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Showing results for tags 'Risk assessment'.
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Content ArticleIn this article, published by The Justice Gap, Theo Huckle QC discusses the issue of people not receiving treatment because of diversion of pre-existing NHS resources to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. There are legal issues which arise about the rights of citizens to receive – and continue to receive – treatment from their health service. What are those rights and what right do Governments in the UK or the health Trusts have to reduce services and not treat existing patients because of the current global health crisis?
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Content ArticleThe International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organisation for standardisation comprising all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote international co-operation on all questions concerning standardisation in the electrical and electronic fields. This part of IEC 62366 specifies a process for a manufacturer to analyse, specify, develop and evaluate the usability of a medical device as it relates to safety. This usability engineering (human factors engineering) process permits the manufacturer to assess and mitigate risks associated with correct use and use errors, i.e., normal use. It can be used to identify but does not assess or mitigate risks associated with abnormal use.
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Content ArticleProactive patient safety and risk prevention are key to helping healthcare organisations survey and mitigate global and local risks. Jeff Surges, Chief Executive Officer of RLDatix, explores this in his blog for Health Europa.
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Content ArticleAntibiotics are key to modern medicine and treatment. Many procedures and treatments developed over recent years, such as chemotherapy, organ transplants and other major surgery, rely on antibiotics to prevent infections. They are also crucial in treating some forms of pneumonia and other illnesses. However, an increasing number of common infections are becoming resistant to the drugs designed to treat them. This is called antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is part of the fight against AMR. The purpose of AMS is to ensure ‘the right antibiotic for the right patient, at the right time, with the right dose, and the right route, causing the least harm to the patient and future patients’. AMS programmes might include improving prescribing of antibiotics, promoting data collection and raising public awareness of AMR.
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News ArticleThe NHS have duped thousands of women into believing the most common incontinence mesh operation is safe, by not adding loss of sex life into its risk figures, campaigners say. The move keeps figures low so surgeons can reassure women that it is a safe day case operation. The discovery is buried in a report from five years ago, and when questioned on it, the MHRA, tasked with making sure implants are safe for patients, passed the buck and blamed the report authors. The revelation comes after a debate in Westminster, where health minister Jackie Doyle Price said there was not enough evidence to suspend the plastic implants and quoted a risk of 1-3%. However, those figures were blown out of the water just weeks before the debate in a landmark study using the NHS’s own hospital re-admission figures which show TVT mesh tape risk is at least 10%. Campaigners say even that is not a reflection of the true scale of the mesh disaster because it does not take into account women going to doctors for pain medication or those suffering in silence. Read full story Source: Cambs Times, 31 October 201t
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NHS Education for Scotland: Project Charter
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Quality Improvement
A project charter is the statement of scope, objectives and people who are participating in a project. -
Content ArticleSafety of patients and surgical teams is paramount when undertaking elective surgery in the initial recovery phase from COVID-19. This tool from the Royal College of Surgeons of England lists key considerations to minimise risks of patients and surgical teams contracting COVID-19 in the hospital.
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Risks of CTG monitoring
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Maternity
This is a series of three articles written by Kirsten Small, a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist in Australia, exploring the risks that flow from the use of intrapartum monitoring. Part 1 Examines evidence of short and long-term physical harms to birthing women relating to higher rates of surgical birth when intrapartum Cardiotocography (CTG) monitoring is used. Part 2 Focuses on possible psychological harms which have been reported relating to CTG use. Part 3 Looks at the possibility that CTG use might cause harm to the baby, while the two previous posts have examined the risk to birthing women. -
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Further serious patient safety incidents: why are staff still not being listened to when concerns are raised?
Anonymous posted an article in Whistle blowing
Due to COVID-19 and the safety issues the pandemic is highlighting, I have decided to write a sequel to my previous blog 'Dropped instrument, washed and immediately reused'. I am writing this because it recently came to my notice from colleagues that safety is once again being compromised in the same private hospital where my shifts were blocked after I reported a patient safety incident.- Posted
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Content ArticlePublic Health England (PHE) has published data on the disparities in the risk and outcomes from COVID-19. This review presents findings based on surveillance data available to PHE at the time of its publication, including through linkage to broader health data sets. It confirms that the impact of COVID-19 has replicated existing health inequalities and, in some cases, has increased them. These results improve our understanding of the pandemic and will help in formulating the future public health response to it.
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Content ArticleReturning to ‘normal’ levels of activity after the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to take some time and, even before COVID-19, there were substantial challenges with waiting times. As the NHS looks to start to recover services, this analysis from the Health Foundation looks at the context in which planned treatment will recommence. Specifically, it looks at what would have been needed – if the NHS were operating within a ‘business as usual model’ – to return to delivering the standard of 92% of patients being treated within 18 weeks, given the waiting lists and waiting times backlog that had built up by January 2020.
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Content ArticleThere is evidence of disproportionate mortality and morbidity amongst black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people, including NHS staff, who have contracted COVID-19. The authors of this blog argue that this is not just an equality, diversity and inclusion issue but an urgent medical emergency and we need to act now.They look at how the NHS can support BAME staff through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, focusing on: protection of staff engagement with staff representation in decision making rehabilitation and recovery communications and media.
