The long-awaited publication of the Learning Disabilities Mortality Annual Report last week only served to tell us what we already know: people with learning disabilities keep being failed by the NHS. Every year the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership publishes a report which reviews the process for the deaths of people with learning difficulties.

This year’s report told us that 1,311 cases involving a learning disability were passed to NHS England between July 2016 and November 2017 and only 103 (8%) have been reviewed so far.

In recently released figures which was reported in the Guardian, the number of ‘ghost wards’ in NHS hospitals has doubled from 32 in 2014 to 88 in 2018. The figures show that 1,429 beds were unavailable within these ‘ghost wards’ for use. In light of the well reported challenges that NHS trusts have faced this winter, it is worrying that a large number of beds were unavailable at such a critical time for the NHS.

The health secretary Jeremy Hunt has addressed parliament in respect of “a serious failure that has come to light” in…

Listening to the BBC Radio 5 breakfast show yesterday morning I was disappointed to hear some of the comments made by Dr Pallavi Bradshaw, introduced as a senior medico-legal adviser for “Medical Protection” which was described by Nicky Campbell as a ‘not for profit legal support group for doctors’.

“Medical Protection” was of course a reference to the members defence organisation, the Medical Protection Society, which most legal observers would consider to be a quasi-insurance company. It was surprising to hear the MPS described in such terms on the BBC.

News that the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust has recalled 2,500 neurology patients, including children, for a case review 2,500 will no doubt be of huge concern to those directly affected. 

It is not yet clear what triggered the review, which concerns patients treated by consultant neurologist Dr Michael Watt, but the trust says it is a “serious” situation and has apologised.