Latest news with #MarkDayan
The National
21-04-2025
- Health
- The National
UK cancer patients being denied life-saving drugs due to Brexit
The numbers of people being diagnosed with cancer are soaring due to an ageing and growing population as well as improved diagnosis initiatives. But a 54-page report obtained by The Guardian has concluded that while patients across Europe are benefitting from a golden age of pioneering research, people in the UK are missing out thanks to rising prices and red tape sparked by the country's exit from the EU. Brexit has 'damaged the practical ability' of doctors to offer NHS patients life-saving new drugs via international clinical trials, the report states. In some cases, the cost of importing new cancer drugs for UK patients has nearly quadrupled as a result of post-Brexit red tape. READ MORE: Trans people not asked for ID at Edinburgh Waverley station, Network Rail says The report says the extra rules and costs have had a 'significant negative impact' on UK cancer research, creating 'new barriers' that are 'holding back life-saving research' for UK patients. Officials in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are reportedly studying the findings of the review. The publication cites evidence from a range of leading clinicians, scientists and researchers, and was compiled by experts from organisations including Cancer Research UK, the University of Southampton, and research consultancy Hatch. Three areas of UK cancer research have been hit particularly hard by its departure from the EU, according to the report. They are the regulatory environment for clinical trials, the mobility of the cancer research workforce and access to research funding and collaboration. UK patients are missing out on the expertise of the world's top cancer scientists, while clinical trial groups and universities are struggling to attract 'global talent' in cancer research to come to the UK. The report also reveals the UK is needlessly duplicating drug testing in clinical trials involving the UK and EU, with extra checks causing potentially deadly delays. In one case, the UK had to spend an extra £22,000 for an official to certify batches of aspirin for use in a cancer trial. The batches had already been checked in the EU. READ MORE: SNP suspend by-election campaigning after death of Pope UK researchers are finding it 'more difficult' too to attract grant funding to explore new ways to save the lives of patients 'due to additional bureaucracy since the UK left the EU'. Brexit is also having a wider, damaging effect on life-saving research in the EU. The report adds. 'The exclusion of UK researchers from European cancer research activities has had, and will continue to have, negative consequences for the overall European cancer research effort.' Mark Dayan, the Brexit programme lead at the health think tank Nuffield Trust, said the report highlighted 'concrete examples' of 'disruptions which many warned were inevitable from the moment that we left the EU with a relatively hard Brexit for health and research'. The UK and EU are due to renew the trade and cooperation agreement this year and discuss a wider reset which will shape the future UK-EU relationship. A UK Government spokesperson said: 'We are strengthening our relationship with the EU on research and have been providing extensive support for researchers to help them secure funding from the £80bn Horizon Europe programme and get more vital treatments from the lab to patients.'
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Satisfaction with NHS collapses despite Labour vow to fix service
Public satisfaction with the NHS has collapsed to a record low despite Labour vowing to turn the health service around. Experts said the NHS had not received a post-general election 'bounce' in public perception, which was likely because the Government had declared it 'broken'. The annual British Social Attitudes survey, which is considered the gold-standard measure of public sentiment, found a record low of just 21 per cent of Britons were satisfied with the NHS. This is the lowest since the first survey in 1983 and down from 24 per cent the year before. It has plummeted 39 percentage points since 2019. At the same time, a record high proportion of the public (59 per cent) were dissatisfied with the health service, up from 52 per cent the year before. Almost 3,000 people were surveyed in September and October for the report, which is produced by the Nuffield Trust and The King's Fund think tanks, and took place just months after Labour took power. Mark Dayan, co-author and Nuffield Trust policy analyst, said since the pandemic, there had been 'a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction'. 'This was no aberration: it is continuing even today. It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey,' he said. The report suggests the public agrees with Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting's rhetoric about the NHS being 'broken' and that this 'may partially explain the lack of a post-election 'bounce' in optimism from Labour supporters seen the last time their party swept to power'. It said satisfaction rates the last time Labour held office were an 'astonishingly high 70 per cent' and felt 'almost unreachable' today. Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, said the Government had 'taken the NHS off life support' since the survey was carried out. 'Thanks to the necessary decisions we took in the Budget, we've invested a record £26 billion over two years, ended the crippling strikes, cut waiting lists for five months in a row and delivered two million extra appointments seven months early,' he said. 