Media Centre

NAPC News 16 July 2012

Hospitals Urged To Take More Car After Claims Of 12,000 Needless Deaths A Year

Nearly 12,000 patients are dying needlessly  in NHS hospitals every year because of basic errors by medical staff, according to the largest and most detailed study into hospital deaths ever performed in the UK.

Researchers at the London Scholl of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues found something went wrong with the care of 13 per cent of the patients who died in hospitals.  An error caused death in 5.2 per cent of these – equivalent to 11,859 preventable deaths in hospitals in England.

Helen Hogan, who led the study, said: ‘We found medical staff were not doing the basics well enough – monitoring blood pressure and kidney function, for example.  They were also not assessing patients holistically early enough in their admission so they didn’t miss any underlying condition.  And they were not checking side-effects before prescribing drugs.’

Incompetence Led To Dehydration Death

Neglect by hospital staff contributed to the death of a young man from dehydration, a coroner has ruled.  Medical staff at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London, did not give Kane Gorny medication to help him to retain fluids.  Mr Gorny, aged 22, phone the police from his bed because he was desperate for water. 

Shirley Radcliffe, a deputy coroner, said: ‘Kane was undoubtedly let down by the incompetence of staff, poor communication, lack of leadership, both medical and nursing.’

St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust has accepted civil liability.

Doctors Sign Abortion Papers Without Assessing Patients

Doctors at 14 hospitals may face a police investigation after a report found evidence that staff had signed abortion documents before assessing whether patients had met the legal requirements to have their pregnancies terminated.

An investigation by the Care Quality Commission found that the hospitals had breached regulations by allowing doctors to pre-sign abortion approval forms.

NHS Trust Goes Into Administration

The Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, has formally dismissed the directors of an NHS trust losing £1m a week and has imposed a new administrator.

Mr Lansley acted after South London Healthcare NHS Trust ran up deficits of over £150 million over the past three years.  Despite efforts to improve its financial performance, it is still thought to be on track to lose between £30m and £75m a year for the next five years.

Thousands Of Over 75s Are Being Denied Statins By GPs

A team of academics from Oxford and other universities warn that the elderly are being ‘largely ignored’ by the NHS’ prescribing habits.

Thousands of elderly people have been denied vital drugs that could prevent heart attacks and strokes, it has been claimed.

Researchers are of the view that GPs are reluctant to prescribe such medication for the elderly as they are worried about the possible side effects.  As drug trials are rarely carried out on older patients, there is virtually no evidence on whether they work, or are even safe.  Although researchers found that more of the elderly were given medication for high blood pressure compared to younger patients, they said many more could be receiving it.

Patients Get Worse As 19,000 Appointment Are Delayed

Hundreds of patient have seen their conditions worsen and one has died after 19,000 appointments were delayed at the scandal-hit University Hospital of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.

Last September, the Care Quality Commission published a report into maternity services at Furness General, one of the trust’s three hospitals, following the deaths of five babies and two mothers.

Warning over NHS Trust Deficit

Bosses at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust losing £100,000 a day have been warned it faces going into administration unless major improvements are made. 

The Trust, which has an underlying deficit of £37.6 million, has weeks to develop a programme of cuts.

Drugs Giant Signs Alzheimer’s Tie-Up

AstraZeneca has slashed its neuroscience department to a tiny core based in Boston, Massachusetts, saying that weak results in its laboratories led to it favouring a virtual approach, devoting money to external tie-ups.

In the first of what the company hopes will be many neurological collaborations with biotechnology companies, charities and universities, AstraZeneca last week bought a portfolio of drugs from a Massachusetts firm, Link Medicine, and has struck an alliance with four academic laboratories in the United States.

AstraZeneca’s shares have fallen by 5 per cent over the past year, in contrast to a 5 per cent rise at GlaxoSmithKline.  In its first quarter, profits slumped by 38 per cent as it struggled to replace ageing blockbusters, including Nexium, the heartburn drug, and Seroquel, the drug for depression, which are losing patent protection.

GSK And Roche

An application by GlaxoSmithkline to use breast cancer drug, Tykerb, in combination with a Roche product, has been withdrawn.

Man Deformed In The Womb Sues Drug Company

A teacher born with no penis and his bladder outside his body is suing German pharmaceutical company, Bayer, for E55,000 compensations.

Andre Sommer, aged 35, needed 9 operations and has to wear a urine bag because of birth defects he claims were caused by a pregnancy testing drug, Duogynon.  Bayer insists there is no link between the drug and any birth defects.

Fears For Hair Loss Medication

A hair loss medication reportedly tried by Wayne Rooney may cause prolonged and possibly irreversible impotence, scientists have claimed.

Dr Michael Irwig from the University of Washington, who recently published a study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that the ingredient, finasteride, which is found in Propecia, can cause persistent sexual dysfunction, including low sexual desire, erectile dysfunction and problems with orgasms.

Surgery Alert for Breast Cancer Patients

One in five women who choose to have only part of a breast removed when undergoing treatment for cancer has to undergo a further operation, a major study has found.

Doctors have said that more needed to be done to make women aware of the risks of the need for further surgery, if they do not opt for a full mastectomy at the time they are deciding on treatment.

The majority of women with breast cancer, 58 per cent, opt for surgery that just removes the cancerous tumour and the tissue around it, rather than a full mastectomy, where the whole breast is removed.   But of the 55,000 women who underwent this form of treatment on the NHS between 2005 and 2008, twenty per cent needed further surgery, and of those 40 per cent needed a mastectomy.

The findings published in the British Medical Journal on Friday, showed that of the women who chose surgery during the three year period, that would save part of their breast, more than 11,000 needed a further operation, 4,000 needed a mastectomy and 820 women needed two or more operations.

In A Decade Most Cancers Can Be Cured

Dr James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, claimed it should be possible to cure four in five of all cancers within a decade, but only if scientists revolutionised the way they approached the disease.

Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Dublin, the Nobel laureate accused cancer researchers of thinking too narrowly and being afraid to take risks.

Doctors Plead For Funding To Make Fertility Breakthrough A Reality

The first womb transplants could be carried out in the UK if doctors can raise enough funds to complete their research.

Richard Smith, consultant gynaecological surgeon, and his team have been researching the possibility of transplanting a donor womb into a woman so she can have a child, or even two, before the donated womb is removed.  They have launched a charity to raise cash to finish the preparatory research and to perform the first five operations,

Virgin To Take Over NHS Children’s Services With £130m Care Contract

Virgin Care is the preferred bidder for a £130m contract to run core NHS and social care services for children and young people in Devon.  The contract will involve taking on 1,100 staff employed by NHS Devon and Devon county council. 

Rebecca Harriott, director of commissioning development at NHS Devon, said there were many benefits to the deal and that the Trust was consulting widely with stakeholders on the issue.