Grandmother, 55, died from cervical cancer after her GP dismissed her symptoms as the menopause

A devoted grandmother died from cervical cancer after her GP repeatedly dismissed her symptoms as the menopause.

Cheryl Humpage, 55, died in July 2010 after huge tumours spread - despite her undergoing an aggressive course of chemotherapy.

Almost 18 months earlier in February 2008, the grandmother-of-three and former factory worker sought medical help after complaining of nausea, unusual bleeding and fever.

Her GP, Dr Martin Crowther, of St Peter's Surgery in Walsall, West Midlands, dismissed her symptoms as the menopause and she was prescribed HRT.

But her symptoms persisted and despite being examined by Dr Crowther a further three times, she was not diagnosed with cancer until a year later.

In March 2009, doctors finally diagnosed her with cancer after she was referred to a specialist at Walsall Manor Hospital but it was too late to save her and she died four months later.

Today her devastated husband Peter, 56, received a five-figure compensation pay-out from the GP's insurers after suing Dr Crowther for medical negligence.

Mr Humpage said: 'Cheryl was very concerned about her symptoms but she thought she was in safe hands.

'She was a great mum and grandmother and very family orientated, we're all absolutely heartbroken that she's no longer with us.

'It's very hard not to be angry about what happened. Cheryl should not have had to suffer like she did and if the cancer had been diagnosed earlier we believe we could have had longer with her.
'We just hope that what happened to Cheryl acts as a reminder to all of us about the importance of a quick diagnosis of cervical cancer.

'It is however still difficult to come to terms with out loss because we have never had any sort of apology or admission of responsibility to help us draw a line under everything that happened.
'Until then, I'm not sure that we can ever truly move forward.'

Dr Crowther today apologised for failing to detect Mrs Humpage's cancer. He said: 'I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere sympathy to Mrs Humpage's family for their loss.
'I am sorry for the delay in making a diagnosis. I have reflected extensively on the episode and discussed it with colleagues and I have learned from this process, now being more aware of the danger in similar situations.'

Lindsay Tomlinson, from Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, who represented the family, said: 'This is a tragic case that has left a family devastated by the loss of a wife, mother and grandmother.'

'During out investigations an independent medical expert found that Cheryl's GP should have recognised her symptoms as typical of those experienced by cervical cancer sufferers.'

'Any yet no pelvic examination was made, she was not referred to a gynaecologist and no advice was given advising her to return for further medical attention should the bleeding continue.'

'Had she been referred earlier she would have avoided such a long period of pain and suffering without a diagnosis and our expert was of the opinion that on balance she would have lived for longer and had more time with her family.'

Ms Tomlinson added that if her cancer had been picked up earlier, her suffering would have been 'greatly reduced and it was 'incredibly hard for all her family to see her deteriorate so quickly'.

This article is courtesy from the Daily Mail.

It's the lawyers who benefit from NHS compensation fund

You don't have to read too much about the Mid Staffordshire hospitals scandal to appreciate that there are some very genuine victims of malpractice who quite properly deserve to be compensated for the appalling treatment which they received.

But that doesn't explain the enormous sum of taxpayers' money which the NHS Litigation Authority has put aside for settling compensation claims: £5.8billion.

To put that into perspective the cost of building a brand new Royal Liverpool Hospital has been estimated at £429million - you could have 13 of them for the money in the compensation fund. Alternatively the NHS could employ 270,000 graduate nurses for a year.

Parts of the NHS have been revealed in recent times to be shockingly poor but can the service really be so bad that it is forced to shell out such vast sums to victims of negligence? Using the sums paid out in compensation as a guide the NHS is now nearly twice as neglectful as it was five years ago at the height of the Mid Stafford scandal. In 2008/09 the annual compensation bill was £614.3million. In 2012/13 it was £1.117billion.

If the NHS really were this bad no one would ever dare set foot in a hospital. The reason for soaring NHS compensation claims, like that for the explosive growth in whiplash claims, is really a greedy industry of ambulance-chasing lawyers who talk people into making claims against the NHS - and then pocket a huge slice of the settlement for themselves.

BUT if it makes you angry to know how much of our money the NHS is paying out in compensation it will make you even angrier to know how much of it disappears into the pockets of lawyers. Last year for every pound the NHS paid out in compensation, 54.9p went in legal fees. This is another figure which grows and grows by the year: five years ago the NHS paid 45.9p in legal bills for every pound of compensation.

The explosion in NHS compensation claims did not just come out of thin air, it was a consequence of the introduction in 1995 of US-style "no win, no fee" agreements. Under such agreements a lawyer takes on a case at no cost to the litigant.

If the case fails the lawyer charges nothing. On the other hand if the case is won the lawyer is allowed to charge a great fat "success fee" over what he would normally charge.

The idea was that "no win, no fee" agreements would allow people of limited means to sue for compensation. Yet it soon became apparent that the people who were really profiting were the lawyers and that many of those forced to pay their extravagant fees were themselves not well off.

Jane Taylor, who runs a cafe in Preston, Lancashire, was sued by a gasman who slipped on a wet floor while reading a gas meter and broke two ribs. The gasman was awarded £2,000 in an out-of-court settlement but Mrs Taylor was then presented with a £30,000 legal bill from the gasman's lawyers.

Belatedly this aspect of "no win, no fee" has been reformed. Since April, under provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, lawyers have no longer been able to claim their success fee from the losing side in a court case: it must now be paid from the damages they have managed to win for their clients. This should put an end to cases such as that of Mrs Taylor where the legal costs have dwarfed the compensation payout.

But don't think that will be the end of it. You can be sure that ambulance-chasing lawyers will continue to milk the NHS, bringing spurious cases against it in the hope that it will settle out of court rather than run up legal fees defending itself in court.

The NHS Litigation Authority, which handles legal claims against the NHS, quotes a few cases in its annual report which it has defended but is almost boastful that "fewer than one per cent of our cases proceed to a contested hearing".

It is just like insurance companies facing whiplash claims: they have made a calculation that when faced with a claim it is simpler and cheaper just to pay up rather than risk running up higher legal costs by challenging the case in court. That may be so in the short run but in the longer run it merely encourages claimants to come forward with spurious claims.

Bizarrely the NHS even encourages claims by distributing leaflets to patients advertising the services of "no win, no fee" lawyers. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. It is as if a cafe put in its menu: "Didn't enjoy your meal? Then why not sue us?" SOME hospitals have earned up to £85,000 by distributing the leaflets, which might seem like welcome income now but won't seem so clever a few months later when the legal bills start rolling in.

Doctors should not be immune from the consequences of making errors in their work any more than other professionals.

When a mainly healthy young patient suffers paralysis as a result of a botched operation the financial consequences are bound to be large.

But if the compensation bandwagon is allowed to roll on there will be only one result: lawyers will grow ever richer while there is less money available to be spent on operations. Medical treatments, surgical procedures especially, are inherently risky. If the NHS is forced by a soaring compensation bill to become risk averse and then declines to conduct complex procedures we will all be the losers.

'A result of no win, no fee agreements'

This article is courtesy from the Express.

Boy who developed narcolepsy after swine flu jab denied compensation

A seven-year-old who developed narcolepsy after having the swine flu vaccine has been refused compensation because he is not ill enough – despite the fact he sleeps for 19 hours a day.

Josh Hadfield developed the condition within three weeks of receiving the injection and now suffers ‘attacks’ which can cause him to doze throughout the day. 

Until he started medication he fell asleep up to every five minutes - even when he was walking, eating and swimming - and suffered sudden seizures when he laughed.

Earlier this year, the Government admitted that the Pandemrix jab could be to blame and Josh’s mother Caroline hoped she would get financial assistance to deal with his condition. 

