Category Archives: Hospitals

Medically fit patients waiting months to be discharged from England’s hospitals

Posted on by

Charities say social care crisis is ‘crippling patient flow’ in hospitals and has created a ‘miserable situation’

Patients are waiting up to nine months to be discharged from NHS hospitals in England despite being medically fit to leave, according to “shocking” figures that will pile pressure on ministers to tackle the social care crisis.

Health experts say the incredibly long-delayed discharges are yet more evidence of the impact of the shortage of social care beds and provisions to get patients home safely.

Continue reading...

UK downgrades Covid-19 alert level amid falling cases

Posted on by

Chief medical officers said the wave of Omicron variants was ‘subsiding’, although ‘further surges are likely’

The UK’s Covid-19 alert level has been downgraded to level 2, meaning the virus is in “general circulation” but healthcare pressures and transmission are “declining or stable”.

The chief medical officers of the UK nations and the national medical director of the NHS in England have jointly recommended that the Covid alert level be moved down from level 3 amid falling cases. They said the Covid-19 wave of the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 was “subsiding”.

Continue reading...

Victorian health minister ‘concerned’ by reports patients forced to wait hours in tent outside hospital

Posted on by

New $14m healthcare project is expected to ease the pressure on Victoria’s health system as it continues to buckle under demand

Victoria’s health minister admits she was concerned after two vulnerable patients were forced to wait hours inside a makeshift tent outside the emergency department at a major hospital this week.

Mary-Anne Thomas acknowledged the “discomfort” experienced by a young cancer patient and an elderly stroke patient at Box Hill hospital, as the state’s health system continues to buckle under pressure.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Victorian health systems’ ‘failure’ led to woman’s death after a stillborn delivery, inquest told

Posted on by

Brian Moylan urges coroner to be ‘courageous’ in pursuit of facts in inquest into death of his daughter, Annie O’Brien

Healthcare systems failed pregnant mum Annie O’Brien and her family has been burdened with investigating what led to her death, her father has told a Victorian inquest.

Five years to the day after the 37-year-old died, O’Brien’s father, Brian Moylan, urged the state coroner, John Cain, to be courageous in pursuing facts around her death and to make bold findings toward improvements in Victoria’s health system.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Cost of living crisis will add strain to ‘creaking’ NHS, experts warn

Posted on by

Staffing crisis drives nurses to strike ballot amid warnings of cancelled operations and surge in admissions

The cost of living crisis will add further strain to an already imperilled NHS this autumn, experts have warned, amid concerns the healthcare crisis could deepen if urgent action is not taken.

Healthcare professionals say the NHS is at risk of a surge in hospital admissions, operations being cancelled en masse, and increasing difficulties over discharging patients if such pressures, potentially combined with a further wave of Covid and a bad flu season, are not tackled.

Continue reading...

Archie Battersbee: ruling on hospice move expected on Friday

Posted on by

Lawyers had requested that 12-year-old be moved from Royal London hospital to spend his last moments in private

A ruling on whether 12-year-old Archie Battersbee can be moved from hospital to a hospice to die is expected at the high court on Friday morning.

Lawyers for the boy’s family took part in an hours-long legal hearing on Thursday, with the court in London sitting until late in the evening.

Continue reading...

UK doctors ‘less likely’ to resuscitate the most seriously ill patients since Covid

Posted on by

Pandemic may have changed decision-making, according to research published in Journal of Medical Ethics

Doctors are less likely to resuscitate the most seriously ill patients in the wake of the pandemic, a survey suggests.

Covid-19 may have changed doctors’ decision-making regarding end of life, making them more willing not to resuscitate very sick or frail patients and raising the threshold for referral to intensive care, according to the results of the research published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Continue reading...

Covid hospitalisations in Australia hit new record, surpassing January peak

Posted on by

Experts say lower ICU figures partly due to aged care deaths, while AMA vice president labels number of Covid patients ‘massive’

The number of Australians in hospital with Covid-19 has reached the highest point of the entire pandemic, according to data from CovidLive.

On Monday, there were 5,429 Covid patients in hospital, surpassing the previous record of 5,390 set in late January.

Continue reading...

Plea for Queensland to resume publishing vaccination status of Covid fatalities

Posted on by

Experts say data could help convince public to get booster shots as state’s Covid hospitalisations reach record levels

A leading infectious disease expert has questioned why Queensland has stopped releasing the vaccination status of Covid fatalities, as the state struggles to convince residents to get booster shots, despite record hospitalisations from the virus.

Queensland has the lowest rate of Covid booster shots in the country, with less than half the state having received a third dose.

Continue reading...

NHS doctors’ strike is ‘inevitable,’ says new BMA chair

Posted on by

Exclusive: doctors will use pay row to expose ‘desperate state’ of NHS after years of government neglect, Prof Philip Banfield warned

A doctor’s strike is “inevitable” and will expose how dangerously threadbare the Conservatives have left the health service, the profession’s new leader has said.

In his first interview since taking over as the British Medical Association’s chair of council, Prof Philip Banfield warned ministers that doctors will take the fight to them by using a pay dispute to tell the public patients are dying as a direct result of government neglect of the NHS.

Continue reading...