'There's a long way to go, but we are fixing our NHS to make it fit for the future.' The growing discontent with the NHS was seen across supporters of all political parties, and satisfaction fell among both Conservative and Labour supporters despite the change of Government. For the first time, the report included the sentiment of Reform Party supporters, who were the least satisfied with the NHS at just 13 per cent. The analysis also found that 70 per cent of people in Labour-run Wales were dissatisfied with the NHS, which was worse than England and Scotland. The authors of the report said the findings made for 'grim' reading across the board. There were falls in satisfaction across services, including dentistry and general practice, which saw satisfaction levels decrease to record lows of 20 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. But the biggest drop-off was in Accident and Emergency, with just 19 per cent of the public satisfied with the service. It means A&E is the worst performing NHS service in the public's eye for the first time. Satisfaction with social care also remained at historic lows of just 13 per cent. The service people were most happy with was inpatient and outpatient hospital appointments, despite bringing down the 7.4 million backlog a priority for the Government. The researchers said the findings posed a conundrum about which of the areas to target for improvement. There was also widespread unhappiness with NHS waiting times and difficulty accessing services, including the time it takes to get a GP appointment, be seen in A&E or get a hospital appointment after a referral. However, just over half of the public were satisfied with the quality of NHS care they received once they had been seen. Most people believed the NHS should get more or the same amount of funding it currently does and that it needed more staff. Bea Taylor, lead author and fellow at the Nuffield Trust, said the findings show 'just how dismayed' people are about the state of the NHS. 'The Government says the NHS is broken, and the public agrees,' she said. 'But support for the core principles of the NHS – free at the point of use, available to all and funded by taxation – endures despite the collapse in satisfaction.' Some 68 per cent of over-65s are satisfied with the quality of care compared with 47 per cent of those who are younger. Meanwhile, 90 per cent of adults continue to support the founding principle of the NHS that it is free at the point of use, and 80 per cent still want it funded from general taxation. However, the proportion 'definitely' agreeing that it should be available to everyone fell 'significantly' from 67 per cent to 56 per cent. Dan Wellings, senior fellow at The King's Fund, said: 'The latest results lay bare the extent of the problems faced by the NHS and the size of the challenge for the Government. 'While the results are sobering, they should not be surprising. For too many people, the NHS has become difficult to access: how can you be satisfied with a service you can't get into?' It comes as a separate study, published in the BMJ Quality and Safety journal, found almost one in 10 people believe they have been harmed by the health service in recent years. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said that when treatment causes physical or emotional harm, there can be long-term impacts, as they said that there is 'still some way to go to improve safety across the NHS'. The survey of more than 10,000 adults across England, Wales and Scotland found that 9.7 per cent reported that they had been caused harm by the NHS in the last three years. An NHS spokesman said: 'While it's reassuring that most people continue to back the founding principles of the NHS and remain satisfied with the quality of care – particularly older patients who use it most often – it's clear that many are understandably frustrated with waiting times and access to key services like GPs and A&E.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
02-04-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Satisfaction with NHS collapses despite Labour vow to fix service
Almost 3,000 people were surveyed in September and October for the report, which is produced by the Nuffield Trust and The King's Fund think tanks, and took place just months after Labour took power. Mark Dayan, co-author and Nuffield Trust policy analyst, said since the pandemic, there had been 'a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction'. 'This was no aberration: it is continuing even today. It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey,' he said. The report suggests the public agrees with Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting's rhetoric about the NHS being 'broken' and that this 'may partially explain the lack of a post-election 'bounce' in optimism from Labour supporters seen the last time their party swept to power'. It said satisfaction rates the last time Labour held office were an 'astonishingly high 70 per cent' and felt 'almost unreachable' today. Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, said the Government had 'taken the NHS off life support' since the survey was carried out. 'Thanks to the necessary decisions we took in the Budget, we've invested a record £26 billion over two years, ended the crippling strikes, cut waiting lists for five months in a row and delivered two million extra appointments seven months early,' he said. 