Reports on patient safety

Two reports published by researchers from Imperial College London on 8 March 2016 reviewed the current state of patient safety and how it could be improved, and have found that:

• Avoidable harm to patients is still too high in healthcare in the UK and across the globe.
• Safety, therefore ,must be a top healthcare priority for providers and policy makers alike.

The first report highlights that there is continued under-reporting of safety incidents and Erik Mayer, lead author of the report, from the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial, comments that “The UK has one of the biggest incident reporting systems in the world. But despite this, evidence suggests that as little as 5 per cent of patient safety incidents are reported.”

Patient safety ‘toolbox’

The second report, Patient Safety 2030, suggests a ‘toolbox’ for patient safety.  This supports the goal of the first report to use a systems-based approach that will increase the number of incidents reported and drive safety improvement by involving both staff and patients in preventing harm.

The ‘toolbox’ would use “digital technology, robust training and education, and strengthen leadership at the political, organisational, clinical and community levels.”  Other points in the ‘toolbox’ include strengthening measurement methods, including incident reporting, and exploring new digital solutions.

Both reports call for individual health systems to put the lessons learned into every day practice and for there to be a global sharing of each other’s successes and failures so that we can improve healthcare.

If you believe that you have suffered from a medical accident, you may be entitled to claim compensation. To find out more, please contact our medical negligence specialists 0r read more on our medical negligence web pages.