The number of reported patient safety incidents that resulted in death has fallen, against a backdrop of increased awareness, learning and reporting by NHS organisations across England, according to the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA).
The latest figures show that, month on month, the number of Trusts that have submitted regular reporting has increased. They also show the number of patient safety incidents reported to the NPSA as having resulted in death has decreased from 1,856 to 1,160 compared to the same period last year. In addition, the number of reported cases that resulted in severe harm to the patient fell from 3,643 to 2,412. Awareness of the importance of reporting no or low harm patient safety incidents has also increased. The figures show a sharp jump in the number of reports received by the NPSA from 379,345 to 473,162 between the two periods. From these, the most commonly reported incident type is patient accident (31%); treatment procedure (10%); and medication (10%). The NPSA’s Director of Patient Safety, Dr Suzette Woodward, explained: “These latest data provide real evidence of an improved patient safety culture in the NHS with a decrease in the severity of incidents reported and a corresponding, real increase in the number of patient safety incidents reported to the NPSA across all categories. This trend is extremely positive and goes to show just how seriously frontline services view reporting and, more importantly, learning from incidents. “Strong leadership from boards will help frontline services to be even safer for patients. These organisational feedback reports will allow boards to look at their own patient safety strategy within their organisation.”
