New and updated items come first:
Norovirus remains high. Last week was our last report for 2025-26 about respiratory illnesses:
- Norovirus activity remains high but has started to decrease; cases are 30.5% higher than the 5-season average and are particularly high in adults aged 65+; children also suffer badly. Hospital outbreaks remain high. To reduce the spread, please practice good hygiene. Alcohol gels don’t kill Norovirus; wash hands regularly with warm soapy water and use bleach-based products to clean surfaces to protect yourselves and reduce further spread.
WARNING: Measles outbreak: There’s an outbreak of measles, the highly contagious disease, in north London. The majority of cases are in schools and nurseries and some children are requiring hospital treatment, “particularly those who have not been immunised”. Outbreaks like this can easily spread and Essex is close by. Parents are urged to get children vaccinated and check your child’s vaccination status. Between 1 January 2026 and 2 March2026, there have been 195 laboratory confirmed measles cases reported in England, an increase of 37 cases since the last report on 26 February 2026, mostly driven by the outbreak in North London. This past week the blog: What are the symptoms of measles and how can I best protect my child? was updated.
Some infant formula products have recently been recalled because they might contain a harmful toxin called Cereulide. The formula products recalled include some batches from SMA, Aptamil and Cow & Gate. More on the Food Standards Agency website’s infant formula recall page. As of 2 March 2026, there have been 61 notifications since January where children who have consumed implicated batches and have symptoms consistent with cereulide toxin poisoning. Given the widespread availability of these products prior to the recalls, this is not unexpected.
Testing of the recalled formula has confirmed presence of the toxin in some batches at levels that exceed limits set by the European Food Safety Authority and therefore pose a potential health risk.
The FSA advice is that parents, guardians and caregivers should:
- Check which formula your baby is using.
- If it is one of the the affected batches, stop using it immediately, even if your baby seems well.
- If you have already fed one of the recalled formulas to your baby and are concerned about symptoms, contact your GP or call NHS 111.
Repeated advice reports contaminated non-sterile alcohol-free wipes after continuing detection of cases and a recent death attributable to Burkholderia stabilis. As previously, the following were found to be contaminated causing the current outbreak:
- ValueAid Alcohol Free Cleansing Wipes
- Microsafe Moist Wipe Alcohol Free
- Steroplast Sterowipe Alcohol Free Cleansing Wipes
- Testing also revealed contamination of Reliwipe Alcohol Free Cleansing Wipes, with a strain not related to the outbreak cases.
Used for ‘skin cleansing’ and cleaning wounds, these products are withdrawn from sale but may still be in first aid kits and homes. Check for these wipes in homes, including in first aid kits. If found, stop using them immediately and dispose of them in standard household waste.
More than 10,000 calls have been made to Martha’s Rule helplines in the first 16 months of the NHS scheme, saving lives and helping thousands of patients benefit from changes to their care.
Between September 2024 and December 2025, 10,119 escalation calls were made by patients, families and staff to Martha’s Rule helplines. 3,457 (34%) of these calls helped identify acute deterioration, which led to 1,885 patients receiving changes in treatment, including 446 potentially life-saving interventions to transfer them to enhanced levels of care.
More than 6,000 calls have addressed clinical, communication, or coordination concerns, leading to meaningful improvements in care or system navigation for patients and their families.
Hospitals have rolled out communications campaigns, including dedicated posters around their wards and buildings, to help raise awareness of Martha’s Rule and ensure the programme is easy-to-understand and that its use is normalised for patients, families and staff.
Residents in mid and south Essex will have better access to care for skin conditions, including suspected skin cancers, following the launch of a new community dermatology service. This service provides specialist skin assessments, treatment, and advice for adults (16+) in local settings, reducing the need to travel to hospital. Patients will be guided to the right care for their needs, which may include self-management, or treatment at local community or hospital settings. This ensures that patients are seen by the right service at the right time – helping improve access to services and bringing down waiting times for assessment and treatment. Patients that have persistent or unusual changes to their skin should make an appointment with their GP.
