Patient Safety Review Report published by NHS Improvement

Fairweathers’ Solicitor Steevi Henderson considers the latest NHS Safety Patient Review Report

Any patient safety incident occurring within the NHS should be reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (The NRLS).

The team handling these reports receive an incredible 2 million + reports a year.

They then review these reports to see if they fit their criteria which focus on new patterns of incidents causing or threatening severe harm which can be highlighted and steps taken to prevent same.

NHS Improvement published the April to September 2016 Patient Safety report earlier this month.

The reviewing team looked at 9,488 incidents with an outcome of death or serious harm alongside issues raised by the coroner in Regulation 28 reports, incidents reported by the public and incidents that include Never Events.

They sent out 5 patient safety alerts during that timeframe which included raising awareness of Acute Kidney Injury and the misplacement of nasogastric tubes.

They also advised and influenced others to act upon issues such as ensuring removal of cardiac electrodes pre-MRI scan (as the MRI scan causes the electrodes to heat up burning the person being scanned) and the redesign of brakes on hospital beds at home (as the brakes are failing and causing patients to fall).

The full report can be found at https://improvement.nhs.uk/uploads/documents/Patient_safety_review_and_response_report_April_-_Sept_2016.pdf.

Steevi Henderson, Solicitor at Fairweathers Solicitors, commented:-

“These figures are somewhat disheartening. There were Two million reports per year surrounding patient safety with nearly 10,000 incidents in 6 months with an outcome of death or serious injury. We can only hope that the patient safety alerts distributed and the advice / influence of the team will reduce this number significantly within the coming years.”

If you or a loved one have been through a similar experience then please do not hesitate to phone us free on 0800 999 5585, request a call back or submit your case details.