22/01/2017 • 10:58 am 0
Fighting to hold back her tears, an A&E nurse has told 5 live Investigates: “I really struggle when management comment and they ask how many hours will the patient be alive for… because we need the bed.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38710217
Filed under: A&E, Uncategorized, NHS Bed Blocking
14/10/2016 • 8:08 am 0
Watchdogs have concerns about safety at two thirds of England’s A&E departments, according to the latest Tonight programme.
Despite the best efforts of staff, the performance of A&Es is now as bad as it ever has been. And a report by the Care Quality Commission confirms that overcrowding is leaving patient safety compromised.
Reporter Fiona Foster interviews Dr Taj Hassan the President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine who tells the programme:
Our recent statistics show that anywhere from five hundred to a thousand patients per year are dying because unfortunately our departments are ever more crowded.“ – Dr Taj Hassan
We are running our hospitals at ninety five, ninety eighty, ninety nine percent capacity. So when you get a surge in demand that overloads the system. You have to be careful about saying that the NHS is suddenly going to fall off the edge of a cliff because it never does. What I think we tend to see is a long slow deterioration.”
The NHS is short of 2,000 emergency doctors, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. And experts estimate that up to a third of A&E patients could be better treated elsewhere.
Click on the link to read more
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-10-13/tonight-a-e-in-meltdown/
If you missed the tonight programme you can view on the itv hub (expires 12th Nov)
http://www.itv.com/hub/tonight/1a2803a1046
A&E patients lined up in a corridor waiting for treatment Credit: ITV / Tonight
07/06/2016 • 7:12 am 0
A warning notice has been issued to North Middlesex University NHS Trust after an unannounced CQC inspection found ineffective treatment of patients in the emergency room.
The inspection, in April, found the department was lacking middle grade doctors and consultants and suffered delays in assessing patients and moving them to specialist wards. The trust has now been given until 26 August to make improvements.
Professor Edward Baker, the CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals, said: “People going to the emergency department at the North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust are entitled to an service that is safe, effective and responsive.
“When we inspected we found that patients were not receiving the quality of care that they should have been. We have strongly encouraged the trust to engage with other organisations across the local health and social care system to resolve this challenging issue.”
Julie Lowe, the trust’s chief executive, said that there were currently only seven out of 15 emergency department consultants and seven out of 13 middle grade emergency doctors in place, leading to “unacceptably long” waiting times.
“We have undertaken extensive recruitment exercises and despite our best efforts have, so far, been unable to fill all the posts, although we have made good progress in recent weeks with the support of partners,” she said. “We are working hard with our health partners to resolve the issues and bring the service back to the standard both we and our patients expect us to achieve.”
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, A&E, CQC inspection, NHS
02/06/2016 • 7:19 am 0
More than 30,000 patients suffered “appalling” delays stuck in ambulances outside London A&Es last year because of a lack of hospital beds, it can be revealed.
They were forced to wait at least 30 minutes — double the maximum time permitted under NHS rules — before crews were able to wheel them into the emergency department.
More than 3,000 were kept in ambulances for more than an hour. The total amount of time wasted during “delayed handovers” totalled 16,361 hours — the equivalent of almost two years. It is one of the reasons London Ambulance Service failed to hit the eight-minute response target for 999 calls every month last year, as crews and vehicles were unavailable for the next call.
Patient groups today warned that the total delay in patients receiving care was likely to have been far greater, as patients may have to wait an hour or more for an ambulance and then at least four hours in A&E.
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, A&E, Ambulances, NHS
22/01/2016 • 8:20 am 0
A casualty nurse describes a week of stark contrasts, from helping a 79 year old man whose lips have turned blue to being confronted by a violent drunk
Sunday 7am – 7.30pm
Sundays are notoriously busy in A&E. GPs are closed, and there has been no movement out from the wards so there are no free beds in the hospital. At the start of my shift there are already 83 patients in the department. People are waiting to be treated in the corridors and it’s like sardines. My heart sinks. I’m in charge of ambulance triage – as soon as the ambulance pulls up outside, I have 15 minutes to get the patient into a cubicle and take over from the paramedic. I have targets to achieve. For every breach, we are fined. It seems unfair, especially when 10 turn up at once.
I hear one of my drunk patients shouting and run to find him ripping off his monitoring, throwing thousands of pounds worth of equipment across the room. I ask what he’s doing and he comes and stands 1cm away from my face, telling me he is going to kill me. He reaches into his pocket but before I know it, one of my colleagues has restrained him up against the wall.
Monday 7am – 7.30pm
Today is a day of stark contrast. I see a 20-year-old woman who describes symptoms of a urinary tract infection. Her GP prescribed her antibiotics five hours ago. She says they’re not working.
A few minutes later, a 79-year-old man walks into A&E. His lips are blue. He says he rolled over in bed last night and has felt short of breath since. I take him into resuscitation and later find out he suffered a collapsed lung. He should have phoned an ambulance.