An increase in the number of cases of monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium has been identified and an outbreak investigation has been launched to identify additional cases, and begin considering potential sources of the outbreak to enable control measures to be implemented, to prevent further cases.
Salmonella Typhimurium is the second most common salmonella and is a leading cause of salmonellosis in humans. It spreads via consumption of contaminated food, contact with the environment, or person-to-person transmission. Symptoms of salmonella infection include diarrhoea, stomach cramps and sometimes vomiting and fever. Immunocompromised individuals and those in vulnerable groups (young children and older adults) may experience more severe illness such as blood stream infections, infection of metastatic sites, sepsis and multi-organ failure. As of 26 February 2026, 84 confirmed cases had been detected within this outbreak.
Farm visits are a popular family activity as spring gets underway, offering children and adults alike an enjoyable and educational day out. However, visiting a farm carries a small risk of catching infection from animals or the environment. Washing your hands thoroughly with soap and hot running water immediately after you have had contact with animals will reduce the risk of infection. Hand gels or wipes are not a substitute for washing your hands with soap and hot running water, as they do not kill all germs that you could catch from animals.
Following the simple rules below will help keep you and your children safe from
infections that may be found on open farms. Pregnant women need to take particular care as
infections acquired from animals can be harmful to them and their unborn baby:
• wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after you have touched animals,
fences or other surfaces in animal areas
• wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water before eating or drinking
• supervise children closely to ensure that they wash their hands thoroughly
• only eat and drink in picnic areas or cafes
• remove and clean your boots or shoes if they have become dirty or muddy and clean
pushchair wheels. Make sure to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water
afterwards
• follow instructions and signage provided on farm sites
Things you should not do when visiting a farm:
• do not touch your face or put your fingers in your mouth while petting animals or
walking around the farm
• do not allow children to put their faces close to animals
• do not eat or drink while touching animals or walking round the farm. This includes not
eating sweets, crisps or chewing gum
• do not eat anything that has fallen on the floor
• do not use gels or wipes instead of washing hands with soap and water. Gels and
wipes do not remove all germs you could catch from animals
……………….
Ambulance crews and A&E staff have slashed patient handover delays by more than seven minutes this winter — even as they ferried the highest number of patients to hospital in half a decade.
Hospitals at Broomfield, Basildon & Southend in January:
- Saw 64.7% of patients within four hours in A&E, against the national standard of 78%. This was 4.1% worse than December due to severe pressure. National performance was 72.5% and in East of England it was 72.4%. Improving urgent and emergency care performance is part of the Trust’s One Team Improvement Plan.
- 34 minutes was the average time for ambulances to hand over patients, compared to 61 minutes in East of England and 58 minutes nationaly.
- 62.9% of patients received cancer diagnosis results within 28 Days in December against the 79% standard. This was a deterioration from 64.7% in November. Diagnostic and outpatient capacities are being increased, including additional support in thoracic, breast, histopathology and radiotherapy specialities.
Broomfield Hospital Consultant breast surgeon Sascha Dua revealed what life is like behind the mask, after cameras followed her at work and at home, for a new national television documentary. She featured in the second episode of Channel 5’s The Surgeon as it followed her and her team as they performed critical surgery for two patients with breast cancer. This unique insight charts the high-pressure world of the operating theatre, to the consulting room where news must be broken, as well as the everyday ups and downs of life at home.
In a new campaign, the NHS urges people to turn on ‘push alerts’ from the NHS App so they get reminders about appointments and can rearrange any they can’t make. 1 in 4 appointments are missed; this is a massive hit on our NHS and we must ‘do our bit’ not to do this as it lengthens the waiting list and is an unnecessary big cost which should be spent on treatments. In Mid & South Essex just under 211,000 appointments were missed in 2025, which amounts to 400 per GP practice each month.
Over 400 residents across Mid and South Essex have learned they have high blood pressure (hypertension) and need treatment, thanks to a local NHS community outreach programme. Seventeen NHS teams from Primary Care Networks (PCNs) delivered 29 community events during 2025 as part of the Cardiovascular Disease Community Outreach Grants Scheme. Funded by NHS Mid and South Essex, the events reached over 1,650 patients who were offered blood pressure checks, health checks and referrals to stop smoking and weight management services. The one run in South Woodham Ferrers in conjunction with this Group saw around 150 people. Our 2023 research project identified this as the largest health condition in the Town.
