Tag: Global Health

Photograph of a report on a table, the report is labeled, "NHS"

The NHS In England: Patient Safety News Roundup

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

There is always a lot happening with patient safety in the NHS (National Health Service) in England. Sadly, all too often patient safety crises events occur. The NHS is also no sloth when it comes to the production of patient safety policies, reports, and publications. These generally provide excellent information and are very well researched and produced. Unfortunately, some of these can be seen to falter at the NHS local hospital implementation stage and some reports get parked or forgotten. This is evident from the failure of the NHS to develop an ingrained patient safety culture over the years. Some patient safety progress has been made, but not enough when the history of NHS policy making in the area is analysed.

Lessons going unlearnt from previous patient safety event crises is also an acute problem. Patient safety events seem to repeat themselves with the same attendant issues

Read More

Ambassador-at-Large Deborah Birx giving a speech from a podium with an American flag and PEPFAR banner in the background

One of the Biggest Public Health Initiatives in History: PEPFAR and HIV

Daniel G. Aaron Leave a comment

By Daniel Aaron

In October, the Petrie-Flom Center hosted a conference of world-leading experts in HIV/AIDS to discuss one of the biggest public health successes in history: PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR was launched in 2003 in response to a burgeoning global epidemic of HIV. The program offered $2 billion annually, rising to about $7 billion in 2019, to surveil, diagnose, treat, and reduce transmission of HIV around the world.

PEPFAR prevented what could have become an exponentially growing epidemic. It is estimated to have saved more than 17 million lives and avoided millions of new HIV infections. As a result, the speakers at the conference were quick to extol the virtues of the program. Professor Ashish Jha called it an “unmitigated success”; Professor Marc C. Elliott named it a “historic effort”; Dr. Ingrid Katz described PEPFAR as “nothing short of miraculous.”

However, several undercurrents within the conference, as well as more explicit points made by several panelists, suggested the importance of enlarging the discussion beyond PEPFAR itself to include other policies that impact HIV and AIDS, and even other diseases.

Read More

A mother holds her baby close to her chest and gazes at their face

Maternity Scandal Hits the NHS

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

Unfortunately, it’s never too long before a major NHS patient safety crisis hits the newspaper headlines in the United Kingdom. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust (SATH) maternity scandal has just become a major breaking U.K. patient safety news story.

Shaun Lintern reports in The Independent:

Hundreds of families whose babies died or were seriously injured at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust do not even know their cases have been identified for investigation in the biggest maternity scandal to ever hit the NHS… Dozens of babies and three mothers died in the trust’s maternity wards, where a ‘toxic culture’ stretched back to 1979, according to an interim report leaked to The Independent this week.

Patient Safety Scandals

Read More

Wooden figurine of a person leans against a wood wall clock

Patient Satisfaction in the NHS in England with the Emergency Room

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

The Accident and Emergency (A&E), the Emergency Room, is the bellwether NHS speciality from which all the other clinical specialities appear to be judged. Long reported delays and missed targets in the A&E (Emergency Room) lead to a public, media clamoring that the NHS is a failing public service. The independent regulator of health and social care in England, the CQC (Care Quality Commission) recently published findings from a national survey of more than 50,000 people who received urgent and emergency care from 132 NHS trusts (hospitals).The survey looked at people’s experiences, from decision to attend, to leave, using Type 1 (major A&E) and Type 3 (urgent care centers, minor injury units, urgent treatment centers) urgent and emergency care services.

Survey Results

Read More

Senior female woman patient in wheelchair sitting in hospital corridor with nurses and doctor

Care Quality Commission Annual Assessment of Health and Social Care

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

The independent regulator for health and social care in England, the Quality Care Commission (CQC) has recently published its annual report on the real-time state of health and social care in England. It analyses trends, shares examples of outstanding, good, and poor health care care practices. It provides a true, unabashed account of issues facing the National Health Service (NHS) and health care delivery.

A Health System Stretched

Read More

Hand placing wood toy block on top of a tower. The blocks all have images of medical-related items on them, like pills, stethoscope, syringe

Lost in the Jungle of Patient Safety Reports, Publications and Initiatives?

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

In terms of the progress of developing a patient safety culture in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, the Daily Telegraph reports comments made by Professor Ted Baker, the Chief Inspector of Hospitals at the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at a recent conference in London. He held the view that “little progress” has been made improving patient safety in the NHS in 20 years, and that never events such as wrong site surgery were still happening because the overall culture is one of defensiveness. The Telegraph reported, “He told The Patient Safety Learning conference that hospital managers routinely hide evidence from the CQC, because they regard the organisation as out to blame them.”

The Telegraph also mentions an NHS estimate in July that 11,000 patients a year may be dying as a result of blunders, partly as a result of a “blame game” culture between staff.

Read More

Photograph of a report on a table, the report is labeled, "NHS"

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) in England: Annual Review of Progress

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) occupies a pivotal role in the National Health Service (NHS) and social care sector in securing health quality and patient safety. Its inspection activities through its reports and publications form the backbone of quality and safety in these sectors. As the independent regulator of health and social care in England it faces a mammoth task. The CQC has recently published its annual report and accounts, which provide useful insights into its work. The report provides a window on how England regulates health, social care quality, and patient safety. There is detailed reflection in the report about how the organisation can better perform its functions and the challenges and opportunities currently facing it.

Read More

A group of surgeons perform an operation in a hospital operating theatre.

Keeping up to Date with Global Patient Safety

John Tingle Leave a comment

One of the great difficulties in patient safety and health quality is keeping up to date with all the material that is produced. A myriad number of patient safety and health resources exist globally. By sharing good quality resources, we can help advance the global patient safety agenda.

NHS Resolution (the operating name of the National Health Service Litigation Authority) has excellent patient safety and clinical negligence resources, learning materials and should be viewed as a priority global information source.

NHS Resolution is a Special Health Authority and is a not-for-profit arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care.It is a part of the NHS and has several functions including handling negligence claims on behalf of NHS organizations and independent sector providers of NHS care in England who are members of the NHS Resolution indemnity schemes. Read More

Black silhouette of girl with a pony tail looking down in a dark tunnel

Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety

John Tingle Leave a comment

Suicide prevention needs to be taken more seriously globally by governments, health systems as an urgent public health concern.

WHO (World Health Organisation) states that close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year, which translates to one person dying every 40 seconds. For each adult who died by suicide there may have been more than 20 others attempting suicide. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15 to 29-year-olds globally, and occurs throughout the lifespan. Read More

health secretary matt hancock leaves 10 downing street

No room for complacency in patient safety in the NHS

John Tingle Leave a comment

Matt Hancock, the recently appointed Government, Health and Social Care Secretary, made a keynote speech on patient safety in London recently. The speech spelled out the future direction of NHS (National Health Service) patient safety policy development in England and also contained some very useful observations and policy which have relevance to patient safety policy developers globally, as well as in England.

Read More