But Josh has now been told he does not have a ‘severe’ enough disability to qualify for compensation. 

Ms Hadfield, 42, declared the decision ‘disgusting’ and said the condition had 
irreversibly changed his life.

She said: ‘At the end of the day this vaccine has irreversibly changed his life forever and there’s nothing we can do about this.

‘He has to take a very, very strong cocktail of drugs each day just to get through the day.’

Josh received the vaccine at his local GP surgery on January 21, 2010 after his 
mother was told he was ‘at risk’ of the H1N1 virus because he was under five.

But Ms Hadfield, of Frome, Somerset, said that within weeks of him having the vaccine she noticed a drastic change in her son.

‘He was a perfectly healthy energetic four-year-old before the vaccination, but within two weeks he was getting more tired and after three weeks he was sleeping for 19 hours a day.

‘Things then developed quickly and he struggled to walk.

‘Nothing could convince me it was anything but the jab which caused Josh’s conditions.

‘The Government had a knee-jerk reaction to swine flu and put out this vaccine, giving it to very young children.’

Josh is now on medication to control the condition but the family lives in constant fear of narcolepsy attacks.

Ms Hadfield, a civil servant, said: ‘Laughter can trigger attacks and sometimes he is too anxious to go out for fear of an incident. 

‘You see other children who can laugh and enjoy things and yes Josh can laugh and enjoy things but his reaction means that he goes unconscious.

‘We feel we are constantly treading on eggshells.’

The vaccine was widely used in the UK during the 2009 to 2010 flu pandemic 
and was given to almost one million children between the ages of six-months-old and five-years-old.

However, since 2011 it has not been given to people under the age of 20 because of the risk of narcolepsy.

The UK Health Protection Agency has found that giving the jab to young children increases their chance of developing narcolepsy by 14 times.

Researchers estimate that the chance of developing narcolepsy after receiving a dose of the vaccine is somewhere between one in 52,000 and one in 52,750.
Last month, the Government made a dramatic U-turn over Josh’s condition, admitting that, ‘on the balance of probability the jab contributed to his condition’.

But they then added: ‘It has not been accepted that disablement from vaccination is severe, i.e. at least 60 per cent.’

Families could be entitled to £120,000 through the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme if they can prove ‘severe’ disability.

But Ms Hadfield said: ‘Basically to get compensation you need to have something along the lines of loss of eyesight, loss of hearing, loss of limbs or basically not being able to do anything at all which I think is absolutely disgusting.’

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions, which runs the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme, said: ‘DWP has looked at some vaccine damage payments cases again in light of new information regarding swine flu and narcolepsy provided by the Department for Health.

‘We cannot comment on the specifics of individual cases but can confirm that once this new information was taken into account it was decided, on balance of probability, in some cases that causation was proved.’

Ms Hadfield has now applied for legal aid to appeal against the decision.

This article is courtesy from the Daily Mail.

It’s time to seize the chance and prevent needless child deaths

With meningitis still affecting thousands each year, is it time to introduce a life-saving vaccine? Sarah Freeman reports.

In January this year Andrea Walker was out shopping for bridesmaid dresses with her youngest daughter Ellie. Within the week, without any warning, her three-year-old daughter had died.

“Ellie was due to be bridesmaid at the wedding of my eldest daughter and she couldn’t have been more excited,” says Andrea, who lives in Keighley. “The next day she seemed a bit sniffly, but nothing major. Every parent worries about meningitis and even though Ellie hadn’t complained of a headache or anything like that, I did check for a rash.”

Relieved to find there was nothing abnormal, Andrea thought all her daughter needed was a dose of Calpol and a good night’s sleep. “She was such a bright, happy child and always used to wake up around the same time as me, but that morning she didn’t,” says Andrea. “I went into her room and she just felt so cold. I screamed to my husband to call an ambulance but it was too late.”

Ellie was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital and while a post-mortem initially proved inconclusive, a later coroner’s report concluded she had died from streptococcal septicaemia, a strain of bacteria which also causes meningitis.

“Ellie didn’t have a chance. In the months since she died I’ve asked myself so many times could I have done anything different, but it was out of my hands. Had I once thought there was something seriously wrong I would have taken her straight to hospital.”

The rapid speed at which meningitis and septicaemia can claim lives is one of the reasons why calls for the introduction of a new vaccine having being growing louder. It’s also the focus of Meningitis Awareness Week which begins today.

The Meningitis Research Foundation estimates that meningitis and septicaemia affects more than 3,600 people in the UK and Ireland each year. They can strike without warning, killing one in 10, and leaving a quarter of survivors with life altering after-effects ranging from deafness and brain damage to loss of limbs. Children under five and students are most at risk, but while a vaccine to protect against meningococcal B infection is currently under consideration, there are fears it may not be introduced because of costs.

“The Department of Health’s own studies show meningitis is the disease most feared by parents,” says Chris Head, chief executive of the foundation. “It’s one of the few illnesses in modern Britain that can kill or seriously maim a healthy child within hours of the first symptoms.

“With the UK Government committed to reducing child deaths it is inconceivable that a MenB vaccine should be licensed yet go unused in the UK.

“The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has failed to take into account the full impact of Men B and cost to the NHS, adopting a narrow view which ignores the years of expensive and traumatic treatment or the tens of millions of pounds which are paid out in negligence claims to families who successfully sue for mismanagement and misdiagnosis.

“Prevention has to be the best option, that’s why we have invested more than £17m in vital research. But now the UK has the chance to save more than 1,000 a year from the devastation of Men B. Surely we should be seizing it and taking that all-important step towards a world free from meningitis and septicaemia.”

This article is courtesy from the Yorkshire Post.

Faster care hasn't cut heart attack deaths in hospitals

Although hospitals have sharply reduced the time it takes to get heart attack patients into treatment, they aren't saving any more lives, according to a study whose results have surprised even some of the country's leading cardiovascular experts.

Timely heart attack treatment has become a key measure of hospital quality, and Medicare now bases some of its payments on how well hospitals do in this area.

Hospitals shaved 16 minutes off the time it takes to get heart attack patients into treatment from 2005-2006 to 2008-2009, reducing that time from 83 minutes to 67 minutes, according to a story in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

The percentage of heart attack patients treated in 90 minutes or less climbed from 60% at the beginning of the study to 83% three years later, according to an analysis of nearly 97,000 hospital admissions.

This study included only patients with a type of heart attack called an ST-elevation myocardial infarction, a life-threatening emergency in which an artery on the heart is completely blocked.

Doctors need to unclog arteries and restore blood flow to prevent the heart muscle from dying, says study co-author Daniel Menees, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan.

While clot-busting drugs can help, experts now agree that the best option is to perform a cardiac catheterization, in which doctors use balloons to open up blocked arteries.

The new study suggests that speeding up hospital care isn't enough to save lives, Menees says.

In spite of recent improvements in "door-to-balloon" time — the time between when a heart attack patient arrives in the ER and when the balloon angiography begins — researchers found that the percentage of heart attack patients who die while in the hospital, about 5%, hasn't changed.

Irreversible damage from a heart attack can begin in 30 minutes. Most tissue death occurs in the first two to three hours, says co-author Hitinder Gurm, an associate professor at the University of Michigan.

"We're shaving off the last 10, 20 or 30 minutes" between heart attack and treatment, Gurm says. "But the total time that the artery has been blocked has not changed much. We need to move upstream. We need to get patients to recognize their symptoms faster and get to the hospital sooner."

Campaigns to reduce door-to-balloon times have created some unintended problems, Menees says. "I am concerned that in our 'race against the clock,' physicians are rushing to meet this goal and sending an increasing number of patients to the cath lab (for balloon procedures) who don't need it. This may result in the misdiagnosis of sick patients and ultimately delay treatment they may otherwise need."

