… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: NHS

  • Thousands harmed and 87 dead after NHS equipment failures in England

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    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/09/thousands-harmed-and-87-dead-after-nhs-equipment-failures-in-england

    Labour has pledged to double the number of scanners in English hospitals over the course of the parliament. Photograph: wilpunt/Getty Images

    ‘Shocking statistics’ prompt calls for government funding to replace broken and obsolete medical devices

    Almost 100 people have died and 4,000 have been harmed after equipment malfunctions in the NHS in the past three years, prompting calls for more government funding to upgrade broken and obsolete medical devices.

    A defibrillator advising paramedics not to administer a shock, an emergency alarm system on a neonatal ward failing, and the camera on an intubation device going dark were just three failures after which patients died.

    They are included in figures released for the first time by NHS England that show patients were harmed after 3,915 equipment malfunction incidents – with 87 being followed by a death – since 2022.

    Paul Whiteing, the chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents, said: “These are shocking statistics. Behind these numbers are real people who are needlessly harmed, the impact of which will be life-changing and traumatic.

    “The scale of the harm and loss of life that has resulted from basic equipment failures and malfunctions shows in stark relief the scale of the tragedy that has resulted from years of underfunding in the NHS.”

    …

    Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Modern, up-to-date equipment such as scanners, defibrillators and patient monitors are absolutely essential for hospitals to run safely and more productively. But due to more than a decade of being starved of capital investment, NHS staff have been left with no option but to extend the life of obsolete equipment, which, as this research shows, is putting patients at unnecessary risk and leading to tragic avoidable harm.

    “While the additional investment the government has pledged has been a welcome start, without sufficient capital funding it will be hard for the NHS to maintain the standards patients rightly expect and to deliver the government’s ‘plan for change’ promise to cut waiting times.”

    …

    Original article is at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/09/thousands-harmed-and-87-dead-after-nhs-equipment-failures-in-england

  • UK government withholding details of Palantir contract

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    https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/uk-government-withholding-details

    KPMG is being paid £8 million to promote Peter Thiel’s tech in NHS hospitals – but we’re being forced to fight for information about this public contract.

    It’s been a good week for Palantir. The controversial spy-tech company, co-founded by Trump donor Peter Thiel, looks set to secure even more UK government work after the defence secretary pledged to expand the role of AI in the military.

    Palantir already holds a £330 million NHS data contract. But as Democracy for Sale revealed last week, most hospitals in England are not using the software, with many complaining that it simply isn’t up to scratch.

    To encourage hospitals to take it up, the government signed an £8 million deal with consultancy giant KPMG to “promote the adoption” of Palantir’s tech in the NHS.

    We wanted to know more about how this money is being spent. How exactly has KPMG been promoting Palantir’s software to hospitals? And has it worked?

    So, we submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), asking for reports produced by KPMG under its contract, as well as briefings prepared for Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who publicly supported the deal.

    The government’s response? Silence. They’re refusing to release the information—so now we’re fighting for transparency.

    Sue Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, told us the government’s “impulse to secrecy around public money and public contracts” is “deeply concerning.”

    “KPMG’s contract raises a real question: if [Palantir’s] software is so good, why does the government need to give £8 million of taxpayers’ money to a management consultancy to encourage NHS hospitals to use it?,” she added.

    …

    Article continues at https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/uk-government-withholding-details

  • The convictions of Lucy Letby: should they be overturned?

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    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/14/the-convictions-of-lucy-letby-should-they-be-overturned

    ‘There was no medical evidence to support malfeasance’ … Lucy Letby. Composite: Guardian Design; Cheshire Constabulary/PA

    When the former nurse was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, a 1980s research paper was key to the prosecution’s case. But the author of the paper himself believes there has been a miscarriage of justice – and so too do other doctors

    The convictions are unsafe and should be overturned as soon as possible

    Dr Shoo Lee

    On 4 February 2025, Lucy Letby’s barrister, Mark McDonald, convened a press conference at the grand baroque Westminster venue One Great George Street. It became a landmark moment, the culmination of months in which a number of distinguished experts had spoken out to question the former nurse’s convictions.

    The media were addressed for an hour by a Canadian medical professor, Dr Shoo Lee. He said that a panel of international experts disputed the prosecution case that had led to Letby being found guilty in two trials of murdering seven babies at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2015 and 2016, and attempting to murder seven others. She was sentenced to 15 whole-life orders, and the court of appeal unanimously refused her permission to appeal.

    “We did not find any murders,” Lee said. “In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care.”