'There's a long way to go, but we are fixing our NHS to make it fit for the future.' The growing discontent with the NHS was seen across supporters of all political parties, and satisfaction fell among both Conservative and Labour supporters despite the change of Government. Reform supporters least satisfied For the first time, the report included the sentiment of Reform Party supporters, who were the least satisfied with the NHS at just 13 per cent. The analysis also found that 70 per cent of people in Labour-run Wales were dissatisfied with the NHS, which was worse than England and Scotland. The authors of the report said the findings made for 'grim' reading across the board. There were falls in satisfaction across services, including dentistry and general practice, which saw satisfaction levels decrease to record lows of 20 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. But the biggest drop-off was in Accident and Emergency, with just 19 per cent of the public satisfied with the service. It means A&E is the worst performing NHS service in the public's eye for the first time. Satisfaction with social care also remained at historic lows of just 13 per cent. The service people were most happy with was inpatient and outpatient hospital appointments, despite bringing down the 7.4 million backlog a priority for the Government. The researchers said the findings posed a conundrum about which of the areas to target for improvement.
The Guardian
01-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Patient satisfaction with NHS has hit record low of 21%, survey finds
Public satisfaction with the NHS is at a record low and dissatisfaction is at its highest, with the deepest discontent about A&E, GP and dental care. Just 21% of adults in Britain are satisfied with how the health service runs, down from 24% a year before, while 59% are dissatisfied, up from 52%, the latest annual survey of patients found. Satisfaction has fallen dramatically from the 70% recorded in 2010, the year the last Labour government left office, and the 60% found in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic. Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, which analysed the data alongside the King's Fund, said the years since 2019 have seen 'a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction. 'It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey.' A&E is the NHS service the public is least happy about. Satisfaction fell from 31% in 2023 to just 19% last year – the lowest proportion in the 41 years the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey of the views of patients in England, Scotland and Wales has been carried out. Satisfaction with NHS dentistry has collapsed, too, from 60% as recently as 2019 to just 20% last year. More people (55%) are dissatisfied with dental care than with any other service. Similarly, fewer than a third (31%) of adults are satisfied with GP services. 'The latest results lay bare the extent of the problems faced by the NHS and the size of the challenge for the government', said Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at the King's Fund. 'For too many people, the NHS has become too difficult to access. How can you be satisfied with a service you can't get into?' The collapse in satisfaction from 70% to 21% in 14 years had been 'extraordinary', he said, adding that people should not be scared about going to A&E, or that an ambulance will not come quickly after dialling 999 or that they may have to get themselves to hospital some other way. 'People are sad and angry at the place we've got to.' A generational divide is also emerging. Over-65s are more likely to be satisfied, though the figure is still only 27%. But satisfaction among under-65s has fallen from 24% to just 19%. More positively, a narrow majority (51%) are satisfied with the quality of the NHS care they receive when they manage to access services. And there remains overwhelming support for its founding principle that it should be available to everyone free at the point of use and funded through taxation. Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, said: 'We inherited a broken NHS and this survey shows patients agree. Ever-longer waiting lists, widespread corridor treatment and a regular struggle to see your GP have led to these record levels of dissatisfaction with the health service.' Since the survey was undertaken in September and October, the government had 'taken the NHS off life support', pledged an extra £26bn in investment over the next two years and was drawing up a 10-year plan to make the service once again 'fit for the future', he added. Meanwhile, a separate study has found that almost one in 10 (9.7%) people in Britain have been harmed by either NHS treatment or a delay in obtaining help in the past three years. In 45% of cases, the harm the person suffered had a severe impact and in 38% of cases a moderate impact. But those from disadvantaged groups – such as people with a disability, from poorer backgrounds or with a long-term health condition – were more likely to be harmed and suffer serious harm. Researchers, whose findings are published on Wednesday in the journal BMJ Quality and Safety, surveyed more than 10,000 people in Britain between November 2021 and May 2022. They were asked about their experience of NHS adverse events, which included the medical or physical consequences of treatment, and also the psychological damage involved and harm caused by lack of access to care. 'Our study confirms that disparities in rates of NHS harm for socially disadvantaged groups exist and impacts are more severe,' said Dr Michele Peters, an associate professor at Oxford Population Health and an author of the study. 'These groups may find it harder to have their needs met within a difficult-to-navigate system with a culture that is less able to hear more vulnerable people.'
