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Good afternoon and welcome back to my post-Easter patient safety update. Yesterday’s dramas in the House of Commons were more about parties than patients but none the less some key issues coming to the boil post Ockenden including on Valproate, mental health and of course Covid. WHY ARE WE STILL EXPOSING BABIES TO VALPROATE? After stirling work from Shaun Lintern the Sunday Times exposed the continued use of this drug by pregnant women with epilepsy which is still risking lifelong disability for six babies born every month. Despite the warnings from Baroness Cumberlege’s excellent report on this issue, it was prescribed to 247 pregnant women between April 2018 and September 2021. As I set out here it is surely time the government accepts responsibility for this continued scandal, establishes a compensation fund for those affected (funded by Sanofi) and bans the use of Sodium Valproate by pregnant women. I actually wrote to the then Health Secretary calling for such a ban back in October 2020 and the pandemic can only be used as an excuse for delay for so long. I urged the Secretary of State to tackle this issue in Parliament yesterday and whilst he frustratingly stopped short of a full ban he did say it was “right to reconsider” this issue and ensure it is only given “in the clinically appropriate setting.” Come on guys. 10 YEAR MENTAL HEALTH PLAN The government has published a call for evidence to inform a ten year plan for mental health. This is looking for information on, amongst other issues, how best to prevent the onset of mental illness, how to intervene earlier with those who do need help, and how to improve the effectiveness of treatment offered. There is a good 10 year mental health plan already but the pandemic has changed things so it is right to review our plans. In particular I hope the new plan picks up the recommendations from the Select Committee’s reports into the treatment of autistic people and people with learning disabilities and children and young people’s mental health and bans the long term detention of people with autism, learning disabilities and severe mental health conditions in ‘secure units’ e.g asylums which we were supposed to have banned a long time ago. 2000 people are currently locked up who should be in the community in a hidden but very disturbing human rights scandal. Let’s also roll out the widely praised Mental Health Support Teams to the 50% of schools that don’t have access to them. I also hope they listen to calls from Steve Mallen at the Zero Suicide Alliance and others regarding their push for reform to the suicide risk assessment process. COVID LATEST The ONS infection survey is now picking up a slight slowdown in cases. The number of people testing positive in the week ending 9th April decreased from around 1 in 14 to 1 in 13 people in England with the virus in the community. The encouraging news continues as the Covid Dashboard reports cases have dropped 31.3% in the last seven days, deaths have dropped by 3.3% and hospitalisations by 8.5%. There are now 18,400 patients in hospital with Covid and the worm has also turned on this graph showing these numbers are starting to decline. It does now feel like we are turning a corner, not a moment too soon for the pressured staff on the frontline. WORKFORCE AMENDMENT No official word yet but I’m hoping the Health and Care Bill will come back to the House of Commons on Monday where we will consider the workforce amendment for one last time. I’ve also, sadly, still not heard anything from the government regarding a change of heart on this issue. But we would welcome repentance from the lonely sinners at DHSC and Treasury with all the post Easter joy it would deserve… THE ADMIN Another week with some really significant patient safety news to report so please do sign up to receive this update via our website here. Jeremy Hunt
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