Tag Archives: blood

Brexit-prompted tube shortage means UK doctors can’t do blood tests

Scheduled blood tests are being cancelled across the UK and doctors are being forced to make hard decisions about what to do if they lose the ability to provide life-saving diagnostic testing due to a Brexit-prompted shortage of blood collection tubes.

Becton Dickinson, the NHS’s main supplier of blood collection tubes, has been blamed for the shortage, with the manufacturer suggesting the post-Brexit HGV driver shortage could be to blame, according to iNews.

The Department of Health and Social Care is desperately trying to play down the crisis, saying everything is being done to eliminate the shortage.

But NHS England has released new guidance that aims to reduce the use of blood tubes to the bare minimum, suggesting that the issue is serious.

And bosses of the British Medical Association – the doctors’ trade union – are furious. Their press release on the situation makes this abundantly clear [boldings mine]:

“The BMA says the shortage of blood tubes across hospitals and GP surgeries is now severe and if the NHS does not reduce the amount being used in the coming days, even the most clinically important blood tests may be at risk.

“Doctors at the BMA have already made plain their concerns about the implications for patients and their anger that this shortage has been allowed to happen in the first place. However, in the absence of a plan to bring in alternative supplies before the middle of next month, the situation is now urgent. The BMA is urging all doctors to follow the NHS guidance and carry out only the most critical of tests for the time being.

“Dr David Wrigley, BMA council deputy chair, said: ‘This crisis has put doctors and their patients in a terrible, unenviable position. No doctor knowingly undertakes unnecessary blood tests and to now have to ration all those we are doing, as well as cancel hundreds more, goes against everything we stand for as clinicians.

“‘However, if we don’t try to follow the NHS guidance, it’s clear we will get to the point where even the most clinically urgent of blood tests may not be able to be done as we simply won’t have the tubes for the blood to go into.

“‘We are at a very perilous point and it’s surprising that NHS England hasn’t declared a critical incident given the very strong possibility that NHS organisations may temporarily lose the ability to provide lifesaving diagnostic testing. We also call on NHS England to commit to the changes that are needed for their guidance to be properly followed by doctors, and provide patients with detailed, easily accessible information about the situation.

“‘Many GP practices – like mine – will now have to spend hours assessing which already scheduled tests can or cannot be cancelled and this takes time away from frontline patient care when it is most needed. Cancelling tests makes patients anxious and can mean a missed diagnosis.’

“Dr Vishal Sharma, BMA consultants committee chair, said: ‘The very suggestion that an acute hospital trust needs to reduce testing by 25 per cent is highly alarming. However, to try and avoid a situation where there are simply no more blood tubes, we have no choice but to now make very careful decisions about which tests to carry out.

“‘It is shocking that this situation has been allowed to develop – in particular, the apparent over-reliance on one manufacturer and the woeful lack of any kind of reserve supply. The manufacturers should also have to explain how they allowed stocks to run so low that patients will now suffer as a result. If we don’t get on top of this shortage – and quickly – then we could very easily end up in a catastrophic position, particularly in hospitals where patients come to serious harm.’”

“Severe… anger… terrible, unenviable position… goes against everything we stand for as clinicians… Perilous… can mean a missed diagnosis… highly alarming… shocking that this situation has been allowed to develop… Woeful… catastrophic… patients come to serious harm.”

And it is – apparently – a result of Brexit. And the “politicians” responsible for it couldn’t care less.

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Hancock pledges payouts over infected blood scandal – like those the Windrush victims are still awaiting?

Matt Hancock: would you believe a promise by this man?

Matt Hancock has promised that the government will pay compensation to people infected by contaminated blood products – and their families – if a public inquiry into the scandal demands it.

What a pretty promise!

Here it is:

The health secretary told the inquiry: “I respect the process of the inquiry and I will respect its recommendations, and should the inquiry’s recommendations point to compensation, then of course we will pay compensation.”

This Site has reported on the infected blood scandal before, and the Guardian‘s account of it is as good as any:

As many as 30,000 people became severely ill after being given factor VIII blood products contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C imported from the US in the 1970s and 80s. Others were exposed to tainted blood through transfusions or after childbirth. On average one person is dying every four days, with approximately 3,000 haemophiliacs having died to date.

The question is: why should we believe Hancock?

His record hardly speaks for his honesty.

And as for his government’s record on payouts… here’s the National Audit Office, discussing another recent scandal:

If the death rate really is as reported, then considering the government’s tardiness in stumping up compensation cash…

I wonder if any of the victims will see a single brass farthing before they die.

