Helping to improve clinical risk, reduce litigation risk and improve healthcare standards.

Trusts should ensure that they have an appropriate care pathway to ensure that healthcare professionals understand what to do when a diabetic foot ulcer is identified and that they provide timely care.

Reductions in staff due to positive COVID-19 cases or isolation as well as other COVID measures (such as redeployment) meant that throughout the pandemic there has been a knock-on effect leading to remaining practitioners to cover even more patients than usual. This led to a reduction in available appointments in an environment when mothers were less likely to attend these in any event.

This article discusses the risk factors associated with performing an appendectomy, including not fully visualising the organ and the risk of leaving part of the appendix in situ.

A study by TMLEP shows that in these instances, when a child is presenting with prolonged headaches, vomiting and dizziness, a CT Scan should be considered. It is important to consider that a CT scan can not only diagnose, but also rule out differential diagnoses such as tumours or other neurological symptoms which can further reduce the scope when diagnosing a child in these emergency situations.

Before COVID-19, long waiting lists for plastic surgery for non-urgent cases were not unheard of, with clinic appointments taking place anywhere between 1-12 weeks from referral and from thereon, up to 6 months waiting for the operation itself.

The field of acute medicine has historically been extremely busy, even before COVID-19, with clinicians accustomed to patients presenting with an array of medical issues and complications, all requiring a quick diagnosis so that they can be cared for by the right clinicians.