Click on the link to read more of the secret A&E nurses diary
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/22/casualty-nurse-diary-nhs
21/11/2015 • 9:25 pm 0
Ambulance worker Martin Jackson turned whistleblower to hand over a shocking picture of seriously ill people queuing on stretchers to be checked in at A&E
A NHS whistleblower fears patients will DIE in corridors due to the crisis in hospital. The warning from ambulance worker Martin Jackson came as he handed over this shocking picture of seriously ill patients on stretchers queuing to be checked in at A&E.
He said they waited for two hours. The hospital denied it was that long. The photo was taken at Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington which opened in June and has been described as a “vision for the NHS”. But Mr Jackson, 51, said: “It’s only a matter of time before a patient dies on a stretcher waiting to be seen, the Sunday People reports.
He said centralising A&E care for serious illness and injury in such “super” hospitals at the expense of other NHS units was not good for patient care. He believed it meant longer travel time for patients and waits for ambulance crews.
Click on the link to read more
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-whistleblower-fears-patients-die-6875670
Worries: Martin Jackson fears a patient will die on a stretcher
Filed under: A&E, Whistleblowing, A&E, NHS, suffering patients, whistleblower
23/10/2015 • 10:24 am 0
Britain has become locked into a taxpayer-funded model which is no longer fit for purpose. If we don’t act soon it will be beyond repair
A study last year by the US based think tank, The Commonwealth Fund, found Britain’s NHS to be the best healthcare system in the world, outperforming by some margin other advanced economies that spend far more on health. Other international studies have not been nearly so flattering, but whether a credible assessment or not, my own recent experience of UK health provision does not chime with this starry eyed view of our “precious” value-for-money NHS.
Early last summer, I was stretchered into a London Accident and Emergency unit after being catapulted off my bike and landing at speed on the unforgiving concrete. A few hours later, following a cursory physical examination and a number of X-rays, I was discharged.
Click on the link to read more
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11948744/How-an-NHS-hospital-missed-my-broken-back.html
Filed under: A&E, A&E, broken back
28/09/2015 • 2:50 pm 0
An RAF airman was moved out of a hospital waiting room because staff feared his uniform may “upset” other patients, it has been reported.
According to the Sun, aircraft engineer Mark Prendeville, was taken to A&E at Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent, after chemicals from a fire extinguisher got in to his eyes during a training exercise.
The 38-year-old, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was taken to an empty corner of the waiting room before being moved behind a corner by hospital staff, the newspaper said.
His family was allegedly told by hospital workers that “they didn’t want to upset people” as they “have lots of different cultures coming in”.
Click on the link to read more
Mark Prendeville served in Iraq and Afghanistan
Filed under: A&E, NHS, A&E, Injured RAF sergeant, NHS
09/09/2015 • 7:15 am 0
Accident and emergency departments are nearing crisis point, but evidence suggests that some of the pressure comes from patients who want to avoid having to wait for a GP appointment. Could pharmacists reduce the burden by helping to treat A&E patients suffering relatively minor conditions?
This is the question that Health Education England (HEE) hopes to answer through a national project. The aim, says Matt Aiello, special projects manager, transformation, at Health Education West Midlands, is to find out whether pharmacists can be a “relevant and viable part” of the A&E team and, if so, what kind of training they would need. A pilot in the West Midlands, looking at 782 patients attending A&E in three acute trusts between April 2013 and August 2014, was encouraging.
It found that 39.8% of patients could have been dealt with by a pharmacist with advanced clinical practice training skills, while an independent prescribing pharmacist could have dealt with another 5.1%.
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, GP's, GP's, Hospitals, pharmacists
02/09/2015 • 7:41 am 0
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
In September 2013 my two-year-old son Luke complained that it hurt when he peed. I took him to our GP and they said it was probably thrush or an infection and he was given antibiotics. After he peed out a lump I went back, but there wasn’t enough to test, and the GP didn’t think it was serious enough to refer him on at that point.
The pain went away, but it came back a month later, and our GP referred him to a consultant. But the appointment was four whole weeks away, which seemed like an eternity, and things got worse. It got to the point to where he couldn’t empty his bladder, and was straining until he was red in the face, veins popping out of his neck and screaming in agony on and off all day and all night. Me and my partner Tim were at our wits end and ended up going to A&E a number of times to try and get help for Luke sooner.
Click on the link to read more
01/09/2015 • 5:18 pm 1
Click on the link to read more
28/08/2015 • 7:11 am 0
New figures show that the Department of Health has missed its own waiting list targets.
At the end of June, almost 86,000 patients had been waiting for more than 18 weeks for a first outpatient appointment. The target is for nobody to wait longer than that. The number of people waiting for a first appointment has risen by more than 45%.
