Admissions for vitamin or iron deficiencies up by more than 10% year on year and as much as tenfold on 1998-99
The number of people admitted to hospital in England because of a lack of vitamins or minerals is soaring, according to analysis of NHS figures.
In 2023-24 there were 191,927 admissions where the main reason was a lack of iron, up 11% on 2022-23. The figure is almost 10 times the 20,396 hospital admissions for lack of iron in 1998-99.
Continue reading...Assaults on medical facilities could amount to war crimes in certain circumstances, human rights office report says
Israel’s pattern of sustained attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers has brought the coastal strip’s healthcare system to the brink of “total collapse”, according to a report by the UN’s human rights office.
The report, which catalogues the besieging and targeting of hospitals and their immediate grounds with explosive weapons, the killing of hundreds of medical workers, and the destruction of critical life-saving equipment, said that in certain circumstances the attacks could “amount to war crimes”. Israel has consistently denied committing war crimes in Gaza.
Continue reading...Stretched primary services causing increase in emergency visits for issues from coughs to hiccups, health leaders say
The number of people turning to A&E departments in England for minor ailments including hiccups, sore throats and coughs is soaring, as senior health leaders warn that NHS primary and community services are “massively overstretched”.
NHS data shows a large increase in people arriving at emergency departments for non-emergency ailments including backache, insomnia and earache.
Continue reading...Patients waiting many hours for ambulances to arrive, while those phoning 999 struggle to get through
A “critical incident” was declared by the Welsh ambulance service on Monday evening due to significantly increased demand and extensive handover delays.
The ambulance service, which covers 3 million-plus people across Wales, said more than 340 calls were waiting to be answered at the time the critical incident was declared.
Continue reading...Gaza officials say staff at Kamal Adwan hospital, including its director, have been detained as WHO reports Israeli forces burned and destroyed key departments
The last major health facility in northern Gaza has been put out of service, the World Health Organization has said, and its director detained according to Gaza officials after an Israeli military operation targeting sites near the Kamal Adwan hospital.
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said in a statement on X.
Continue reading...Gunmen target press conference at Haiti’s largest public hospital after street gangs forced its closure earlier this year
Two reporters and a police officer were killed and others injured on Tuesday when armed men opened fire on a group of journalists who gathered for a government press conference scheduled to announce the reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital.
Street gangs forced the closure of the State University of Haiti hospital early this year and authorities had pledged to reopen the facility in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Christmas Eve. But as journalists gathered to cover the event, the gunmen opened fire.
Continue reading...Former medical director of Countess of Chester hospital says he is ‘truly sorry’ if he failed bereaved families
A boss at the hospital where Lucy Letby murdered babies has said he “sincerely regrets” not calling police sooner and is “truly sorry” if he failed the bereaved families.
Ian Harvey, a former medical director at the Countess of Chester hospital, told the Thirlwall inquiry he wished he had contacted the police nearly a year before they were informed.
Continue reading...Simon Medland KC told inquiry his membership of organisation was not the reason he was approached by hospital boss
A judge has denied he was asked to give legal advice to hospital bosses over concerns about nurse Lucy Letby because he is a Freemason, a public inquiry has heard.
The Thirlwall inquiry into events surrounding the crimes of Letby heard that both Judge Simon Medland KC and the Countess of Chester’s former director of corporate and legal services, Stephen Cross, are members of the organisation.
Continue reading...Distant placements found to have led to anxiety, PTSD and suicide in some cases, as use of them increases in England
Mental health patients in England are being harmed by the increase in placements in psychiatric units far from their homes and families, a new report indicates.
Patients have had anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while some have died by suicide as a result of their distant placements, according to a Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) report, which drew on interviews with patients and their loved ones. The participants spoke of how their experiences had resulted in feelings of anger, frustration and a loss of trust in the mental health system.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Consultant who raised concerns says there could have been earlier victims she has not been convicted of killing
Lucy Letby was likely to have harmed more babies than those she has been convicted of murdering on a hospital neonatal unit, a senior doctor has told a public inquiry.
Dr Stephen Brearey, a consultant paediatrician who raised concerns about the nurse, told the Thirlwall inquiry he believed Letby “didn’t start becoming a killer” in June 2015 and that she may have had earlier victims.
Continue reading...Contaminated feed inquest conclusions highlight concerns over lack of requirement for providers to report problems
More babies in England could die from issues caused by unlicensed medicines if providers are not required to report problems, a coroner has warned.
The conclusions were reached at the end of an inquest held after three infants died due to receiving contaminated feed.
Continue reading...Matthew Pennycook says Tory position now unclear on cap on tax rises that was in place when Kemi Badenoch was local government minister
A minister has criticised her Tory shadow for talking about “joy” in the health sector about the funding it received.
