The petition urges an independent regulator to be formed to hold NHS managers accountable for decisions affecting patient safety. Most managers are dedicated professionals, but some are not held responsible when their decisions negatively impact care. The petition highlights the recent Lucy Letby case, where multiple consultants raised concerns early but subsequently had their concerns dismissed without merit.

It has received the backing of one of the consultants at the centre of the Letby case at The Countess of Chester, Dr Ravi Jayaram who said:

“A corporate manslaughter charge against the Countess of Chester as an organisation might result in a large fine but this ultimately punishes the patients cared for there, whilst the individuals whose actions facilitated this situation face no sanctions and can continue to work on highly paid NHS executive posts.”

“There needs to be a system in place so that top-level NHS managers are subject to scrutiny through an independent professional regulatory body just as frontline healthcare professionals are regulated”.

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK Co-Chair, said:

“We believe new accountability through regulation will improve NHS patient safety. Doctors and other healthcare professionals already answer to regulators if care quality drops — why do we not hold managers to the same standards when they control resources affecting care?”

The petition aims for regulation letting patients and families refer complaints about managers.

Dr. Matt Kneale went further saying:

“Managers must make difficult decisions on whistleblowing concerns, but shouldn’t escape responsibility for unsafe practices or outright neglect of concerns. Regulation would help to ensure transparency and accountability for those with such responsibility.”

DAUK believes that managerial regulation could improve care across the NHS and other healthcare providers.

The Doctors Association UK advocates for frontline doctors. It has launched a petition to create new laws regulating healthcare managers via an independent body. DAUK believes this will make managers more accountable for patient safety impacts from their decisions.

View and sign our petition here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/642631

ENDS

Contact:

Lucy Stratton, DAUK

press@dauk.org

Date and time: Wed, 22 February 2023, 19:00 – 20:00 GMT, Online

As we mark the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, this webinar will explain the remarkable story of how the lessons of the PPE crisis of the early stages of the COVID19 pandemic in 2020, helped us design novel ways of arranging medical supplies.

Frontline Live is a U.K. charity set up by entrepreneurs and medics with a mission to help deliver medical supplies to our colleagues in Ukraine in the most efficient manner way possible. Come join the webinar to hear an inspiring story born of the pandemic and now crystallised in helping those most in need in Ukraine.

This event is open to both Doctors Association U.K. members and others.

The fabulous speakers for this event are –

David Nicholl is the Clinical Lead for Neurology at Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust where he has worked for over 20 years and is a committee member of the Doctors Association UK. He is the only medic amongst the Trustees of Frontline Live, and got involved when Frontline saw what they had learned from the first wave of the COVID pandemic. We looked to see where the same methods could be used in a different medical context, and then the war in Ukraine happened. he is a former winner of the BMJ Editors award for ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ Twitter @djnicholl

Katz Kiely is an award winning pioneer, digital transformation expert and culture architect. Over a 20 year career, she has world with the worlds biggest companies through lasting change including designing the first open innovation platform for HP, rearchitecting the way a UN agency works and prototyping a city scale behaviour change platform with Intel. She is now CEO of beep: a platform that embeds the mindsets and behaviours that drive customer centricity by unlocking the problem solving potential of people. She believes doing good is good business, is Chair of Trustees for Frontline.Live and a proud ambassador of the Burning Man Foundation.

Sacha Bunatyan is an advertising and marketing professional with over 20+ years of career in Global Publishing and Media businesses.Bunatyan is passionate about advancing the Ukrainian Victory by transporting humanitarian aid to support people on the ground in Ukraine and by assisting Ukrainian families here to assimilate while they are sheltering here in the UK.

Click here for free registration.

The Doctors’ Association UK criticised the plan for “soundbite generation” rather than “coherently and realistically” addressing workforce planning.

You can read the full article here.

Reducing the use of PCR tests will compromise the UK’s capacity to detect new coronavirus variants and put lives at risk, leading scientists have warned.

The Government is expected to announce the end of free Covid-19 testing for millions of people as part of its “Living Safely With Covid” strategy, due to be published next week.