The quarterly figures from the health department for April to June of this year revealed an 11% rise in patients waiting for a first outpatient appointment. That means more than 212,000 people have been referred to a specialist or consultant by their GP but have yet to be seen. Of those, the number of patients waiting longer – more than 18 weeks – increased by over 45% to nearly 86,000. The number of people waiting for diagnostic services, which can include a test for a potentially fatal illness, increased by nearly 12% from March to June.
Click on the link to read more
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34082381
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, A&E, Department of Health, outpatients, waiting list
12/08/2015 • 8:25 am 0
Hospitals are failing dementia patients by not doing enough to prevent them becoming distressed or suffering harm, official figures show. Wards are often too noisy, unfamiliar and frightening, or cluttered with bedside tables and chairs which can cause serious falls. Figures published yesterday show that the worst hospital scored only 42 out of 100 in terms of how well it was set up to care for patients with dementia.
Many had failed to install handrails to prevent falls or put up clear signs so patients did not get lost, and some were deemed to be too clinical and unwelcoming. Up to a quarter of patients in hospital have dementia. Many become extremely distressed when in such unfamiliar surroundings. Nurses recently warned that A&E units have become ‘places of terror’ for sufferers.
Hospital managers were urged to make wards more ‘dementia-friendly’ under a strategy launched by David Cameron in 2012. Health bosses were told to take measures to prevent patients falling over or becoming distressed. The Daily Mail has long campaigned for an improvement in the care for patients with dementia as part of our Dignity for the Elderly campaign.
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, Dementia, Hospital, NHS, A&E, Dementia, Hospitals, places of terror
05/08/2015 • 7:50 am 0
Health budget must rise, or patient fees increase and services diminish, public finance institute warns ministers in bleak assessment of ‘short-term’ pledges
Ministers will have to consider charging patients for seeing a GP, attending A&E, and using the food, power and water of hospitals, unless better long-term solutions for funding the NHS can be found, public finance experts have warned. Contributions towards the cost of treatments and patients taking out health insurance are among other options that must be on the table if the comprehensive spending review in November fails to address the issue, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance (Cipfa) says in a briefing.
The document says that the hope of NHS leaders to save £22bn over five years to 2020-21 is optimistic and does not take account of David Cameron’s pledge to increase seven-day services nor of the introduction of the new national living wage. Other general aspirations, such as making the UK a “world leader” in tackling cancer and dementia and raising spending on mental health, have not been explicitly costed either, Cipfa says.
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, GP's, Hospital, NHS, charging patients, NHS patients
30/07/2015 • 8:14 am 0
Health officials have pulled out of publishing recommendations on safe staffing after Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt gave the responsibility to the newly-formed NHS Improvement body.
The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) was going to go ahead with publishing them anyway, but announced tonight it would not do so. Chief executive Andrew Dillon said: “The work on safe staffing will now be taken forward by the newly-formed NHS Improvement, in conjunction with NHS England.
“The conclusions reached by our advisory committee on safe nurse staffing in accident and emergency departments will now become part of a wider review.
Click on the link to read more
https://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/recommendations-on-nhs-safe-staffing-not-published-11363995136502
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, NHS safe staffing, not published
27/07/2015 • 4:44 pm 0
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, A&E, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Mers Virus, outbreak
24/07/2015 • 2:23 pm 0
A drive to make more one-stop shops for urgent and emergency care will be announced on Friday as the NHS in England seeks to remedy its failure to meet its target for dealing with 95% of A&E patients within four hours last winter.
NHS England announced eight “vanguard” areas to transform services. Among the measures are the acceleration of the development of GP services in hospitals, mobile treatment centres using ambulance staff, and same-day crisis response teams including GP’s and other acute home-visiting professionals. More mental health street triage services will also be rolled out, along with initiatives involving a broader role for community pharmacists.
The moves, designed to break down barriers between primary care and hospitals, are among £200m worth of experiments. The NHS hopes these will be as successful as the setting up of regional major trauma units three years ago, which are said to have brought about a 50% increase in the odds of survival for patients and saved hundreds of lives.
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, GP's, Hospital, NHS, Hospitals, new plan, NHS England, primary care, transform services
10/07/2015 • 10:22 am 0
All negotiations over the running of local NHS 111 services have been suspended following a Telegraph investigation which exposed major safety risks to patients.
Health officials will issue a new blueprint this autumn promising a new model of care, and national standards on how the helpline should work with ambulances, GP out of hours and urgent care providers.
NHS England’s chief operating officer has written to all providers and commissioners of 111 services, calling for all current tender processes to be halted, until a new “functionally integrated” service has been designed.
The letter was issued last Friday, two days after The Telegraph disclosed concerns about the way 111 helplines are being run. South Central Ambulance Service launched an inquiry after an undercover investigation found call handlers being put under pressure to avoid sending ambulances. Some told how they phrased questions so as to minimise health concerns.
Click on the link to read more
Speeding ambulance
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, A&E, investigation, NHS 111, suspended, Undercover
10/07/2015 • 9:09 am 0
Ministers and NHS bosses face an embarrassing row over safe staffing levels for nurses in hospital A&E departments in England after it emerged that the government body told to stop work in this area is going to publish its recommendations anyway.
