Edinburgh's Eye hospital to reopen by end of June
The hospital was deemed unfit for purpose in 2015.The cost to replace the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion has since been put at £123m.In December Finance Secretary Shona Robison told MSPs the Scottish government would fund a replacement.Campaigners at the time told BBC Scotland News they welcomed the announcement with one saying she punched the air with joy.Jim Crombie, NHS Lothian deputy chief executive, said: "We are really grateful to our patients for their understanding while the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion has been temporarily closed, recognising the additional stress and inconvenience this may have caused.""We welcome the feedback we have received from patients and their families, which we have been able to use to help support our plans for the return to the building."I would like to reassure patients, as we prepare to move services back, that they do not need to do anything."They will continue to be notified of where any appointments are taking place."
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The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
AMA and other medical associations are kicked out of CDC vaccine workgroups
U.S. health officials have told more than a half-dozen of the nation's top medical organizations that they will no longer help establish vaccination recommendations. The government told the organizations on Thursday via email that their experts are being disinvited from the workgroups that have been the backbone of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The organizations include the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 'I'm concerned and distressed,' said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups. He said the move will likely propel a confusing fragmentation of vaccine guidance, as patients may hear the government say one thing and hear their doctors say another. One email said the organizations are 'special interest groups and therefore are expected to have a 'bias' based on their constituency and/or population that they represent.' A federal health official on Friday confirmed the action, which was first reported by Bloomberg. The decision was the latest development in what has become a saga involving the ACIP. The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. CDC directors have traditionally almost always approved those recommendations, which are widely heeded by doctors and greenlight insurance coverage for shots. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government's top health official, and in June abruptly fired the entire ACIP after accusing them of being too closely aligned with manufacturers. He handpicked replacements that include several vaccine skeptics. The workgroups typically include committee members and experts from medical and scientific organizations. At workgroup meetings, members evaluate data from vaccine manufacturers and the CDC, and formulate vaccination recommendation proposals to be presented to the full committee. The structure was created for several reasons, Schaffner said. The professional groups provide input about what might and might not be possible for doctors to implement. And it helped build respect and trust in ACIP recommendations, having the buy-in of respected medical organizations, he said. Workgroup members are vetted for conflicts of interest, to make sure than no one who had, say, made money from working on a hepatitis vaccine was placed on the hepatitis committee, Schaffner noted. Also disinvited from the groups were the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the American Geriatrics Society, the American Osteopathic Association, the National Medical Association and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. In a joint statement Friday, the AMA and several of the other organizations said: 'To remove our deep medical expertise from this vital and once transparent process is irresponsible, dangerous to our nation's health, and will further undermine public and clinician trust in vaccines.' They urged the administration to reconsider the move "so we can continue to feel confident in its vaccine recommendations for our patients.' Some of the professional organizations have criticized Kennedy's changes to the ACIP, and three of the disinvited groups last month joined a lawsuit against the government over Kennedy's decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccines for most children and pregnant women. In a social media post Friday, one of the Kennedy-appointed ACIP members — Retsef Levi — wrote that the working groups 'will engage experts from even broader set of disciplines!' Levi, a business management professor, also wrote that working group membership 'will be based on merit & expertise — not membership in organizations proven to have (conflicts of interest) and radical & narrow view of public health!' HHS officials have not said which people are going to be added to the ACIP workgroups. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Three million on NHS England waiting lists have had no care since GP referral
Almost half of the 6 million people needing treatment from the NHS in England have had no further care at all since joining a hospital waiting list, new data reveals. Previously unseen NHS England figures show that 2.99 million of the 6.23 million patients (48%) awaiting care have not had either their first appointment with a specialist or a diagnostic test since being referred by a GP. The Patients Association described the situation as 'an invisible waiting list crisis' that was 'staggering' in scale, with millions living in limbo, anxious as their health deteriorates. The data raises doubts about Keir Starmer's repeated pledge that 92% of patients will be treated within 18 weeks of referral by 2029 – his key promise to voters on health. The target has not been hit since 2015, and in May just 61% were treated on time. In a further sign of how difficult it will be to meet that target, the data shows that a third of the 3 million unseen patients – 1 million people – have already waited more than 18 weeks without receiving any care. It is the first time the phenomenon of 'unseen patients' has emerged as part of the huge challenge facing the government in its drive to 'get the NHS back on its feet'. Until now debate around the NHS backlog has focused on the number of treatments patients are due to receive and how many are waiting – currently 7.36m and 6.23m respectively. 