Hospital patients being treated in corridors and waiting areas, says RCN

Posted on by

Poll reveals more than a quarter of UK hospital nurses have seen patients cared for in ‘inappropriate’ settings

Patients are being treated in the wrong places in UK hospitals, such as corridors and waiting areas, leaving them at risk of poor care, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warns today.

Hospitals are so overstretched and understaffed that patients are ending up being looked after in clinically “inappropriate” settings, where personnel may not have the right skills.

Continue reading...

Covid: Hospitals fight sickness and backlogs as latest wave hits UK

Posted on by

Staff absences adding to workforce problems caused by Brexit, pension disputes and exhaustion, says expert

Hospitals are battling staff absences, exhaustion, persistent backlogs and problems discharging patients in the wake of the latest wave of Covid, the Guardian has found, as infection levels continue to rise across the UK.

According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, an estimated 2.71 million people in the UK had Covid in the last week of June, an 18% rise on the week before. In England alone, the most recent figures suggest about one in 25 people had a Covid infection.

Continue reading...

Paramedics set up units inside A&E to ease long queues

Posted on by

Experiment in London speeds up handover by emergency ambulance crews to doctors and is safer for patients

Paramedics have begun looking after patients inside an A&E unit, in an initiative by the health service to stop ambulances queueing outside hospitals and ease the strain on overstretched casualty staff.

The scheme has led to patients being handed over much more quickly at a hospital that was one of the worst in England for sick people being stuck, sometimes for many hours, in the back of an ambulance.

Continue reading...

Boris Johnson faces investigation into claims over 40 ‘new’ hospitals

Posted on by

Trusts reveal only five wholly new hospitals planned, as Labour says the scheme ‘exists only in PM’s imagination’

The government’s official spending watchdog is to launch an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s claim that 40 new hospitals will be built by 2030, as concerns grow in Whitehall that the pledge is unaffordable and has been greatly oversold to the public.

In a move that could prove hugely embarrassing for the prime minister, the independent National Audit Office (NAO) has decided to conduct a “value for money review” into the entire scheme, which was a cornerstone of the Conservative party’s 2019 general election manifesto.

Continue reading...

Knee replacements stall in regions of England with weight rules for patients

Posted on by

Stricter CCGs told patients that they have to attain a certain body mass index before surgery

The number of knee replacement operations carried out has dropped in regions of England with restrictions on surgery for overweight patients, with people in more deprived areas worst affected, researchers have found.

Patients needing surgery but unable to lose weight are being denied surgery that could ease pain and increase mobility, the team from the University of Bristol said.

Continue reading...

London NHS hospital trusts in row over £190m rebuilding scheme

Posted on by

Exclusive: UCLH says Great Ormond Street’s development of ageing site will endanger safety of patients

An extraordinary row has broken out between two NHS hospital trusts, with one accusing the other of endangering the safety of seriously ill patients through a £190m development scheme.

University College London Hospital (UCLH) claims Great Ormond Street (GOSH) children’s hospital’s rebuilding of its ageing site will lead to patients being denied time-critical care because they will become stuck in ambulances trapped in construction site traffic.

Continue reading...

Coeliac patient died after being fed Weetabix in hospital, inquiry hears

Posted on by

Hazel Pearson’s condition not signposted by her bed as coroner deems Wrexham Maelor’s plan of response ‘amateurish’

An 80-year-old woman with coeliac disease died within days of being fed Weetabix in hospital, an inquest has heard.

Hazel Pearson, from Connah’s Quay in Flintshire, was being treated at Wrexham Maelor hospital and died four days later on 30 November from aspiration pneumonia. Although her condition was recorded on her admission documents, there was no sign beside her bed to alert healthcare assistants to her dietary requirements, BBC News reported.

Continue reading...

Almost 100,000 facing excessive wait for serious cardiac care in England

Posted on by

Some patients will have heart attack and die as a result of ‘dangerous’ delays, charity warns

Almost 100,000 people with serious heart problems, including some “living on borrowed time”, are enduring long waits for potentially life-saving NHS care because hospitals are so busy.

Some of them are in such poor health they will have a heart attack and die as a consequence of facing such “dangerous” long delays, the British Heart Foundation has warned.

Continue reading...

Improved disease control in public buildings ‘could save UK billions a year’

Posted on by

Measures such as improved ventilation would boost economy by helping prevent ill health, says report

Mandating improved ventilation and other forms of disease control in public buildings could save the UK economy billions of pounds each year through the prevention of ill health and its societal impacts, according to a report.

It is the first study to comprehensively evaluate the health, social and economic costs of airborne infections, including Covid. Even without a pandemic, seasonal respiratory diseases cost the UK about £8bn a year in disruption and sick days, said the report by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. In the event of another severe pandemic within the next 60 years, the societal cost could be as high as £23bn a year.

Continue reading...

‘Demoralised’ nurses being ‘driven out’ of profession, RCN survey finds

Posted on by

Only a quarter of shifts have the planned number of registered nurses on duty, according to Royal College of Nursing report

Only a quarter of nursing shifts have the planned number of registered nurses on duty, a survey of more than 20,000 frontline staff has suggested.

According to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), most nurses warn that staffing levels on their last shift were not sufficient to meet the needs of patients, and that some are now quitting their jobs.

The RCN said the findings shone a light on the impact of the UK’s nursing staff shortage, warning that nurses were being “driven out” of their profession.

Continue reading...