Officials want to cut the ongoing costs of the pandemic as cases and deaths continue to fall. The changes are expected to come into force next month.

Healthy adults would no longer be eligible to order free lateral flow tests (LFT) on the NHS and PCR testing is expected to be limited to older adults and the clinically vulnerable, such as the 1.3 million people at highest risk from the virus. However, public health experts have raised concerns with the planned changes.

Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, said: “Living with Covid doesn’t mean ignoring the virus and letting our guard down. We still have high levels of infection in the UK and the pandemic continues to rage across the globe.

“We need to find a new normal where we maximise our freedoms while recognising that Covid will always be present rather than trying to return to a pre-pandemic world where Covid doesn’t exist.

“As long as the virus continues to spread and replicate, particularly in populations who are under-vaccinated, it will throw up new variants and these will remain a continual threat even to those countries with high rates of vaccination. Reducing the use of PCR will compromise our capacity to detect these new variants.”

The UK has been a world leader in its Covid-19 testing capability having carried out more than 463 million since the start of the pandemic. More than one million LFT and PCR tests a day have regularly been conducted this year, with the number dropping to less than 800,000 this week as cases fall.

Professor Young said: “You can’t control virus infection if you don’t know where the virus is spreading. This means planning for future surges of infection by ensuring we have the ability to rapidly detect outbreaks with targeted approaches to test, trace and isolate.

“Key to this is maintaining free access to lateral flow tests for all those with symptoms. The pandemic isn’t over and, if we’ve learned anything over the last two years, it’s that the impact and future of Covid-19 will remain unpredictable.”

Another 46,186 Covid cases were recorded in the UK on Tuesday, according to official Government figures – although a more accurate study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates the true number to be much higher.

The sharp difference in totals reflects the increasing limitations of the Government figures, which count only those people who have reported themselves as having tested positive for the virus. By contrast, the ONS figures are based on analysis of nose and throat swabs taken from a representative sample of more than 150,000 people in private households.

Separate ONS figures published on Tuesday revealed that Covid-19 deaths fell for the second week in a row in England, although they rose in Wales.

Dr Jonathan Stoye, of The Francis Crick Institute, accused the Government of “being driven by politics and economics rather than being driven by the science” in its response to the pandemic.

He said: “Even though the pandemic may appear to be ending, it has not yet ended. There are no guarantees that new, more pathogenic variants will not emerge. Despite the successes of vaccination, many people are still at risk. Any significant reduction in testing will jeopardise lives and compromise our ability to monitor the appearance of new variants.”

Dr Matthew Bigwood, an anaesthetist and spokesman for Doctors’ Association UK, said: “Given the lack of preparation around testing on all waves so far, can the Government show they are doing this to plan for future waves? Test and Trace failed each time. What will be different next time, especially in the light of not having started the Covid inquiry yet to identify previous mistakes?”

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the Government had made “no decision” on changes to the current testing regime but that the policy was being kept “under review”.

He told LBC: “If we are in a better place with Covid there is no need to keep the same offer of testing forever, but testing will continue to play an important part in tackling Covid.”

Children are not meant to die, so when people say the risk of a child dying of Covid-19 is very small, then yes, it absolutely should be.

Unfortunately, we’ve been letting Covid spread quite freely in the UK, especially through schools. Children are now dying of Covid regularly, at a rate of about 2 or 3 per week. In fact, we’ve lost at least 133 children to Covid in the UK so far.

My child probably won’t die of Covid, and yours probably won’t either, but in the next few days, someone’s child will.

To put the numbers into context, in 2019 in England and Wales there were 907 deaths of children aged 1-15 in total.* We actively take precautions to prevent all of the commonest causes of child death, both as individuals and collectively.

Suffocation causes similar numbers of deaths to Covid, but no parent would leave plastic bags lying about, and almost all bags come with little holes punched in the bottom, and a written reminder to keep out of reach of children.

