Good morning and welcome to my regular patient safety update…the week I not only write an email about patient safety but publish a whole book on it! More shameless plugging later but this week we also had two very punchy Select Committee sessions - on body image on Tuesday and yesterday on continuity of care in General Practice. There is also some positive news of a ten-year plan for dementia.

ZERO! The serialisation of my book on patient safety has started and the Sunday Times had a good write up at the weekend. They also included an extract which you can read here and the first few reviews are in with it getting 4 stars from Isobel Hardman and 3 stars from Philip Johnston as well as this thoughtful write up from Paul Goodman on Conservative Home. Zero: eliminating unnecessary deaths in a post pandemic NHS is my view on how we can make the NHS the safest and highest quality health service in the world. Many readers to this email helped me by sharing your stories and experiences so a big thank you - it could not have happened without you. All of my profits go to Patient Safety Watch which funds research into patient safety issues with Imperial under the brilliant leadership of Ara Darzi.

FUTURE OF GENERAL PRACTICE Our Select Committee focus yesterday was on one of the two biggest things we could now do - in my view - to improve patient safety, namely continuity of care (the other is addressing the workforce crisis). Listen to this clip about why it matters for patients and staff alike. The session was also lucky enough to have one of the lead authors of the report many of you will have seen into Norwegian GP continuity of care which showed conclusively a 30% reduction in hospital use (and 25% reduced mortality) by those who had the same family doctor over a long period time.

BODY IMAGE VS OBESITY In the final and fascinating session of the Body Image Inquiry on Tuesday morning we looked at the thorny question as to whether there is a conflict between obesity agenda which tends to focus on stopping schoolchildren getting overweight and concerns that an obsession with body image is leading to an explosion in mental health problems. TOWIE star Charlie King gave some very brave evidence about his own body dysmorphia. He also gave some brilliant advice to parents to make sure they know what their kids are watching online and talk to them about fake news and how social media works. I think a sensible way through this debate is to monitor children’s weight to identify both those at risk of obesity and anorexia - but focus on health outcomes and not just reducing body weight as an end in itself.  

10 YEAR DEMENTIA PLAN In a speech to the Alzheimer’s Society Conference 2022 the Secretary of State announced that he would be publishing a ten year plan for dementia later this year. This is potentially good news but obviously the detail will be important. The plan will seek to boost the £375 million of funding committed for research and reduce the circa 40% of dementia considered to be potentially preventable - which is important - but what about social care support for those who actually have it? Sajid’s full speech is here.

COVID LATEST The ONS Survey shows another significant fall in new cases with 1 in 45 people in England in the community having the virus in the week ending 7th May compared to 1 in 35 in the previous week.  All indicators on the dashboard are going down too with cases (38%), hospitalisations (17%) and deaths (35%) all dropping. The number of patients in hospital with Covid has also dropped markedly over recent weeks and now stands at 7613, the lowest since mid-December.

THE ADMIN Lots going on again so please do sign up to receive this update via our website here. Patient safety rules! 

Jeremy Hunt