The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which is legally independent of the NHS, plans to release its work at the end of the month. It is also continuing evidence reviews for staffing mental health care for both inpatients and those in the community, for learning disability services and for other community health services.
The move, revealed by the Health Service Journal (HSJ), comes a month after news that NHS England, which is far more tightly controlled by the Department of Health (DH), had decided to take such work in-house. This was seen by critics as likely to lead to lower, and cheaper, standards in terms of staffing within the financially challenged service, which has already been told by health secretary Jeremy Hunt to stop using expensive staffing agencies, which, he says, have been “ripping off the NHS”.
The Nice publications will not be billed as official guidance but will be sent to NHS England in any case. Nice is concerned also that both its own work and that of NHS England has been hampered by only looking at nursing numbers.
Click on the link to read more
Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has said expensive staffing agencies are ‘ripping off the NHS’. Watchdog Nice plans to release its report into safe staffing levels
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, A&E, NICE, safestaffing, staffing levels
02/07/2015 • 9:00 am 0
Failing to send ambulances to potential emergencies; watching Game of Thrones in between calls; changing data to meet targets – and more
Patients who call the NHS 111 service are being denied ambulances, even if they are experiencing symptoms of a heart attack, a Telegraph investigation has revealed.
The 111 service was set up as a non-emergency alternative to 999 to relieve pressure on the health system, including A&E departments.
• NHS 111 investigation: latest
• Chest pains? Answer 34 questions and still fail to get an ambulance
An undercover investigation found that staff at a 111 call centre in Oxfordshire were told that there were not enough ambulances to send to everyone in need.
“People are having heart attacks, they’re not breathing, they’re not getting ambulances,” the undercover reporter was told.
Here we examine 10 of the details to have emerged in our seven-week investigation.
Please click on the link to read more
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11708938/NHS-111-investigation-10-things-weve-learned.html
Speeding ambulance
Filed under: A&E, GP's, Hospital, NHS, NHS 111, undercover investigation
01/07/2015 • 7:17 am 0
Patients’ lives are being put at risk by the NHS 111 helpline because call- handlers are being told not to dispatch ambulances, it was claimed last night. One call-centre mentor chillingly told trainee staff that ‘everyone in this room has killed someone’, an undercover investigation found. Patients are being denied ambulances even if they are suffering the symptoms of a heart attack, the Daily Telegraph investigation reported. The NHS 111 helpline was launched in 2013 to provide round-the-clock advice to the public as an alternative to the former advice line NHS Direct, which was run by medically-qualified staff. The new helpline was intended to prevent unnecessary visits to A&E.
Staff on the 111helpline have previously been criticised for merely asking callers questions as guided by computer algorithms – and sending too many tohospital as a result. Call-handlers working on the service are expected to dispatch the emergency services if patients describe symptoms of serious illnesses. However, they are now said to be under pressure not to send out ambulances at certain times due to a shortage of paramedics and a backlog of requests.
An undercover reporter spent seven weeks working on the 111 helpline – which has had numerous problems since its launch – in a call centre in Bicester, Oxford.
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, 111, Ambulances, paramedics, shortage
29/06/2015 • 1:46 pm 0
Do you want to make people’s lives better?
Do you want to make your children’s and your parents lives better?
Are you concerned with the amount of medical mistakes in the news?
Are you a thinker or a doer?
Do you really care?
Click on the link and show me that you really care http://goo.gl/3rf9c7
Filed under: A&E, Cancer, Care Homes, Dementia, Disabilities, Elderly, GP's, Hospital, Mental Health, Named & Shamed, NHS, NHS Blunders, Uncategorized, Whistleblowing, Do you care, making lives better, Medical mistakes
26/06/2015 • 5:04 pm 0
We have had a fantastic response regarding MyNotes Medical, but people are still unsure how MyNotes Medical works.
Here is a short slide presentation walkthrough how the programme will work. We NEED your support to help us to help you. Please pledge your support on our link http://goo.gl/3rf9c7 Thank you, Together We Can Make A Difference Joanna
Filed under: A&E, Cancer, Care Homes, Dementia, Disabilities, Elderly, GP's, Hospital, Mental Health, Named & Shamed, NHS, NHS Blunders, Uncategorized, Whistleblowing, crowdfunder, Mynotes medical
26/06/2015 • 7:53 am 0
The first episode of the documentary series was a derivative but tear-jerking look at hospital life
It’s amazing how many hospital documentaries there are, giving you a ringside seat to every catheter insertion and scan result. They’re meant to fill you with respect for the NHS and make you cry, but surely we’ve all spent too much time in real, broken, depressing hospitals to fall for that one.