Many hospitals now activate special teams to deal with heart emergencies. Yet up to one-third of these activations — when all team members come running — are false alarms, according to an editorial accompanying the new study.

A better predictor of survival might be "symptom to balloon time," says Suzanne Steinbaum, director of the Heart and Vascular Institute at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital.

"Patients need to be aware of the symptoms of heart attack and be encouraged to call 911 as soon as possible," Steinbaum says. While men often suffer from classic heart attack symptoms — such as chest pain, arm pain or shortness of breath — women may experience different symptoms, such as nausea, jaw pain, back pain, vomiting or heavy fatigue, she says.

Reducing door-to-balloon time may still help patients in the long term, says Theodore Bass, president of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. Patients who lose less heart muscle may be less likely to suffer chronic heart failure, when the heart is too weak to pump blood properly.

This article is courtesy of USA Today.

The number of UK cosmetic surgery negligence cases is increasing

There has been a steady increase in the number of cases related to UK patients affected by cosmetic surgery negligence. At the time of consultation, cosmetic surgeons provide assurances and show pictures of people who had undergone cosmetic surgery. But due to bodies being different for different people, people often are not satisfied with the end result. There are also cases where the patients had badly suffered due to faulty cosmetic procedures. Such affected patients can get the help of personal injury solicitors who are experienced in claims for cosmetic surgery negligence.

Cosmetic surgeries that are applicable for the claims process include Botox, facial fillers, laser procedures such as laser hair removal, breast implants, nose jobs, varicose vein treatment and tummy tucks. Personal injury solicitors treat the incident as an accident and take the case forward with the insurance company with whom the cosmetic surgery provider has taken out a policy. There are a number of patients in the recent past who have received the full eligible compensation by using the help of an experienced personal injury lawyer.

A Case Study

In one such case, a 39 year old lady in Leicester underwent a cosmetic surgery procedure to set right her spider vein problem. The cosmetic treatment for removing the vein was actually provided by a set of beauticians, who had learnt the procedure recently by watching videos provided by the cosmetic surgery equipment manufacturer.

The treatment provider didn't test the effectiveness of the procedure by doing it on a small portion of the patient's skin. They started applying the procedure on the entire skin area resulting in unwanted scars and permanent pigment discoloration. Soon the lady decided to take the help of an experienced personal injury solicitor specializing in handling cosmetic surgery accidents. She finally got an accident claim of 10,500 pounds by working with the experienced attorney.

Major Hepatitis C alert: gynaecologist could have infected thousands of women

Thousands of women across England are at risk of developing the blood disease hepatitis C after it was revealed that two patients have been infected by a retired gynaecologist and obstetrician.

A major alert is under way after it was discovered that the retired obstetrics and gynaecology worker unknowingly had the virus while employed by the NHS for decades.

It is known the healthcare worker infected two patients with the virus while working at a hospital in Wales, Public Health England (PHE) said.

At least 3,000 former patients are being contacted by letter informing them of the risk and a series of confidential helplines and a support service have been set up.

Several hundred patients in other areas of Wales who may have come into contact with the health worker are also being contacted.

In England around 400 former patients are being contacted, while urgent steps are being taken to check historic patient records in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This article is courtesy of The Telegraph.

Plastic Surgery Disasters

Plastic Surgery Disasters – An infographic by the team at Accident-Compensation.co.uk

Glasgow hospital told to improve on infection control

Action must be taken to improve standards of infection control, cleanliness and hygiene at Glasgow’s Victoria Infirmary, according to hospital inspectors.

The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate has published a report based on unannounced visits to the hospital in July.

The HEI said NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which runs the hospital, was complying with the majority of required standards on infection prevention.

However, inspectors found further improvement was required in six areas. In particular, it needed to ensure that a managed environment was demonstrated in the hospital’s ward south 2 to minimise the risk of infection.

“During the inspection, we found that over a period of time, there were recurring issues on ward south 2 with cleanliness of patient equipment, sharps and waste management,” the report stated.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has been given six requirements and one recommendation that it must act on by the inspectorate. This represents an escalation from the last time the HEI inspected the Victoria Infirmary in February 2012, when it made three requirements and one recommendation.

In particular, the HEI said the board must ensure that a managed environment is demonstrated in ward south 2.

The report also said the board must ensure staff implement standard infection control precautions, particularly sharps management, waste segregation and the use of personal protective equipment.

Where a peripheral vascular catheter is in place, staff must be made aware of the local policy when completing the accompanying care bundle documentation, the report said.

In addition, it noted that the board needed to follow guidance for neonatal units and adult paediatric intensive care units to minimise the risk of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection from water.

It must also ensure compliance with NHSScotland cleaning services specifications and ensure staff fully implement operating procedures for cleaning patient equipment.

HEI chief inspector Susan Brimelow said “We have identified six high priority requirements that we expect NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to address within the month.

“These include a requirement that staff follow the correct procedure for cleaning patient equipment, which we also identified as a requirement in our two previous inspections of the hospital.”

The Royal College of Nursing noted that the report came against a backdrop of significant cuts to the nursing workforce in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and cuts to national level infection control budgets.

RCN Scotland associate director Norman Provan said: “As ever, it is a complicated picture and the many factors behind the problems highlighted in this report need to be examined by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, in conjunction with staff, to ensure that they are rectified as soon as possible and patient care is not put at risk.”

Mr Provan added: “It is important that senior charge nurses are given the time and authority to co-ordinate the infection control processes within their clinical area.

“We understand that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are intending to increase the time available for senior charge nurses to perform this crucial role,” he said.

This article is courtesy from the Nursing Times.

Mother with disease is backing international Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day

West Suffolk mother Kirsti Leeder knows only too well why trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is often referred to as the “suicide disease”’.

For the past 17 years, the 44-year-old from Sudbury has suffered from the cripplingly painful condition, a neuropathic disorder that causes bouts of intense pain in the face.

It has been described as “the most excruciating condition known to medical practice”, and an estimated one in 15,000 people worldwide suffer from the disorder.

But despite its existence, due to the lack of medical education on facial pain disorders, most people are not aware of TG and many sufferers go without the proper treatment due to frequent misdiagnosis.

Ms Leeder, who has two teenage daughters, has had brain surgery twice and has taken dozens of different medicines for the condition, which is believed to be caused by the trigeminal nerve fusing to an artery.

On October 7 she will take part in the first International Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day, to raise the profile of the condition.

She told the EADT: “When I first had TN, I initially thought it was a persistent toothache that nothing seemed to help. I was put on medication including epilepsy drugs, antidepressants, Paracetamol and morphine, which doctors just kept increasing.

“It took years before I was referred to a neurosurgeon to get a diagnosis and I was frequently told I had migraine. It is not a headache – it’s a severe, intense shooting pain that affects your eyes, ears, teeth and whole face.”

Ms Leeder, who works at Wells Hall Primary School, Great Cornard, was eventually offered brain surgery known as microvascular decompression, where a piece of Teflon is inserted between the trigeminal nerve and the artery to relieve the pressure.

This has eased the condition to a great extent. But she added: “No-one seems to fund research into why this happens to people. It’s known as the suicide disease because sufferers get to the point where they cannot put up with the pain any longer.

“It has impacted on my family life and has impaired my ability to work. Not enough is known about it and that is what we are aiming to change with the awareness day.”

On October 7, landmark monuments and bridges including Canada’s Niagara Falls are lighting up in the colour teal, and coloured ribbons will be handed out.

This article is courtesy from the EADT.

