Tag: hospitals
Hospitals brace themselves for ‘exceptionally low’ staff numbers as nurses strike over bank holiday
Thousands of violent sex attacks committed in NHS hospitals — with dozens happening every week, report reveals
THOUSANDS of violent sex attacks have been committed in NHS hospitals – with dozens of offences happening every week, a new report reveals today.
More than 6,500 rapes and sexual assaults, including against children under 13, were reported in hospitals across England and Wales in the last four years.
Thousands of violent sex attacks are committed in NHS hospitals — with dozens happening every week, a damning report revealed[/caption]
At least 2,088 rapes and 4,451 sexual assaults in hospitals were reported to police between January 2019 and October 2022.
One in seven of the offences occurred on supposedly secure hospital wards.
And figures uncovered by the Women’s Rights Network reveal just 265 people – fewer than five per cent of alleged perpetrators – were charged for their offences.
It means dozens of brutal attacks take place in hospitals every week, with WRN founder Heather Binning claiming the statistics were “just the tip of the iceberg”.
She said: “Hospitals are places where everyone – patients, staff and visitors – should feel completely safe.
“But rapes and violent assaults are taking place every week in hospitals. To add to the horror, those men committing the crimes are getting away with it.”
Ms Binning likened the revelations to paedophile Jimmy Saville’s widespread abuse of patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, calling the stats “absoloutely terrifying”.
She added: “A charge rate of 4.1 per cent is appalling – the hospitals and police are failing women and children yet again.
“No one should have the added worry that they or a loved-one is at risk of being raped or sexually assaulted when they are in hospital.”
The stats – released under a Freedom of Information request – revealed at least 10 rapes were committed against underage girls at hospitals across Cambridgeshire, Lancashire and the West Midlands.
The WRN say the true figure is likely to be higher, as only 35 of the UK’s 43 police forces provided data to the charity’s investigation.
Shocking figures reveal 6,500 sex attacks in hospitals in just three years
A fungus is spreading in hospitals at an ‘alarming rate.’ What to know.
It’s not a fungus apocalypse. But it’s a serious, growing problem.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week that the fungus Candida auris (C. auris) “spread at an alarming rate in U.S. healthcare facilities” during 2020-2021. This fungus is particularly problematic because it’s a strain that has emerged in recent years, can be resistant to some, or all, antifungal drugs, and has caused outbreaks in hospitals, Dr. Luis Ostrosky, an M.D., fungal infection expert, and professor of infectious diseases at UTHealth Houston, recently told Mashable.
The CDC is taking the spread, which can cause severe and fatal blood infections, seriously.
“The rapid rise and geographic spread of cases is concerning and emphasizes the need for continued surveillance, expanded lab capacity, quicker diagnostic tests, and adherence to proven infection prevention and control,” CDC epidemiologist Dr. Meghan Lyman, lead author of the new research, said in a statement.
The research, entitled, “Worsening Spread of Candida auris in the United States, 2019 to 2021,” is published in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
How worried should you be about Candida auris?
The fungus Candida auris, which is a yeast, infects people who are quite ill and have compromised immune systems.
“To experience a fungal infection, there has to be something wrong with your immune system,” Dr. Ostrosky, who is also chief of epidemiology at the academic hospital Memorial Hermann, explained. This includes people who have had organ transplants or other major, life-saving surgeries, as well as those undergoing cancer treatments, he said.
“In general, C. auris is not a threat to healthy people.”
People in hospitals who are unwell are particularly susceptible to Candia auris. “People who are very sick, have invasive medical devices, or have long or frequent stays in healthcare facilities are at increased risk for acquiring C. auris,” the CDC said.
Fortunately, like with most fungal spores, healthy people are not the group being infected or at risk. “In general, C. auris is not a threat to healthy people,” the agency noted. That’s because our advanced, healthy immune systems constantly combat fungal spores, and keep such foreign fungi microbes at bay. (For example, we inhale fungal spores every time we go outside.) “Humans are really, really good at staving off fungal infections,” Vincent Bruno, a scientist at the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who researches fungal diseases, told Mashable this year.
