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Showing results for tags 'Policies / Protocols / Procedures'.
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Content ArticleFailure to be aware of and to follow clinical guidelines and protocols could constitute clinical negligence, but not in all cases, and much will depend on the facts of each case. John Tingle, Lecturer in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, discusses aspects of the law on clinical guidelines and other care management tools.
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News Article
Scathing review slams West Suffolk’s ‘intimidating’ hunt for whistleblower
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
West Suffolk Foundation Trust’s investigation to find a whistleblower was “intimidating…flawed and not fit for purpose”, according to a damning review which is highly critical of the organisation’s leadership. The long-awaited review, published today, was triggered by ministers back in January 2020 following allegations that trust directors had ordered staff to give fingerprints and handwriting samples during a “witch hunt” for a whistleblower. The review, led by Christine Outram, has corroborated many of the allegations. It concluded trust leaders’ investigation to uncover the identity of the author of an anonymous letter sent to a patient’s family was “intimidating, flawed and not fit for purpose… impractical and unwise.” It said: “The decision to use fingerprinting and handwriting analysis in an NHS hospital, in the context of an anonymous letter and where no crime has been committed, was highly unusual and without doubt extremely ill-judged.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 December 2021 -
News Article
Distressed mother separated from breastfed baby for days during hospital stay
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A new mother has spoken of her distress after wrongly-imposed Covid rules led to her being separated from her six-week-old baby for almost a week while she received treatment in hospital. Charlotte Jones, 29, was taken to Princess Royal University hospital in Kent by ambulance last Wednesday, after complications following the birth of her son, Leo. When she arrived, she asked whether she would be able to see her baby, whom she is breastfeeding, while in hospital, but was told it would not be allowed because of the threat of coronavirus. She did not see him until her release six days later. The restrictions as applied in Jones’s case, appear to contravene official guidance and go against the advice of NHS England, which specifies that mothers and babies should be kept together unless it is absolutely necessary to separate them. Separation at such a critical time can have an adverse impact on the physical and mental health of the mother, baby and wider family, say healthcare professionals and charities. King’s College NHS foundation trust, which manages the hospital, has admitted that although it is limiting the number of visitors during the pandemic, there is no policy stopping babies to be brought in to be breastfed. The trust has pledged to ensure staff are aware of its policies. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 December 2020 -
News Article
NHS must review ‘all disciplinary procedures’ by March following nurse’s suicide
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Trusts have been urged to reflect on their disciplinary procedures, and review them annually where required, following the death of a senior nurse who took his own life after being dismissed. NHS England’s chief people officer Prerana Issar has written to trust leaders to highlight Imperial College Healthcare Trust’s new disciplinary procedures, which were put in place following Amin Abdullah’s suicide. Mr Abdullah, a senior nurse at Charing Cross Hospital in west London, was suspended in September 2015 before being let go from his job that December. He died in February 2016 after setting himself on fire. An independent investigation criticised both the trust and its staff and concluded he had been “treated unfairly”. The summary report produced by the trust was labelled a “whitewash”, which “served to reassure the trust that it had handled the case with due care and attention”, and the delay of three months between the events and hearing were “troubling”. The report, which also criticised the delays as “excessive” and “weak” in their justification, said Mr Abdullah found the delay “stressful” and caused him to become “distressed”. In the letter sent on Tuesday, seen by HSJ, Ms Issar said: “The shared learning from Amin’s experience has demonstrated the need for us to work continuously and collaboratively, to ensure that our people practices are inclusive, compassionate and person-centred, with an overriding objective as to the safety and wellbeing of our people… our collective goal is to ensure we enable a fair and compassionate culture in our NHS. I urge you to honestly reflect on your organisation’s disciplinary procedure…" Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 3 December 2020 -