Click on the link to read the review
The staff of the Royal Derby Hospital in Derby appear in the ITV observational documentary series Superhospital
24/06/2015 • 9:01 am 0
Casualty units have become ‘places of terror’ for the elderly, senior nurses have warned. They say patients are being abandoned on trolleys in corridors in mid-summer, when hospitals should be less busy. The so-called ‘winter pressures’ are now carrying on year-round with a steady stream of patients arriving. And it is the elderly who are most affected, with many routinely having to wait up to 20 hours on trolleys.
This winter was one of the worst on record for A&E units, with 30 hospitals declaring major incidents and cancelling routine surgery because they were so busy. But nurses say the crisis is continuing, with patients turning up after failing to get an appointment with their GP or being referred inappropriately by the 111 helpline.
It is the elderly who wait the longest, however, because they are less urgent than cases of road traffic accidents, brain haemorrhages and heart attacks.
Click on the link to read more
Filed under: A&E, Elderly, Hospital, NHS, A&E, crisis, major incidents, terror
03/06/2015 • 8:47 am 0
Thousands of people are flooding A&E because they have been refused a same-day appointment with their GP, a report has found. Patients are placing huge pressure on casualty wards as they arrive in ever larger numbers. Many have non-urgent health problems that could easily be dealt with at a localsurgery but they are unable to be seen promptly by family doctors. Now experts have called for more GPs, nurses and other primary care staff to be stationed at A&E departments to deal with patients who do not really need emergency care.
The report, published today by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the Patients Association, found that many Britons are also refusing to use alternative services such as the NHS 111 helpline, walk-in clinics or out-of-hours GP services. The document says A&E is seen as a recognisable ‘brand’ by patients so they will continue to go there even if other services are available.
Click on the link to read more
08/05/2015 • 10:24 am 0
THE family of cancer victim Lily Smith say they will never forgive the NHS after she spent 12 hours of the last day of her life on a hospital trolley.
The 83-year-old great grandmother’s final wish was to be allowed to die in peace at her Newstead home after she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer last December. But an ambulance was called when she suddenly took a turn for the worse after contracting pneumonia. Lily then spent nine hours in a corridor at the Royal Stoke University Hospital’s A&E before spending a further three hours on a trolley at the Medical Assessment Unit.
She passed away just three hours after finally being placed on the Clinical Decision Unit on March 25. Now her devastated relatives have questioned why more was not done to make their dying mother’s last hours more comfortable. One of her four surviving children, Ian Smith, said he will always regret dialling 999 when his mother started to have difficulties breathing.
Click on the link to read more
Lily Smith
Filed under: A&E, Elderly, NHS, NHS Blunders, A&E, Elderly, NHS
21/04/2015 • 2:13 pm 0
Paramedic: ‘Binge drinkers should get a bill of £60 to £80 when they are discharged from hospital’
I have been a paramedic for the NHS for 13 years. We are under a lot of pressure; an ambulance crew in my service is often sent out on 10-14 calls a day. Some calls can take an hour, to an hour and a half – and we work 12-hour shifts. The majority of the time we have to work overtime, anything from 20 minutes to several hours.
We rarely get breaks; you may try to snatch lunch, get a coffee and a rest in the 14 minutes between passing a patient on to the hospital and leaving. Some of my colleagues are on new rotas – working nights getting hardly any rest, and then being put on early shifts. In my opinion, two sets of people are being killed here – ambulance personnel, slowly and surely before we retire; and patients dying because we are on unnecessary call-outs when they need us. Paramedics and ambulance personnel are leaving their jobs in droves. Private ambulances are now attending emergency calls.
NHS 111 is partly to blame – especially the privately owned parts. All they care about is not being sued so they send ambulances out for everything. If someone has had a cough for three days, so has chest pains from that, they will call us out. Some even tell patients they might be having a heart attack! It’s disgusting.
Click on the link to read more
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/20/how-to-save-nhs-election-labour-conservative-billions
Homa Khaleeli, paramedic for the NHS
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, ambulance crew, NHS, NHS 111, paramedic
18/04/2015 • 1:38 pm 0
A DOCTOR on call for major disasters was sent to a crisis-hit hospital emergency department after severe bed shortages led to patients being treated in corridors.
The Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s A&E department was under so much pressure West Midlands Ambulance Service had to send in its medical incident officer to help beleaguered staff after months of problems. Unions said it was “totally unacceptable”, adding that its members were “furious”. The Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, apologised but said the circumstances were “less than ideal”. Pressure on beds had been “a constant issue” for more than a year. It simply could not discharge patients quickly enough, resulting in a backlog.
Click on the link to read more
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/571270/The-Worcestershire-Royal-Hospital-doctor-disasters-A-E
A medical incident officer has to help beleaguered staff after months of problems
19/03/2015 • 10:04 am 0
The trust in charge of the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven has declared a major incident.
The News & Star has learned that staff were called to a meeting at 3pm yesterday. There they were told that the hospital is now at “escalation number five”, which is an internal major incident. A spokeswoman for North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust told the News & Star that the declaration is across the trust, but the Carlisle hospital is more acutely affected. We understand that the hospital simply ran out of beds yesterday afternoon, and had no option but to declare an emergency and call for help from its partner agencies.
