The government has hit both its self-imposed targets so far. How will it go the rest of the way?
More than half of the UK population has now received at least a first dose of vaccine against Covid-19. By Friday evening 33,388,637 people had received one of the Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccines. Here’s how it was done, and what is still left to do.
Continue reading...Survey reveals remote consultations often felt inadequate and may have made symptoms worse
Mental health patients found their conditions deteriorated during the pandemic because the NHS switched from in-person help to support by telephone, video and text messages, new research reveals.
Many reported a lower quality of care, according to a study by University College London; others had trouble accessing medication, had appointments cancelled or felt the loss of face-to-face help meant they “were missing out on care”.
Continue reading...East Kent hospitals trust admits failing to provide safe care for Harry Richford and his mother
An NHS trust has pleaded guilty to failing to provide safe care and treatment after the death of a baby boy.
Representatives for East Kent hospitals university NHS foundation trust were in court on Monday after the death of Harry Richford seven days after his emergency delivery.
Continue reading...Exclusive: In leaked emails, Matt Hancock’s adviser says there is ‘urgent need for decisions’ on asymptomatic testing
Senior government officials have raised “urgent” concerns about the mass expansion of rapid coronavirus testing, estimating that as few as 2% to 10% of positive results may be accurate in places with low Covid rates, such as London.
Boris Johnson last week urged everyone in England to take two rapid-turnaround tests a week in the biggest expansion of the multibillion-pound testing programme to date.
Continue reading...After sitting alone in my flat for most of last year, I jumped at the chance to deliver Covid vaccines. This is what I’ve learned
Pushing a needle through fake skin is not much like the real thing. So I discovered when I vaccinated my first patient at a mass vaccination centre in north London. You feel for a person’s shoulder blade and give the injection two finger-widths below the tip of the shoulder, in the middle of the deltoid muscle. In training, you’re given a salmon-coloured “arm” of silicone sponge to practise on. In reality, arms – like the people they belong to – are unique; it takes a little while to confidently feel your way with each new person you close the NHS regulation blue curtain behind.
When I saw an advert for people willing to train as vaccinators in early January, I applied at once. The idea of being an active part of a historic vaccination rollout was thrilling. I have clinical experience as an assistant psychologist, can put people at ease and was very ready for a meaningful break from spending 10 hours a day looking at a screen alone in my flat. The training was delivered by a group of witty, absolutely zero-bullshit female clinicians wearing Crocs. The conversation was sharp; I adored them immediately. We covered infection control (including a sobering experiment with UV gel; trust me, you need to clean your thumbs), PPE, life support and, of course, learning to inject. I remember a surreal moment, looking around a room full of lawyers, medical students, psychotherapists, cycling instructors and shop managers in full PPE, all bound by the shared purpose of wanting to do something.
Continue reading...Black, Asian and ethnic minority women report being denied pain relief or feeling unheard to panel investigating mortality disparity
Feeling manipulated into having medical procedures, dismissed by professionals and labelled with racial stereotypes are among the complaints of parents who responded to a national inquiry into racial injustice in UK maternity care.
A panel established by the charity Birthrights is investigating discrimination ranging from explicit racism to racial bias and microaggressions that amount to poorer care.
Continue reading...Achievement hailed by PM as ‘hugely significant milestone’ means people in late 40s should be next to be immunised
All over-50s and high-risk groups in the UK have been offered a coronavirus vaccine a few days before the mid-April deadline set by the government – meaning the second phase of the rollout to younger cohorts can now begin.
Despite fears of a supply slowdown and possible knock in confidence after a change in advice on who could get the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, Boris Johnson hailed the passing of “another hugely significant milestone”.
Continue reading...I’m an NHS consultant. We barely had the resources to keep people alive – let alone cope with longer effects of Covid
One year ago, lockdown had just come in. A creeping sense of dread was spreading across the hospital. We were focused on the first wave of admissions, the peak of which for us occurred in early April. We were desperately learning how to keep people from dying due to this new disease. The longer-term consequences were the last thing on our minds.
Now, a year on, there is a superficial sense of normality returning. Our respiratory support unit, for so long hidden behind closed doors with “STOP: CORONAVIRUS” signs and staffed by hooded figures in head-to-toe PPE, has turned back into the bright, airy ward it used to be. Nurses, doctors, porters are back in their usual clothes instead of uniform scrubs; conversation has replaced the incessant hiss of Cpap machines. Our ITU is shrinking back to its normal size. It is easy to forget how things were even a couple of months ago.
Continue reading...But Not Maternity Alliance says postcode lottery remains despite guidance issued in December
The majority of women who have received bad news about their pregnancy since December were on their own at the time, despite the NHS ordering trusts to allow partners to be present throughout scans, labour and birth, the Guardian can reveal.
An alliance of pregnancy rights campaigners have written to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, urging him to draw up a roadmap for easing visiting restrictions in maternity services.
Continue reading...Covid has given Peter Thiel’s secretive US tech company new opportunities to operate in Europe in ways some campaigners find worrying
The 24 March, 2020 will be remembered by some for the news that Prince Charles tested positive for Covid and was isolating in Scotland. In Athens it was memorable as the day the traffic went silent. Twenty-four hours into a hard lockdown, Greeks were acclimatising to a new reality in which they had to send an SMS to the government in order to leave the house. As well as millions of text messages, the Greek government faced extraordinary dilemmas. The European Union’s most vulnerable economy, its oldest population along with Italy, and one of its weakest health systems faced the first wave of a pandemic that overwhelmed richer countries with fewer pensioners and stronger health provision. The carnage in Italy loomed large across the Adriatic.