Fewer than half of adults are taking up their free shingles vaccine in the first year of being eligible. Figures published last week show that 42.1% of those turning age 66, who had been eligible since their 65th birthday, had received their first Shingrix dose by October 2025. Among those turning age 71 who have been eligible since turning 70, vaccine uptake coverage stands at 53.5%. The shingles vaccine is part of an all-year-round programme with all older adults becoming eligible when they turn age 65 or 70. Those aged between 70 and 80 years should already have been offered a shingles vaccine but should catch-up if they have missed out and contact their GP Practice. It is also offered to all severely immunosuppressed people aged 18 years and over.
Patients across England will benefit from new bone scanners to diagnose fragile bones earlier and prevent painful, life-changing fractures:
- 20 new bone scanners to speed up diagnosis of osteoporosis and other bone conditions across England;
- Tens of thousands of patients – particularly women at higher risk – to benefit from earlier treatment and fewer life-changing fractures;
- Builds on first wave of new scanners already in use, helping cut waiting times and prevent illness earlier.
The social care system that supports older and disabled people in England is cobbled together and confusing, according to Baroness Louise Casey, who has the task of reforming it. As chair of the independent commission on adult social care, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the experience for people trying to get help was “horrendous”. Giving her first assessment of the problems since the commission started work last year, she says the care system relies on the exploitation of its workforce. She also said that cross-party political support would be needed to bring about the fundamental change required. Baroness Casey said the care system is fragile and divided, with drawn out discussions over who pays for what, making it anxiety-laden and confusing for those who need support.
“People spend hours and hours and weeks and weeks trying to sort out care for their family”, she said. “Dealing with all sorts of issues from the multiple different letters, the multiple different assessments, multiple financial assessments.” She believes a stock-take is needed to create an adult social care system which meets the needs of the current population, as people are increasingly living longer with more complex needs.
Baroness Casey delivered her first tough assessment of the problems that need fixing at a conference this week. She pointed to a total reliance nationally on underpaying care workers and an imbalance in power between the NHS and council-run social care, which ends up serving the institutions not people. “We’ve still got people earning less than the minimum wage. They are often not paid for travel, they are often not paid for holidays.” “This divide between what is care and what is health does not exist to the public. It is our divide.” The deep-rooted difficulties faced by people with dementia or Motor Neurone Disease (MND) to get the right care, are examples of a failing system. Families of those with dementia “bear the brunt” with little information or support, and people diagnosed with MND, whose life-expectancy is short, still face multiple assessments and means tests.
The independent commission started work last summer. It has been examining the problems facing the care system in England and is due to produce a report this year with a plan for how to create a National Care Service. Phase two, which will look at how social care is funded in the longer term, is not due to report until 2028.
In the meantime, this is the foundation of the huge problems in the NHS as beds are blocked and patients who are discharged are returned early to hospitals because the social care is unavailable or insufficient. We must lobby about this as despite the difficulties this huge problem must be solved.
Increased uptake of women attending first mammogram hitting a 10-year high has resulted in thousands more cancers being identified, enabling women to access treatment earlier, when there are more options available and treatment is more likely to be effective.
A landmark campaign to support millions more people with anxiety urges those facing six common anxiety conditions that treatment is available to come forward for support by self-referring online at nhs.uk/talk .
“Essential repairs” are being carried out to keep Maldon’s St Peter’s Hospital open, “ensure the building remains safe and secure for patients and staff, and continue to provide services onsite, including maternity, X‑rays, blood tests and a wide range of outpatient clinics.”
To tackle wait times, our NHS trust has increased referral optionsfor attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism care. Our weekly newsletter includes everything we’ve published in the previous 7-days. Libraries provide online services and help with internet access. For welfare information and subscription to our newsletter, email swfhealthsocial@outlook.com or leave a voicemail on 01245 322079.
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