Hospitals block patient complaints on legal grounds

Hospitals are routinely using the threat of legal action to block investigations into medical blunders, patient safety campaigners have claimed, as they threaten a legal challenge against the Health Secretary.

Campaigners say that confusing NHS guidance, which their lawyers say is unlawful, is allowing hospitals to routinely close down complaints

Lawyers for the charity Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) have issued the threat to Jeremy Hunt over NHS guidance which says hospitals can refuse to consider complaints if a patient or relative is considering future legal action.

The rules were supposed to be changed in 2009, so that hospitals could not use the possibility of a potential claim as an “excuse” to deny a truthful investigation to victims of poor care or medical errors.

Stem cells used to grow human liver on mouse

Stem cells used to grow human liver on mouse

Patients suffering from liver failure could be injected with tiny replacement organs grown from their own stem cells after scientists succeeded in growing minature livers in mice.

Police asked to investigate watchdog's missing emails

The police have been asked to investigate evidence that the NHS watchdog accused of a cover-up over a maternity deaths scandal prevented damning emails from coming to light.

Left to right: CQC Chief Executive David Behan, Chair David Prior and Sterl Greenhalgh answer questions from Health Select Committee in the House of Commons

Last month an independent report accused former senior executives at the Care Quality Commission of ordering the deletion of a critical document which outlined its failures to prevent the scandal.

But yesterday it emerged that emails which showed that other CQC managers were aware in January 2010 of “systemic” problems at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation trust, yet wanted to give it a clean bill of health, were never seen by the firm hired to investigate CQC’s behaviour.

Scurvy returns among children with diets 'worse than in the war’

Wartime diseases are returning to Britain because some children are living on junk food diets that are worse for them than rationing was 70 years ago, officials have claimed.

Cases of scurvy and rickets have been on the rise in parts of the UK

Cases of scurvy and rickets have been on the rise in parts of the UK where some parents rely on takeaways and microwave meals to feed the family, health staff warned.

Dietitians in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, said they were seeing an increase in both diseases, which were thought to have been consigned to history.

Middle East virus claims third life as fears of pandemic spread

A man being treated in a London hospital for a lethal 'Sars-like' Middle Eastern virus has died.

The patient had severe respiratory illness due to novel coronavirus (MERS-nCV)

The man, a Qatari national, had been admitted to a private clinic in London in September, before being transferred to the specialist centre at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital.

He was diagnosed as suffering from the Mers virus – Middle East Respiratory Syndrome – which has affected 77 people worldwide, with 43 deaths.

Tiny livers grown from stem cells could repair damaged organs

Patients suffering from liver failure could be injected with tiny replacement organs grown from their own stem cells within the next ten years following new research.

Scientists have for the first time grown miniature precursors to human livers known as liver buds using a combination of three different types of stem cells.

They have shown that by transplanting these tiny liver buds - which are normally found in developing embryos in the womb – into mice, they then matured into adult livers.

Tameside Hospital: chief executive resigns amid claims of poor care

The chief executive of a scandal-hit hospital has resigned amid accusations she presided over a "prevailing culture of failure".

Patients are left in corridors for hours as A&E is full

Following revelations about poor patient care, Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Greater Manchester announced that Christine Green had tendered her resignation.

It came after two reviews by the hospital found patients were having to wait up to four days to see a consultant, or were left in corridors for hours when A&E was full.

Salespeople on maternity wards can be positive, mother claims

A mother has started a petition calling for an end to the “bounty mutiny” as some women claim they find sales representatives on maternity wards helpful through difficult times.

The company pays the NHS for access to maternity wards

Bounty sales representatives pay for access to maternity wards where they approach new mothers with “baby bags” containing samples, advertising material and HMRC child benefit forms.

They also ask for personal data, which is later sold onto third parties, and sometimes take photographs of the new mothers which they can buy.

IVF ban on baby sex selection is not justified, says ethicist

The UK’s ban on couples selecting the sex of their children has no ethical justification, a leading ethicist has said.

Britons have been known to travel abroad to countries such as the United States or India to determine the gender of the IVF embryo before it is implanted into the womb

In an influential report, Professor Stephen Wilkinson said it would be ethical to allow people to use fertility techniques to choose whether they have a boy or a girl.

His report found sex selection would not create a gender imbalance in the UK unlike in countries such as China and India were boys are more popular than girls.

Modern diets lead to rise in wartime diseases for children

Wartime diseases such as scurvy and rickets are on the rise among British children because their junk food diets are worse than during rationing, doctors have warned.

Wartime diseases are returning to modern British children because their junk food diets are worse than during rationing

Health chiefs said a the resurgence of such disease is being caused by parents' reliance on takeaways and microwave meals to feed their children.

Dr Mark Temple, chairman of the British Medical Association's public health medicine committee, warned: "Food standards in the UK are worse now that they were during the rationing during the war."