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Found 35 results
  1. Content Article
    Concerns have been voiced about the possibility of health risks to operating room staff from exposure to surgical smoke generated from electrocautery. This study reviewed available literature to try and assess this risk. The authors concluded that: Regulations on Surgical Smoke that supersede the best judgement of the surgeon are not warranted. The extent of particulate pollution from surgical smoke has been overstated and drawing parallels between exposure to surgical smoke and cigarette smoking is not justified. Numerous studies consistently report negligible levels of pollutants associated with surgical smoke within the operating room's breathable air. While transmission of HPV through surgical smoke is a theoretical concern, conclusive evidence supporting the claim is yet to be established.
  2. Content Article
    Theatres are a high risk area. This poster from the Association for Perioperative Practice and BD illustrates how to plan and practise to manage a surgical fire. Download a pdf of the poster from the attachment below.
  3. News Article
    A patient was left traumatised when his body caught on fire halfway through surgery - leaving his insides scorched. Mark, 52, went to hospital for a routine abscess removal - but woke up to the news that a freak accident in theatre had sparked an horrific blaze. A diathermy machine, used to stop bleeding, caused a swab to catch fire - before flames burnt their way through his exposed flesh, Mark explained. It took over a year for Mark - not his real name - to recover from his dreadful injuries - and the emotional scarring it caused. Between 2008 and 2018, 37 cases were acknowledged by NHS trusts across Britain. But from 2009 to 2019, it has paid out nearly £14 million in compensation settlements and legal fees. Fires such as these are often fuelled by leaking oxygen - and are caused by faulty machinery or sparking equipment. Campaigners are concerned that UK hospitals are lagging behind other countries in recording surgical fires and introducing protocols to reduce both their frequency and severity. Theatre scrub nurse Kathy Nabbie has spent the past five years trying to make colleagues more aware of the threat of surgical fires. In 2017 - after hearing how a woman in Oregon, USA, had suffered severe burns when her face was set alight in surgery - she made a simple safety checklist. Her Fire Risk Assessment tool allowed colleagues to check for the presence of elements that together might cause a fire to break out. But senior staff failed to implement the initiative and - when a surgical fire actually took place three months later - Kathy learned that her laminated checklist had simply been put in a drawer. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “After that they did start using it, but why on earth should it have taken an actual fire to persuade them?” Read full story Source: The Sun, 7 April 2022 Further reading What can we do to improve safety in the theatre? Reflections from theatre nurse Kathy Nabbie How I raised awareness of fires in the operating theatre - Kathy Nabbie
  4. News Article
    Hospitals in England have recorded more than 450 sewage leaks in the last 12 months, data shows, putting patients and staff in danger and prompting warnings that the NHS estate is “falling apart” after a decade of underinvestment. Freedom of information requests to NHS trusts by the Liberal Democrats found alarming examples of sewage leaking on to cancer wards, maternity units and A&E departments. The investigation also uncovered multiple cases of urine and faeces flowing into hospital rooms and on to general wards. Health officials called the revelations shocking. In some instances, sewage leaks made entire hospital departments unsafe for patients and led to staff struggling to work because they felt nauseous and had headaches. Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “This is a national scandal. Our country’s hospitals are falling apart after years of underinvestment and neglect. Patients should not be treated in these conditions and heroic nurses should not have the indignity of mopping up foul sewage.” “At every turn, our treasured NHS is crumbling, from hospital buildings to dangerous ambulance wait times. The government needs to find urgent funds to fix hospitals overflowing with sewage. Patient and staff safety is a risk if ministers fail to act,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 17 February 2023
  5. Content Article
    Every year more than 12.7 million healthcare and veterinary workers in the European Union are potentially exposed to hazardous medicinal products (HMPs) which are carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR). HMPs are used mainly in cancer treatment, but also as antivirals, vaccines and immuno-suppressants, for treating such diseases as multiple sclerosis, psoriasis and systemic lupus erythematosus (an auto-immune disease) and in organ transplant. Studies show that hospital workers who handle these HMPs are three times more likely to develop malignancy and that nurses exposed are twice as likely to miscarry. Increased genetic damage has been demonstrated particularly among day-hospital nurses, who handle HMPs most during their administration. In an article for Social Europe, Ian Lindsley, Tony Musu and Adam Rogalewski examine the revised directive and new guidelines on hazardous medicinal products and discusses why awareness still needs to be raised to protect workers.
