Category Archives: NHS

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

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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.

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Revealed: black and Asian people wait longer for cancer diagnosis in England than white people

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Exclusive: Analysis of 126,000 cases over a decade shows ‘deeply worrying’ racial disparities in NHS wait times

Black and Asian people in England have to wait longer for a cancer diagnosis than white people, with some forced to wait an extra six weeks, according to a “disturbing” analysis of NHS waiting times.

A damning review of the world’s largest primary care database by the University of Exeter and the Guardian discovered minority ethnic patients wait longer than white patients in six of seven cancers studied. Race and health leaders have called the results “deeply concerning” and “absolutely unacceptable”.

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Facing the uncomfortable possibility that healthcare is discriminatory

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When Covid struck and BAME patients died disproportionately, students of heath inequalities were not surprised

As the first Covid wave hit, it quickly became clear that people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds were dying in disproportionate numbers.

The immediacy and visibility of these deaths was shocking and revealed a disparity so clear-cut that some wondered if the explanation could be genetic. But those who have spent a lifetime studying health inequalities were less surprised. People from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds do worse across a wide range of health outcomes.

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GPs to prescribe walking and cycling in bid to ease burden on NHS

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Suggestion of activities to help improve mental and physical health part of wider movement of ‘social prescribing’

GPs around England are to prescribe patients activities such as walking or cycling in a bid to ease the burden on the NHS by improving mental and physical health.

The £12.7m trial, which was announced by the Department for Transport and will begin this year, is part of a wider movement of “social prescribing”, an approach already used in the NHS, in which patients are referred for non-medical activities.

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Revealed: Liz Truss personally supported cuts to NHS and doctors’ pay

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Article by Tory hopeful arguing NHS ‘cannot be put on pedestal’ shows she fully backed 2009 cost-cutting pamphlet

Liz Truss personally supported cuts to the NHS, arguing the service “cannot be put on a pedestal” in an article in which she also criticised the “inexorable” rise in doctors’ pay.

The newly emerged opinion piece was written by Truss to support a thinktank report she co-authored that called for patients to be charged for GP appointments and doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10%.

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British travellers left struggling to board flights after NHS Covid pass down

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Users trying to check in for flights were left unable to access proof of their vaccination status for several hours on Thursday night

British travellers were left struggling to board flights after the NHS Covid Pass system went down for several hours on Thursday night.

Users trying to access proof of their vaccination status via the NHS app and website found that the service was unavailable, with the app telling users: “We are sorry the NHS Covid Pass is currently unavailable.

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Liz Truss called for patients to be charged for GP visits, 2009 paper reveals

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PM hopeful co-authored pamphlet that also called for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% and abolition of universal child benefit

Liz Truss called for patients to be charged to see their GP and for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% in a pamphlet she co-authored in 2009, the unearthed document has revealed.

The Tory leadership frontrunner also wanted to see the universal child benefit abolished in the report, which she co-wrote with six other people when she was deputy director of the Reform thinktank.

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Survivors of contaminated blood scandal awarded interim payments

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Ministers accepted urgency of need of those infected in 1970s and 1980s, who are dying at the rate of one every four days

Survivors of the contaminated blood scandal have been awarded interim government payments after a 40-year battle, but thousands of parents and children of the victims have still received nothing.

Ministers have accepted the urgency of the need to make the £100,000 payments to about 3,000 surviving victims, after being warned that those mistakenly infected with HIV and hepatitis C were dying at the rate of one every four days.

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Tory leadership: Sunak frustrated government attempts to realise benefits of Brexit, Truss allies claim – UK politics live

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Latest updates: foreign secretary’s supporters accuse former chancellor of resisting changes to EU regulation as sixth hustings looms

Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, has used an article in today’s Guardian to propose that the government should halt the increases in the energy price cap planned for later this year and next year and, if necessary, take energy companies into public ownership to ensure that they keep prices down.

Alongside the Lib Dem plan, with which it has some similarities (they also want a price cap freeze, and more money raised through a windfall tax), it is the most radical and ambitious proposal on the table to tackle the energy bills crisis.