Mother to sue hospital who left her baby to ‘die like an abandoned animal’

Paula Stevenson said her 13-month-old daughter, Hayley Fullerton, died ‘like an abandoned animal’ after undergoing open heart surgery in 2009.

She issued a call for US-style ‘rapid response teams’ to be introduced to British hospitals which could give patients’ families an urgent second opinion.

A coroner said on Wednesday that Hayley would have had a better chance of survival if she had been admitted to intensive care.

Hayley died at Birmingham Children’s Hospital a month after her heart operation. She had been transferred from a paediatric intensive care unit to a general ward.

Her mother flew to Britain from Australia to attend yesterday’s hearing before the Birmingham and Solihull coroner.

Speaking afterwards, 40-year-old Ms Stevenson said she believed Hayley’s death could have been avoided.

She added: ‘Hayley died like an abandoned animal. I still cannot understand how trained medics could ignore the fact that she was slowly deteriorating before their eyes.

‘They had seven days to spot that something was seriously wrong but all those precious opportunities were missed.’

Ms Stevenson, who has instructed lawyers to proceed with civil action against the trust which runs the hospital, said: ‘I did all I could to try to get the nurses to help her but my appeals just fell on deaf ears.’

Recording a narrative verdict, coroner Aidan Cotter ruled that the failings in Hayley’s care were serious rather than gross. He said he was satisfied that Hayley should have been referred to a children’s intensive care unit two days before her death.

After the verdict, the Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘When Hayley died we recognised that some of her care fell below our usual high standards and for this we offer a heartfelt apology for the distress that has been caused. We have taken all the steps possible to learn from this.’

This article is courtesy of the Metro.

Surgical errors at Sheffield’s hospitals

Surgical errors, a medical swab left inside someone’s body and an attempted suicide are some of the worst incidents at Sheffield’s hospitals so far this year.

A new report has revealed there were 13 serious incidents at the city’s health trusts in June and July.

The document, by the NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group, lists mistakes and accidents reported in the first quarter of 2013.

At Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Northern General, Royal Hallamshire and Weston Park hospitals, as well as the Jessop maternity wing, a swab was left inside a patient during a clinical procedure.

The retained swab was classed as a ‘never event’, incidents defined by the Department of Health as having very serious consequences.

Meanwhile, medics twice failed to act on test results, and there have also been a series of bad slips, trips and falls at the trust’s sites.

Surgeons made a major error while operating on a patient in July, while in the same month there was a critical equipment failure.

At Sheffield Children’s Hospital, staff twice failed to obtain consent from parents before carrying out procedures, and a serious error happened during an operation in June.

And at the Sheffield Health and Social Care trust, an inpatient tried to kill themselves in June, and a month later two community patients died unexpectedly.

Dr David Throssell, medical director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, said: “We treat over one million patients every year and our priority is always to provide safe, high quality care.

“We take serious incidents extremely seriously and always undertake a full investigation into their causes. We then put in place actions to limit the chances of recurrence.

“Six of the seven incidents reported during this period did not cause any long-term harm to the patients concerned, but nevertheless we are very sorry these events happened. In all seven instances, a range of actions have been implemented with many additional checks and procedures put in place to help limit the chance of these errors happening again.”

John Reid, director of nursing and clinical operations for Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We aim to provide high quality services for all our families and have a strong record of providing safe care.

“We have a very strong reporting culture, encourage staff to fully report any incidents and conduct a full investigation into the circumstances.

“Every trust aims to eliminate such incidents and this can only be done by being open and learning from them.”

This article is courtesy of The Star.

Dementia DES will result in widespread misdiagnosis, expert claims

Many patients will be misdiagnosed with dementia as a direct result of the controversial case finding DES (Directed Enhanced Services), the GP expert who led a campaign against its introduction has warned.

Dr Martin Brunet, a GP in Surrey and programme director for the Guildford GP VTS, said newly published evidence suggests that widespread GP use of dementia screening tools will result in 23 patients being wrongly identified with possible dementia for every four patients correctly identified with the condition.

‘It is very likely that the DES will cause lots of people without dementia to be incorrectly diagnosed with it,’ he said.

‘If you artificially try to push up the rate of dementia diagnosis by giving GPs incentives, there is a very real danger that you will misdiagnose people with very bad consequences.’

Citing a paper published this week in the BMJ that looked at the accuracy of dementia screening tools used by GPs, Dr Brunet told the Pulse Mental Health Forum in London: ‘If GPs assess 100 people for dementia – and the true prevalence is assumed to be 6% –they will correctly diagnose four of those six people. But they would also incorrectly identify dementia in 23 more people who don’t have it.’

Under the new DES, all 27 patients picked up by the GP assessment would be referred to memory clinics. Speaking after the event, Dr Brunet said: ‘You would expect the memory clinic to correctly identify the four cases of dementia. But will some of the other 23 people end up with a dementia diagnosis when they don’t have it? However good memory clinics are, you would think so.’

He added: ‘Others will end up with a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment – is that helpful to the patient? Probably not.’

His claim was refuted by the Government’s national dementia tsar, Professor Alistair Burns, who told the event NHS England is determined to increase the proportion of dementia cases that get diagnosed from the current 46% to at least two-thirds.

But Dr Brunet said the 46% figure was ‘just a guesstimate’ based on very old data whereas the most recent evidence suggested dementia rates were declining, in part because of the reduction in smoking rates. A recent Lancet paper found a ‘substantial’ decline in dementia over the past two decades, with an actual rate of 6.5% of the population, compared with an expected level of 8%. Dr Brunet added: ‘We should be very proactive if someone – or a family member – comes in saying they are worried about their memory. But we need to trust patients, relatives and GPs to know when to start that process.’

Dr Brunet was a member of a group that launched a petition against the controversial DES, that sees GPs assess all over-75s and all over-60s in risk groups for dementia, and who met with the dementia tsar earlier this year to discuss alternatives.

Dr Chris Fox, clinical senior lecturer in old age psychiatry at the University of East Anglia, said he shared Dr Brunet’s concerns. ‘I would like to accentuate the harms – I’m aware of NHS litigation cases based on misdiagnosis of dementia.’

Dr Lindsay Hadley, a GP and mental health adviser to Hastings and Rother CCG who has set up a primary care memory clinic, said the DES raised possible issues around consent. ‘One of the problems of doing it opportunistically is you don’t achieve consent.

‘Someone comes for a diabetes appointment and you say “I’m just going to check your memory”. What they don’t understand in that small interchange is the implication of a positive test.’

But Professor Sube Banerjee, professor of dementia at Brighton and Sussex medical school and author of the National Dementia Strategy, said: ‘Should we not diagnose because some people will be misdiagnosed? Dementia is an appalling and devastating illness and delaying diagnosis by two, four, seven years causes real harm.

‘What about the curse of not knowing, of not understanding what’s going on, of the system not being able to provide support?’

Dementia tsar Professor Burns added: ‘The idea of a “curse” of diagnosis doesn’t fit well with my experience with patients and carers. A diagnosis begins to open doors to be able to access support.’

This article is courtesy of Pulse Today.

GP not punished for cancer misdiagnosis

A general practitioner who failed to diagnose a woman's bowel cancer for four years, despite multiple consultations, has escaped penalty for not providing reasonable care to her patient.

The woman was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer in 2012 after four years of bowel problems, which were first brought to her GP's attention in May 2008.

At that consultation, the unnamed GP diagnosed the woman with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) noting her young age - 49 at the time - and no history of bowel cancer.

Over the next four years, the woman visited the GP on several occasions, raising her bowel problems at least three times, alongside other ailments.

In August 2012, the woman requested to see another GP at the practice and was referred on to a specialist and diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer.

This article is courtesy of 3News.