'If accurate, 3 million people are trapped in an invisible waiting list crisis, stuck without basic diagnostic tests of first appointments while their conditions worsen,' said Rachel Power, the chief executive of the Patients Association. 'The scale is staggering, as nearly half of all patients on a waiting list haven't been seen by anyone. That's not a healthcare service; that's a breakdown. 'These aren't just statistics. They're people checking their phones daily for hospital calls that never come, unable to plan their lives while their symptoms deteriorate.' The figures have been collated and analysed by the health data specialist MBI Health, which helps dozens of NHS trusts improve their treatment waiting times. It has shared its findings with the Guardian. Barry Mulholland, the firm's founder and a former NHS manager, said the health service should see the waiting list as 'a frontlog, not a backlog', because so many people had not had their 'first clinical contact' after joining it. In recent years ministers and NHS bosses have made reducing the number of people waiting 12 or 18 months for care their priority. 'There are so many people who have already waited so long without seeing anyone – 3 million unseen patients who haven't had their first contact. 'Unless that's dealt with, you will never achieve that target of seeing and treating patients within 18 weeks. 'From the government's point of view, the pledge to get back to 18 weeks by 2029 will be really hard to accomplish if this huge group of patients isn't seen more quickly.' 'We'll never clear the waiting list if we don't fix the point where patients enter the system, and long delays begin,' he added. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion NHS England acknowledged the vast number of people who had had no NHS care since joining the waiting list. Of the 7.3m treatments patients were waiting for, 4.7m – nearly two-thirds (64%) – were for people who had not had a first consultation with a specialist or a diagnostic test yet. And 1.6m of this 4.7m had already gone beyond the 18-week supposed maximum waiting time for treatment, it added. Alison Bennett, a Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, said: 'These figures are harrowing. Behind every one of these numbers is a person in pain, anxious about their health, and desperately waiting for their first contact from a clinician. 'This isn't a problem that appeared overnight; it's the direct result of the Conservative party mismanaging our NHS for years. It is unacceptable that millions of people are still being left in a state of limbo, while their conditions potentially worsen.' Ministers would only 'fix' the NHS if they overhauled social care to unblock jammed-up hospitals, she added. MBI's analysis also found that the medical specialities with the largest number of unseen patients were ear, nose and throat care, orthopaedics, eye care, gastroenterology and gynaecology. Between 67% and 75% of those waiting lists are made up of such patients, Mulholland added. The Department of Health and Social Care did not comment on the 3 million unseen patients. A spokesperson said only that: 'Thanks to this government's record investment, reforms and the hard work of NHS staff, we've cut the waiting list by over 260,000 since July 2024, which also fell for the first time in 17 years in April and May outside the pandemic. On top of this, we have also delivered 4.6m appointments – more than double the 2m we promised. 'This government is delivering the fundamental reform needed to turn our NHS around, and our 10-year health plan will build on this progress, to ensure we meet our target that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks for treatment by March 2029.'
Scottish Sun
2 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
NHS bosses ‘still on the hook' despite nurse Sandie Peggie's ‘racist' remarks, says Anas Sarwar
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) NHS bosses are still in the firing line over their trans policy even if a nurse at the centre of a tribunal row did make 'racist' remarks, Anas Sarwar said. The Scottish Labour leader said 'horrific' remarks attributed to nurse Sandie Peggie about ethnic minorities does not detract from public bodies' duty to keep biological males out of female changing rooms. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 4 Nurse Sandie Peggie was accused of making highly racist remarks Credit: Getty 4 She was suspended by NHS Fife for challenging trans Dr Beth Upton (pictured) about using the women's changing room Credit: Alamy 4 Anas Sarwar said Ms Peggie's remarks should not let NHS Fife off the hook Credit: Les Gallagher Ms Peggie has denied claims from two colleagues that she joked about posting bacon through the letterbox of a local mosque, insisting the remark came from a paramedic on the ward. Ms Peggie admitted she had a fear of the mosque being built in Kirkcaldy due to her having concerns about Sharia Law being introduced in the UK. She said did not dislike all Muslims and that her beliefs did not mean she would ever treat patients differently. The nurse, who worked for 30 years with NHS Fife, also said a number of racist jokes in a WhatsApp chat regarding flooding in Pakistan that killed nearly 2,000 people in 2022 was humour, intended to try and shock people. The nurse said she had used derogatory terms to describe people from Pakistan and China because these were common terms when she was growing up. She said people of those ethnicities that she knew were not offended when the terms had been used. MSP Mr Sarwar said: 'Those comments, if they are as attributed, are completely and utterly unacceptable. 'But we have also got to be really careful that we don't distract from the big issues that matter. 'Just because we might find these comments attributed horrific doesn't mean health boards and the Scottish Government should not comply with the Equality Act and protect single sex spaces based on biological sex. 'We can do that while also building a society that is free of prejudice of any kind, including racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, antisemitism and Islamophobia.' NATS health secretary Neil Gray today failed to back nurse Sandie Peggie amid a row over single-sex space
