Category Archives: NHS

Why BAME people may be more at risk from coronavirus – video explainer

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NHS staff from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds may be given roles away from the frontline under plans to reduce their disproportionately high death rate from Covid-19.

The Guardian revealed last week that minority groups were over-represented by as much as 27% in the overall Covid-19 death toll. Additionally, 63% of the first 106 health and social care staff known to have died from the virus were black or Asian, according to the Health Service Journal.

Senior reporter Haroon Siddique looks at the figures and explains why BAME people may be more at risk.

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Revealed: NHS procurement official privately selling PPE amid Covid-19 outbreak

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NHS launches inquiry after Guardian investigation exposes senior official trading protective gear amid pandemic

A head of procurement for the NHS has set up a business to profit from the private sale of huge quantities of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, an undercover investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

David Singleton, 42, a senior NHS official in London who has been working at the capital’s Covid-19 Nightingale hospital, launched the business two weeks ago to trade in visors, masks and gowns.

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Boris Johnson joins UK clap for NHS, key workers and Capt Tom Moore – video

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The PM stepped out of No 10 at 8pm to show his support for the NHS. He asked the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to wish Capt Tom Moore, the veteran who has raised £30m for NHS charities, a happy birthday as the newly appointed honorary colonel marked his 100th birthday on Thursday 30 April

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NHS staff coronavirus inquests told not to look at PPE shortages

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Exclusive: guidance to avoid examining systemic failures is ‘very worrying’, says Labour

Inquests into coronavirus deaths among NHS workers should avoid examining systemic failures in provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), coroners have been told, in a move described by Labour as “very worrying”.

The chief coroner for England and Wales, Mark Lucraft QC, has issued guidance that “an inquest would not be a satisfactory means of deciding whether adequate general policies and arrangements were in place for provision of PPE to healthcare workers”.

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Where is the kit to protect NHS workers? – podcast

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As medics and carers report widespread shortages of protective equipment, the government is facing pressure to explain why it appears the UK went into a pandemic under-resourced. Daniel Boffey and Rob Davies unpick the strategy and its failures

With reports of medics using bin bags in place of personal protective equipment (PPE), the government is under growing pressure to explain its preparedness for a pandemic and its efforts since the crisis struck to protect frontline workers.

The Guardian’s Brussels bureau chief, Daniel Boffey, describes how the government declined to take part in a joint EU procurement scheme at the same time it was failing to secure enough equipment from other sources. Meanwhile Rob Davies has been investigating how British firms such as Burberry have switched from fashion to the production of PPE. And the government’s attempts to dramatically increase the stockpile of ventilators as manufacturers take up the challenge to produce established and new designs.

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NHS warns of rise in children with new illness that may be linked to coronavirus

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Doctors alerted to possibly fatal syndrome, which gives the small number of sufferers stomach pain and inflamed heart

Children are falling ill with a new and potentially fatal combination of symptoms apparently linked to Covid-19, including a sore stomach and heart problems.

The children affected appear to have been struck by a form of toxic shock syndrome. Some have been left so seriously unwell that they have had to be treated in intensive care. At least one has undergone extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, which is used when someone’s life is at risk because they can no longer breathe for themselves.

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To tackle this virus, local public health teams need to take back control

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A massive increase in testing and tracing should be the next phase, but decades of cuts and reorganisations have whittled away the necessary regional expertise

Perhaps, the most surprising aspect of the British Covid-19 crisis is the extent to which the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments, and the English regions, have allowed strategy to be decided by Westminster.

Health and social care are devolved, and this national epidemic is not homogenous. It is made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of outbreaks around the country, each at a different stage . England had its first confirmed case on 30 January, Wales on 28 February and Scotland on 1 March. Some areas – such as Rutland, Hartlepool, Blackpool, Isle of Wight, Tyneside, Durham, Orkney, Western Isles – had no reported cases until late March, and some even now have relatively few cases.

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Matt Hancock can count on powerful support if not 100,000 tests a day

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NHS chiefs and No 10 endorse the health secretary as flaws emerge in the structure he leads

Matt Hancock sounded tetchy and exhausted on Friday morning as he took to the airwaves once again to explain the latest swerve in the government’s strategy for tackling coronavirus: recruiting an army of contact-tracers in an attempt to track its spread.

Asked whether his self-imposed target of testing 100,000 people a day by the end of next week would be met, he let out a self-deprecating laugh. The health secretary knows there’s a lot in the balance: the health of millions, his standing among the public and colleagues, perhaps even his career.

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Welsh first minister to set out plans for lifting country’s lockdown

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Mark Drakeford will announce proposals to ease restrictions as number of new cases stabilises

The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, is due to set out plans on how the nation will aim to lift its coronavirus lockdown.