Should we change our attitude towards 'never events'?

Twenty-five errors in the health service are considered so intolerable and inexcusable that they have been designated 'never events'. They include wrong-site surgery, retained foreign objects and administering chemotherapy by the wrong route.

When a never event occurs, the organisation concerned must follow national procedures for reporting and investigating what happened and may pay a significant financial penalty. The object of the policy introduced in 2009 is to encourage greater organisational focus on specific serious safety issues. The problem with categorising certain incidents as never events is that it may divert attention from the most important goal of improving patient safety across the board. The term is also misleading because these events do occur, usually because of a combination of chance and human error, factors that can never be totally eliminated. In his positively received report into NHS patient safety Professor Don Berwick states: "'Zero Harm' is a bold and worthy aspiration, [but] the scientifically correct goal is 'continual reduction'. All in the NHS should understand that safety is a continually emerging property, and that the battle for safety is never 'won'; rather, it is always in progress."

In May 2013 a BBC investigation identified 762 never events in four years, including 322 retained items and 73 misplaced nasogastric feeding tubes. I do not believe the categorisation never events is helpful. This is not to dismiss the distress these errors cause to patients and their families, but the term and the financial penalties create a stigma for individuals and organisations, which may not be conducive to a culture that should promote reporting and learning from mistakes. When our members, who are 50% of UK GPs and hospital doctors, approach us for advice about what to do if there has been a mistake in a patient's care or treatment, we advise them to ensure the patient receives a sincere apology, together with an explanation of what went wrong and how it will be put right. Irrespective of whether the incident was a never event, it is vital that there is a full investigation and that steps are taken to avoid the incident happening again.

For patients who are harmed, the last thing on their minds is probably whether it was a never event. There are incidents in which patients are harmed that fall outside the classification. One example is where patients have been given a drug, such as penicillin, to which they have a known allergy. The consequences of this could be anaphylactic shock and even death and in many cases the error could have been prevented by taking and recording of a medical history, checking records before administering medication and checking if the patient is wearing a red wristband. These preventable errors must be treated as seriously as a never event but there is a risk they may not get the same attention.

Medicine, even when properly and carefully practised, is not a zero-harm or a zero-risk profession.

Preventable things can and do go wrong, sometimes with severe consequences for patients and to the distress of the healthcare professionals involved.

Berwick argues there is a need for a transparent culture within the NHS where mistakes are reported and learning is shared to improve patient safety. Patients who have suffered harm because of any medical error should rightly expect that what happened to them has been the subject of a thorough investigation to determine what happened, why and what lessons have to be learned. Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on this than on determining whether an incident classifies as a never event?

This article is courtesy of theguardian.

Young mother dies of brain tumour just hours after giving birth

A young mother died of an undiagnosed brain stem tumour six hours after her baby was born by emergency Caesarean.

Rosie Kremer, 24, was told her 13kg (2st) weight loss, sickness, slurred speech and co-ordination difficulties were symptoms of labyrinthitis, an inner ear infection.

Despite being seen by 23 doctors in the last two months of her life, no-one raised the possibility she might have cancer.

Her mother Lesley, 57, from Penrith, Cumbria, is suing the hospital trust after discovering her daughter could have been saved even an hour before her death if her condition had been correctly diagnosed and fluid was drained from her brain.

She said: ‘Towards the end she was crying in pain and begging to die. It didn’t have to kill her. If somebody had spotted it she would have been fine.’

Ms Kremer, a nursery nurse, lost her appetite and suffered headaches, dizziness and sickness early on in her pregnancy.

She spent the last five weeks of her life in bed, unable to sit up or use her hands, and was declared brain-dead just hours after her baby boy, Bobby Peter, was delivered.

Her mother spoke of her daughter’s plight to promote organ donation.

She will collect an award on Ms Kremer’s behalf after her organs were used to save eight lives.

She said: ‘Organs get wasted but it just takes five minutes to sign up.’

This article is courtesy of the Metro.

NHS: 700 victims of bed sores through hospital neglect receive £16m in payouts

Health chiefs have paid out £16million to patients who suffered excruciating bed sores through hospital neglect, a Daily Mirror investigation reveals.

The agonising ulcers, which can eat through skin and muscle to expose bones and even vital organs, can trigger life-threatening complications.

They can be avoided if patients are moved regularly instead of being left for hours in the same position.

But neglect of this simple precaution has led to the suffering of 706 patients paid damages totalling £16,340,099 since 2003, data from the NHS Litigation Authority shows – though claims were not necessarily settled on that basis.

Legal costs are feared to have added millions more to the avoidable drain on the cash-strapped NHS.

One patient died after developing Grade Four ulcers, the most severe kind, having allegedly been left in a wheelchair for 10 hours without being moved – despite being at high risk of bed sores as a sufferer of Type 1 diabetes.

That victim Jonathan Jackson, 70 – in Worthing Hospital, West Sussex after a road accident – eventually had to have a leg cut off and later died of a heart attack.

Wife Rosemary, 71, a former mayor of Littlehampton, West Sussex, is taking legal action. She said: “Bed sores took an enormous toll on him.” Steven Brown of law firm JMW, which is acting for her, said: “The patients we are representing have suffered terribly due to bed sores. Simple steps and basic care could have avoided this.”

On the figures we reveal today, he said: “They show how much the NHS could save if adequate preventative steps were taken, which could be ploughed into patient care.”

A Worthing Hospital spokesman insisted bed sores were “extraordinarily rare” in centres under the Western Sussex Hospitals Trust.

However, one in 20 people treated across the health service gets bed sores, says NHS data collected from almost 200,000 patients in July.

In 2011 bed sores were a con-tributing factor in the deaths of 540 hospital patients and 227 care home residents, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The ulcers were the main cause of death for another 78 hospital patients and 39 care home residents that year, the latest for which data is available.

The number of payouts has more than doubled in five years, from 49 in 2007/08 to 111 in 2012/13. And the cost of compensation for this year alone is £2,684,860 – four times the amount 10 years ago, our figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show.

Peter Walsh, boss of Action Against Medical Accidents, said: “It’s a sign of neglectful care and under-staffing.”

We told last month how the family of Tony Fluendy, 74 – who died after developing extensive bed sores at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent – took legal action on becoming enraged by the hospital’s attempts to cover up its mistakes.

The Department of Health said it is taking steps to tackle the prob-lem of bed sores.

An easily avoidable failure of nursing

Bed sores form when pressure restricts blood supply to skin, starving it of oxygen and nutrients and causing it to break down.

The affliction – also known as pressure sores or pressure ulcers – tends to affect people with health conditions that make it difficult to move, especially those lying in bed or sitting for prolonged periods.

The vast majority of bed sores can easily be avoided through regular assessment and turning patients when necessary.

Patients aged over 70 are particularly vulnerable to the sores as they are more likely to have mobility problems and ageing of the skin.

More than 150 years ago Florence Nightingale said bed sores represented a failure of nursing.

Our investigation shows that the problem remains today – and is costing the NHS dearly.

This article is courtesy of the Mirror.

Woman suing hospital, doctors over prank during surgery

A Los Angeles woman is suing an area hospital after one of its surgeons affixed a fake mustache to her upper lip and fake tears and then photographed her – all while she was still under anesthesia.

ABC News reports the unnamed patient, who also worked at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, where the procedure was performed October 2011, also hit her unidentified anesthesiologist with a raft of incendiary legal claims.

The patient says she learned of the bizarre photos from co-workers who had seen them after returning to work as a surgical supply purchaser at the hospital.

