Health Services & System News

A woman in labour in Barnstaple now faces 43 miles and about 70 minutes in a car to reach a maternity unit in Exeter. The unit at North Devon district hospital closed temporarily in August because it lacked enough doctors, and an estimated 194 women have since given birth elsewhere. The prime minister has described the situation as unacceptable, while a senior NHS leader has suggested that north Devon offers an early indication of what lies ahead. Matthew Hopkins, acute care

When a death reaches the national news, a particular kind of work begins inside some NHS organisations. Information governance teams wait to see who opens the file. This month it was Yorkshire, where two ambulance service staff are under investigation over access to the records of a man killed by a tiger. Earlier this year it was Southport, where nearly 50 staff at a single Liverpool trust were found to have looked inappropriately at the records of injured children. In Nottin

On 8 June, iRhythm Technologies detected unauthorised access to business applications hosted by a third party. Within two days the company had told US securities regulators what it knew, including that a threat actor was demanding payment in return for silence. Few organisations manage that pace of candour while an investigation is still under way, and fewer still keep their clinical operations running throughout. The facts are uncomfortable. Data was downloaded between 3 and