Keeping patients safe while they are in the care of the NHS is of paramount importance but we know more could be done to improve matters. For example, lots of effort has been put in to reduce the rates of hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA and C-difficile. Hospitals have undergone deep cleans, hand hygiene practices have been improved, processes to screen patients on arrival and isolate those with cases have been put in place, and campaigns have been run to educate and raise awareness of the issue amongst patients, visitors and staff.
We know of other areas where attention to improving safety will bring huge benefits to patients and save valuable resources. Some of the areas we are focusing on to improve the safety of patients across the East Midlands are:
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Preventing falls and bone health - Falls affect 30% of people aged over 65 and 50% aged over 80 at least once a year. They are the major reason for injury, hospital attendance and admission, ambulance call-out and admission to long term care.
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Energising for Excellence ‘High Impact’ nursing actions to reduce pressure ulcers, catheter associated urinary tract infections, and falls in hospital – We know that too many patients are experiencing these issues while in hospital and we will be supporting nurses to do more to prevent them.
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Venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention – 40,000 people a year die in the UK from getting blood clots while in hospital but many of these could be prevented if patients were routinely assessed for their risk of getting one and then medicated and monitored
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Safety Express Programme - This is a focused programme of work, led by the Department of Health, within an initial ten healthcare organisations/Trusts. The programme encourages all healthcare professional groups to work together across primary and hospital care services to achieve rapid reduction in the incidence of patients suffering falls, pressure ulcers, urinary infections and/or venous thromboembolism.
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World Health Organisation (WHO) safer surgery checklist – All hospitals are being supported to follow the WHO checklist which promotes best practice when carrying out surgical procedures
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Medication harm reduction – Organisations are putting even more robust systems in place to reduce the incidence of drug prescribing and drug administration errors
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Junior Doctor Engagement in Patient Safety - Safety improvements need to be integrated into frontline patient care by engaging clinicians. Junior doctors are an important target group to ensure embedded, safety-conscious practice. Across the East Midlands we are therefore working to increase patient safety awareness and engagement of junior doctors in patient safety initiatives.
In addition to the above, communications leads in the East Midlands, West Midlands and the East of England are working together to develop a clinically-agreed staff-facing communications campaign to raise awareness of safer care initiatives. This will be shared and adopted by NHS organisations across the three regions from Spring 2011. It will be aimed at all staff delivering healthcare in NHS settings.
