffering that many of them are experiencing from the disease they have contracted whilst caring for us, surely it is now time for the Scottish Government to pay greater consideration and respect for their health and safety. Some commentators may view the abandonment of universal masking as the Government playing “Russian Roulette” with their health by "letting the virus rip" – as sadly it is likely to do as the autumn and winter seasons approach.
  25. Content Article
    The Safe Care at Home Review is an important reminder that people with care and support needs may experience abuse and neglect, sometimes under the guise of ‘care’. Older people, or people with disabilities, may be particularly vulnerable to harm because of their dependence on others and the complexity of their care needs. They might rely on other people for physical, mental or financial support, and may face difficulties recognising or reporting harm. The review draws on a range of evidence, including the Home Office funded Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme, which has highlighted that one in six domestic homicides involved people who were cared for by, or caring for, the suspect.
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