News ArticleA GP commissioning leader has publicly criticised hospital visiting rules at local hospitals, after hearing that a stroke patient was denied seeing family or friends for six weeks. Philip Stevens, a locality chair at Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), described the situation reported to him by one of his patients as “heartbreaking”, and has challenged visiting policies at Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital trusts. During a CCG governing body meeting, Dr Stevens called for explanation from the county’s director of public health, Lucy Wightman, who said trusts could choose their own rules. Dr Stevens, who is also a GP at Brackley Medical Centre, argued that visitors were permitted in neighbouring counties, where he claimed there were similar covid case rates to Northamptonshire, which remains in tier 1 restrictions under the government’s framework. He said: “I’ve been dealing this week with a family who, the wife’s husband, has been in Northampton General for six weeks now and has had no visitors at all during that time. He’s had a profound stroke and when he comes home he’ll need considerable community support which ordinarily the family would have been trained in but discharge is planned without any of that training.” Mr Stevens said in an “adjacent county” hospital policy was that each patient would have ”one hour, one visitor each day” with 30-minutes in between visiting slots. While not named, trusts in neighbouring Cambridge and Lincolnshire both have policies that permit pre-booked visitors. He added: “When I heard this story it seemed heartbreaking to me for this woman and her husband and I just wonder whether that this is a situation we should be challenging, particularly since it appears that the public health advice in an adjacent county may be different to that which is being offered within Northamptonshire.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 October 2020
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News Article‘Very heavy-handed, laborious and expensive’ inspections ‘have not been the right way’ of regulating hospitals, according to the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) former chair. Speaking at a Royal Society of Medicine event on Wednesday, Lord David Prior, who is now the chair of NHS England, said “very few” physicians will have improved their work after reading a report from the regulator. He added that there is a role for the CQC to move in when “things are going wrong” although he is “sceptical” the regulator can actually drive improvement in hospitals. Lord Prior said: “I am highly sceptical as to whether or not CQC or any regulator can really drive improvement and drive the top hospitals to make them better. “And certainly I think there’ll be very few physicians who will say that their clinical work has improved as a result of reading a CQC report. “I think the sadness I have about CQC is that we have not been able, or it has not been able, to develop a series of predictive metrics that could replace these very heavy handed, very laborious and very expensive visits that we used to do.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 September 2021
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EventuntilWhile the pandemic didn’t cause all the shifts happening in healthcare, it had a major hand in accelerating and shaping the changes that will alter the healthcare landscape far into the future. Join Fierce Healthcare as we examine the tectonic transformation across healthcare. We’ll explore changing consumer expectations in access to care, the moves by major tech players and providers to reach their customers and strategies for actually paying for everything. Register
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EventuntilThe importance of healthcare data and good data practices continues to grow as the COVID-19 pandemic drives further digitalisation and creates new data streams. This free online event from the King's Fund explores the importance of patients trusting that their health and care data will be safely and responsibly used by the NHS. Now is the time to come together and look at how we can modernise protocols and ensure trust is built with the public. This event is the first in a series exploring how we put trust, transparency and fair value at the centre of digital health and care. Our expert panel will discuss what public institutions, industry and decision-makers that hold, control and use our most personal data are doing to help to maintain and improve trust in England while simultaneously modernising best practice. Register
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Content ArticleThe NHS England National Patient Safety Team has produced two podcasts to provide an overview of the background and development of the new National Maternity Early Warning Score (MEWS) tool. In the first podcast, Professor Marian Knight, University of Oxford; Professor Peter Watkinson, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; and Tony Kelly, National Clinical Advisor, Maternity & Neonatal Safety Improvement Programme NHS England, discuss the development of a new national Maternity Early Warning Score (MEWS) tool. In the second podcast, Tony Kelly, Hannah Rutter, Senior Improvement Manager at MatNeoSIP NHS England, Louise Page, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, West Middlesex University Hospital and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Anita Banerjee, Consultant Obstetric Physician, Guys and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust and Katherine Edwards, Director of Patient Safety and Clinical Improvement, Oxford Academic Health Science Network discuss the the benefits of implementing the new national MEWS tool.