"Perhaps the most vulnerable position any human being will ever endure in their life is a time when they are placed under full anesthesia," reportedly reads the lawsuit, filed Aug. 15 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Among the myriad claims leveled against the anesthesiologist and  Dr. Patrick Yang is that the pair also positioned the patient’s neck "so that they could keep her mouth open in order to make a crude sexual joke," during her procedure.

Perhaps most troubling is that the suit also reportedly accuses Yang and Co. of choosing to employ full anesthesia, rather than a simple sedative, so they could stage the whacky photo shoot, or “for the sole purpose of humiliating and embarrassing the patient.”

Torrance Memorial Medical Center acknowledged the alarming affair in a statement to ABC News, saying it was "intended to be humorous in nature."

And although the hospital conceded that the anesthesiologist and the nurse "demonstrated poor judgment," the medical facility reportedly dismissed most of the woman's allegations as "factually inaccurate, grossly exaggerated or fabricated."

"While the breach of professionalism outlined above regrettably did occur, Torrance Memorial is vigorously defending this lawsuit and requesting its dismissal," reportedly reads the statement, which goes on to chalk the whole matter up as a practical joke between friends gone awry.

Yang and the patient were "friendly," the hospital's statement to ABC News says, and "had a good working relationship," prior to the procedure.

"We take patient rights and privacy very seriously," the statement reportedly reads. "After our internal investigation into the 2011 incident, we conducted additional training among the hospital's staff about demonstrating professionalism at all times. We have taken substantial steps including privacy training to ensure patient rights are respected and protected for every patient in our hospital, even if that patient is a friend and colleague."
 
This article is courtesy of Fox News.

NHS England to puNHS England to publish trust-by-trust 'never events' listblish trust-by-trust 'never events' list

NHS England is to publish quarterly lists of all the “never events” – the worst preventable mistakes – recorded in the NHS, broken down by trust.

It will produce its first online list recording the number and type of incidents at each trust this October. It has collected the data from trusts since the start of 2013-14 financial year, in April.

The Department of Health has defined 25 types of never event, including surgery on the wrong area, misplaced nasogastric tubes and “maladministration of insulin”.

The BBC has previously reported that between 2009 and 2012 there had been 762 never events across the NHS, including 214 categorised as “wrong site surgery” and 322 as “retained foreign object post operation”.

Mike Durkin, NHS England’s director of patient safety, said the idea was to offer more detail on top of existing annual data that records the number of never events in different types of care setting.

“NHS England intends to begin publishing more detailed data on never events on a more regular basis very soon, providing more frequent information on the numbers and kinds of never events that occur in the NHS as part of its wider commitment to transparency, but also to stimulate more learning and preventative action,” he said.

“We need to openly and publicly report and address safety problems, not so that people can lay blame inappropriately, but so that we can fully understand and therefore learn more from the safety problems that the NHS, like all healthcare systems, faces,” he added.

NHS England revealed the move in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Nursing Times’ sister title Health Service Journal.

This article is courtesy of the Nursing Times.

Extreme 'never event' NHS blunders such as operating on the wrong body part or giving lethal doses of painkillers double in a year

The number of hospital mistakes deemed so serious they should never have happened has almost doubled in a single year.

There were 299 ‘never’ events in 2012/13, up from 163 in 2011/12, according to the Department of Health’s own figures.

Among 25 types of  incidents are surgical instruments left in the body, operations on the wrong body part and fatal errors such as feeding tubes inserted into the lungs and patients given lethal doses of painkillers.

A list of these errors, by hospital, will be published so patients can see where the highest number occur.

NHS England – the organisation in charge of the health service – will release the data four times a year starting from next month.

There are 25 different types of ‘never events’ including surgery on the wrong body part, patients being given lethal doses of painkillers and mothers dying during caesareans.

Others include feeding tubes inserted into the lungs rather than the stomach and staff muddling up patients giving them the wrong treatment or operation.

But medical negligence lawyers believe that thousands of these mistakes occur each year but staff often try and cover them up in case patients try to sue.

NHS England could not explain why the numbers had increased so starkly and said another organisation had been responsible for collecting them in the past.

Mike Durkin, the body’s director of patient safety said: ‘NHS England intends to begin publishing more detailed data on never events on a more regular basis very soon, providing more frequent information on the numbers and kinds of never events that occur in the NHS as part of its wider commitment to transparency but also to stimulate more learning and preventative action in the NHS.

‘Every single never event is one too many and, as Don Berwick (the Government’s tsar on preventing harm) made clear in his recent report, we need to openly and publicly report and address safety problems, not so that people can lay blame inappropriately, but so that we can fully understand and therefore learn more from the safety problems that the NHS, like all healthcare systems, faces.’

One grieving relative described how nurses had mistakenly inserted a feeding tube into her mother’s lungs instead of her stomach.

Speaking anonymously, the victim said staff had also failed to carry out an x-ray to check it was in the right place.

In a recent interview with the BBC she said: ‘You feel guilty because when she [was] talking to us she kept saying she wanted to come out, and we kept saying, ‘You can’t come out, mum, until you get better,’

‘You feel angry after, because you think someone’s killed your mum. No, they probably didn’t do it on purpose but that’s how it feels. You feel that somebody’s killed her.’

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: ‘These worrying figures reveal an NHS cutting too many corners and sailing dangerously close to the wind.

‘Ministers have been repeatedly warned that too many hospitals in England do not have enough staff to provide care. Their failure to act has left wards under-staffed and nurses over-stretched. That explains why so many nurses say they have considered resigning.

‘The warning signs of an NHS under intense pressure are growing day by day and David Cameron cannot continue to ignore them. He must act to halt the job losses and ensure all hospitals in England have enough staff on the wards to provide safe care.’

This article is courtesy of the Daily Mail.

Stafford Hospital misdiagnosis death prompts new inquest

The parents of a Leicestershire man who was misdiagnosed by hospital staff have said they are hoping for a "truthful and honest inquest" into his death.

John Moore-Robinson died in 2006, after Stafford Hospital staff failed to diagnose a ruptured spleen but said he had bruised ribs. He died hours later.

On Wednesday, the High Court ruled a new inquest could take place.

Opening the new hearing, Leicester coroner Catherine Mason said it was as if the first inquest "never happened".

It comes after Mr Moore-Robinson's family argued for a fresh hearing, following the narrative verdict of the original inquest, when new evidence came to light.

After that verdict, it emerged an internal Staffordshire Hospital report indicated Mr Moore-Robinson's treatment could have been negligent, but this was not sent to the coroner of the first inquest.

Two members of staff in the Mid-Staffordshire Hospital Trust's legal department were investigated for suppressing information about the death, but later cleared.
'Let's have truth'

Mr Moore-Robinson, 20, from Coalville, had been taken to A&E at Stafford Hospital after falling off his bike on Cannock Chase.

He was discharged after staff diagnosed him with bruised ribs, but died within hours.

Speaking outside Leicester Coroner's Court, Mr Moore-Robinson's father Frank said: "After seven-and-a-half years, it takes its toll.

"But we've stuck in there so let's get cracking.

"As long as we get a fair hearing and a truthful and honest inquest, that's all we've asked for. Let's have the truth now."

The new inquest was adjourned to allow time for the coroner to gather all the evidence needed. Once that has been completed, a new date will be set.

This article is courtesy of BBC News.

A young mother almost died of a flesh-eating bug just days after giving birth to her ‘miracle’ baby

A young mother has told how she was almost killed by a flesh-eating bug just days after giving birth to the “miracle” baby she never expected to see.

Linzi Christie briefly experienced the best moments of her life as she cuddled her newborn daughter at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife.

Days later she was fighting for her life in the intensive care ward after necrotising fasciitis left her with a gaping wound in her abdomen bigger than a football.

Medics had to use a special vacuum machine to hold the wound together and give Linzi, 25, a chance of recovery.

