NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust continues to be in the top 25 per cent of NHS organisations for reporting patient safety incidents, according to a new report published this week.
The National Patient Safety Agency’s (NPSA) organisational reports show that Northamptonshire Healthcare reported nearly 1500 incidents between April and September 2009 – equivalent to 38 incidents for every 1,000 bed days.
According to the NPSA, high levels of reporting are to be encouraged: “Organisations that report incidents usually have a better and more effective safety culture. You can’t learn and improve if you don’t know what the problems are.”
The trust is also reporting regularly – another point commended by the NPSA. On average, NHS trusts in England take 50 days to report an incident to the NPSA’s Reporting and Learning System. At Northamptonshire Healthcare the average is 25 days.
In line with other mental health trusts, the most commonly reported incidents at Northamptonshire Healthcare are patient accidents, such as slips, trips or falls. This is followed by self-harming behaviour, aggressive behaviour and issues relating to access, admission, transfer and discharge.
Sixty per cent of the incidents reported by the trust were classified as “no harm” (compared to the England average of 68%), and 0.5% were classified as severe harm or death, compared to an England average of 1%.
Louise Payne, director learning disability services, governance and risk said: “Patient safety is a top priority and the vast majority of our patients experience good quality, safe and effective care.
“But when things do go wrong, it’s important for us to be open and to try to learn how we could do things better.
“I very much welcome the high level of reporting and it is important to keep this up. These figures are vital to help us understand the types of incidents we need to focus on and manage to improve patient safety even further.
“This will become even more important from 1 April. Under the new Care Quality Commission registration system, reporting specific incidents to the NPSA will become mandatory.
“We are confident we have the systems in place to meet this requirement.”
Northamptonshire Healthcare’s overview patient safety incident report for April to September 2009 can be downloaded from www.npsa.nhs.uk.
1 comment:
As a mental health service user I think patient safety is paramount. I am pleased that NHFT are listening to service users and carers. I hope they are also listening to and nurturing the wellbeing of their staff as this reflects on the patients. It is a sign of strength to admit to and learn from mistakes.
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