Health Policy InsightNearly 40% of cancellations could be avoided, researchers say
About one in 10 operations in England are cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice or postponed, according to research..
A study of elective surgery at 91 English NHS trusts found that 10% of operations were cancelled the day before the planned surgery date; while 9% were postponed when patients had their pre-op appointment.
Continue reading...Seven-day-old Poppy Hope Lomas died after complications during home birth encouraged by midwives at Barnet hospital
A mother who lost her baby a week after an “unsafe” home birth that went against medical advice was failed by the NHS, an inquest has found.
Poppy Hope Lomas was seven days old when she died at University College hospital in London on 26 October 2022 after complications during a home birth that, according to her mother, was encouraged by midwives at Barnet hospital.
Continue reading...We should demand more public toilet facilities – and be sympathetic when we see someone of any gender or age ‘doing a Mandelson’, writes Doug Maughan
Let me reassure Melanie Jones (Letters, 21 April) that my sympathy for Peter Mandelson’s plight, when he was caught short late one evening, would extend to women in the same circumstance. If you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. The serious side to this is that there are people who rarely venture from home owing to bladder problems. So, instead of criticising or sniggering, perhaps we should demand that basic toilet facilities are provided on more of our streets. And we should avoid having a fit of the vapours if, on rare occasions, we see someone (of any gender or age) going to the edge of the pavement and “doing a Mandelson” into a drain.
Doug Maughan
Dunblane, Stirling
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Continue reading...Volunteers’ data has enabled medical breakthroughs, but there are questions over how that data is protected
With the revelation that the confidential health records of half a million British volunteers have been put up for sale on a Chinese website, we take a look at what the UK Biobank project has achieved – and why concerns have been raised.
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