NPSA reporting and learning system to go live in November
National Health Service staff in England and Wales will be expected to report medication errors from 24 November when the National Patient Safety Agency's reporting and learning system goes live.
Wendy Harris, senior pharmacist with the NPSA, announced the launch date
during a BPC session on clinical governance on 15 September and pointed
out that it was part of the strategy to meet the Government target of
reducing medication errors by 40 per cent by 2005. Meeting the target
would be difficult but not impossible.
The intention is for the reporting and learning system to be integrated
with local risk management systems and that support for implementing
the system would be provided by a new group of patient safety managers.
Just over 30 are now in post, currently going through induction: 28 in
England will cover the same geographical areas as the strategic health
authorities; the remaining group will work in Wales.
The system will be web-based and, Ms Harris emphasised, non-punitive
and confidential. The idea is that by allowing people to report errors
anonymously, the NPSA may see the same type of errors repeating themselves
in different parts of the country. |