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Half of people with possible signs of cancer wait six months to contact a GP

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Survey by Cancer Research UK shows poorer people less likely to see their family GP, reducing survival chances

Half of people with possible cancer symptoms in the UK do not contact a GP for at least six months, potentially reducing their chances of survival, research has found.

Poorer people are less likely than the better-off to see their family doctor once they have eventually sought medical help, a survey by Cancer Research UK found.

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

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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.

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Ministers coordinate response after cyber-attack hits NHS 111

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Outage that affected services across system may not be fully resolved until next week, says IT provider

Ministers are working to coordinate a “resilience response” after a cyber-attack caused a significant outage across the NHS computer system.

The outage affected services across the system such as patient referrals, ambulances being dispatched, out-of-hours appointment bookings, and emergency prescriptions.

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MPs demand end to repayment clauses in contracts of overseas health workers

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Employment conditions can tie staff to roles for up to five years and impose fees of £14,000 for an early return home

• Trapped and destitute: how foreign nurses’ dreams turned sour

The NHS must halt the use of “repayment clauses” in contracts for international healthcare workers, MPs have said.

Members of the Commons health and social care committee came to this finding after an Observer investigation in March revealed how some workers were being forced to pay thousands of pounds if they wish to quit their jobs before their agreed contract ends. Widely used in both the private health and social care sector and in the NHS, the clauses are designed to help with retention of workers and recouping costs associated with overseas recruitment.

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£1bn needed to speed up mental health care for UK children, report says

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Call for ‘once in a generation’ package for NHS so young people can receive treatment within four weeks

Children needing mental health services should be guaranteed treatment within four weeks, with next-day referrals for those at risk of self-harm and suicide, according to an inquiry into the explosion in demand from young people for psychiatric help.

The inquiry by the Commission on Young Lives, chaired by the former children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield, said a “once in a generation” £1bn recovery package was needed to boost an overstretched NHS system too often forced to turn away unwell youngsters.

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Brexit realism? The NHS? Some of the key issues ignored by Sunak and Truss

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Tory leadership candidates have clashed bitterly but many pressing matters have been overlooked

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have clashed vehemently over tax and spending, immigration and the UK’s stance on China in their acrimonious battle to become prime minister – but have had little to say about many other pressing issues. Here are some largely overlooked key issues of the contest so far.

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UK needs urgent vaccine drive to curb monkeypox, campaigners say

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Terrence Higgins Trust says action must be stepped up to prevent disease becoming endemic

Health authorities are underestimating the scale of the response required to stop monkeypox becoming endemic in the UK, sexual health campaigners have warned, as a new vaccination drive is launched.

The Terrence Higgins Trust urged the NHS and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to urgently pump cash into the system to pay more healthcare workers to administer vaccines. It also wants the number of doses ordered to be doubled to protect against a virus that has infected at least 2,208 people in the UK, according to the latest official figures.

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Rishi Sunak says he is underdog in PM race as ‘forces that be’ want Truss

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Former chancellor suggests Tory party powers hope leadership contest will be ‘a coronation’ for his rival

Rishi Sunak has positioned himself as the underdog in the Conservative leadership race, claiming the “forces that be” want Liz Truss to be the next prime minister.

Addressing a crowd in Grantham on Saturday, the Lincolnshire home town of Margaret Thatcher, Sunak declared “have no doubt, I am the underdog” and suggested that Conservative party powers want the race to be “a coronation” for Truss.

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Johnson skips emergency Cobra meeting as experts warn thousands may die in UK heatwave

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Prime minister stays at Chequers as NHS, schools and transport providers issue warnings about fatally high temperatures

Boris Johnson was accused on Saturday of being “missing in action” after failing to attend a Cobra meeting to discuss the national heatwave emergency following predictions that thousands could die in the coming days.

As the threat to life from the impending heatwave continues to crystallise, the prime minister chose to skip the meeting on Saturday. He instead stayed at his Chequers country retreat, where he is due to hold a thank you party for supporters on Sunday.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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