More consistent approach to patient safety across the NHS required
Patient safety must be emphasised more consistently within the NHS, according
to this year’s State
of Healthcare Report, published by the Healthcare
Commission this week.
The report says that the majority of patients experience safe care but
that standards are inconsistent. The commission’s recent reviews
of hospital services have identified significant variations in the way
they are organised and delivered. In terms of medicines management (PJ,
19 August, p209), the commission found that less than half of trusts
have introduced pharmacist prescribers and that better use could be made
of electronic prescribing and pharmacy automation.
Responding to the report, a Department of Health spokeswoman said: “During
the past five years much has been done to raise awareness on the far-reaching
implications of medical error. Significant progress has been made. For
example, all trusts have established reporting systems, which help the
NHS to learn from any incident.”
A spokeswoman for the National Patient Safety Agency commented: “We
are already addressing many of the issues raised by the Healthcare Commission;
an analysis of mental health patient safety incidents published by the
NPSA in July called for mental health services to increase their efforts
to ensure the safety of patients, a national review of the protected
mealtimes initiative is currently ongoing in order to identify barriers
to effective nutrition, while our patient and public engagement campaign, ‘Please
ask’, provides practical, accessible information about patient
safety.”
New approachChief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has admitted
that the NPSA is struggling to cope with the massive number of
reports of adverse incidents it receives, according to a report
in the Health Service Journal. Speaking at the International Society
for Quality in Healthcare conference in London, he said that 2,000
adverse incidents in which patients are potentially put at risk
of harm were being reported to the NPSA every day. The NPSA told
The Journal that 8 per cent of these (160) are connected with medication
errors.
Sir Liam warned that the focus of patient safety has to change. “In the
past we concentrated too much on the role of the individual and not on the role
of the system,” he said. “Systems thinking is vital, but we have
to ask ourselves if perhaps the pendulum has swung a little too far,” he
added.
Following the August departure of the NPSA’s joint chief executives Sue
Osborn and Susan Williams on extended leave, the agency’s future is part
of a wider review of patient safety to be conducted by the Department of Health. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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