This week’s NHS new round-up features reports that a national review has been launched into schemes which look to divert NHS patients away from A&E departments. Elsewhere there has been a huge debate about antibiotics this week following a paper released by theBMJ.
NHS Patient data being lost or mis-placed is also sadly in the news once more.
Diversion of NHS Patients
NHS England have launched a national review into schemes which look to divert NHS patients away from busy A&E departments. In the report, found on The Guardian, it is said that this review has been launched following the death of a 44-year-old man in Bristol.
Currently every NHS trust is under instruction to introduce the scheme, known as ‘Front-Door Streaming,’ by the Autumn. As part of this scheme, GPs would be stationed at casualty units to look at the least sick patients.
This is just one of the many attempts to try a relieve the stress on hospitals around the country, with many now struggling with overcrowding problems.
A spokeswoman for the NHS had this to say on the news article:
“Guidance to hospitals on making sure patients get the level of clinical care they need has been specifically updated in the light of this (the review), so as to make sure that people who need GP care can get it, and people needing specialist assessment can quickly do so. GPs successfully look after 300 million patient consultations every year, compared with 23 million A&E visits.”
According to NHS England, the results from the review are due to be released in Summer, 2018.
Antibiotics up for debate
There has been a lengthy debate this week about whether or not people should always finish an entire course of antibiotics. The debates started following an analysis report being published on thebmj which calls for more studies to be done into the medication.
Doctors have fought back against the claims however and are urging people not to change their behavior based on one report. Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, leader of the Royal College of General Practitioners, told the BBC:
“It’s important that patients have clear messages, and the mantra to always take the full course of antibiotics is well known – changing this will simply confuse people. We are concerned about the concept of patients stopping taking their medication mid-way through a course once they ‘feel better’, because improvement in symptoms does not necessarily mean the infection has been completely eradicated.”
For more details, including comments from Prof Martin Llewelyn, from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, can be found on the BBC.
NHS patient data lost
There has been a “significant increase” in NHS patient information being dropped, left behind or sent to the wrong address since the health service outsourced this function to Capita, according to NHS England’s annual report.
Official figures, mentioned on the Daily Mail, reveal that more than 100,000 NHS patients we caught up in data blunders during the last 12 months, 18 of which were classed as serious errors. This is more than double the previous year’s data.
Examples of mis-used NHS patient data included a bag of 50 sets of medical records being sent to the wrong GP Practice and being dumped outside. In another case, NHS England mistakenly uploaded a document onto their high profile website which contained sensitive information about a patient.
Commentating on the errors, Dr Richard Vautrey, BMA GP committee chair, said:
“This is yet another serious failure of a service commissioned by NHS England and now run by Capita. General Practice is based on the confidence patients have in their GP to take care of their important and confidential information. It is unacceptable in this context for Capita’s systems to have failed so often, badly letting down both patients and practices.”
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