Source: Infected blood scandal: Hancock pledges payouts if advised by inquiry | Contaminated blood scandal | The Guardian

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More gay and bisexual men can give blood – after wait of more than six years (at least!)

It is more than six years since I tore metaphorical shreds off of Michael Fabricant for suggesting the ban on all gay men giving blood should be lifted – and this announcement proves I was right.

At the time, Fabricant reckoned the ban on sexually promiscuous gay men should be lifted as straight men who behave in the same manner do not suffer the same discrimination.

I stated that this was insane – partly because it misrepresented the issue.

The problem, I said, was that the ban did not only affect sexually promiscuous gay men, but any man who had had sex with another man, with or without a condom.

This clearly discriminated against gay men who were in a monogamous relationship in which both partners were free of infection. They should not be covered by the ban, I said.

Fast forward to the new announcement:

Men who have sex with men in a long-term relationship will now be able to donate blood at any time.

The new criteria [focus] on individual behaviours, lifting a blanket ban for any men who have had sex with men in the last three months.

All blood donors who have had one sexual partner and who have been with their sexual partner for more than three months, will now be eligible to donate regardless of their gender, the gender of their partner, or the type of sex they have.

Under previous rules, all men who have sex with men had to abstain from sex for three months in order to donate.

It is as though the authorities had (belatedly) read my article.

There was more to it than is being stated by the BBC, though. Here’s what I wrote, back in 2014:

The ban was put in place – unless the memory cheats – because blood supplies donated by gay men were discovered to be infected with HIV. Anybody can see that a ban on anything that could spread HIV is entirely sensible and should only be lifted if technology has moved on enough for doctors to spot infected blood immediately or screen out the infection in blood that has been donated.

The issue then was that people who had been in a monogamous relationship for a long period of time, and who did not have HIV when they started it, were not going to have it when they applied to give blood either, and it was discriminatory to ban them from doing so.

The new change rectifies that. I welcome it.

Source: Blood donation: Rule change means more gay and bisexual men can give blood – BBC News

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Tory Hoare branded a ‘coward’ for plan to abstain on Bill that threatens peace in Northern Ireland

Should it say or should it go? “Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union, and the Good Friday Agreement demands that its border with the Republic of Ireland be kept open. Brexit would make that impossible without the conditions in the EU Withdrawal Agreement that provide the province with a special status. But the Internal Market Bill illegally overwrites those conditions.” Isn’t Boris Johnson pushing NI towards re-integration with the Republic?

The Conservative chairman of the Commons Northern Ireland select committee is currently taking a drubbing on Twitter after he announced he will abstain on the Third Reading of the Internal Market Bill that threatens the peace there, rather than opposing it outright.

Simon Hoare tweeted that information from the US Congress that its members would not permit any free trade agreements with the United Kingdom. He seemed to believe that this was justification for him to abstain, rather than oppose the Bill that breaks international law by overruling the EU Withdrawal Agreement on trade borders around NI.

Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union, and the Good Friday Agreement demands that its border with the Republic of Ireland be kept open. Brexit would make that impossible without the conditions in the EU Withdrawal Agreement that provide the province with a special status. But the Internal Market Bill illegally overwrites those conditions.

In abstaining on the Bill, Hoare is effectively saying that he does not want to express an opinion on it – even though he knows it will be harmful to peace in Northern Ireland, and to the Union. It is the position of a coward who is afraid to take a stand when his bosses do the wrong thing.

Even if he really didn’t know that, he is being told it in no uncertain terms:

If he does abstain, Spineless Simon should be ashamed to call himself a human being.

I wonder how many Conservatives will follow his example – doing just enough to salve their miniscule consciences without actually stopping the Bill?

Abstention means allowing Boris Johnson to break international law.

And it means an end to peace in Northern Ireland.

When violence breaks out again, after Johnson does whatever he’s planning to do to the Northern Ireland border, Simon Hoare and all other Tory abstainers will be responsible.

But then we know from past experience that Tories are perfectly comfortable to sit in Parliament with blood dripping from their hands.

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The ‘grubby little idea’ that will tarnish Theresa May

Theresa May. At present, all under-16s have the right to a school place, even if their parents entered the country illegally [Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA].

Theresa May. At present, all under-16s have the right to a school place, even if their parents entered the country illegally [Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA].

We can all agree that illegal immigrants should be rooted out, wherever they have hidden themselves, before being made to face justice and punished accordingly.

But Theresa May’s idea had nothing to do with any of that.

She wanted to punish children for the sins of their parents.