NHS England has said it will not be commenting.
A full statement from the trust and NHS Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group is expected later.
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/major-incident-declared-at-cumbrian-hospitals-1.1199999
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, Uncategorized, CUMBRIAN HOSPITALS, major incident
16/03/2015 • 8:41 am 0
GOK Wan’s family have told of their fury after the TV star’s frail aunt lay in agony on a trolley at a Scots hospital for seven hours.
Mary Wan, 81, was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary after complaining of excruciating leg pains at her nursing home in the city. But relatives were horrified when she was left until early in the morning with no food or medication, despite suffering a stroke just weeks before. Gok’s cousin Charles, 51, who is Mary’s son, said: “My mum is an elderly Chinese woman who doesn’t speak any English. I have to speak up for her.
“For someone of her age to suffer in pain for that time is not on. She is the best mum in the world and deserves to be looked after properly.”
Click on the link to read more
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/health/nhs-crisis-gok-wans-auntie-5341832
Gok with cousin Charlie, and his aunt Mary
15/03/2015 • 2:35 pm 0
A hospital has been criticised after patients were forced to parade their conditions on laminated signs, under a new scheme likened to “a police line-up”. Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, has introduced a trial which sees Accident & Emergency patients given cards detailing their medical condition. Hospital managers say the initiative – which labels patients according to their level of urgency – is designed to help speed up waiting times. All patients are given a green or red laminated cards detailing their condition – meaning those with alcohol problems, mental health issues and gynaecological problems – could lose patient confidentiality.
Click on the link to read more
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11470242/NHS-scheme-like-a-police-line-up.html
Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford Photo: Eastnews Press Agency
12/03/2015 • 9:38 am 0
The article makes me go cold, as my mother also went into hospital for a hip problem and later died. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1394300/NHS-hip-operation-mother-died-Daughters-harrowing-account.html
My thoughts and prayers to the family of Koshalaya Sawhney, Joanna
An elderly woman, who was admitted to hospital with a hip problem, died after “huge errors” were made by staff, an inquest has heard. “Well loved” mother and grand-mother Koshalaya Sawhney died on January 18 last year at Darent Valley Hospital after suffering a “massive” stroke and falling into a coma. Mrs Sawhney, 85, of Bowness Road, Bexleyheath, had been taken to A and E on January 7 with a locked hip that left her unable to move. Her daughter, Viniti Seabrooke, told North West Kent Coroners’ Court, prior to going to hospital, her mother did not have any major health problems.
Mrs Seabrooke, who is a medical researcher, said: “My mum was extremely proud and self-sufficient. “She lived on her own and did not have any help with personal care. “She had some health issues but they were not unmanageable and not life-threatening.”
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Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, NHS Blunders, errors, hip problem, medical blunder
10/03/2015 • 8:30 am 0
More than 100,000 patients have been injured or killed by medical “blunders” in the Welsh NHS since 2010, new figures have revealed.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that patients were injured on at least 102,807 separate occasions at Welsh hospitals, and an astonishing 1,742 of those led to major harm – or even death. On average, one Welsh NHS patient was harmed every 30 minutes as a result of doctors or nurses misusing drugs or equipment, making mistakes over paperwork or providing negligent treatment.
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http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/more-100000-patients-injured-killed-8796747
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, NHS Blunders, Medical Blunders, negligent, NHS, Welsh NHS
07/03/2015 • 2:32 pm 2
A paramedic has spoken out about high levels of stress and depression among frontline ambulance workers, saying there was “no respite” from pressures on the service. It comes as figures reveal the number of ‘stress-related’ sick days taken by people working in emergency healthcare – including paramedics and technicians – has rocketed by 40 per cent in just 12 months.
Stuart Gray, who works in London, said the stress of the job had caused him to be off ill on “several occasions”.
5 News exclusive – Strain on frontline ambulance staff causes major rise in stress-related illnesses
Paramedics and ambulance technicians took 40% more days off for stress-related illnesses in 2014
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Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, ambulance workers, paramedic
05/03/2015 • 4:08 pm 0
A coroner has blasted bungling paramedics who dismissed a dad’s agonising chest pains as a PANIC ATTACK – just hours before he died of cardiac arrest.
Tragic Jeffrey Corbin, 59, was even persuaded not to go to hospital by an ambulance crew who told him he would have to wait up to SEVEN HOURS in A&E for treatment. Shockingly, when he collapsed in his bedroom 24 hours later on April 20 last year it took 75 minutes for a first responder to turn up after he was categorised as a low priority. National government targets require an ambulance to attend an address within 30 minutes of a 999 call. But because of extra demand over the Easter weekend it took a further 14 minutes before an ambulance finally arrived at his home in Sneyd Green, Stoke-on-Trent. When the retired factory worker was finally taken to hospital it was too late and the father-of-three was pronounced dead.