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Content ArticleICS Futures is a roundtable series held by the Public Policy Projects ICS Network and chaired by Matthew Swindells, Chair of the North West London Acute Collaborative and former Deputy CEO of NHS England. The Network is made up of senior leaders from across the health and care sectors. The Network convened for three Chatham House roundtables between 16 May and 17 June 2022. The objective of discussions was to highlight challenges and opportunities in integrated care based on real-world examples, to scale best practice and provide ongoing practical advice for system leaders and care providers. Thoughts were also given on key legislative developments, with some national policy recommendations highlighted. This document summarises the key findings and recommendations from each meeting. It is not an exhaustive description of health and care system leaders’ views but rather provides a snapshot into the thoughts and concerns of a specific cohort of senior stakeholders
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Content ArticleThe Belfast Health Trust failed to intervene quickly enough in the practice of a doctor which led to Northern Ireland's largest ever patient recall, the Independent Neurology Inquiry has found. More than 5,000 former patients of neurologist Michael Watt were invited to have their cases examined for possible misdiagnoses. Among the conditions being treated were stroke, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis (MS). The inquiry found "numerous failures". The Independent Neurology Inquiry concluded that the combined effect of the failures ensured that patterns in the consultant's work were missed for a decade.
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Content ArticleThis article in The BMJ examines the risks and benefits of current prostate cancer screening methods in the UK. It highlights issues that prevent early diagnosis including great variation in how prostate cancers behave and the poor performance of prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing in identifying disease that requires treatment. As a result of the limited benefits of screening for prostate cancer, routine screening is not recommended by the UK’s National Screening Committee or the US Preventive Service Task Force. The authors highlight that a bid by NHS England to find an estimated 14,000 men who have not yet started treatment for prostate cancer due to the pandemic, seems to contradict this recommendation. The NHS campaign warns that people shouldn’t wait for symptoms and encourages men to use a risk checker which informs patients of risk factors including family history, age and ethnicity. The authors express concern that the campaign implies there is great benefit in detecting asymptomatic disease, which could lead people to believe that the NHS is promoting screening. They argue that the NHS needs to be clearer and more consistent in its messaging, making sure that information aimed at the public emphasises that although PSA testing is available on request for men older than 50, it is not currently recommended, and why.
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Content ArticleThis document is a short introduction to systems thinking for civil servants. It is one component of a suite of documents that aims to act as a springboard into systems thinking for civil servants unfamiliar with this approach.
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Content ArticleClinicians play an essential role in implementing infection prevention policy, but little is known about how infection control policy is implemented at an organisational level or what factors influence this process. This study explores the policy implementation process used in the introduction of a national large-scale, government-directed infection prevention policy in Australia.
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Content ArticlePerioperative practitioners in the UK are universally concerned about the risk surgical smoke plume poses to their health. Yet less than a fifth are aware of any policy being in place to manage this risk within their organisation. The majority of hospitals have plume evacuation equipment in place, but it is only used in the minority of surgical procedures. Almost three-quarters of theatre staff have experienced symptoms associated with exposure to surgical smoke plume. But these symptoms are rarely reported and, when they are, no action is generally taken. These are the findings of a new report published by the Surgical Plume Alliance (SPA), a joint advocacy initiative between the Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP) and the International Council on Surgical Plume (ICSP). They aimed to gain a greater understanding of the awareness levels, training, management and policy surrounding surgical smoke plume in the UK.
