Shadow minister tells health service ‘money is tight’ and that it must provide better value for taxpayers
The shadow health secretary has accused the NHS of using every winter crisis and challenge it faces as an excuse to ask for more money.
Speaking on a visit to Singapore, Wes Streeting said the health service needs to accept “money is tight”, and that it must rethink how the care it provides could provide better value for money for the taxpayer.
Continue reading...Health board launches investigation after family forced to hold second funeral service after hospital in Cwmbran, south Wales, told them of its mistake
An investigation has been launched after a family cremated the wrong body due to a mix-up at a hospital in Wales.
An NHS board has apologised over the incident in which relatives held a funeral service after being given the body of a different person, who is not believed to have any surviving family members.
Continue reading...Care workers banned from bringing over relatives, and minimum salary threshold increased in other sectors
The home secretary, James Cleverly, has announced a five-point plan aimed at delivering the biggest ever cut in net migration to the UK, prompting fears of heightened staff shortages in the NHS and social care.
Cleverly announced that the minimum salary requirement for a skilled worker visa would rise to £38,700, while a rule that allows for people in professions with the greatest need to be hired at 20% below the going rate will be scrapped.
Continue reading...CEO of University Hospitals Sussex urges staff to have courage to raise concerns, despite whistleblowers previously being sacked
The boss of a hospital trust being investigated by police for alleged negligence over 40 patient deaths has been accused of sending a hypocritical email urging staff to have the courage to raise concerns despite the dismissal of whistleblowing doctors.
Last week the Guardian revealed that the University Hospitals Sussex trust is under pressure to suspend surgeons whose cases are being reviewed by Sussex police in an investigation that involves more than 100 patients who either died or were seriously harmed between 2015 and 2021.
Continue reading...Four groups claim no legal basis exists for setting up the Federated Data Platform which facilitates information sharing
The NHS has been accused of “breaking the law” by creating a massive data platform that will share information about patients.
Four organisations are bringing a lawsuit against NHS England claiming that there is no legal basis for its setting up of the Federated Data Platform (FDP). They plan to seek a judicial review of its decision.
Continue reading...Hiring from ‘red-list’ nations risks destabilising healthcare overseas, warns Royal College of Nursing
The NHS has been accused of “unethical” behaviour after it emerged that it has been recruiting record numbers of nurses and midwives from countries which have serious staffing shortages.
Bringing in staff from “red-list” countries risked destabilising those nations’ healthcare systems and breaching government guidelines, said hospital employers and the Royal College of Nursing.
Continue reading...NHS leaders welcome breakthrough as ‘vital step’ towards halting walkouts by various staff groups
Doctors’ leaders have struck a deal with ministers that could end the strikes by hospital consultants that have badly disrupted NHS care for months.
Grassroots members of the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) in England still have to approve the government’s offer. But if medics accept it in referendums then both unions will call off the industrial action that has led to hundreds of thousands of operations and outpatient appointments being cancelled.
Continue reading...Proposals to stop workers bringing dependants should be halted unless jobs are made more appealing to Britons, expert says
Read more: Fears over Tories’ plans to limit immigration
The government’s top immigration adviser has attacked plans to prevent overseas care workers from bringing family members to the UK, warning that to do so could be “very dangerous” for the social care sector.
Prof Brian Bell, who chairs the Migration Advisory Committee, said policies being pushed by immigration minister Robert Jenrick, which also include a cap on overseas care worker numbers, risked worsening the chronic staffing shortage. The end result, he warned, could be “lots of people won’t get care”.
Continue reading...Those with existing health problems also at greater risk of condition that kills estimated 48,000 a year in UK
Poor people and those with existing health problems are much more likely to die from sepsis, one of the UK’s biggest killers, a study has found.
Sepsis, or blood poisoning, is a potentially fatal condition triggered when the body reacts to an infection by attacking its own tissues and vital organs. It leads to an estimated 48,000 deaths a year in Britain.
People with learning disabilities are almost four times more likely to get sepsis.
People with liver disease have about three times greater risk.
Patients with chronic kidney disease that is at stage 5 are more than six times as likely to develop it.
Continue reading...Harmful habits are worsening public health, says report, as groups urge crackdown on ‘irresponsible’ industries
Firms are earning £52.7bn a year from UK sales of tobacco, junk food and excessive alcohol, and their consumption is contributing to Britain’s rising tide of illness, a report says.
The figures prompted a coalition of health, medical and children’s organisations to demand an urgent crackdown on “the irresponsible behaviour of health-harming industries”.
NHS hospitals admit 2.5 million patients a year for treatment of diseases directly linked to being overweight (1.02 million), drinking (980,000) or smoking (506,000).
About 459,000 people cannot work because they are too ill to do so as a result of their smoking (289,000), alcohol consumption (99,000) or being morbidly obese, with a body mass index over 40 (70,000).