The care home worker from Methil, Fife, is now recuperating at home with baby Tiffany, looked after by partner Kaps Jadav, 30.

But Linzi, who also suffered MRSA, during her ordeal blames dirty conditions at the controversial Victoria Hospital for her ordeal and is planning legal action.

The hospital has confirmed that it suffered three cases of flesh-eating bugs among patients in recent months but insists standards of cleanliness are above national standards.

Linzi was convinced she would never have children because of underlying health issues so she and Kaps, her partner of three years, were delighted when Tiffany was born on July 11.

Linzi said she noticed a “dirty, rotten” smell in the operating theatre at the time of her Caesarean section. She also claims a medic was applying so much pressure during the operation she feared her “back would break” and insisted he stop.

Tiffany was born healthy and the family enjoyed the first five days of new life back at home.

On July 16, Linzi was readmitted to hospital after she noticed her Caesarean scar was red and inflamed. She was given antibiotics and sent home but two days after that the wound had started to turn black.

Linzi said: “I had no idea what was going on, it was really terrifying. The doctors were in and out doing tests before they said I was going to need surgery.

“When they mentioned necrotising fasciitis it totally hit me. All I could think was ‘my bairn, I should be at home with my bairn’.

“We should have been bonding but I had to be away from her and was facing really serious surgery.

“The first thing I asked the doctors was ‘Am I going to die?’

“The whole time all I could think about was my wee baby, I’d only just met her and now had to have parts of me cut away so I wouldn’t die.”

Linzi needed three separate operations to cut away huge areas of infected tissue before the disease could spread and kill her. The emergency surgery saved her life but left her with a 28cm long hole that could only be “sucked” shut with a special “vat pac” machine.

As well as fighting necrotising fasciitis, Linzi contracted MRSA while at the Victoria and suffered a high fever.

She spent a further week in hospital, during which she was not allowed at any stage to see her baby.

Linzi said: “I knew I had to survive, I had to fight for my wee girl and now that the first round is over, I want to find out why this happened to me.

“Tiffany really is my little miracle baby. I never in a million years thought I would ever have children but then it finally happened.

Linzi believes she contracted the infections from a dirty operating theatre.

She said: “When I went in for my C-Section I noticed a really disgusting smell in the theatre. It was a dirty, rotten smell, like nothing I’ve ever smelt before.

“All I’m saying is that I was healthy before I went into hospital apart from the gestational diabetes caused by pregnancy but I really controlled that and I was only borderline anyway.

“Something made this infection happen and I want to know why.

“To get two types of infection while in a hospital is absolutely shocking and outrageous. It’s a brand new wing, with new equipment and yeah they have staffing problems but you never expect something like this to happen to you.”

Linzi believes at least one of the other two cases of necrotising fasciitis also involved the maternity unit. She said: “A midwife on the ward told me that another woman who had had a C-section also got the bug.”

A spokeswoman for Health Protection Scotland, the government-funded body which advises on disease prevention, said it was possible for the necrotising fasciitis bacteria to originate in the hospital environment.

She said: “We all have the organism which can cause the infection inside our bodies but there a different strains of it which can come from elsewhere.

“Without knowing the exact strain of the organism, we cannot say whether the infection came directly from a hospital or within the patient’s body itself.”

NHS Fife have confirmed that there were three cases of nectrotising fasciitis at the Victoria in “recent months”.

They said all the cases occured in patients with other major conditions and “there is no undue cause for concern”.

Dr Scott McLean, Executive Director of Nursing, said: “NHS Fife, like all NHS Boards, monitors the cleanliness of our hospitals closely.

“We participate in the National Monitoring Framework for NHS Scotland National Cleaning Services Specification.

“Recent reports show that we have exceeded the 90% compliance national target, with 96.9% achieved during January – March 2013 and 97.1% achieved during April – June 2013.”

The Victoria has attracted controversy ever since opening its doors in January 2012 after a £170m rebuild.

The hospital has been hit with more than 350 complaints from patients and is being sued by 10 of its own staff for negligence.

One woman, Lisa McNeil, 25, claims she was forced to give birth outside the hospital on the freezing pavement after staff failed to answer the buzzer at the maternity ward entrance.

Another patient, Cecilia Fisher, a 51-year-old from Cowdenbeath, died after staff allegedly failed to diagnose her ruptured bowel.

This article is courtesy of Deadline News.

Exhausted relief doctor gave patient fatal dose

A foreign doctor on his first shift providing out-of-hours cover for GPs killed a patient by giving him 10 times the normal recommended maximum dose of a pain-killing drug, the Guardian can reveal.

The NHS watchdog is launching an investigation after a German doctor who flew into the UK the day before the incident admitted he was "too tired" to concentrate when he administered the drug.

The case, which was subject to a police inquiry into possible manslaughter, raises fundamental questions for the NHS over GP cover, regulation of doctors and drug safety measures.

The doctor, Daniel Ubani, accidentally killed 70-year old David Gray in Cambridgeshire in February 2008, but details have not previously been made public.

The watchdog Care Quality Commission will announce the scope of its inquiries soon, but its head of investigations and enforcement, Christine Braithwaite, said: "This is a deeply disturbing case and one that must be thoroughly looked into. We have to ensure any lessons are learned."

She added that the body was "aware of a number of concerns in relation to out-of-hours care" provided by Take Care Now (TCN), a company which has four contracts for such NHS services in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Great Yarmouth and Waveney, and Worcester.

The case has also sparked a row over how Germany responded to a UK request to extradite the doctor. Last month Ubani was given a nine-month suspended prison sentence there for the UK incident and fined €5,000 (£4,450) for causing death by negligence. He is continuing to practise in Witten, Germany, although he has been suspended from working in the UK by the General Medical Council's interim orders panel.

The Crown Prosecution Service is seeking a meeting with Eurojust, which mediates between EU prosecuting bodies, and the Department of Health told the Guardian: "It is disappointing that this doctor, although now convicted of an offence, was not held to account in this country."

Ubani, in a letter of apology to Gray's family written last July, said the "fatal mistake" derived from a confusion between drugs, one of which was not used by on-call services in Germany, and the "tremendous stress" he had been under, having only had about three hours rest before he started his shift.

David Gray's partner, Lynda Bubb, said: "I want no one else to go through what we have been through. They have to work out a way this does not happen again." The family is taking civil legal action against Ubani, Cambridgeshire NHS, which oversees primary care in the county, and TCN.

Gray's son Stuart, a GP, said Ubani had not even seemed to realise that the dose of the drug he used, diamorphine, was lethal. The family's lawyer, Inez Brown, said it was "a very serious and tragic case".

Peter Walsh, chief executive of the charity Action against Medical Accidents, said: "What is worrying is this was a disaster waiting to happen and not enough is being done to ensure nothing like this happens again. There should be a wholesale review of out-of-hours provision and the way it is regulated. The response of the NHS so far is totally inadequate."

More than 100 foreign doctors flew into the UK to cover out-of-hours GP shifts, according to figures for 2007.

The tragedy in the fen village of Manea happened after Bubb asked Suffolk Doctors On Call, a company which supplies doctors for TCN, to visit the couple's home where David Gray, who suffered from kidney stones and renal colic, was in severe pain. Later that afternoon Ubani arrived and administered 100mg of diamorphine, a potent painkiller. Within hours the patient was dead, but it was the following day before the severity of the incident was clear to health managers and Ubani was suspended from his second shift.

Cambridgeshire police launched an investigation and in April 2008 the Crown Prosecution Service formally requested assistance in obtaining evidence from the German authorities. By November, the CPS decided there was sufficient evidence to charge Ubani with manslaughter.

