Concerns over ‘Government’s failure’ to act on patient safety recommendations

The Government has failed to implement a number of recommendations from significant inquiries into major patient safety issues, years after they were agreed to, according to an independent panel.

The report, commissioned by the Health and Social Committee in the wake of the Lucy Letby case, voiced concerns about “delays to take real action”.

As part of its investigation, the panel selected recommendations from independent public inquiries and reviews that have been accepted by government since 2010.

Nine or more years have passed since these recommendations were accepted by the government of the day

These covered three broad policy areas – maternity safety and leadership, training of staff in health and social care, and culture of safety and whistleblowing – and were used to evaluate progress.

The panel gave the Government a rating of “requires improvement” across the policy areas. One of the recommendations was rated good.

The report said that “despite good performance in some areas” the rating “partly reflects the length of time it has taken for the Government to make progress on fully implementing four of the recommendations which were accepted nine years ago, or longer”.

“Progress is imminent in several areas, which is reassuring, but we remain concerned about the time it has taken for real action to be taken,” it added.

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Source: The Independent, 22 March 2024

Read Patient Safety Learning's response to the report:

• Response to Select Committee report: Evaluation of the Government’s progress on meeting patient safety recommendations