Doctors should apologise and provide explanations to patients and their relatives when treatment goes wrong, according to guidance from the NHS Litigation Authority, the body which defends the NHS against legal claims for clinical negligence. The letter from (KCL MA MEL alumnus) Stephen Walker. the authority’s chief executive, replaces an earlier circular that warned NHS bodies to take care when providing explanations "so as to avoid future litigation risks."
Checklists that spell out exactly how to care for patients with common conditions have dramatically reduced hospital deaths, say doctors. The British Medical Journal reported a 15% fall in the number of people who had died at one north London hospital trust using so-called care bundles. These are checklists covering dozens of conditions including strokes, heart failure and MRSA infections. The researchers said death rates could be "halved" using the system.
An investigation is under way into how two transplant patients were given kidneys from a donor with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. The incident at the Royal Liverpool University hospital involved organs from a woman who died at another hospital, and was later found to have had a hard-to-identify disease called intravascular B-cell lymphoma. Both patients had been preparing for live transplants from their sisters but accepted the donor kidneys instead. The recipients are now receiving chemotherapy treatment. Although cancer transmission is a known risk of transplantation among clinicians, the case raises questions about guidance to patients and whether sufficient checks are made. One senior of
NHS Blood and Transplant associate medical director Professor James Neuberger said transfer of malignancy was a very rare occurance but more organs were likely to carry diseases as donors get older. He admitted the scale of the problem was not known. A research fellow has now been appointed to find out how often infected organs are passed on to patients. Professor Neuberger said his first role was to try and get all the data together from transplant centres and then to work out strategies with clinicians to reduce risk.
A woman died after an experienced surgeon unintentionally attempted to take out the wrong organ during an operating theatre complication. Amy Joyce Francis, 77, was due to have a kidney removed at the Royal Gwent Hospital in July 2010 but instead the surgeon tried to remove her liver. The woman from Newport suffered a fatal heart attack after a loss of blood. The coroner recorded a narrative verdict which was fully accepted by the Aneurin Bevan Health Board.