People who smoke or drink at harmful levels are more likely to be jobless and earn less than those who do not – a “wage penalty” for their unhealthy lifestyles.
That wage penalty, together with unemployment and lost productivity due to smoking, drinking and obesity, costs the UK £31bn a year.
Continue reading...MHRA authorises uses of Casgevy as a potential cure for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia
The UK’s medicines regulator has authorised the use of a world-first gene therapy as a potential cure for two inherited blood disorders.
The treatment, Casgevy, for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia, is the first to be licensed that uses the gene-editing tool known as Crispr, whose inventors were awarded the Nobel prize in 2020.
Continue reading...International study finds those on England programme have bigger drops in BMI, blood sugar and bad cholesterol
People at risk of diabetes reduce their weight and levels of bad cholesterol after undergoing “lifestyle counselling” in the NHS’s diabetes prevention programme, a major international study has found.
The health service launched the programme in 2016 to help prevent patients in England from developing diabetes through intensive weight loss, diet and exercise goals. Prediabetic patients referred to the scheme attend at least 13 group sessions over nine months. Latest figures from NHS England show that 1.3 million people have been referred to the scheme so far and 120,000 patients are due to take part this year.
Continue reading...Amanda Pritchard will say combination of vaccination and screening means goal within two decades is realistic ambition
Cervical cancer can be eliminated in England by 2040, saving thousands of women’s lives, the head of NHS England will say on Wednesday.
A combination of HPV vaccination and screening for the disease means that elimination of it is a realistic ambition, Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive, will say.
Continue reading...Workforce report says government strategy to boost staff numbers may have come too late
A growing number of doctors plan to leave the profession due to burnout and dissatisfaction, the General Medical Council has said, highlighting fears that the government’s long-term strategy for the NHS may have come too late.
The GMC’s annual report on the medical workforce said the benefits of measures announced by the government in the NHS long-term workforce plan in June, such as the ambition to create more medical school places, “will only start to be seen a decade from now”.
Continue reading...With waiting times on the rise and a challenging winter ahead, analysts claim the ‘financial bottom line’ is being prioritised
Rishi Sunak’s pledge to slash NHS waiting lists has effectively been downgraded, the Observer has been told, amid an increase in the number of patients in England waiting longer than 18 months for treatment.
Hospital leaders are warning that morale is low, staff absences are high, and funds for new equipment and repairs are having to be raided ahead of winter. They have now been told to prioritise controlling costs in favour of some of the extra work being done towards the prime minister’s pledge to bring down waits.
Continue reading...BMA raises concerns with minister about planned data platform, which could be run by US firm Palantir
Patients fear that their personal information may be misused by the NHS’s new data store, especially if the US spy technology company Palantir runs it, doctors’ leaders have warned ministers.
The planned creation of the “federated data platform” (FDP) has prompted concerns about privacy and trust in the NHS and suggestions that suspicion around it will lead patients to refuse to share their data.
Continue reading...£5m project launched with aim of having reliable tests within five years to provide quick diagnosis
Scientists are to begin piloting simple blood tests for dementia that could revolutionise detection of the disease and within five years lead to people being diagnosed in seconds by the NHS.
Currently, getting a formal diagnosis in the UK relies on mental ability tests, brain scans or invasive and painful lumbar punctures, where a sample of cerebrospinal fluid is drawn from the lower back.
Continue reading...Findings of ‘thinly veiled, everyday instances of racism at work’ raise fears medical graduates may avoid UK
Three in five foreign doctors in the NHS face “racist microaggressions” at work, such as patients refusing to be treated by them or having their abilities doubted because of their skin colour.
The widespread “thinly veiled, everyday instances of racism at work” experienced by medics trained overseas has been uncovered by a survey of more than 2,000 UK doctors and dentists.
Continue reading...Covid investigation also told taskforce coordinating pandemic policy had no warning of ‘eat out to help out’
Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson pushed repeatedly against lockdown measures during the second wave of Covid in autumn 2020, with the government’s chief scientist accusing the then chancellor of using “spurious” arguments against new rules, the inquiry into the pandemic has heard.
In a day of evidence that placed increasing focus on Sunak’s role, the inquiry also heard that his flagship “eat out to help out” hospitality scheme was imposed without consulting the government’s Covid taskforce, leaving officials “blindsided” by the Treasury.
Continue reading...MP offers ‘sincerest apologies’ for social media post and pays compensation into BMA strike fund
The Conservative deputy chair, Lee Anderson, has apologised to a doctor after he made a “misleading” social media post about him.
The MP for Ashfield said he wanted to offer his “sincerest apologies” to Dr Tom Dolphin for “any distress caused” by his post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Continue reading...