Action Against Medical Accidents (a charity dedicated to patient safety) has published a damning report highlighting failures to implement patient safety recommendations issued by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA).
The report, Adding Insult to Injury – NHS failure to implement patient safety alerts, is based on a Freedom of Information request made to the Department of Health and highlights the following findings:
• Over 300 NHS Trusts (around three quarters of all Trusts in England) had not complied with the required actions in at least one patient safety alert for which the deadline had already passed.
• There are 2,124 separate incidences of patient safety alerts not having been complied with by NHS Trusts.
• 80 NHS Trusts had not complied with 10 or more separate alerts.
• One Trust, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust had not complied with 70% of the alerts. Two others, the Lewisham Hospital NHS Trust and Greenwich Teaching PCT, each failed to comply with 58% of the alerts.
• There are over 200 incidences of NHS Trusts that have not complied with alerts which are over five years old (issued before December 2004).
The charity pointed out that there is no system for monitoring implementation of alerts, or of intervening with NHS Trusts who have not implemented required actions from patient safety alerts. In addition, there is no robust system for checking that NHS Trusts who declare themselves as being compliant actually are. The charity’s chief executive, Peter Walsh, said: “The fact that so many NHS bodies are failing to comply with potentially life-saving alerts from the National Patient Safety Agency is shocking. We have written to the health minister with responsibility for patient safety, Ann Keen MP, with a set of urgent recommendations which we hope to discuss with her shortly.”