The Guardian
22-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Brexit a key factor in worst UK medicine shortages in four years, report says
Drug shortages in the UK have risen to their worst level for four years, official figures show, with Brexit considered a key reason so many medications are scarce. Drug companies notified the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about disruptions to supply 1,938 times during last year – the highest number since the 1,967 seen in 2021. Medications to treat epilepsy and cystic fibrosis are among those that pharmacists are finding it hard or impossible to get hold of, creating risks for patients' health. The figures have emerged in a new report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, which obtained them under freedom of information laws from the DHSC, which oversees the availability of drugs UK-wide. The number of supply disruptions fell after 2021, to 1,608 in 2022 and 1,634 in 2023. But it suddenly shot up again last year to 1,938, the data shows. Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust and its Brexit programme lead, said: 'This wave of medicine shortages has already meant people struggle to find the drugs their doctors told them were needed for conditions like epilepsy and cystic fibrosis. It's very worrying that it appears to be rolling on at full force into a third year.' The report says that while drug shortages have become a problem globally in recent years, the UK is facing 'a worsening situation' compared with the rest of Europe because of Brexit. 'Elevated and troubling levels of medicine shortages are continuing, with no consistent sign of improvement. The UK has had the lowest import growth in medicines of any G7 country, driven by a reduction in EU imports,' the thinktank adds. United Nations trade data, which Dayan and his colleagues analysed, shows that the UK 'once again has the lowest rise in imports of medicines of all G7 countries since 2010'. 'The total value [of imports] has fallen by almost 20% since 2015, the year before the EU referendum, in cash terms – an indication of how medicine supply chains have shifted away from the UK,' the report says, with 'little sign of a stable recovery since'. HM Revenue and Customs data shows there has been 'a decline [in imports] focused clearly on imports from the EU, adding to the evidence that new trade barriers related to Brexit are a likely explanation'. In addition, UK drug exports to the European Economic Area – the 27 EU states plus Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein – have fallen by a third since before the UK voted in 2016 to leave the EU. The National Pharmacy Association voiced alarm earlier this month about 'a growing crisis in medicine supply'. All 500 of the pharmacies it surveyed said they could not dispense a prescription at least once a day because drugs were unavailable. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'Pharmacies are at the sharp end of medicines shortages and frequently have to turn away distressed, frustrated and sometimes angry patients,' said Nick Kaye, the NPA's chair. He urged ministers to allow pharmacists to offer patients a safe alternative to their usual medication if it is not available, to help them manage their condition. 'It is particularly frustrating for pharmacists to be unable to meet a clear need when they have a perfectly safe and effective solution in their pharmacy already,' he added. Dayan warned that with the EU taking concerted action to reduce drug shortages by sharing supplies and increasing its domestic production, 'there is a real risk we will be left out as the EU unveils big plans to safeguard its own supply'. Brexit 'does seem to have pushed us out of some European supply chains', he added. A DHSC spokesperson said: 'This government inherited ongoing global supply problems, but we have robust measures in place to mitigate disruption for patients. We are strengthening our domestic resilience further by investing up to £520m to manufacture more medicines, diagnostics, and medical technologies in the UK. 'We are also working closely with the NHS, regulators and other key partners to cut red tape to grow our life sciences sector, and with international partners to bolster supply chains.'