    Lee is one of the world’s leading neonatologists – doctors who specialise in the medical science and care of premature babies. Before his retirement from clinical practice in 2021, he held senior leadership positions in Canada, headed up international collaborations and conducted extensive research. His journey to becoming so involved in a criminal process pursued in the provinces of north-west England is a remarkable feature of the Letby case. It springs from Lee being told, after Letby was convicted, that a medical research paper he authored more than 30 years ago had been used as a basis for one of the prosecution’s central allegations – that Letby killed babies by injecting air into their veins.

    Lee was dismayed, he told the Guardian, adding that the use of his paper was “incorrect” and a “categorical error”, and he was concerned Letby may have been wrongly convicted. He agreed to give evidence to the court of appeal but the judges dismissed it as “irrelevant” when they refused Letby’s application. He then committed to assembling a world-class panel who would fully assess the evidence. Lee’s eminence meant that the peers he could call on comprised leading specialists in Canada, the US, Japan and Europe, including two distinguished UK-based consultants, Dr Neena Modi, a pre-eminent neonatologist, and the renowned perinatal pathologist Dr Marta Cohen. Lee flew across the Atlantic at his own expense to present their findings at that bombshell press conference.

    He explained the acute medical problems some of the premature babies had suffered, and said the panel found “no medical evidence to support malfeasance” or deliberate harm. But they had identified “so many problems” with the babies’ care, in a unit that had “inadequate numbers of appropriately trained” staff.

    “If this had happened at a hospital in Canada,” Lee said bluntly, “it would have been shut down.”

    …

    Article is long and very detailed, continues at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/14/the-convictions-of-lucy-letby-should-they-be-overturned

  • Morning Star Editorial: Having sold out on every working-class promise, Starmer finally stoops to migrant-bashing

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    Chasing racist votes Keir Starmer says that he can be just as racist and cnuty as Nigel Farage.
    Chasing racist votes Keir Starmer says that he can be just as racist and cnuty as Nigel Farage.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/having-sold-out-every-working-class-promise-starmer-finally-stoops-migrant-bashing

    …

    By pandering to racist representations of immigration and failing to explain it as the inevitable consequence of colonialism, empire and the neoliberal global order, Starmer now shares an ideological position with Nigel Farage.

    The plan to end licensed immigration by people contracted to work in the care sector will intensify the crisis in the NHS and make life miserable for people in care.

    Care sector employers are upset because it hits their supply of cheap labour and thus their profits.

    This illustrates a feature of 21st century immigration into capitalist countries that disrupts both Farage’s narrative and Labour’s imitation of the same.

    A migration-enlarged labour force increases precisely those profits — the unpaid wages that employers retain — that would be diminished if they were compelled to train locals and pay them enough to attract a sufficient supply of labour.

    A sensible strategy would be to attack Farage for his support for privatisation, his opposition to employment rights, his fawning over Trump and his works, his willingness to flog off the NHS to US corporations.

    The most productive approach would be to stand up for what most Reform UK voters want and which they share with most people in our country — public ownership, higher taxes on the rich and an end to the privileges of the plutocracy.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/having-sold-out-every-working-class-promise-starmer-finally-stoops-migrant-bashing

    Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
    Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.

  • Labour delivers ‘crushing blow to Britain’s fragile care sector’

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-delivers-crushing-blow-britains-fragile-care-sector

     Home Secretary Yvette Cooper makes a speech at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit at Lancaster House in central London, March 31, 2025

    Unions and campaigners condemn Home Secretary after government confirms scrapping of care worker visas

    UNIONS and campaigners have condemned Labour’s immigration reforms after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed that the government will scrap the care worker visa for overseas recruitment.

    Announcing the policy ahead of Monday’s Immigration White Paper, Ms Cooper said the visa route would be closed to “prevent” international recruitment for care jobs, though companies may continue to employ people already in Britain on care visas whose sponsorship has subsequently been cancelled.

    The White Paper will also change skilled visa thresholds to graduate-level and includes tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages.The legislation aims to bring down net migration — the number of foreign nationals who arrive in Britain, minus the number of people who leave — which stood at 728,000 in 2024.

    …

    Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “The NHS and the care sector would have collapsed long ago without the thousands of workers who’ve come to the UK from overseas.

    “Migrant health and care staff already here will now be understandably anxious about what’s to happen to them. “The government must reassure these overseas workers they’ll be allowed to stay and continue with their indispensable work.”

    Ms McAnea, whose union represents NHS and care workers, said that care workers from around the world “no longer want” to come to Britain due to “hostile” policies, bans on bringing family members, and widespread exploitation by unscrupulous employers.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-delivers-crushing-blow-britains-fragile-care-sector

    dizzy: This appears a very stupid, short-sighted step but then that is this Fascist Labour party. What do they hope to achieve? To look tough on migration by stopping foreign workers willing to be paid a pittance for wiping UK asses and exploited by their UK employers in other ways? Migrant agricultural workers too?

    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.