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Content ArticleThis document by the World Health Organization (WHO) outlines an easy to follow country approach to developing or adapting an infection prevention and control guideline. It gives guidance on five steps countries can take: Prepare for action Baseline assessment Develop/adapt and execute Evaluate impact Sustain over the long term
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Content ArticleRacism is unacceptable and it has no place in health and care. But we know that it exists and that the impact on staff can be devastating. All registered professionals have responsibility under the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Code to challenge discriminatory behaviour, creating an environment where people are treated as individuals and with dignity and respect. This resource is firmly rooted in our professional Code and it is designed to support nurses, midwives and nursing associates, providing advice on the action you can take if you witness or experience racism. It also supports those in leadership roles to be inclusive leaders. This document provides practical examples of how, as nursing and midwifery professionals, you can recognise, and challenge racial discrimination, harassment, and abuse. It also highlights other useful resources and training materials that will support you to care with confidence. This document is a resource for individuals at all levels. This resource does not replace existing NHS England policies and procedures for speaking up and managing racism. It is a resource to support best practice in line with organisational policies and procedures.
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EventStreamline your policy management workflow in the cloud with PolicyStat. From single hospitals to multi-facility organisations, all your policies and procedures are in one easily accessible library and always kept current. Efficiently organise and govern policies, procedures and related documentation . Stay compliant and audit ready to avoid penalties and drive better outcomes. Optimise policy workflows and change management to improve performance. Align culture, process and people for better document control and regulatory compliance. Register
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EventuntilThe Westminster Health Forum is a division of Westminster Forum Projects, an impartial and cross-party organisation which has no policy agenda of its own. Forums operated by Westminster Forum Projects enjoy considerable support from within Parliament and Government. The agenda: The impact of investigations in the NHS and the priorities of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch Progress of improving patient safety in the NHS Maintaining patient safety during COVID-19 - rapid learning to respond to the virus, continuity of care, and adapting care delivery practices Delivering safe care in the NHS - preventing errors, utilising data and technology, supporting the workforce, and promoting high quality leadership Learning from the voice of parents and families How to improve patient safety by reducing unwarranted variation and learning from clinical negligence claims The role of technology in reducing errors, enhancing care, and ensuring safety in remote healthcare and telemedicine Taking forward the National Patient Safety Syllabus and supporting the workforce to deliver care safely during the presence of COVID-19 Learning from harm, reducing the cost of litigation in the NHS, and the impact of COVID-19 Assessing findings from the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review The role of the regulator in reducing avoidable harm and informing future practice Register
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Content ArticleOn 17 November, there will be a Parliamentary launch event of the Surgical Fires Expert Working Group’s report 'A case for the prevention and management of surgical fires in the UK, which focuses on the prevention of surgical fires in the NHS'. Unfortunately surgical fires are still a patient safety issue. Each year patients needlessly suffer burns during surgical procedures which leave them with long-lasting, life-changing injuries and burdens the NHS with millions of pounds of avoidable costs and liabilities. Despite this, there is not a consistent, standardised approach across the NHS to prevent them. Kathy Nabbie, a theatre scrub nurse practitioner, shares how she implemented Fire Risk Assessment Score (FRAS) into her department.
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Content ArticleGuy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust share their Quality Impact Assessment (QIA) policy. The QIA policy has been developed to ensure that the Trust has the appropriate steps in place to safeguard quality whilst delivering changes to service delivery. This process is used to assess the impact that the Cost Improvement Plan (CIP) may have on the quality of care provided to patients at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
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Content ArticleThe Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) outlines the process in Canada if you have a question or a concern about the healthcare services you have received.
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Content ArticleBrowse or search for publications about the development and use of SOPS surveys and other topics related to assessing patients’ experiences with care.
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Content ArticleAs the pandemic approached England in early 2020, government policy decisions ensured most people stayed at home and NHS hospitals were largely protected. Yet some lives were not saved that should have been and England subsequently experienced the highest levels of excess mortality in Europe. Now as we head towards a winter living with COVID-19, a new hospital discharge policy suggests the English NHS has not learned from early mistakes and may be putting the lives of vulnerable people at risk.
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Content ArticleThis document defines the investigation framework in the event of a patient safety Serous Incident (SI) related to NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) delivered or supported services, which affects one or more health body in Wales.
