New national incident reporting system delayed amid fears of patient safety ‘disaster’

The deadline for the NHS to move to a new system for safety incident reporting has been delayed after widespread concerns the rollout could be a ‘disaster’.

A memo from NHS England to local teams yesterday, seen by HSJ, says the deadline to transition to the new “learning from patient safety events” database has been pushed back by six months to September 2023.

The creation of LFPSE is a key strand of NHSE’s safety strategy, along with the overhaul of how serious incidents are investigated. It aims to make it easier for staff across all healthcare settings to record safety events, as the service will be expanded to include primary care.

It will replace the current national reporting and learning system, a central database created in 2003 to help identify trends and maximise learning from mistakes. The new system is part of a national strategy that pledges to save 1,000 extra lives and £100m in care costs each year from 2023-24.

Multiple patient safety managers at local trusts had raised concerns to HSJ about the previous March deadline, with one patient safety lead saying it would have been a “disaster” if enforced.

Helen Hughes, chief executive of charity Patient Safety Learning, said NHSE also needs to change its way of working, as well as the deadline extension. She said:

“We believe that NHS England needs to seriously reconsider their approach to engaging with trust leaders and staff on this issue, so that improvements can be made to the new LFPSE service to ensure it has the best possible chance of success, and to enable patient safety improvement.”

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Source: HSJ, 20 October 2022