  6. News Article
    Frontline NHS staff are at risk of dying from Covid-19 after the protective gear requirements for health workers treating those infected were downgraded last week, doctors and nurses have warned. Hospital staff caring for the growing number of those seriously ill with the disease also fear that they could pass the infection on to other patients after catching it at work because of poor protection. Doctors who are dealing most closely with Covid-19 patients – A&E medics, anaesthetists and specialists in acute medicine and intensive care – are most worried. A doctor in an infectious diseases ward of a major UK hospital, who is treating patients with Covid-19, said: “I am terrified. I am seriously considering whether I can keep working as a doctor.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2020
  7. News Article
    Two out of five GPs have still not received any personal protective equipment (PPE) against coronavirus, a Pulse survey suggests. The poll of over 400 GPs saw 41% of respondents say they have not received any PPE, while a further 32% said they had not received enough. Just 15% of GPs said they have sufficient PPE, with the remainder unsure. This comes despite NHS England promising last week that it would ship PPE free of charge to practices. The Welsh Government made the same announcement this week, while in Scotland health boards should be distributing PPE. A GP who has received no proper equipment, Dr Kate Digby, in Cirencester, said she feels "woefully underprepared". She told Pulse: "I'm becoming increasingly concerned at the lack of resources being provided for frontline primary care". Read full story Source: Pulse, 2 March 2020
  8. News Article
    A baby with a serious heart condition has died after she received an infection from mould in a Seattle hospital's operating room, her mother says. Elizabeth Hutt was born with a heart condition that she battled for the entirety of her six-month-long life. The young child underwent three open heart surgeries, and after the third one is when it's believed she contracted an Aspergillus mould infection in the hospital's operating room. The mould in the hospital's operating rooms was first detected in November, around the same time as the child's third surgery. It was later determined the infection was contracted from the mould discovered in three of the 14 operating rooms at the hospital in November. The mould came from the hospital's air-handling units in the operating rooms, and 14 patients have developed infections from the mould since 2001, the hospital revealed. Seven of those 14 children have since died from their infections. Elizabeth's parents have joined a class action suit against Seattle Children's Hospital in January, which alleges facility managers knew about the mould since 2005 and failed to fix the problem. Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 February 2020
  9. News Article
    A woman has died after being set on fire during surgery in Romania, the country’s health ministry has said, in a case that has cast a spotlight on the ailing Romanian health system. The patient, who had pancreatic cancer, died on Sunday after suffering burns to 40% of her body when surgeons used an electric scalpel despite her being treated with an alcohol-based disinfectant. Contact with the flammable disinfectant caused combustion and the patient “ignited like a torch”, Emanuel Ungureanu, a Romanian politician, said. A nurse threw a bucket of water on the 66-year-old woman to prevent the fire from spreading. The health ministry said it would investigate the “unfortunate incident”, which took place on 22 December. “The surgeons should have been aware that it is prohibited to use an alcohol-based disinfectant during surgical procedures performed with an electric scalpel,” the Deputy Minister, Horatiu Moldovan, said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 December 2019 the hub has a number of posts on preventing surgical fires: Surgical fires: nightmarish “never events” persist MHRA. Paraffin-based skin emollients on dressings or clothing: fire risk (18 April 2016) National Patient Safety Agency: Fire hazard with paraffin-based skin products (Nov 2007) How I raised awareness of fires in the operating theatre
  10. Content Article
    Surgical fires are a serious a patient safety issue. In this blog, Patient Safety Learning analyses a recent response from Maria Caulfield MP, Minister for Patient Safety and Primary Care, to several questions tabled in the House of Commons about surgical fires in the NHS, and outlines the need for further action to prevent these incidents.
  11. Content Article
    A National Patient Safety Alert has been issued on the elimination of bottles of liquefied phenol 80%. The alert has been issued by the NHS England and NHS Improvement National Patient Safety Team, British Orthopaedic Society, The Association of Coloproctology Great Britain and Ireland, and Royal College of Podiatry.
  12. Content Article
    An article outlining the significance of needlestick injuries - their risks to healthcare workers, their cost, and the importance of prevention.
  13. Content Article
    A surgical fire is one that occurs in, on or around a patient undergoing a surgical procedure and is an internationally recognised patient safety issue. On 16 December 2021, Members of Parliament held a general debate on preventing surgical fires in Westminster Hall. In this article, the Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP) sets out its response to issues raised in the debate.
  14. Content Article
    This is a debate from the House of Commons on 16 December 2021 on the issue of preventing surgical fires in the NHS.
  15. Content Article
    Tony Clarke suffered from a chronic inflammatory skin disease, hidradenitis suppurativa. In September 2020, Tony underwent surgery to remove infected tissue on one side of his body. When he entered the operating theatre, Tony’s surgical team first covered part of his body with an alcohol-based solution, to keep the area clean. Then, when the operation began, the surgeons began cutting off the infected tissue using a diathermy pen, a device that targets electrically-induced heat to stop wounds from bleeding. However, shortly into the surgery, disaster struck: heat from the surgical pen had ignited the alcohol on Tony’s body. “But because alcohol burns so hot, no fire was seen,” says Tony, recalling an explanation he later received from the hospital.  “The surgeons were concentrating on the right side of my body. The left side was left burning for about 20 minutes.” For the next four months, Tony travelled back to the hospital every three days, to get his injuries checked and bandages changed. During that time, Tony describes himself as ‘totally disabled.’ In September this year, Tony, as a patient ambassador for prevention of surgical fires, spoke at a conference held in York by the Association for Perioperative Practice (AFPP). There, perioperative practitioners from across the country gathered to listen to Tony’s experience. “I was speaking to lots and lots of different professionals in the medical service and they'd never heard of it [being set on fire during surgery]. It was a rarity for them,” Tony says. Tony’s now working with different health agencies, with the aim of stopping preventable surgical burns entirely.
