Category Archives: Hospitals

NHS braced for surge of patients after ambulance workers’ strike

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Doctors warn of a backlog of patients and ‘deteriorating health’, with calls to 999 down 25% during paramedics’ 24-hour stoppage

The NHS is bracing itself for an influx of patients between now and Christmas after thousands of people deferred seeking treatment during the ambulance workers’ strike on Wednesday.

Senior doctors are warning that the decision by many people in England and Wales not to request help while paramedics were staging a 24-hour stoppage will leave the NHS struggling to cope at a time when hospitals would traditionally be scaling back their services for the festive break.

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Ambulance strike: NHS leaders urge public to avoid risky activity

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Bodies representing NHS care in England also call for Rishi Sunak intervention but PM refuses to budge on pay

NHS leaders have urged the public to avoid risky activity on Wednesday for fear they may be left helpless and unable to reach A&E during the ambulance strike.

The industrial action by staff across England and Wales comes as the ongoing pay dispute between ministers and NHS workers looks poised to descend into an increasingly bitter and disruptive war of attrition that could go on for months.

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Ambulance strike in England and Wales will bring ‘huge risk of harm’

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Patients with serious conditions and injuries will have to get themselves to A&E, NHS chiefs say

Thousands of patients who have had strokes, heart attacks or broken bones will have to get themselves to A&E on Wednesday when ambulance staff strike over pay, NHS bosses have warned.

The disruption is expected to last for up to three days, with crews not reaching some patients who called 999 on Wednesday until Thursday or Friday.

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Pressure on ministers to avert NHS strikes ahead of ‘very challenging’ week

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NHS Providers boss says nurses’ strike had ‘significant impact’ as senior Tories urge government to negotiate

Planned strikes next week will be “very challenging” for the health service, hospital bosses have warned, after they conceded that Thursday’s nurses strikes had had a “significant impact”.

The comments from NHS Providers came amid mounting pressure on the government from senior backbenchers and usually supportive newspapers to try to resolve the dispute.

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Welsh health board urges public to avoid emergency departments

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Ambulance service blames demand, staff sickness, and patient handover times for elderly man being taken to hospital on plank

The health board for the area where an 89-year-old man was taken to hospital strapped to a plank because no ambulances were available has said the flow of patients through its hospitals is blocked because hundreds of medically fit people have nowhere safe to be discharged to.

They have urged people to stay away from emergency departments unless their need is dire.

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‘Like a horrific board game’: 33 hours inside an NHS in crisis

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Crammed wards, burnt-out GPs, patients waiting hours for ambulances – the health service is at breaking point

Inside the dimly lit command centre at King’s College hospital, staff arriving for the first beds meeting of the day are greeted with a warning: the hospital is already under strain. “So, we are under pressure this morning,” the head of nursing, Naomi Hosking, informs colleagues stood around her in a semi-circle. No one registers surprise. “We’ve got a lot of patients in ED [emergency department] with little space to see new patients, so we need to get some early movement.”

It’s 8.32am and ED – maximum capacity 60 – is packed, with 61 patients inside. The oldest is 98; the youngest 30 days old. Later, that pressure will intensify: the number of ED patients – in beds, on trolleys or in chairs – will more than double to 137.

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Exclusive: health unions offer to pause NHS strikes if government join pay talks

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Royal College of Nursing and Unison call on health secretary to negotiate with them to avoid action at Christmas and new year

Health unions made a dramatic offer on Saturday night to suspend a wave of planned strikes that threatens to cripple the NHS over Christmas and the new year if ministers agree to open serious discussions over pay.

The moves by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the country’s biggest union, Unison, are the first signs of flexibility by either side in a dispute that has been deadlocked for weeks.

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Two-thirds of 15,400 extra Australian deaths in 2022 caused by Covid, study finds

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Total ‘excess’ mortality to August covers coronavirus deaths plus those linked to pandemic factors such as health systems being overwhelmed

Comprehensive analysis of the impact of Covid-19 on mortality rates has found there were 15,400 “excess deaths” across Australia in the first eight months of 2022, or 13% more than predicted.

The excess deaths measure captures not only confirmed Covid deaths but also those incorrectly diagnosed and reported, and those from other causes attributable to the crisis such as health systems being overwhelmed, resources being diverted or fewer people seeking treatment.

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‘Bring your own syringe’: Malawi’s medical supplies shortage at crisis point

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A lack of essential drugs and equipment is causing health centres to close, while critics accuse the government of complacency

Health workers in Malawi claim the government is “ignoring” acute shortages of drugs and equipment that are crippling the country’s hospitals.

Patients have been asked to bring in their own syringes while the theatre and labour ward at the main Bwaila maternity hospital in the capital, Lilongwe – has faced temporary closures because “we don’t have equipment/supplies to work with”, according to a notice pasted to a wall. Regular power cuts are also impacting.