When it comes to Covid, though, the measures we had in place through the first two waves have largely been removed. Most adults in the UK are protected by at least two doses of vaccine, but most children are not. Masks stopped being required in English secondary schools in May, at roughly the same time that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) were concluding that “there was a low risk of child-to-child transmission”. Measures such as bubbles, distancing and isolation of covid contacts have also been removed or weakened since then, with predictable results.

For most of last term school aged children had the highest prevalence of Covid, and whenever schools are open, the rates tend to rise.

With the arrival of Omicron in the lead up to Christmas, schoolchildren were overtaken by young adults, extending up to the middle aged. Now that the new term has started, older age groups seem to have peaked, but schoolchildren and preschoolers continue to rise.

It has become clear that JCVI guidance suggesting the vaccine would only have minimal benefits for children was based on false assumptions. Children can and do transmit the virus when basic mitigation measures are removed.

The rapid spread of Omicron has lead to an unprecedented acceleration in children being admitted to hospital, at more than double the rate of previous waves. Similar patterns were seen in South Africa and New York, but it is still too early to say whether this increase in hospitalisation will translate into increased child mortality rates. The rates of Long Covid from Omicron are also still unknown.

Currently the UK lags behind similar nations in vaccinating children. The JCVI was slow to authorise vaccination of 12-15 year olds, initially only permitting a single vaccine.

The MHRA has approved a reduced dose vaccine for 5-11 year olds, but the JCVI are currently limiting its use to children who are Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) or have CEV members in their household. Even these few are struggling to actually access the vaccine, with reports of some families taking their children abroad to receive it. In contrast to the original adult vaccination campaign, and the booster programme this winter, vaccination of children has remained painfully slow. If vaccines are to be our main defence against covid, we need to step up the pace.

With school transmission driving the pandemic during term time, the rates of covid in parents and grandparents also tend to rise. The vaccine is very effective for most people, but it has a small but significant failure rate and not everyone can or will have it. If we choose to rely on vaccines alone, with rates this high, the virus will find those who
are susceptible.

For children with a clinically vulnerable parent or grandparent, the worry that they might bring Covid into the home is often their biggest fear. Children naturally tend to assume that bad things happening in the adult world are their fault, even in situations where there is far less logic to suggest it. In the UK, there are already an estimated eight thousand children orphaned by Covid-19. Those who argue that being in school is the most important factor for our children’s mental health are neglecting to consider these children. There is a huge difference between children being safely in school with multiple layers of mitigation measures in place, and children being in school where they are exposed to the virus with no protection.

The measures we need to make schools safe are quite simple:

• Fast vaccine roll-out for all children aged 5 and up.
• Acceptance that airborne spread of the virus is significant, ventilation, FFP2 masks, CO2 monitors and HEPA filters.
• Awareness that close contact also plays a part, with physical distancing where possible.
• Awareness that the number of people you transmit to depends on how many people you share air with, bringing back bubbles, avoiding assemblies, and a return to fully isolating cases and contacts.
• Acknowledging that children are connected to the rest of the community too, and a return to similar measures across the rest of society to get background Covid rates down.
• Perhaps the most complex measure, the one we are least likely to achieve, is a change to the public messaging about Covid in the UK. Because infections really do matter. We are all connected, and we do have a responsibility towards each other, whether we like it or not. My choices and actions could have unknown consequences for you, or for someone else, somewhere.

Consequences may be unknown, but they are not unforeseen. And in the case of infectious diseases, even a small change can make a very big difference over time, so every little helps. The actions that are in our power are smaller and simpler than those our government could have chosen, but they are still significant.

Open a few windows, wear a mask, keep your distance, stay home when you’re ill. You’ll never find out, but your actions could save the life of a child.

Sir, More reorganisation will not solve the crisis with NHS waiting lists or prevent chronic disease, inevitably worsening care as resources are diverted to plan the shuffle (“GPs nationalised in Javid plan to reduced hospital admissions”, Jan 29). It is well evidenced that what reduces hospital admissions is continuity of care, ie seeing the same GPs over a number of years. The issue is workforce retention. We have fewer GPs than ever before yet are offering more appointments. The job is highly stressful, often miserable.

