More than two thirds of doctors (69%) have felt overwhelmed at least once while at work in the past three weeks, according to a survey by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). Some 27.5% of respondents said they had felt overwhelmed once or twice during this period, 21.5% once or twice a week. A fifth (20.5%) said they had felt overwhelmed almost every day. High levels of staff absence is putting immense pressure on exhausted and demoralised staff working under the extreme pressure of rising COVID-19 cases coupled with usual winter illnesses. The RCP’s survey found that across the UK, 7.5% of ..read more

UK hospitals have cancelled at least 13,000 operations over the last two months as they struggle to cope with record demand for NHS care and people sick with Covid-19. Figures collected by A&E doctors showed that 13,061 planned surgeries had to be called off during October and November because of shortages of beds and staff. However, the cancellations occurred at just 40 of the several hundred NHS hospitals across the four home nations, so those 13,061 are likely to be a major underestimate of the scale of the problem. Dr Adrian Boyle, a vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Med ..read more

Almost 70 medics who attended a large Christmas party in southern Spain have since tested positive for Covid-19, authorities say. Most of the 68 infected are doctors and nurses working in the intensive care unit at Málaga’s regional hospital. Health authorities said they were all at a party attended by about 170 people last Wednesday. All guests returned negative antigen tests before the event but more than half are now isolating. Read more at BBC News. The post Nearly 70 Spanish medics Covid positive after Christmas party appeared first on Hospital Dr ..read more

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the UK’s vulnerability to such an emergency and the need to strengthen national preparedness in the future. This is the key message of a National Audit Office report, which also finds the Government had not prepared for a disease with characteristics like Covid-19. The Government has had a national risk assessment in place since 2005. This is updated regularly and identifies the key risks facing the UK or its interests overseas. Since 2008, the Government’s National Risk Register (the Register) has identified an influenza pandemic as the UK’s top non-malic ..read more

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine says at least 4,519 patients have died as a result of crowding and 12 hour stays in Emergency Departments in England in 2020-2021. The new report, called Crowding and its Consequences, investigates the extent of harm that crowding causes and applies NHSE’s own findings from the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) program which found that one in 67 patients staying in the Emergency Department for 12 hours come to excess harm. In October 2021, there were 7,059 12-hour stays from decision to admit, the highest number ever recorded, and 40% higher than Septe ..read more

The BMA is accusing the Government of failing to honour key obligations introduced as part of the 2015 reforms to the NHS pension scheme. The union claims this has resulted in doctors not building up improved benefits to which they would have otherwise been entitled. This relates to the last pension scheme valuation in 2016 which, far from demonstrating that the NHS scheme was unaffordable, instead showed that members were paying too much for their pension and under the terms of the Cost Control Mechanism were entitled to see their contribution costs reduced, or the benefits they received incr ..read more

The proportion of unfilled medical consultant posts across the UK is at its highest level in almost a decade, according to a census conducted by the medical royal colleges. Nearly half (48%) of advertised consultant posts across the UK were unfilled last year – up from 36% in 2013. Most posts were not filled because there were no applicants. Of the 48% of posts that went unfilled in the UK, 49% were unfilled due to a lack of any applicants at all and 34% due to a lack of suitable candidates. There were higher rates of unsuccessful appointments in Wales (59%) and Northern Ireland (57%), than in ..read more

The pressure on the NHS is now at unsustainable levels and patient safety and care are being put at risk by staff shortages, according to a poll of NHS leaders by the NHS Confederation. NHS leaders in England warn that we have reached a tipping point, with nearly nine in 10 (88%) saying the demands on their organisation are unsustainable. Almost the same number (87%) also say that a lack of staffing in the NHS as a whole is putting patient safety and care at risk. The greatest areas of concern are primary care and urgent and emergency care, according to the survey of 451 leaders across hospita ..read more

People are dying in the back of ambulances and up to 160,000 more a year are coming to harm because they are stuck outside hospitals unable to be offloaded to A&E, a bombshell report has revealed. Patients are also dying soon after finally getting admitted to hospital after spending long periods in the back of an ambulance, while others still in their own homes are not being saved because paramedics are trapped at A&E and unable to answer 999 calls, said the report by NHS ambulance service bosses in England. Ambulance logjams outside hospitals have become a major problem in the NHS in ..read more

The early handling of the coronavirus pandemic was one of the worst public health failures in UK history, a Parliamentary report has found. Covid-19 exposed “major deficiencies in the machinery of government”, with inadequate scrutiny of scientific advice and poor sharing of information between public bodies. The report, by the House of Commons and Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee, concludes that while some initiatives were examples of best practice others represented significant mistakes. It says both must be reflected on to ensure that lessons are applied ..read more