Category Archives: Hospitals

Three per cent of patients died after undergoing knee replacement by NSW doctor, inquest hears

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Orthopaedic surgeon Elie Khoury performed the operations which have a usual mortality risk from 0.1% to 0.8%

Three per cent of an orthopaedic surgeon’s patients who underwent bilateral knee replacement surgery at Albury Wodonga private hospital died, a New South Wales coroner has heard.

Kenneth Toll, 62, died on 20 July 2019 three days after undergoing the elective surgery at the hospital. The inquest, which began on Monday, is examining the medical care and treatment provided to Toll in the lead-up to his death.

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Hospital where baby died from infected feed had ‘entirely unsafe system’

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Admission by doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ made during inquest into deaths of three babies infected

An NHS trust that gave four newborn babies contaminated feed has admitted that it was operating “an entirely unsafe system” at the time they became infected.

The admission came during evidence by a senior doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust (GSTT), who led its investigation into the outbreak, during an inquest into how one of the very premature babies died.

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Call for army to protect Italian hospital staff after spate of attacks

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Patients and relatives turn on doctors and nurses, with 16,000 reports of physical and verbal assaults in 2023 alone

Doctors’ and nurses’ unions in Italy have called for authorities to consider bringing the army into hospitals in response to an increase in attacks by patients and their relatives that provoked outrage across the country.

In one of the latest, captured on video and widely shared on social media, doctors and nurses were forced to barricade themselves in a room at the Policlinico hospital in Foggia, in the southern region of Puglia, on Friday after about 50 relatives and friends of a 23-year-old woman who died after an emergency operation turned on medical staff. Some healthcare workers were injured, with bloodstains visible on the emergency room floor.

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NHS trust admits contaminated feed caused baby’s death after decade of denial

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Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust tells inquest highly vulnerable Aviva Otte was given nutritional product containing deadly bacteria

An NHS trust has admitted that a highly vulnerable baby died because of contaminated feed that it gave her, after denying that for more than a decade.

At an inquest on Tuesday, Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust said it had given Aviva Otte a nutritional product containing deadly bacteria in January 2014. It had previously insisted to her mother, a coroner and the Guardian on multiple occasions that she had died of natural causes.

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NSW nurses and midwives strike: hospital wait times up and surgery delays expected

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Premier says agreeing to 15% pay rise this year would lead other workers to ‘knock on my door’ demanding the same

A New South Wales nurses’ strike has prompted warnings to keep ambulances and emergency departments clear of minor cases as Labor feels the heat from public sector unions.

Nurses and midwives are walking off the job across NSW for 12 hours on Tuesday after demands for a 15% pay rise this year were rebuffed.

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Great Ormond Street apologises after children suffered ‘severe harm’ under surgeon

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NHS hospital reviews care of 700 patients after inquiry found orthopaedic doctor caused lifelong damage to some, one of whom underwent an ‘avoidable limb amputation’

A leading NHS children’s hospital is reviewing the care 721 patients received after an investigation found that children treated by one of its surgeons came to “severe harm” during limb reconstruction operations.

Great Ormond Street hospital (Gosh) in London has offered its “sincere apologies” to children who have suffered what the Sunday Times reported was in some cases lifelong damage.

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Lucy Letby inquiry should be postponed or changed, experts say

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Group including neonatal experts and statistics professors question its setup amid concerns about conviction

A group including some of the UK’s leading neonatal experts and professors of statistics is calling on the government to postpone or change the terms of a public inquiry over concerns about the conviction of the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby.

In a private letter to ministers, seen by the Guardian, the 24 experts said they were concerned that the inquiry’s narrow terms could prevent lessons being learned about “possible negligent deaths that were presumed to be murders” in the neonatal ward of the Countess of Chester hospital (CoC).

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Portsmouth hospital reopens A&E after restoring power

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Queen Alexandra hospital had closed ward to new admissions and declared major incident after outage

A hospital has reopened its emergency department after closing it to new admissions and declaring a major incident after a power cut.

The outage on Monday morning at the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, Hampshire, also affected phone lines. A small number of procedures had to be cancelled.

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AMA warns surgeries may be cancelled due to ‘unprecedented’ shortage of IV fluids across Australia

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Non-cancer electives could be delayed as early as next week as TGA issues shortage alert for multiple products used in surgery and critical care

Surgeries could be cancelled as soon as next week due to an “unprecedented” shortage of intravenous fluids in Australian hospitals, the peak doctors’ body has warned.

The medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), issued a shortage alert on Friday for multiple intravenous (IV) fluid products, which are used in surgery and critical care.

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Inga Rublite timeline: events in run-up to death of woman in A&E waiting room

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From experiencing a sudden headache at work to being found slumped under a coat in hospital with a brain haemorrhage

• Inquest finds hospital missed two chances to treat Inga Rublite

Inga Rublite was on a break at work when she came down with a sudden headache. Less than 24 hours later, she lay dying on the floor of an overcrowded A&E waiting room under a coat, hidden in plain sight. The sequence of events that led up to her death show an NHS under strain and the risk of patients falling through the cracks.