Public health faced a similar reorganisation and has seen its budget decimated, and we wonder why we have rising numbers of chronic conditions. We suggest the health secretary visits some GP practices to understand the issues.

It is also important to note that there is no charge for sick notes, which are now called “fit notes”. The private work extends only to non-NHS work such as insurance reports, medicals and private letters. The income from this is minimal.
Dr Lizzie Toberty
GP lead, Doctors’ Association UK

An unvaccinated heart transplant patient in the US is making headlines for being rejected from the list, in part, because of his views on receiving the Covid vaccine.

The irony here is striking. A heart transplant is a very complex medical procedure, only made possible because of the advancement of science.

Organs are given to patients that are more likely to survive and live a long, healthy life. People who have done all they can to receive such a precious thing, another chance.

In an ideal world, we would have thousands of organs to give to every person who needs them. However, as we all know, we don’t live in a perfect world. There are thousands of people who desperately need organ transplants and have had their Covid jabs.

Receiving an organ transplant is a last resort and supply does not meet demand. Patients have to go through an extensive process and meet several criteria to be eligible.

For a transplant to work and not be rejected, patients must be on medication to suppress immunity. What that means is that for unvaccinated people, the chances of survival if Covid is contracted after the transplant are very low. If this particular patient did not take the vaccine, the scenario is similar to sending a soldier to war without ammunition.

I understand there is freedom of choice and patient autonomy in medicine. However, there are also actions and consequences. If a patient does not want antibiotics for a very serious infection, that is their choice. That choice comes with the high possibility that they will die because of that infection.

There are three ethical principles in the allocation of human organs, which are utility, justice and respect for persons. Utility is about maximising the benefit of the organ given. Justice is ensuring organs are distributed fairly and respect for persons is about patient autonomy.

Considering there are more than 106,000 patients on the US national transplant waiting list, when an organ becomes available, it will be given to whoever is likely to need it most but also who is likely to survive the longest with it.

Many criteria have to be fulfilled before recipients go on that waiting list. They have to be of a certain BMI, a non-smoker, not have active cancer, be below a certain age, not abuse drugs or alcohol and show that they will adhere to the post-transplant medication regimen.

Respect and autonomy means giving the patient the options they have and then respecting the choices they make. But choices almost always come with consequences. One cannot refuse chemotherapy for cancer, then expect to stay alive for 100 years. It’s the same principle in this case: if a patient wants a heart transplant, they have to maximise their chances of survival and that includes having the Covid jabs.

Donor hearts do not come by every day and a heart transplant is a big deal. These are not easy decisions to make, but patients cannot pick and choose what criteria they want to fulfil. This case is a tragic waste if the person who is drowning won’t accept the life jacket thrown their way in favour of upholding their beliefs around vaccination.

Dr Elissa Abi-Raad is a junior doctor and committee member of the Doctors’ Association UK. 

Healthcare workers have backed union calls for an inflation-proof pay rise for NHS staff, warning the health service is at “breaking point”.

Fourteen unions, representing 1.2 million health staff in England, have called on the Government to raise NHS pay and raised fears of a “growing exodus of exhausted staff”.

In a submission to the independent NHS pay review body, the unions urged action on pay to stem an “alarming” loss of medics. Inflation rose to 5.4 per cent last month, the highest for nearly 30 years, and as the cost of living crisis has deepened frontline workers have demanded a boost to pay.

Dr Yaso Browne, a Hampshire-based GP speaking on behalf of the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), told i: “People were encouraged to ‘protect the NHS’, but the people of the NHS need protecting from unfair freezes on their pay. 

“For years NHS staff have been offered wage increases below or barely meeting the cost of living, in real terms. They have gone and are still going above and beyond to keep the NHS running. Their pay needs to reflect the value the Government proclaimed it held for the NHS throughout the pandemic, and still claims it holds.

“Paying people a fair wage is a much-needed reality if we have any chance of retaining highly trained staff.”

Read the full article here