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But for those infected with Candia auris, the CDC is raising the alarm because it’s often resistant to multiple antifungal drugs that doctors use to treat Candida infections. Candida auris is a newly emerged strain of the fungus Candida, which already causes some 25,000 infections annually. Some 30 to 60 percent of people infected with C. auris have died, the CDC said. “However, many of these people had other serious illnesses that also increased their risk of death,” the agency noted.
How much is Candida auris spreading?
Since 2016, the CDC has been increasingly concerned about Candida auris. That’s when the health agency received reports that the fungus was resistant to medicines in other parts of the world.
“It seemed hard to believe,” the CDC wrote. “CDC fungal experts had never received a report describing a Candida infection resistant to all antifungal medications, let alone Candida that spreads easily between patients.”
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Reported cases, though overall low in numbers, have been rising significantly since 2015. Cases increased 318 percent in 2018, compared to the previous few years, resulting in a total of 323 clinical cases.
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Crucially, Candida auris cases have only increased each year since 2016. “Nationwide, clinical cases rose from 476 in 2019 to 1,471 in 2021,” the CDC just concluded.
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Case counts again increased in 2022, the agency noted.
Counts of reported Candida auris cases in the U.S. in 2022.
Credit: CDC
A number of factors may contribute to these rising numbers, the agency notes. This includes poor infection control, more screening to detect the infection (a good thing), and increased fungal spread during a time of great strain on the healthcare system during peaks of the COVID pandemic hospitalizations.
To limit the spread, the CDC is sounding the alarm to aid healthcare facilities in identifying the infectious fungus, and how to contain the microbe in places like hospitals and nursing homes.
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Full list of NHS hospitals where nurses are on strike today – are you affected?
NURSES are today striking in a bid for better pay and working conditions.
Ambulance staff will also walk out – meaning it could be the biggest strike in the history of the NHS.
Nurses will walk-out over pay today[/caption]
It comes five days after the country was brought to a halt by industrial action disrupting trains, schools and the civil service.
The NHS organisations taking part in strikes today are:
Eastern
- Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
- East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
- Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
London
- Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
- Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust
- Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust
- St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
North West
- Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Wrightington Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust
- Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Found Trust
- St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust
- North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust
- Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Found Trust
- The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Found Trust
- The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
- Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust
- Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
- The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust
Northern
- University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust
- The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
- Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust
- North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust
South East
- University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust
- Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust
- University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust
- Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust
- Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
- East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
- South East Coast Ambulance Service
- South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
South West
- Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust
- University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust
- Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust
- Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
- Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust
- North Bristol NHS Trust
- Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust
- Somerset NHS Foundation Trust
- South Western Ambulance Service NHS Found Trust
West Midlands
- Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
- University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
- The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
- Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Yorkshire and the Humber
- Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust
- The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
Hospitals will get 5,000 more beds and 800 ambulances to ease pressure on A&E
HOSPITALS are to get 5,000 more beds and 800 ambulances to ease the pressure on emergency departments.
The proposals are part of PM Rishi Sunak’s two-year NHS recovery plan.
Hospitals are to get 5,000 more beds and 800 ambulances to ease the pressure on emergency departments[/caption]
He called it “ambitious and credible” — it will be backed by a £1billion fund which will also provide 100 mental health response vehicles.
The PM will set out his ideas today on a visit to the North East with NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard.
He said: “Urgent and emergency care is facing serious challenges but we have an ambitious and credible plan to fix it.
“It will take time to get there but our plan will cut long waiting times by increasing the number of ambulances, staff and beds — stopping the bottlenecks outside A&E and making sure patients are seen and discharged quickly.
“If we meet this ambition, it will represent one of the fastest and longest sustained improvements in emergency waiting times in NHS history.”
The move comes after ministers promised a major expansion in community care to keep patients away from hospitals.
Ministers have also announced 3,000 hospital at home beds will be created this year.
It is hoped about 50,000 people a month could eventually be cared for at home, monitored using gadgets and apps.
And proposals are in place for three quarters of A&E patients to be seen within four hours by spring next year.