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Content ArticleBased on the Health & Safety Executive Guidance (HSE (2013) INDG451 ‘Heat Stress in the workplace’), Dr Susan Whalley-Lloyd has produced a document and flowchart addressing what happens to us when we experience extreme heat. This can be the result of extreme outside air temperature due to the weather or heat build-up in a work area due to equipment generating heat, or restricted workspace, or large areas of glass within a building, or air conditioning problems or windows that won’t open, or a combination of conditions eg high energy tasks whilst wearing PPE and few rest breaks for fluid intake.
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NHS Employers: Risk assessments for staff – COVID-19
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Staff safety
This page contains guidance for employers on how to carry out risk assessments particularly for vulnerable groups, to understand the specific risks staff members face from exposure to COVID-19 and actions which employers can take to keep staff safe. This includes staff returning to work for the NHS, and existing staff who are potentially more at risk due to their race, age, disability or pregnancy. -
Content ArticleThe Health and Social Care Select Committee is currently holding an Inquiry into Delivering Core NHS and Care Services during the Pandemic and Beyond. It’s stated aim is to ‘give focus to these upcoming strategic challenges, and give those working in the NHS and care sectors an opportunity to set out what help they will need from Government in meeting them’ [1]. This is a submission to the Inquiry by Patient Safety Learning.
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Content ArticleRoot Cause Analysis (RCA) is a generic method used in quality improvement and patient safety projects. In patient safety, it should help teams to ‘get to the bottom’ of the circumstances that led or could lead to an incident and take appropriate and effective action to prevent the recurrence of the incident or minimise the probability of recurrence. Find out more about RCA in this Healthcare Quality Quest booklet.
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Content ArticleThis briefing, from the Royal College of Midwives, sets out the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of women choosing to birth unassisted (freebirth). It highlights that anecdotal evidence suggests the number of women choosing to have their babies in this way is on the rise, due to a reduction in birth options. This briefing looks at the safety and legal implications, key guidance around freebirthing and lists some important considerations for midwives when caring for women who make this decision.
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Liver transplantation and COVID-19 (9 April 2020)
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Blogs
You may have heard that fewer liver transplants are taking place than usual because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a very worrying time for those who are waiting for a liver transplant. The safety of organ donation and transplantation is a priority for NHS Blood and Transplantation (NHSBT), which is working to continue organ donation where possible, so transplants can go ahead if appropriate. Professor Douglas Thorburn, PSC Support Expert Panel and Chair of the Liver Advisory Group for NHS Blood and Transplant, shares his insight and concerns with the charity PSC Support. -
Content ArticleThe mortality rates for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are double those of the general population and researchers believe unmet mental health needs may be a factor. The researchers’ results were derived from an Australian-first University of New South Wales (UNSW) study, which analysed linked data sets on death rates, risk factors and cause of death for 36,000 people on the autism spectrum. While cancer and circulatory diseases are the leading cause of deaths in the general population, injury and poisoning – including accidents, suicide and deaths related to self-harm – were the most common causes for people with ASD. GP and autism advocate Dr James Best told newsGP he was not surprised by the results, but that they did confirm people with ASD have a different set of health risk factors.
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Content ArticleThis pneumonic is for quick diagnosis / risk assess for coronavirus developed by doctors in Italy.
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Content ArticleThe international Society for Rapid Response Systems (iSRRS) is the peak international body related to Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) and Critical Care Outreach (CCO) services around the work. The aim of the iSRRS is to improve the prevention of, and response to acute deterioration in hospitalised patients.
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Content ArticleAhead of the Health and Social Care Select Committee’s next oral evidence session, Patient Safety Learning have raised several urgent safety issues with the Chair, Jeremy Hunt MP. Below is a blog summarising our submission to the Committee.
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Improving standards of asthma management in a prison setting
Claire Cox posted an article in Prison setting
An initiative to raise standards of asthma care in a prison setting has lessons for the management and care of people with asthma in other healthcare settings. This article is published in the Nursing Times. You can register for guest access which gives you 1 week’s unrestricted access to nursingtimes.net. -
Content ArticleDysphagia (swallowing problems) occurs in all care settings and although the true incidence and prevalence are unknown, it is estimated the condition can occur in up to 30% of people aged over 65 years of age. Stroke, neurodegenerative diseases and learning disabilities can be the cause of some cases of dysphagia, and may also result in cognitive or intellectual impairment, as well as visual impairment, NHS England received details of an incident where a care home resident died following the accidental ingestion of the thickening powder that had been left within their reach. Whilst it is important that products remain accessible, all relevant staff need to be aware of potential risks to patient safety. Appropriate storage and administration of thickening powder needs to be embedded within the wider context of protocols, bedside documentation, training programmes and access to expert advice required to safely manage all aspects of the care of individuals with dysphagia. Individualised risk assessment and care planning is required to ensure that vulnerable people are identified and protected.
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Content ArticleThese controversial implants are used by medical professionals to treat stress incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, both of which can occur after childbirth. But there’s a darker side to the mesh story, with many women left in excruciating pain, suffering long-term health problems as a result of being fitted with them. This article in Woman & Home explores the issues around vaginal mesh implants and speaks to women and campaigners.
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