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England’s healthcare watchdog apologises over ‘new regulatory approach’

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CQC ‘got things wrong’ implementing inspection regime and new computer system, interim chief admits

England’s healthcare regulator has issued a public apology over reforms to its monitoring of tens of thousands of hospitals, care homes, dentists and GPs.

The apology from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) came in the wake of care organisations complaining of a “hostile” inspection regime and a major new computer system failing to work properly.

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NHS patients raising safety concerns too often ‘fobbed off’, says commissioner

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Dr Henrietta Hughes said focus on budgets had led to substandard care and dismissal of legitimate fears

NHS patients raising safety concerns are too often “gaslighted”, “fobbed off” or dismissed as “difficult women”, according to England’s patient safety commissioner, who criticised health leaders for a “relentless focus” on finance and productivity.

Dr Henrietta Hughes said patients and loved ones sounding the alarm about substandard care should be an early indicator of danger or potential harm, but far too frequently they were completely ignored. NHS trusts focusing too much on budgets meant that “the culture becomes toxic, and we’re just on the road back to the Mid Staffs scandal”, she added.

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What it means for patients if St Vincent’s and NIB fail to reach a funding deal

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The hospital network says it will walk away from its contract with the private health insurer in three months if a fairer agreement can’t be reached. Has this situation happened before?

The clock is ticking for thousands of patients after Australia’s largest not-for-profit healthcare provider, St Vincent’s, announced it would end its current agreement with health insurer NIB if a fair funding deal could not be reached before 3 October.

The chief executive of NIB, Mark Fitzgibbon, says he hopes negotiations resume, but St Vincent’s maintains the insurer needs to come to the table during the notice period and put forward a proposal that reflects the rising costs of healthcare.

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Thousands of patients facing healthcare price hikes after negotiations break down between St Vincent’s and NIB

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Australian Medical Association is urging both parties to reach an agreement for the sake of patients

Thousands of patients could face higher out-of-pocket healthcare costs after negotiations broke down between St Vincent’s private hospital network and the private health fund, NIB, for a new funding agreement.

On Thursday, St Vincent’s Health Australia gave notice to NIB that it will walk away from its contract within the next 65 business days unless a fairer funding agreement is reached.

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NHS leader calls for partnership with private sector to build new hospitals

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Exclusive: NHS Providers head says joining with private health firms and developers would help care backlog

The NHS must be given the green light to partner with private health firms and property developers to build new hospitals to slash the care backlog, a health service boss has said.

The last Labour government was widely criticised over controversial private finance initiative (PFI) deals to erect scores of new NHS facilities that led to vast profits for major corporations.

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Patients left in pain and to die alone amid NHS nurse shortages, survey finds

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Only a third of shifts have enough nurses on duty, the Royal College of Nursing says its analysis shows

NHS patients are being left unseen in pain and in some cases to die alone because shifts do not have enough registered nurses, a survey shows.

The Royal College of Nursing said analysis of a survey it carried out showed that only a third of shifts had enough registered nurses on duty.

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NHS patients affected by cyber-attack may face six-month wait for blood test

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Only ‘urgent’ tests to go ahead in short term after hospitals in south-east London hit by Russian gang’s seizure of data

Patients denied a blood test because of a Russian cyber-attack on the NHS may have to wait up to six months to have their sample taken, the Guardian has learned.

The delays are so long that some patients have decided to pay to have their blood taken and analysed by a private clinic rather than remain on the NHS waiting list.

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Labour and Tories would ‘both leave NHS worse off than under austerity’

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Analysis by leading experts the Nuffield Trust reveals that main parties’ manifestos would squeeze health spending

Labour and the Conservatives would both leave the NHS with lower spending increases than during the years of Tory austerity, according to an independent analysis of their manifestos by a leading health thinktank.

The assessment by the respected Nuffield Trust of the costed NHS policies of both parties, announced in their manifestos last week, says the level of funding increases would leave them struggling to pay existing staff costs, let alone the bill for massive planned increases in doctors, nurses and other staff in the long-term workforce plan agreed last year.

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Hospitals to share waiting lists under Labour plans for quicker care

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Party says pooling resources across regions would deliver 40,000 extra appointments a week for patients

Hospitals would have to share waiting lists and pool resources under Labour’s plans to reduce waiting times by delivering up to 40,000 extra NHS appointments a week.

The party has announced that patients would be offered appointments at nearby hospitals, rather than necessarily at their local one, which would enable people to receive faster treatment. Hospital staff and resources would be pooled across a region and would run evening and weekend surgeries.

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Hospital surgical teams with more women improve patient recovery, study finds

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Researchers say that a critical mass of female anaesthesiologists and surgeons in operative teams can reduce postoperative complications

Hospital surgical teams that include more female doctors improve patient outcomes, lower the risk of serious complications and could in turn reduce healthcare costs, according to the world’s largest study of its kind.

Studies show diversity is important in business, finance, tech, education and the law not only for equity but for output. However, evidence supporting the value of sex diversity in healthcare teams has been limited.

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