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Jeffrey Corbin. The grieving family of a heart attack victim, who died 24 hours after paramedics failed to take him to hospital, are taking legal action against the NHS (© Newsteam / SWNS Group)
Filed under: A&E, Elderly, Hospital, NHS, NHS Blunders, A&E, cardiac arrest., paramedics
02/03/2015 • 8:38 am 0
The NHS has been forced to ask British doctors in Australia to come home due to a major shortfall in numbers. Around 1,000 more GPs are urgently needed in England, according to new figures released by the House of Commons library. It is thought that nearly 1,500 doctors – who cost the taxpayer up to £610,000 to train – move to Australia every year.
To bridge the gap they have been offered a place on a ‘fully funded’ programme, which they can choose to be either full or part time, if they return. An advert was placed in the Australian Doctor and the Medical Observer by NHS England’s Shropshire and Staffordshire area team and Health Education Midlands earlier this month. It said: ‘This scheme will help you rediscover and enhance the skills you need to return, or start to practise in the UK. ‘It’s fully funded, so you will be supported whilst you complete the programme.’
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24/02/2015 • 11:41 am 0
THE family of a woman left on an A&E trolley for 16-and-a-half hours were told to bring in pillows for her, an insider says. The source told the Record: “They were told none were available in the hospital.” He said the woman endured the nightmare wait in accident and emergency at Glasgow’s Victoria Infirmary on Sunday night after suffering a head injury. And he added: “She was told there were no beds in the whole of Glasgow”. The insider also told how another female patient was left on a trolley for 17-and-a-half hours in a room normally used for putting on plaster casts. The report will add to fears of a deepening crisis in Scotland’s A&E units. And it’s the latest in a series of worrying incidents at the Victoria’s casualty unit.
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http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/nhs-crisis-family-woman-left-5218852
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, A&E, Waiting times
23/02/2015 • 7:53 am 0
3,000 heart attack and stroke victims a year are suffering delays being admitted to hospitals after falling ill at weekends, because NHS services are not working round the clock, a new report suggests. Senior doctors last night warned that patients are dying needlessly because of poor access to GPs and out-of-hours services failing to detect emergency cases which should be sent to hospital. New analysis of national NHS data shows a steep drop in the number of cases being admitted to hospital as an emergency at weekends, and a still sharper fall in the number who were sent there by GPs.
The figures suggest that each year, 3,144 patients suffering from heart attacks and strokes end up suffering a delay of at least 24 hours being admitted to hospital, because their case was not identified as an emergency.
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![heart-doppel_2630407b[1]](https://joanna678s.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/heart-doppel_2630407b1.jpg)
NHS lets down patients with appalling standards at weekends, says top doctor
Filed under: A&E, Hospital, NHS, Uncategorized, A&E, delay, Hospital, out of hours
17/02/2015 • 10:29 am 0
At his inquest A&E colleagues told of work pressures and the strain he was under
The boss of a troubled NHS A&E department died due to self harm after being found hanged 200 yards from where he worked. Mark Channell was joint head of the casualty unit at North Middlesex Hospital which was found wanting in a Care Quality Commission report just days after his death in August last year. A couple of months earlier, in June, the local MP, David Burrowes, spent 13 hours on an A&E trolley at the hospital waiting for treatment for appendicitis, the day before a CQC inspection. At his inquest A&E colleagues told of work pressures and the strain of the CQC inspection at the North London hospital.
Mr Channell, a highly regarded nurse manager, was put in charge of the hospital’s A&E department to manage the flow of patients following the controversial closure of neighbouring Chase Farm Hospital’s A&E department. A huge row broke out among senior managers when it was discovered MP Burrowes had been abandoned in a corridor. It happened on a day that saw 600 patients pass through A&E – 200 more than planned for.
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Filed under: A&E, NHS, A&E, stress, work pressures
12/02/2015 • 10:32 am 0
Click on the link to read and see the shocking video footage
Carl Cope who died from a heart attack
01/02/2015 • 10:18 am 0
A new £90 million emergency-only hospital hailed as ‘a glimpse of the future’ by the most senior doctor in the NHS will lead to three other A&E units being effectively downgraded, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. After NHS England medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh visited the site of the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital last February, he praised it as an example for others to follow. Local NHS bosses say it ‘aligns’ with Sir Bruce’s controversial plan to develop a two-tier emergency network across England – a move critics claim will jeopardise A&Es, meaning longer journeys for patients.
When unveiling his national plan in November 2013, Sir Bruce said it was ‘complete nonsense’ to suggest some A&Es would be downgraded as a result of the drive to develop larger specialist units. But the opening in June of a new 210-bed facility in Cramlington, ten miles north of Newcastle, will trigger the loss of ‘blue-light’ emergency services at three district general hospitals elsewhere in Northumberland. Officials insist Hexham, Wansbeck and North Tyneside hospitals will maintain ‘walk-in A&E services’. Yet the three units will only be staffed and equipped to cope with incidents typically dealt with by lower-ranking urgent care centres, according to a leading doctor.
