Displaying items by tag: NHS

There are fears that the new Covid variant, Omicron, ‘could be’ more infectious and less responsive to vaccines. Therefore, from 10 December, face coverings are mandatory for most indoor venues including places of worship, theatres and cinemas - as well as on public transport and in shops and hairdressers. Masks won't be needed in pubs, restaurants, or gyms where it's ‘not practical to wear them’. From 13 December, people should work from home ‘if possible’. From 15 December (subject to parliamentary approval), people will need to show an NHS Covid vaccination status or a recent negative lateral flow test to enter nightclubs, indoor unseated venues with over 500 people, unseated outdoor venues with over 4,000 people and any venue with over 10,000 people. They must also do lateral flow tests (LFT) before entering high-risk settings like crowded places involving people you wouldn't normally come into contact with, or when visiting a vulnerable person.

Christian Concern have been in court with NHS electrician Brian Walker, who has launched legal action against North Bristol NHS Trust after being forced out of his job for his beliefs on multi-culturalism, Islam and same-sex 'marriage'. Following many months of investigations, reports and hearings within the Trust, Brian was given a final written warning, and told he had to attend 'equality training'. However, lawyers for the NHS Trust have argued that Brian's Christian beliefs are ‘incompatible with human dignity’ and ‘not worthy of respect in a democratic society’, which means that his perfectly reasonable, orthodox Christian beliefs would be labelled as on a par with Nazism. Pray for the ruling, that Brian's beliefs would be protected and the case would not be struck out.

The number of deaths of people treated under the Mental Health Act in England rose during the coronavirus pandemic. The Care Quality Commission's findings come amid concerns over staff shortages in psychiatric units. 490 people died while detained under the act in the year to March 2021, 324 of them for non-Covid reasons. The average overall figure between 2012 and 2019 was 273. Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt warned that shortages of doctors and nurses were now compromising patient safety ‘in every part of the NHS’. Mr Hunt, who now chairs the Commons health and social care committee, said ‘We still put far too many people into secure accommodation when they haven't committed any crime, just because it's the only option left.’

Nearly 10,000 more people than usual have died in the past four months from non-Covid reasons. Fears are growing that NHS delays at the height of the pandemic left large numbers of people with previously treatable conditions suffering illnesses that have now become fatal. England and Wales registered 20,823 more deaths than the five-year average in the past 18 weeks. The director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine is calling for an urgent investigation. The excess deaths are happening in conditions like ischemic heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes, all potentially reversible. There’s a need to find out if these deaths were fallout from the lack of preventable care during the pandemic, and what happens downstream of that.

Health leaders have called for some Covid restrictions to be reintroduced immediately to avoid England stumbling into a winter crisis. They said a back-up strategy, a Plan B which includes mandatory face coverings in crowded and enclosed spaces, should be implemented. UK cases have been rising sharply. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said it was not yet time for a Plan B and urged a greater uptake of booster jabs. He did not want to jeopardise the ‘hard-won gains’ of reopening the economy even though for a week daily Covid cases have averaged above 40,000, the worst figures since March. Overall, he said, ‘the health service is right at the edge’. Meanwhile, the health secretary is telling the public to ‘play their part and get a booster jab’ in order to enjoy Christmas with loved ones. Cabinet Office officials are already discussing ‘Plan C’ proposals which would ban mixing between households. See

A report compiled by two committees, containing MPs from all parties, revealed that the early response to stop Covid spreading was a complete failure. Attempting herd immunity led to a delay in introducing the first lockdown and cost over 150,000 lives. The report covers a variety of successes and failures in 150 pages. MPs Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark, chairing the committees, said the nature of the pandemic meant it was ‘impossible to get everything right’. ‘The UK has combined some big achievements with some big mistakes. It is vital to learn from both’, they said. Stephen Barclay said scientific advice had been followed and difficult judgments had been made to protect the NHS. A full public inquiry is expected in 2022, and the Government will not shy away from any lessons to be learned. Pray for the inquiry to have bereaved families at its heart.

Mary Onuoha, an operating theatre specialist at Croydon University Hospital, was bullied and pressured to remove her cross necklace while on duty. Mary says she was forced out of the job she loved after working there for 18 years. She is challenging the NHS trust for harassment, victimisation, and constructive unfair dismissal as they had breached her freedom to express her faith under the European Convention of Human Rights and the Equality Act. In August 2018 bosses ordered her to remove the cross which was a breach of NHS dress code and a ‘health risk’ to her and to patients. Mary argues that the dress code was applied inconsistently. Other nurses were not asked to remove jewellery, hijabs, saris, turbans or religious bracelets. Also Mary wore several lanyards at the same time with no anti-strangle clasps, yet her cross supposedly posed ‘a risk of injury or infection’.

Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is to review guidance on transgender patients, following a newspaper investigation which discovered that male sex offenders who self-identify as women are placed on female-only wards. Despite instructions from the Department of Health to eliminate mixed-sex wards, guidance from hospitals states that patients should be admitted based on the gender they identify with and can choose which ward, lavatories and facilities they use. A whistleblower nurse warned, ‘If patients question why there is a male-bodied person on a female-only ward, medics are told to say that there are no men present. Staff raising safeguarding concerns may be threatened with disciplinary action. The NHS is influenced by the controversial LGBT charity Stonewall.’ See

The National Health Service has been providing free health care to all UK citizens based on their need for medical care rather than their ability to pay for it since its inception in 1948. This mandate does not extend to social care such as home care and residential care, which is means-tested. There is no overall limit on social care costs so thousands of frail and elderly people have had to sell their homes to pay for residential care.  See Only those with savings, homes and assets worth less than £23,250 currently receive free council help with residential care. On 8th September Boris Johnson revealed plans to fund England’s social care and help the NHS recover after the pandemic. Employees, employers and self-employed will pay 1.25p more in the pound for National Insurance from April 2022. It will raise £12bn annually for the NHS and a proportion will be moved into social care over the next three years. Care cost contributions are to be capped at £86,000 from October 2023. If someone has less than £20,000 their care will be free and from £20,000 - £100,000 costs will be subsidised on a sliding scale.

Health bosses say that patients will be put at risk unless the NHS receives an extra £10bn next year to recover from the pandemic. A five-year settlement will see the funding increase by £33bn by 2023-24, but Covid has added to costs in a way that could not have been envisaged when Theresa May's government agreed the settlement in 2019. NHS leaders say the pandemic has led to pressures never seen in the history of the health service. Hospital layouts have had to be overhauled, services moved off site into new buildings, extra infection control procedures have been brought in, and the scale of sickness being seen means extra staff are needed to care for patients. At the same time, there is a growing backlog of traditional care such as hip and knee operations. Instead of budget growth by £4bn under the existing settlement, NHS leaders need almost £15bn.