The Labour politician will announce on Friday a new framework for easing restrictions and seven questions that need to be addressed to help lead Wales out of the pandemic.

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Why the UK is finding it so hard to reach 100,000 Covid-19 tests a day

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A slow start, a top-down approach and long-term cuts to local services meant target was always going to be ambitious

On 2 April, the day he emerged from quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19, Matt Hancock stood at the Downing Street podium for the daily coronavirus press conference and made an announcement that was greeted in some quarters by a sharp intake of breath.

“I’m now setting the goal of 100,000 tests per day by the end of this month. That is the goal and I’m determined we’ll get there,” said the health secretary, who had tested positive around a week earlier.

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NHS urged to avoid PPE gloves made in ‘slave-like’ conditions

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In securing PPE for NHS staff working on coronavirus frontline, government must not ignore abuse of factory workers, warn activists

The government must not ignore the “slave-like” conditions of migrant workers making rubber medical gloves in Malaysia in its rush to source protective equipment to keep frontline NHS staff safe from coronavirus, human rights groups say.

Malaysia is the world’s largest producer of rubber gloves, but the industry has been accused of grossly exploiting its workforce, mostly impoverished migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal.

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EU turns up pressure on Matt Hancock over Covid-19 PPE scheme

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Brussels says UK was briefed on bulk-buying plan and given ‘ample opportunity’ to join

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, is facing fresh pressure over the protection offered to NHS staff after the European commission said the UK had been given “ample opportunity” to join an EU scheme bulk-buying masks, gowns, gloves and goggles.

After a day of confusion in Westminster over the UK’s lack of involvement in the EU’s joint procurement of equipment, a spokesman for the commission appeared to bolster the claim that ministers had taken a “political decision” to opt out.

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What is the EU medical equipment scheme and why did UK opt out?

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British government is facing criticism for not taking part in joint purchase of supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic

The British government is coming under fire for failing to join the EU’s procurement scheme for medical equipment, including masks, gloves, goggles, gowns, testing kits and ventilators, at a time when NHS health workers across the country are crying out for more supplies. In the latest twist, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, was forced to deny claims, later retracted, by the government’s senior diplomat that it had been a “political decision” to opt out of the scheme.

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Nurse shortage causes Nightingale hospital to turn away patients

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Exclusive: Covid-19 patient transfers to new London facility cancelled owing to lack of ICU nurses

Dozens of patients with Covid-19 have been turned away from the NHS Nightingale hospital in London because it has too few nurses to treat them, the Guardian can reveal.

Epidemics of infectious diseases behave in different ways but the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people is regarded as a key example of a pandemic that occurred in multiple waves, with the latter more severe than the first. It has been replicated – albeit more mildly – in subsequent flu pandemics.

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Our hospital, our NHS: what it was like to photograph an ICU in the Covid-19 crisis | Jonny Weeks

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A week in a Coventry hospital documenting the work of NHS staff brought the human dimensions of this crisis home to me

Like many people around the country, I stand on my front doorstep at 8pm every Thursday to clap for carers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet when I did so for the first time last month, not knowing for sure if my neighbours would join me, I realised I knew little of the people for whom I was clapping.

Who are the nurses, doctors, cleaners, clerks, porters, researchers and consultants on whom so many lives depend?

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Hospital leaders hit out at government as PPE shortage row escalates

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Health managers in England voice ‘intense frustration’ in unprecedented intervention

Hospital leaders have directly attacked the government for the first time during the coronavirus crisis over the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) after a desperately needed consignment of surgical gowns that had been announced by ministers failed to arrive.

In an unprecedented intervention, which hospital leaders privately say is the result of “intense frustration and exasperation”, the organisations representing NHS trusts in England urged ministers to “just focus on what we can be certain of” after weeks of “bitter experience” with failed deliveries.

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More than 15,000 people have died from Covid-19 in UK

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Death toll rose by 888 to 15,464, according to health department figures on Saturday

More than 15,000 people have died from coronavirus in UK hospitals, figures from the Department of Health and Social Care show.

The death toll rose by 888 from 14,576 on Friday, taking the total to 15,464 as of 9am on Saturday.

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Failure to record ethnicity of Covid-19 victims a ‘scandal’, says BMA chief

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Dr Chaand Nagpaul says data must be gathered now to save lives of UK BAME citizens

The government’s failure to record and publish real-time data on the ethnicity of Covid-19 patients is a scandal that is endangering lives, according to the chair of the British Medical Association.

Speaking to the Observer, Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “This is not an issue that should require further campaigning. It would be a scandal if it requires further lobbying as data recording needs to start now, not tomorrow. When you have stark statistics like this, it is an instruction for government to act.”

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