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Local NHS bosses have accused Sir Bruce of trying to create a ‘two tier’ emergency response system which critics say will mean longer journeys for patients
Filed under: A&E, Uncategorized, A&E, downgraded, Hospitals, NHS
28/01/2015 • 11:04 am 0
A woman has been found hanged in a hospital A&E department. The body of the 42-year-old was discovered in a side room at the Royal Blackburn Hospital in Lancashire shortly before 1am yesterday. The shocking discovery is being investigated by police. A file has been prepared for the coroner’s office. East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT), which runs the hospital, declined to say whether the woman- from Burnley – was considered a suicide risk when she arrived at the department, or whether she had any known psychiatric problems. Dr Ian Stanley, acting medical director at ELHT, said: “Our sympathies are with the patient’s family at this difficult time. “This tragic incident is presently the subject of an initial police investigation and the trust will make no further comment at this time.”
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-42-found-hanged-hospital-5056513?
Filed under: A&E, Uncategorized, A&E, hanged, Hospital
18/01/2015 • 2:11 pm 0
The NHS 111 phone helpline has plunged accident and emergency units into chaos by sending 6,000 extra callers a WEEK for walk-in hospital treatment. The number of people who were advised to go to A&E in the 2013-14 financial year was 526,500, the Government revealed. But in eight months to November last year – before this winter’s crisis – the figure had ballooned to 515,500, an average extra 6,000 a week. The 111 helpline replaced the popular NHS Direct in 2010 and in its first eight months only 7,400 people were told to go to A&E, writes Nigel Nelson in the Sunday People. Doctors blame unqualified 111 call handlers for tipping A&Es into meltdown. NHS Direct call lines had been manned by medically qualified staff. Earlier this month every NHS trust in England failed to meet its emergency care targets. In the lead-up to Christmas, more than 400,000 patients had to wait longer than the target four hours to be seen.
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-ae-units-sent-meltdown-4998228
Chaotic: Doctors say call handlers are not qualified to decide whether people require A&E treatment
Filed under: A&E, Uncategorized, 111, A&E
16/01/2015 • 12:41 am 0
The sister at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, who previously nursed soldiers on the frontline during the 2003 Iraq invasion, said she had to make decisions “that put patients at risk and put staff under extreme pressure”. She described how a pregnant woman miscarried on the floor of a triage area in view of strangers and how she was forced to leave an unconscious patient in the care of junior staff and “hope to God he didn’t aspirate, have a massive bleed or fit”. “I spent weeks in and out of the trenches being shelled, nursing soldiers under trolleys as the warning sirens went off,” she wrote in an account of her experiences. “I know what stress is.
Click on the link to read more … Working in A&E
Filed under: A&E, Uncategorized, A&E, nurses
14/01/2015 • 12:55 am 0
An internal NHS report discloses that 57 patients died after their calls were downgraded following a decision not to send ambulances to the terminally ill and to those who had given instructions not to resuscitate. It meant that, instead of receiving a response from paramedics in eight minutes, people reporting life-threatening illnesses were given a call back up to 20 minutes later, or had to wait up to an hour for an ambulance.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11343952/50-die-under-secret-999-policy.html
![East-of-England-Am_3077299b[1]](https://joanna678s.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/east-of-england-am_3077299b1.jpg)
Filed under: A&E, Care Homes, Elderly, Hospital, NHS, Uncategorized, Ambulance, NHS, terminally ill
08/01/2015 • 8:56 am 0
The daughter of a pensioner who died of pneumonia just days after being left for hours lying in agony on a cold floor because no ambulances were available to help has decried the state of the NHS, saying she would rather end life than grow old in the UK.
Helen Forde watched as her 92-year-old mother, Bridget Forde, drifted in and out of consciousness after suffering a fall and breaking her hip last month. Despite serious heart problems and being in severe pain, it took four 999 calls and a wait of more than five hours before an ambulance arrived. Her nearly-blind daughter, who was “unable to see if she’d turned blue”, said she was repeatedly told no help was available.
When paramedics eventually arrived at her home in Birchwood Avenue, Muswell Hill, they were said to be shocked at her condition. Mrs Forde was taken to the Whittington Hospital in Archway where she waited another 14 hours in A&E for a bed. What turned out to be a minor bone fracture ended with her dying of pneumonia six days later (on December 8) – something her daughter is convinced is the result of the slow ambulance response time and an NHS “in crisis”. She said: “The last memory I have of my mother is her lying on that floor in agony. It’s something I can’t forgive nor forget.
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Helen Forde holding a photo of her mother Bridget Forde
Filed under: A&E, Elderly, Uncategorized, A&E, Ambulance, Elderly, NHS
23/11/2014 • 11:29 am 0
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS 