In the news...
This section contains links to news stories or press releases relating to human rights and healthcare. The breadth of issues and severity of many of the cases illustrate the need to place human rights at the centre of health and social care.
Extracts taken from NHS website, 27.03.2012
Elderly patients with dementia “are being illegally locked in their rooms” to make them easier to manage, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The claim is based on a new report looking at how well hospitals and care homes safeguard the human rights of people who cannot make decisions about their own care. It focused on the legal obligations around confining and securing individuals who may be at risk of harming themselves, such as some people with dementia, brain injuries or severe learning difficulties.
The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (often referred to as "the safeguards") came into effect in 2009 as part of a legal framework set out in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Their aim is to ensure that people who are mentally incapacitated, and therefore unable to make...
6 weeks 2 days agoExtracts taken from Eastbourne Herald, 17.03.12
A leading human rights lawyer is investigating Eastbourne DGH on the back of its disappointing inspection by a health watchdog.
Last year the Care Quality Commission (CQC) criticised the trust which runs the hospital in Eastbourne after its inspections team unearthed a catalogue of failings and concerns over patient care.
A follow-up visit then found that while some improvements had been made, there were areas which were still falling well short of what is acceptable – particularly in the field of how vulnerable people were being dealt with.
Emma Jones, from the human rights team at law firm Leigh Day & Co, has cited the CQC’s 55-page report and subsequent warnings handed out to management at the trust as evidence that there may be cases for her and her team to take up.
Among the...
7 weeks 2 days agoExtracts taken from Pulse Today article, 10.02.12
NHS managers should consider targeting immigrants and elderly patients first in order to meet brutal new GP list cleansing targets next year, says guidance from a DH advisory body.
As part of the urgent drive to reduce variance in population and practice lists by 3%, new advice says PCTs should conduct ‘targeted campaigns' at certain groups to eliminate so-called ‘ghost' patients.
Written by DH advisory body Primary Care Commissioning, the guidance lists successful list-cleansing schemes and gives examples of targeted campaigns in South Gloucestershire, South West Essex and Berkshire West which resulted in the removal of 24,000 ghost patients.
They include sending verification letters to all patients aged...
7 weeks 2 days agoExtracts taken from The Guardian article on 12.03.12
Family doctors 'too busy' setting up clinical commissioning groups, while locum surgeons costing almost £1m a year.
Senior GPs are spending as little as one day a week seeing patients because they are too busy setting up new organisations as part of the coalition's health reforms, official NHS records reveal.
Family doctors are devoting as many as four days a week to setting up clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), the groups of family doctors that will become key NHS bodies from April 2013.
But it costs the NHS up to £123,900 a year to replace a GP with a locum. In one CCG area alone, 15 local doctors are each spending up to two days a week away from surgery, at a cost of almost £1m a year.
Doctors' leaders claim GPs' skills are going unused and that the costs involved show...
8 weeks 2 days agoExtracts taken from Pulse Today article 14.03.12
One of the UK's biggest HIV charities is encouraging patients to anonymously rate named GPs online in a bid to signpost ‘HIV friendly' practices and help patients avoid ‘discrimination', after signing a landmark deal with the GP ratings site iWantGreatCare.
The collaboration with the Terrence Higgins Trust, which provides services to over 50,000 people a year, is the first in a series of agreements iWantGreatCare hopes to sign with charities, as it looks to expand the reach of its site.
Garry Brough, membership officer for Terrence Higgins Trust, told Pulse patients with HIV were often subject to discrimination and breaches of confidentiality in primary care, and said the new deal would...
8 weeks 2 days agoExtracts taken from Guardian article, 09.03.12
The UK's human rights watchdog is intervening in a landmark case over the use of "do not resuscitate" orders for NHS patients.
David Tracey alleges medical staff at the hospital unlawfully issued two such orders without the consent of his 63-year-old wife, Janet, or discussion with her and that by doing so deprived her of her right to life and subjected her to degrading treatment. He also says that he was thereby denied respect for his personal and family life.
David Tracey also wants to force the government to draw up a national policy on the use of instructions not to attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNRs), which are issued on thousands of patients each year. The government insists the matter is better left to existing national professional guidance backed up by local trust policies. The...
8 weeks 6 days agoExtracts taken from Pulse Today article on 14.03.12
PMS practices are planning redundancies and some could even be forced to close by a ‘catastrophic' wave of contract reviews that will see five-figure sums stripped from budgets next year.
GPs across London, Staffordshire and the North West are among those targeted, with one PCT planning to squeeze up to £2m in QIPP savings from PMS budgets next year, and a practice elsewhere claiming it stands to lose £200,000.
The cuts follow a claim from GPC chair Dr Laurence Buckman in January that the ‘writing is on the wall for PMS', and come nine months after legal experts warned PMS practices faced a ‘precarious' future after a landmark High Court judgment gave PCTs the power to...
9 weeks 1 day agoExtracts taken from publicservice.co.uk article, 06.03.12.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is failing to identify and stop elderly people having their basic human rights ignored, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said, claiming that the way the elderly are treated now meets the legal definition of torture which refers to "inhuman or degrading treatment".
And it isn't just the CQC that's at fault, the commission said, claiming there are 10 areas where public bodies have failed to meet human rights standards. In particular, the EHRC blamed social services, local authorities and the police for not doing enough to tackle violence against women and child abuse in the home. Worse than that, they have even ignored reports of such abuse. The commission also defended the Human Rights Act which the Home Secretary Theresa May has said should be scrapped.
The EHRC...9 weeks 6 days ago
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