Karin Smyth, a health minister, said it was a strange word to use given the state of NHS finances left by the last government.
Many in the health sector would have been pleased to hear the announcement of the extra funding going into the NHS [in the budget], only for the joy to be struck down by the realisation of a broken manifesto promise not to raise national insurance contributions.
This was only compounded further on the discovery that a raft of frontline care providers – care homes, hospices, care charities, pharmacies, GPS, to name but a few – found themselves not exempt from the NI rises, leaving them with crippling staff bills and the threat of closure and redundancies.
He talks about joy. There was no joy when we inherited the mess that they left back in July.
The chancellor took into account the impact of changes to national insurance when she allocated an extra £26bn to the Department of Health and Social Care.
There are well established processes for agreeing funding allocations across the system, we are going through those processes now with this issue in mind.
The British government needs to start now indicating for them what they believe is the tipping point at which they believe a referendum would be called.
Continue reading...Health secretary says controversial scheme for trusts in England is necessary to raise standards
Wes Streeting plans to publish a football-style league table of the best- and worst-performing hospitals in England, prompting fury from NHS bosses and staff at the prospect of struggling trusts being “named and shamed”.
The health secretary will announce the controversial move on Wednesday to an audience of health service leaders and defend it as a “tough” but necessary way of raising care standards.
Continue reading...Figures for England show one in eight of all unplanned hospital admissions in 2023-24 were for respiratory system diseases
Serious breathing problems lead to more emergency admissions to hospital in England than any other medical condition, NHS data reveals.
More people with asthma, bronchitis or emphysema have to go into hospital for treatment because they are struggling to breathe than those with heart disease, joint problems or cancer.
Continue reading...Parliamentary bill will also ban the advertising of vapes and restrict their flavours, packaging and marketing
Smoking is set to be banned outside schools and hospitals as part of a crackdown on one of the UK’s biggest killers and its most common cause of cancer.
But the government has dropped plans to outlaw smoking outside pubs and restaurants, prompting health campaigners to complain about “vested interests” covertly influencing policy.
Continue reading...Israeli strikes near Rafik Hariri hospital and its claims that a second Beirut facility is hiding Hezbollah stash cause anxiety and panic
The rescuers struck at the concrete with jackhammers, excavators and even pickaxes, pausing occasionally and demanding silence, straining to hear anyone still trapped under the collapsed building.
Beneath the rubble, nothing stirred. They resumed, many working through the night after Israel carried out airstrikes on residential buildings across the street from Rafik Hariri university hospital, killing 18 people, including four children, and wounding 60 on Monday night.
Continue reading...Procedures performed by convicted breast surgeon were not a recognised or authorised type of operation
The convicted breast surgeon Ian Paterson pitched one of his patients an unauthorised cleavage-sparing mastectomy “almost like a sales job”, an inquest has heard.
Chloe Nikitas, an environmental consultant from Tamworth, died in 2008 at the age of 43 from breast cancer that returned three years after having a mastectomy she believed had removed all of her breast tissue.
Continue reading...TRG says both candidates have ‘used rhetoric and focused on issues which are far and away from … the values we cherish and uphold’
Robert Jenrick, one of the final two Tory leadership candidates, is delivering a speech in London. There is a live feed on his X account.
Jenrick started by promising “a complete break with Labour’s failing agenda”. He said:
The real choice this country faces is between Labour’s failing agenda and the new approach I want us to take, the new approach we need as a country.
Because if I am chosen as the next leader of this party we will stand to offer a complete break with Labour’s failing agenda.
Continue reading...Jamie Pearson, 27, had waited nearly 24 hours to see an NHS mental health worker after taking an overdose in August
A 27-year-old man who killed himself in a hospital toilet after waiting nearly 24 hours to see a mental health professional was badly failed by the NHS, his mother has said.
Jamie Pearson was admitted to Blackpool Victoria hospital’s A&E department after taking an overdose of high-strength painkillers on 17 August.
Continue reading...Ralph de la Torre, paid at least $250m by Steward Health Care amid facility issues and closures, ignored subpoena
The US Senate has voted unanimously to hold the CEO of Steward Health Care in criminal contempt for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena – marking the first time in more than 50 years that the chamber has moved to hold someone in criminal contempt.
On Wednesday, the Senate voted to hold Ralph de la Torre in contempt of Congress after the 58-year-old head of the Massachusetts-based for-profit healthcare system – which declared bankruptcy earlier this year – ignored a congressional subpoena and failed to appear at a hearing over the hospital chain’s alleged abuse of finances on 12 September.
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