Displaying items by tag: NHS

Documents used to investigate the deaths at Gosport Hospital have revealed that 456 people died from the staff practice of prescribing too many painkillers without medical justification. An additional 200 patients were ‘probably’ similarly affected between 1989 and 2000. The inquiry, led by Rt Rev James Jones, did not ascribe criminal or civil liability for the deaths. He said that a number of nurses raised concerns about prescribing diamorphine. Their warnings went unheeded, the opportunity to rectify the practice was lost, deaths resulted, and 22 years later it had become necessary to hold an inquiry to discover the truth of what happened. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said that a catalogue of failings had been identified, and apologised to the grieving families. Hampshire’s chief constable said that police would assess any new information contained in the report,, and consult their partners in health and the Crown Prosecution Service in order to decide the next steps.

You recently prayed for a change in visa rules regarding trained medical staff because they were not working in the best interests of NHS patients. The Home Office has now decided that foreign doctors and nurses will be excluded from the government's visa cap. This will be a huge relief for NHS trusts across the country, which have been really struggling to fill their doctor and nurse vacancies. Some believe that Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s latest move could indicate a new direction for immigration policy post-Brexit.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has appointed a team of atheist priests after demand for pastoral support from patients with no religion. These ‘Clerics’ will be working under a non-religious chaplain for the first time in NHS history. Humanist Lindsay van Dijk was appointed head chaplain at Stoke Mandeville Hospital after a British Social Attitudes survey found 53% of Britons had no religion. Ms van Dijk told a meeting at Stoke Mandeville Hospital that the chaplaincy team will visit patients to lend a listening ear, provide ‘spiritual’ and emotional support and won’t specifically say ‘I’m from this faith’.  She said that in her new role she has experienced 'mostly curiosity' rather than objections. Pray for the church to declare more loudly that Christian Chaplains support for hospital patients is for those of all faiths and none and that putting a humanist in charge of a chaplaincy team takes us further away from the NHS’s Christian roots.

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) recently called for doctor-assisted dying to be legalised, ‘to reflect public support’. They said assisted suicide works well in other countries. However, there are increasing reports of involuntary euthanasia in countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, and euthanasia is being extended to minor and non-life-threatening conditions. Consequently the elderly and vulnerable are now fearful of going into hospital. In the UK, doctors are said to be 2:1 against the legalisation of assisted suicide. However a poll on the BMJ website asking whether doctor-assisted dying should be legalised claimed that 59% voted Yes and 41% No. It is possible that this figure was manipulated to produce the desired result; some responders voting No were told their vote was not accepted due to a technical hitch. Activists are calling for doctor-assisted dying to become legal for those with six months to live, even though it is difficult to predict life expectancy.

On 1 January a petition calling for the banning of medical intervention to change gender surgically or medically by hormones for people below the age of 18 was sent to the Department of Health and Social Care. Responding to the petition on 20 February, the department appears not to have changed its policy, stating that a person under 16 is competent to give valid consent to a particular intervention if they have sufficient intelligence to enable them to understand fully what is proposed. There are no such sentiments when it comes to protecting under-18s from making choices they might in the future regret with regard to purchasing tobacco and alcohol; also, sex under the age of 16 remains a criminal offence.

Following the proposal by the NHS for a new form of prenatal screening, Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), for women ‘at high risk' of having a child with Down's syndrome, Prayer Alert readers prayed for the General Synod to call for regulation on providers of this screening. See The Synod members have now affirmed that they welcome medical advances, but are also calling for the Government and health professionals to ensure that women whose unborn child has Down's syndrome are given comprehensive and unbiased information about it. They added that people with this condition should be welcomed, celebrated and treated with dignity and respect.

Sir Ed Davey put the ‘Homelessness End of Life Care Bill’ before Parliament on Wednesday, but it will need to win the support of MPs and ministers to move forward and end the current situation where people with cancer or long term illnesses are ‘dying on doorsteps’. The plan is to offer homeless people with terminal illnesses a right to housing. Under current laws, many who are sleeping rough, living in hostels or staying on friends’ sofas are not automatically eligible for long-term housing. The local authority deems they have other options. The number of people sleeping rough in England hit a record high of 4,751 last autumn, double the 2010 number. Those who are expected to die in the next twelve months need palliative care. They are cold and in pain, possibly in hostels with staff who have no medical training and no painkillers or drugs to manage people who are dying.

CofE leaders are concerned that a growing number of parents who discover their child will be born with Down’s Syndrome are choosing to terminate the pregnancy, a pattern which could see such children wiped out completely. The General Synod next week will debate a call to regulate providers of non-invasive prenatal testing, a relatively new test for the condition which carries no risk of miscarriage, unlike older procedures. The Church said that women should be provided with ‘comprehensive, unbiased information’ by doctors and test providers. In a document entitled Valuing People with Down’s Syndrome, the Church warned that the test might lead to major reductions of Down’s Syndrome live births. Iceland and Denmark have screening and almost 100% termination rates. Currently there are unregulated websites offering a blood test for a few hundred pounds, with no context or information about the prospects for someone with Down's Syndrome. See also

The following is based on a Passion for the Nation post: ‘God desires this nation to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. We can pray for a new season of health to come upon this land and for lifestyles to be changed and negative patterns broken, irrespective of background or wealth. May a fresh wisdom and desire for healthy living rest upon individuals, families and communities, supported and encouraged by all related industries in production and marketing. We pray that in this season Government, NHS trusts, managers and medical staff will work together, co-operating and stewarding resources well; that new medical and financial strategies will be found, facilitating God’s purpose and priority. In the Name of Jesus, we come in agreement with Proverbs 16:24: “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweet and delightful to the soul and healing to the body”. We pray for a new thankfulness for the NHS to be released within our nation.’

The following is based on prayers originally written in 2011, as part of a visual prayer resource on the UK National Health Service. It is time to pray for our NHS, particularly concerns over the future of the service due to budget cuts and reforms, reports of insufficient funding, accommodation and care and respect for elderly and increasing hospital admissions resulting from alcohol-related illnesses. Pray for more recognition and support to be given to the huge numbers of health professionals making life-changing decisions for the sick and vulnerable who come into their care daily. Pray for God to give His wisdom to our government, health professionals, and advisers as they seek the right reforms. Ask that our health service managers may prosper our doctors and nurses to care, to excel, and to bring healing. May our nation understand, thank, and honour those who seek to bring us health.