  16. News Article
    Hospitals across England could see oxygen supplies at worse levels this winter than at the peak of the first coronavirus wave – when some sites were forced to close to new admissions. An alert to NHS hospitals this week warned that because of the rise in admissions of COVID-19 patients, there is a risk of oxygen shortages. Trusts have been ordered to carry out daily checks on the amount of oxygen in the air on wards to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires or explosions. The problem is not because of a lack of oxygen but because pipes delivering the gas to wards will not be able to deliver the volume of gas needed by all patients. This can trigger a cut-off in supply and a catastrophic drop in pressure, meaning patients would be denied the oxygen they need to breathe. Read full story Source: The Independent, 20 November 2020
  17. Content Article
    Today was the 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 This report contains important information on surgical fires and their prevention, to be submitted to the Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC), in order to make the case for its inclusion on their agenda. In the perioperative setting, a fire may cause injury to both the patient and healthcare professionals. Injuries caused by a surgical fire most commonly occur on the head, face, neck and upper chest. The prevention of surgical fires, which can occur on or in a patient while in the operating theatre, is an urgent and serious patient safety issue in UK hospitals.  A Short Life Working Group (SLWG) for the prevention of surgical fires was established in May 2019, following an initial discussion in December 2018 on the issue of surgical fires in the UK. The group of experts from healthcare organisations and bodies across the UK convened four times in 2019 with the aim of compiling this document, in order to recommend surgical fires for a Never Event classification. The group conducted a literature review of best practice and evidence, in the UK and internationally, which informed the development of a number of considerations that could address the issue of surgical fires. This report contains information surrounding the scale of the problem of surgical fires in the UK, in addition to reported experiences of these incidences by both healthcare professionals and patients. It also includes prevention and management materials, and mandatory training that should be consistently delivered to hospital staff, and concludes with recommendations moving forward, in order to ensure the prevention of surgical fires in UK hospitals.
  18. Content Article
    Fires on the operating field are rare events that should never happen, but do. They are dangerous not only to the patient but to the operating room (OR) team members as well. Surgical fires remain a significant enough risk to justify use of a Fire Risk Assessment Score and adherence to the recommendations of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Task Force on Operating Room Fires and those of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation. Here, the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority shares key data and statistics, educational tools, multimedia and related links on surgical fires.
  19. Content Article
    Operating theatre fires remain an uncommon but real safety risk for patients undergoing nearly all types of procedures, and despite ongoing safety initiatives, occur more commonly than wrong-site surgeries. One of the most compelling cases for safety improvement in the surgical setting is within this area. Combining the simple steps of operating theatre team education; improving lines of communication between surgeons, anaesthetists, and operating theatre nurses or practitioners; and the deliberate separation of the elements of the fire triangle can almost completely eliminate the incidence of surgical fires. In this brief review, Cowles Jr and Culp Jr hope that readers will be able to reduce the risk of surgical fires effectively by the application of the safety principles described.
  20. Content Article
    The objective of this review from Alani et al. is to draw attention to the risk factors, causes and prevention of surgical fires in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery performed under local anaesthesia and sedation using a review of the literature.
  21. Content Article
    A surgical fire is potentially devastating for a patient. Fire has been recognised as a potential complication of surgery for many years. Surgical fires continue to happen with alarming frequency. Yardley and Donaldson present a review of the literature and an examination of possible solutions to this problem.
  22. Content Article
    This blog from the PatientSafe Network discusses cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance — the pain of accepting ego-dystonic facts — mitigates against an open, rational aggressive cycle of process improvement. Unfortunately the hierarchical structures in healthcare mean we are likely to suffer from this. Those further up, best positioned to bring about positive change, are the most likely to suffer cognitive dissonance.
  23. Content Article
    Hazardous Hospitals aims to elicit a wide range of viewpoints and experiences about the historical development of safety in NHS hospitals. They are interested to hear from anyone with direct experience of encountering health and safety risks in hospitals, promoting safety, or exposing shortcomings in healthcare quality. Follow the link below to find out more and how to participate.
  24. Content Article
    Hazardous Hospitals is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship, exploring the history of safety in the British National Health Service.
  25. Content Article
    This poster from the National Association of Theatre Nurses (ATN) aims to give an overview of electrosurgery in the perioperative setting. It identifies and defines some of the common forms of electrosurgery used in perioperative practice and identifies some of the hazards that can be associated with these products.
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