In February this year, a warrant for his arrest was issued by magistrates and on 12 March the CPS issued a European arrest warrant. But 12 days later, it was told legal proceedings against Ubani were underway in Germany. These were "finalised" on 15 April.

Throughout the period, NHS authorities tried to establish what went wrong. In a letter to Stuart Gray in April last year, David Johnston, of TCN, said Ubani had given David Gray 100mg of diamorphine and 4mg of Buscopan. The doctor was not "and never has been an employee of TCN. He was employed on a self-employed sessional basis to provide out-of-hours cover". He had been recruited from the Cimarron Locum Agency.

Chris Banks, the chief executive of NHS Cambridgeshire, said Ubani "failed Mr Gray and his family". He added: "We are concerned that Mr Gray's family may not feel justice has been done."

TCN's chief executive, David Cocks, said: "Our response has been focused on doing everything we can to ensure such a tragedy could never happen again."

Cimarron's director, Tom Stewart, said: "We have robust processes in place to ensure all important checks are undertaken before deploying a GP and I can confirm all these checks were undertaken for Dr Ubani."

Ubani, contacted by the Guardian last week, said: "Please understand this could be very damaging for my name and reputation. It is not appropriate for you to put an extravagant array of questions to me about this very unfortunate matter."

A spokesman for the state prosecutors' office in Bochum, near Witten, confirmed Ubani had been given his sentence in absentia, after admitting the charge of causing death by negligence in written correspondence.

Cambridgeshire constabulary said it was disappointed any prosecution "was not allowed to reach its natural conclusion in this country".

This article is courtesy of the Guardian.

Lack of staff at Royal Derby Hospital contributed to baby death

Poor staffing levels at a Derby hospital were a contributory factor in a baby's death, a report has found.

Amy Wray's daughter Georgina was stillborn at Royal Derby Hospital in March 2012.

An investigation into Georgina's death said staffing levels on the labour ward were "below minimal levels" at the time, the labour ward was "busy" and communication between staff was "poor".

The hospital offered its condolences to the family.
 
'We were just left'

Mrs Wray and her husband Michael are now suing the hospital for negligence.

She was 12 days overdue when she was admitted to the hospital for an induction on 15 March last year.

However, she said the induction was delayed because of staff shortages and she was admitted to a ward overnight.

"They said, 'We are really short of staff and therefore it's not safe to induce'," said Mrs Wray.

"You can understand if it's not safe because of staffing levels but they are there to provide a service.

"The NHS gets a lot of negative press and I don't think most of the time it deserves it. But we were just left."
No heartbeat

On 16 March, the induction process began at 06:00 BST and, shortly afterwards, Mrs Wray's waters broke.
 
"They tried to resuscitate her but it was too little, too late" Amy Wray

However, during the afternoon, Mrs Wray was left by her midwife who went to attend another birth.

"At this point, the pains were getting quite severe," she said. "There was nobody there to give any care.

"At about 16:45 my husband ran out to grab anybody because I was on my hands and knees in so much pain.

"A nursing sister came in and couldn't find Georgina's heartbeat."

Georgina was then delivered by Caesarean section, but she was not breathing.

"They tried to resuscitate her but it was too little, too late," said Mrs Wray.

A hospital investigation report said better monitoring of Mrs Wray could have identified problems earlier.

It said high levels of sickness and maternity leave among staff meant there were not enough midwives on duty, while the high volume of cases meant the consultant did not do his ward round, as usual.

The report also highlighted confusion among staff as to whether Mrs Wray, who had had a difficult pregnancy, should be classed as a high or low-risk case.

Cathy Winfield, chief nurse and director of patient experience, said: "On behalf of Derby Hospitals I would like to offer our sincere condolences to Mrs Wray's family.

"A full investigation has been undertaken. However we are unable to comment any further at this stage as legal proceedings are under way."

This article is courtesy of BBC News.

India baby deaths spark Calcutta hospital negligence row

A government-run hospital in Calcutta has been accused of negligence after the deaths of 30 babies admitted to its care in the last four days.

The parents of the dead babies say hospital staff did not give their children the correct medicine and were guilty of mismanagement.

The BC Roy Post-Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences says it did all it could do to prevent the deaths.

It says there was a spike in admissions of ill babies who could not be saved.

Dr Tridib Banerjee, chairman of the Health Department's special task force, said that as BC Roy was a referral hospital, many patients were in a critical state.

"Doctors always try their best but sometimes patients cannot be saved as their condition is very bad," Dr Banerjee told the commercial broadcaster NDTV. "There is not a single case of negligence."

The facility, which provides free health care to poor families, is the largest paediatric centre in eastern India.

In 2011 it was cleared of negligence after the death of 18 babies in two days.

As a result of that inquiry, a new neo-natal unit was installed to provide better treatment.

But critics say the state government needs to invest more money to ensure all sick children receive the best care.

This article is courtesy of BBC News.

Hospital bug victim 'warned ward staff' about hygiene

A woman who died after contracting Clostridium difficile (C. diff) had warned hospital staff about a lack of hand cleaning, an inquest has heard.

Ann Gregory, 81, of Colwyn Bay, was treated at Glan Clwyd hospital in Denbighshire and a community hospital.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) has apologised for an outbreak of C. diff at Glan Clwyd hospital.

North Wales deputy coroner Nicola Jones said the infection was caught in hospital but the death was accidental.

The hearing at Llandudno was told retired teacher Mrs Gregory, who died in December 2012, was "rigorous" about her own cleanliness.
Continue reading the main story   
“Start Quote

    It's not clear as to which hospital she contracted C. diff from, but I'm satisfied it was a hospital-acquired infection”

Nicola Jones North Wales deputy coroner

Daughter Judith Gavin said her mother had been "appalled" by what she had seen during her stay in hospital following a stroke.

At Colwyn Bay Hospital, she complained that people did not take notice of the reminders on the walls urging them to clean their hands.

She pointed out a member of the clergy who had been holding hands with patients while praying and moving around the ward and had told the clergyman not to approach her.

The inquest heard Mrs Gregory later reported him to the ward sister as part of her concerns about cleanliness.

She was also unhappy that her hoist was kept over a chair used by patients with dementia who moved freely around the premises.

Earlier this month the health board apologised for its failure to control infections at Glan Clwyd hospital.
Senior resignations

A report said that between January and May this year there were 96 cases of C. diff infection at the site.

At least seven patients who died were found to be carrying the bug.

It was one of a series of problems which resulted in the resignation of three senior BCUHB figures.

The outbreak followed a period in which C. diff infection rates within the Betsi Cadwaladr board area were higher than in most other parts of Wales.

Deputy coroner Nicola Jones said her colleague, senior North Wales coroner John Gittins, was to meet the newly-appointed infection control officer for Glan Clwyd hospital.

She said she would ask for Colwyn Bay Hospital to send a representative to that meeting.

Mrs Jones said: "Prevention is better than cure."

Giving her conclusion on Mrs Gregory's death, Mrs Jones said: "It's highly unlikely she acquired C. diff in the community.
'Condolences'

"It's not clear as to which hospital she contracted C. diff from, but I'm satisfied it was a hospital-acquired infection."

She said the infection may have been acquired during a delay in discharging her from hospital.

In a statement after the inquest, the health board said: "We would like to extend our condolences to Mrs Gregory's family for their loss.

"We know that patients who are receiving antibiotics to treat conditions such as Mrs Gregory's are more vulnerable to Clostridium difficile and we see higher rates of infections in our older patients.

"We can confirm that a meeting between the North Wales coroner John Gittins, Tracey Cooper, the infection control specialist and Angela Hopkins, director of nursing and midwifery, has been arranged.

This article is courtesy of BBC News.