One Greek who did go into the office that day was Kyriakos Pierrakakis, the minister for digital transformation, whose signature was inked in blue on an agreement with the US technology company, Palantir. The deal, which would not be revealed to the public for another nine months, gave one of the world’s most controversial tech companies access to vast amounts of personal data while offering its software to help Greece weather the Covid storm. The zero-cost agreement was not registered on the public procurement system, neither did the Greek government carry out a data impact assessment – the mandated check to see whether an agreement might violate privacy laws.
Continue reading...Country has registered more than 12.9 million cases; 10,000 appointments scrapped, reports Dutch news agency citing Netherlands health ministry
That’s it from the global blog team for now. Thanks for following our coverage, a new blog will be going live in a few hours.
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‘Game Changer’ was a work the artist made as a thank you to England’s health workers amid the pandemic
A Banksy painting of a young boy ditching his Batman and Spider-Man action figures for one of a caped superhero nurse has sold for a world record price of £16.7m, the money going to UK health charities.
The artist made the work as a thank you to the NHS, delivering it out of the blue to Southampton general hospital last May.
Continue reading...Results of Recovery drug trial also credited with successful treatment of 22,000 people in the UK, says NHS England
Dexamethasone – the inexpensive steroid that quickly emerged as a highly effective Covid therapy thanks to a large drug testing programme pioneered by UK scientists – has so far saved the lives of an estimated million people globally, including 22,000 in the UK, according to NHS England.
Called Recovery, the world’s largest randomised Covid-19 drug trial commenced in March 2020 to evaluate the suitability of a suite of different drugs to help hospitalised Covid patients. The study has since been carried out by thousands of doctors and nurses on tens of thousands of patients in hospitals across Britain.
Continue reading...Charles Oti should be in his NHS job fighting the virus. Instead, the Home Office wants to send him to Nigeria
An infection control specialist who has been offered a job as a senior NHS biomedical scientist to help tackle the pandemic is facing deportation by the Home Office, prompting fresh calls for a more “humane” approach to skilled migrants.
The government has refused Charles Oti, 46, from Nigeria the right to remain in the UK even though the job he was offered is among the government’s most sought-after skilled positions.
Continue reading...Children’s writer who nearly died from virus joins Joan Bakewell and other public figures in demanding investigation
Michael Rosen, the poet and children’s writer who survived Covid after six weeks on a ventilator, has backed calls for a public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic amid rising pressure on Boris Johnson to announce a timetable.
The author spoke out as several other prominent figures urged the government to launch a statutory investigation into the UK’s Covid-19 experience, including the broadcaster Joan Bakewell, the film director Stephen Frears and the music producer and composer Talvin Singh.
Continue reading...PM welcomes vaccine safety vow, then spots new offshore home for folk trafficked here under false pretence – of getting a welcome
After a morning spent painting flowers at a primary school in his Uxbridge constituency, Britain’s prize clot returned to Downing Street to lead a press conference on clots. Blood clots to be precise.
Following the decision of some countries to suspend their Oxford AstraZeneca vaccination programmes over concerns of blood clot side-effects, Boris Johnson was happy to report that the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had declared the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to be absolutely safe.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM says UK’s greatest ally will be US as he makes statement to MPs on defence review
In his Sky News interview Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, said the security and defence review said that the UK could use nuclear weapons to respond to an attack with chemical or biological weapons. That was a “big change” in policy, he said.
He was referring to this passage on page 77 of the document (pdf).
The UK will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 1968 (NPT). This assurance does not apply to any state in material breach of those non-proliferation obligations. However, we reserve the right to review this assurance if the future threat of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological capabilities, or emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact, makes it necessary.
Here is the Scottish government’s summary of the latest plans for easing lockdown restrictions in Scotland. And here is a graphic summarising what it says.
Scotland’s indicative route out of lockdown. If we all stick with it and get the virus more under control as the vaccines do their work, there is hope for a much better summer on the horizon ☀️ pic.twitter.com/gTKHtJTNn5
Continue reading...Exclusive: scientific advisers and ex-Whitehall chief join bereaved families, medics and ethnic minority leaders in calling for inquiry
Senior doctors, government scientific advisers and a former head of the civil service have spoken out in favour of a public inquiry into the UK’s handling of Covid-19, raising pressure on Boris Johnson to finally launch the process as the UK’s coronavirus fatalities rose to almost 126,000.
Thousands of bereaved families, nurses and ethnic minority leaders also backed calls for an inquiry into everything from lockdown tactics to test and trace after the UK’s handling of the pandemic resulted in the worst death toll per capita of any of the world’s large economies.
Continue reading...This week sees the opening of the first UK high-street clinic offering psychedelic-assisted therapy. Could popping psilocybin be the future of mental healthcare?
In the summer of 1981, when he was 13, Grant crashed a trail motorbike into a wall at his parents’ house in Cambridgeshire. He’d been hiding it in the shed, but “it was far too powerful for me, and on my very first time starting it in the garden, I smashed it into a wall”. His mother came outside to find the skinny teenager in a heap next to the crumpled motorbike. “I was in a lot of trouble.”
Grant hadn’t given this childhood memory much thought in the intervening years, but one hot August day in 2019, it came back to him with such clarity that, at 53, now a stocky father of two, he suddenly understood it as a clue to his dangerously unhealthy relationship with alcohol.
Continue reading...A north London business centre previously used to host almost a million people across hundreds of events each year has reopened as an NHS Covid-19 mass vaccination centre. Up to 4,000 people a day will receive shots in dozens of private booths at the Business Design Centre in Islington, treated by trained staff and an army of volunteers. Patients arriving on its opening day expressed excitement and hope that the vaccine programme could eventually end lockdowns
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