Alliance launched in Scotland to improve patient safety in hospitals
A new patient safety programme called the Scottish Patient Safety Alliance was launched this week.
The alliance aims to reduce harm to patients by tackling issues like
prescribing errors and preventable infections. It will do this first
by identifying good practice and then ensuring that standards of good
practice are applied consistently in all hospitals in Scotland. Examples
of processes the alliance will target include systems to ensure patients
receive the right medicine at the right time and in the right dose, and
monitoring systems to identify patients whose health is deteriorating
quickly. The alliance’s five objectives are to:
• Reduce health care-associated infection
• Reduce adverse surgical incidents
• Reduce adverse drug events
• Improve critical care outcomes
• Improve organisational and leadership culture on safety The alliance builds on the Safer Patients Initiative which has been
piloted at various hospitals across the UK. In Scotland, this work has
been led by NHS Tayside, where adverse events have been cut by more than
half and the number of prescriptions requiring amendments has been reduced
from 70 per cent to 2.6 per cent.
One of the pharmacists involved in the NHS Tayside programme is Gordon
Thomson, principal clinical medicine and cardiovascular pharmacist, at
Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. He commented: “The alliance will provide
an exciting opportunity for hospital pharmacy staff in all Scottish hospitals
to play a lead role in further improving medicines safety over the next
five years. It will use new methods to test, implement and measure improvements
in areas such as medicines reconciliation and the use of high risk medicines
(like anticoagulants, opiates and insulin) as part of an evidence-based
package of changes designed to improve patient safety.” |
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