21.03.13
Patient safety incident reports up – NRLS
There has been an improvement in the reporting of safety incidents across the NHS, the new National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) Organisation Patient Safety Reports show.
The reports cover incidents from April to September 2012 and help clinicians to identify where and how incidents occur to prevent them from happening in the future.
Incidents categorised as ‘implementation of care and ongoing monitoring/review’ continued to increase over the last two years; This was the second most commonly cited category of incident report, representing 10.9% of the total from April to September 2012. From October to March 2011 it was fifth, or 8%.
The NHS Commissioning Board, which released the data, stated that a higher level of reporting did not necessarily point to worse care, but could indicate increasing levels of awareness of the importance of reporting a culture of greater transparency.
Mike Durkin, director of patient safety from the NHS Commissioning Board, said: “We have put a number of initiatives in place to significantly reduce incidents of patient harm and it will continue to develop a system that will become an exemplar of good practice in the reporting of harm.
“This must continue to be the foundation of supporting a culture of openness and transparency in the way we support our patients. It must matter to everyone in healthcare that we do not walk past when we see a harmful, or potentially harmful, event.
“Firstly, a three year strategy for nursing, midwifery and care staff will contribute to high quality, compassionate and excellent health and wellbeing outcomes for patients.
“Secondly, Professor Donald Berwick is being brought to the NHS to chair a National Advisory Group on the Safety of Patients in England. The group includes world-leading experts in all aspects of the culture and processes of minimising patient harm and will advise the NHS in England on how to prevent patients being harmed while receiving healthcare.
“Thirdly, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh will lead an investigation into fourteen hospitals that are persistent outliers on mortality indicators.
“The NHS sees over one million people every 36 hours, the overwhelming majority of which experience no harm and patient satisfaction remains high.”
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