Perhaps she allowed herself to be guided by her religion in this, as she says she is over Brexit. But “visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation” is an Old Testament punishment (Exodus 34:7) and This Writer thought she said she was a Christian.

Either way, her plan to push the children of illegal immigrants to the back of the queue for school places is unacceptable according to the law of this land: Children aged under 16 have a right to an education, regardless of their parents’ actions.

And the plan to turn teachers into border guards, demanding to see pupils’ passports, is beyond the pale.

Teachers are already overworked. They don’t have time for an extra burden, passed onto them because Mrs May simply wasn’t capable of doing her job and protecting our borders when she was Home Secretary.

In addition, This Writer did not have a passport until long after leaving school. In fact I was in my early 20s when I left the UK for the first time, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. What was planned for people like me? It is a hare-brained idea.

Even the language used is worrying. Apparently Mrs May wanted every Whitehall department to be involved in mitigating her failure to reduce immigration – both legal and illegal.

Or, as the BBC suggests it was put, they were all to have their hands “dipped in blood”.

That doesn’t seem very Christian of Mrs May.

“Satanic” would be a better word.

Claims that Theresa May wanted to put the children of illegal migrants to the back of the queue for school places show the “nasty party never really went away”, Angela Rayner has said today.

Rayner spoke out after the BBC published part of a leaked memo which suggested the Home Office wanted schools to withdraw offers of school places for children whose parents had been found living in Britain illegally.

The shadow education secretary joined a chorus of teachers and education leaders who criticised the measure as draconian. Local authorities have an obligation to provide education to children regardless of the status of their parents.

May was “trying to offload the failings of her department”, which failed to meet a net migration target, Rayner told the BBC.

She said May, the former home secretary, sought to blame “innocent children” and “bring our teachers into border control”, a measure Rayner describes as “impractical”. Rayner described the now prime minister’s actions as running contrary to British values.

By law, children under the age of 16 have a right to an education, regardless of their parent’s circumstances.

Source: Rayner: May’s plan to put children of illegal immigrants at bottom of school places list shows nasty party is back | LabourList

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Michael Fabricant wants to increase our chances of acquiring blood-borne infections. Why?

Misinformed: Michael Fabricant wants to lift a ban on gay men giving blood - but seems seriously misinformed about the subject. [Image: Evening Standard.]

Misinformed: Michael Fabricant wants to lift a ban on gay men giving blood – but seems seriously misinformed about the subject. [Image: Evening Standard.]

Perhaps he has been flailing around for a campaigning subject, what with all the good ones being in opposition to the Conservatives.

Perhaps he thinks pushing otherwise-healthy people into an already-overstretched National Health Service will be a good advert for privatisation. It’s crazy, but it’s a possibility.

There can be few other reasons for Michael Fabricant’s weak bid to poison UK blood supplies by allowing people who may not know they are infected to donate.

He reckons a ban on sexually promiscuous gay men should be lifted as straight men who behave in the same manner do not suffer the same discrimination, which is insane.

There are several things wrong with this. Firstly, he is misrepresenting the issue.

The ban does not affect only sexually promiscuous gay men – it affects any man who has had sex with another man, with or without a condom. This clearly discriminates against gay men who are in a monogamous relationship in which both partners are free of infection. They should not be covered by the ban.

Sexually promiscuous gay men, however, should.

Secondly, the ban was put in place – unless the memory cheats – because blood supplies donated by gay men were discovered to be infected with HIV. Anybody can see that a ban on anything that could spread HIV is entirely sensible and should only be lifted if technology has moved on enough for doctors to spot infected blood immediately or screen out the infection in blood that has been donated.

It has been suggested that this has happened and the time period of the ban should be reduced to the period it takes for screening tests to be effective. This seems reasonable, as long as a prospective donor can show that they have been through the screening process. Professor John Forsyth of the government’s Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs has made it clear that the situation is under constant review.

So Fabricant should be calling for a reduction in the ban – not its outright removal.

Thirdly: In fact, Fabricant himself skimmed over the responsible approach to the issue, which is that “neither straight people nor gay people who have had unsafe sex should give blood.” He added, “within 12 months,” but we could probably reduce that according to when it is possible to screen for infection, as suggested above.

Perhaps that would result in too few people volunteering to give any blood at all. You can’t blame them for that – Fabricant’s Tories have forced hard times on the masses.

Who can blame them for turning to a bit of good old-fashioned earthy sex to cheer themselves up?

Note: This article has been revised after several commenters informed this blog of gaps in Fabricant’s information and of technological advances. VP is grateful to them.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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