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Elective surgeries in Australia drop to 10-year low due to Covid measures, report finds

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Decline of 17% at public hospitals compared with previous year attributed to restrictions during Delta and Omicron waves

The number of elective surgeries performed across Australia has slumped to a 10-year low due to Covid-19.

New data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) shows there were 623,000 elective surgeries at public hospitals in the 2021/22 financial year.

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Melbourne Royal Children’s hospital tells parents to stay away if possible due to ‘unprecedented demand’

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Workload from treating high number of extremely unwell children means patients may face 12-hour wait

Melbourne parents with sick children may face waits of more than 12 hours at the Royal Children’s hospital emergency department as it buckles under demand.

The hospital, in a statement on Monday evening, warned families should seek alternative care where possible given it was dealing with more than 90 patients in its emergency department.

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Care workers hit back at Matt Hancock’s claim staff brought Covid to care homes

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Most cases not caused by decision to discharge patients from hospital without testing, says former health secretary

Care workers have hit back at claims by the former health secretary Matt Hancock that the Covid virus was brought into homes by infected staff.

In his book, the Pandemic Diaries, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail, Hancock said only a small proportion of cases were caused by his decision to discharge patients from hospital without testing.

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Germany faces ‘catastrophic’ paediatric bed shortage as RSV cases soar

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Rising cases of respiratory syncytial virus after pandemic leading to critical hospital pressures

Intensive care doctors in Germany have warned that hospital paediatric units in the country are stretched to breaking point in part due to rising cases of respiratory infections among infants.

The intensive care association DIVI said the seasonal rise in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases and a shortage of nurses was causing a “catastrophic situation” in hospitals.

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Emergency care issues in England contributed to 200 deaths last week, says medical chief

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Head of Royal College of Emergency Medicine says lengthy waits forcing ambulances to be ‘wards on wheels’

More than 200 people who died last week in England are estimated to have been affected by problems with urgent and emergency care, according to the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

Dr Adrian Boyle, who is also a consultant in emergency medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a failure to address problems discharging patients to social care was a “massive own goal”.

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Ambulance waiting times in England three times longer in some rural areas

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Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts

Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.

The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.

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Rotherham: inquiry after family says boy, 5, died after hospital turned him away

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Yusuf Ahmed died after a tonsil infection spread to his lungs and caused multiple organ failure

A hospital trust in South Yorkshire has opened an investigation after the family of a five-year-old said he died after being turned away by doctors because there were no available beds.

Yusuf Ahmed died on Monday after a tonsil infection had spread to his lungs and caused multiple organ failure. The boy had been taken to Rotherham general hospital by his uncle Zaheer Ahmed on 14 November with complaints of a sore throat. He had been prescribed antibiotics the previous day by his GP, but his condition had not improved.

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Budget for 40 new NHS hospitals faces real-terms cut of £700m, say Lib Dems

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Capital budget of £12bn a year to shrink to £11.7bn, putting Tories’ claim 40 hospitals in England will be built or renovated in doubt

Plans by the government to construct and renovate 40 hospitals in England could be delayed because of new analysis suggesting the health and social care department’s capital spending budget faces a real-terms cut of £700m next year, according to the Liberal Democrats.

With some hospitals said to be in dire need of repair, the health secretary twice refused to say on Sunday that the NHS was functioning properly and instead admitted it was under “severe pressure”.

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Nurses across UK vote to go on strike for first time in dispute over pay

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NHS braces for prolonged period of industrial action by health workers over the winter and into next year

Nurses have voted to stage strikes across the UK for the first time in their history in pursuit of a better pay deal, in a move that will seriously disrupt NHS care.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) announced on Wednesday that nurses at many, but not all, hospitals and other places of NHS care would take industrial action before Christmas and could continue striking until next May.

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Three girls died after major failings in NHS mental health care, inquiry finds

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‘Systemic’ failures at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys trust found to have contributed to self-inflicted deaths

Three teenage girls died after major failings in the care they received from NHS mental health services in the north-east of England, an independent investigation has found.

“Multifaceted and systemic” failures by the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys (TEWV) NHS trust contributed to the young women’s self-inflicted deaths within eight months of each other, it concluded.

In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or by email at jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Patients dying daily due to poor ‘soft skills’ among Australian surgeons, experts warn

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Nearly all avoidable deaths in surgery exhibit a breakdown in communication and cooperation, research shows, as doctors call for system reform

More than 1,000 Australians die unnecessarily in hospital each year due to avoidable failures by surgeons, according to experts calling for a senate inquiry.

Graham Beaumont, PhD, and Dr John North are both long-term members of audit committees that review surgical mortality in Australia.

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