Jump to content
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    11,906

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Patient Safety Learning

Administrators

 Content Type 

News posted by Patient Safety Learning

  1. Patient Safety Learning
    Women in Scotland who have experienced complications following vaginal mesh surgery are to be offered an independent review of their case notes.
    Mesh implants have been used to treat conditions some women suffer after childbirth, such as incontinence and prolapse. However, many women experienced painful, debilitating side effects.
    Some of the women who have suffered complications met First Minister Nicola Sturgeon last November. She was told a number of them had understood the mesh would be completely removed but that had not happened, leaving some of the synthetic substance still attached.
    After hearing about their experiences, Ms Sturgeon has now written to the women she saw, confirming that in the spring they will be given the chance to sit down with an independent clinician for a review of their case notes. That will be followed up by a report and possible referral to specialist care.
    The case note review will initially only be offered to those who attended the first minister's meetings however, it may be offered more widely at a later date.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 23 February 2020
  2. Patient Safety Learning
    In his latest blog post, Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX, has reiterated the potential AI has to reduce the burden on the NHS by improving patient outcomes and increasing productivity. However, he said there are gaps in the rules that govern the use of AI and a lack of clarity on both standards and roles.
    These gaps mean there is a risk of using AI that is unsafe and that NHS organisations will delay employing AI until all the regulatory gaps have been filled. Gould says, “The benefits will be huge if we can find the sweet spot” that allows trust to be maintained whilst creating the freedom for innovation but warns that we are not in that position yet.
    At the end of January, the CEOs and heads of 12 regulators and associated organisations met to work through these issues and discuss what was required to ensure innovation-friendly processes and regulations are put in place.
    They agreed there needs to be a clarity of role for these organisations, including the MHRA being responsible for regulating the safety of AI systems; the Health Research Agency (HRA) for overseeing the research to generate evidence; NICE for assessing whether new AI solutions should be deployed; and the CQC to ensure providers are following best practice.
    Read the full blog
    Source: Techradar, 13 February 2020
  3. Patient Safety Learning
    The Independent Inquiry into the issues raised by Paterson is yet another missed opportunity to tackle the systemic patient safety risks which lie at the heart of the private hospital business model, says David Rowland from the Centre for Health and the Public Interest in a recent BMJ Opinion article.
    Although the Inquiry provided an important opportunity for the hundreds of patients affected to bear witness to the pain and harm inflicted upon them it fundamentally failed as an exercise in root cause analysis. None of the “learning points” in the final report touch on the financial incentives which may have led Paterson to deliberately over treat patients. Nor do they cover the business reasons which might encourage a private hospital’s management not to look too closely. 
    He suggests that the Inquiry report threw the responsibility for managing patient safety risks back to the patients themselves in two of its main recommendations but that it should be for the healthcare provider first and foremost to ensure that the professions that they employ are safe, competent and properly supervised, and for this form of assurance to be underpinned by a well-functioning system of licensing and revalidation by national regulatory bodies.
    Read full story
    Source: BMJ Opinion, 20 February 2020
  4. Patient Safety Learning
    Patient safety is at risk in “crumbling” NHS mental health hospitals starved of the money needed to improve dilapidated buildings, new data has revealed.
    Hundreds of vulnerable mentally ill patients are still being cared for in 350 old dormitory-style wards, 20 years after the NHS was told to provide all patients with en-suite rooms. A lack of funding to refurbish hospitals has also meant too many wards still have ligature points that patients can use to try to harm themselves.
    NHS leaders said the lack of cash from the government meant they could not deal with warnings issued by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the sector’s watchdog.
    A survey of mental health trust leaders by NHS Providers has now found bosses are worried the state of psychiatric wards is undermining their ability to keep patients safe.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 20 February 2020
  5. Patient Safety Learning
    Registered nurses at Queen of the Valley Medical Center (QVMC) in Napa, Calif, USA, will hold an informational picket followed by a vote to authorise a strike in an effort to raise patient care standards and win a fair contract, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, (CNA/NNU) has announced.
    Nurses at QVMC will picket to highlight cutbacks and eroding patient care. Among the nurses’ top concerns is safe patient care, including safe staffing and dedicated staff for safe patient handling.
    “After eight months of negotiations, it's time for Queen of the Valley nurses to bring our concerns to our community and let them know nurses are fighting to give them the best patient care,” said MaryLou Bahn, registered nurse in labour and delivery at QVMC and member of the bargaining team. “We’re fighting for adequate staffing levels because we refuse to put profits over the needs of our patients.”
    Read full story
    Source: National Nurses United, 20 February 2020
  6. Patient Safety Learning
    NHS Digital and the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) have launched a consultation as part of the next phase of a programme to align private healthcare data with NHS recorded activity.
    The consultation sets out a series of changes to how data is recorded and managed across private and NHS care, along with a series of pilot projects, based upon feedback from a variety of stakeholders. It aims to seek the views of private and NHS providers, clinicians, the public and other organisations with an interest in private healthcare and will be used to help shape the future changes.
    The consultation, which has been launched following the publication of the Paterson Inquiry, will be hosted on the NHS Digital Consultation Hub.
    Under the changes proposed in the Acute Data Alignment Programme (ADAPt), PHIN will share the national dataset of private admitted patient care in England with NHS Digital, creating a single source of healthcare data in England.
    This recommendation has been supported by recommendations in the Paterson Inquiry to create a single repository for practice of consultants in private and public healthcare across England.
    Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Regardless of where you’re treated or how your care is funded, everybody deserves safe, compassionate care. The recent Paterson Inquiry highlighted the shocking failures that can occur when information is not shared and acted upon in both the NHS and independent sector. We are working tirelessly across the health system to deliver the highest standards of care for patients. Trusted data is absolutely critical to this mission and the ADAPt programme will help improve transparency and raise standards for all.”
    Read full story
    Source: NHS Digital, 19 February 2020
  7. Patient Safety Learning
    Poor treatment and aftercare for people who self-harm or attempt suicide is putting their lives at risk, the Royal College of Psychiatrists says. Many patients treated in A&E for self-harm do not receive a full psychosocial assessment from a mental health professional to assess suicide risk.
    Simon Rose, who has attempted suicide many times, told BBC News it once took 18 months to receive aftercare.
    NHS England said reducing suicide rates was an "NHS priority".
    Last year, UK suicide rates rose for the first time since 2013, with people born in the 1960s and 1970s being the most vulnerable. Experts are now calling for all self-harm patients to be offered a safety plan – an agreed set of bespoke activities and guidelines to help them deal with depressive episodes.
    Dr Huw Stone, who chairs the patients' safety group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said patients, especially those under 30, were being systematically let down in their most vulnerable state.
    "With hospital admissions for self-harming under-30s more than doubling in the last 10 years, there has never been a more important time to ensure patients are getting the care that they need," he said.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 21 February 2020
  8. Patient Safety Learning
    Ultrasound scans for around 1,800 patients have had to be reviewed over concerns about the “quality and safety” of work carried out by two sonographers employed by an independent provider.
    The two sonographers were employed by Bestcare Diagnostics. The company held an “any qualified provider” contract for non-obstetric ultrasound scans with Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) from April 2017.
    This contract was suspended in September 2018 over what the CCG said were “quality issues”. However, new information came to light in spring 2019 and the CCG decided to review all 1,800 patients seen by the pair, who worked for the company between April and August 2018.
    The CCG said scans for these patients were reviewed and, wherever possible, the patients were contacted. A second stage of the review will look at whether any harm was caused to the patients.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 20 February 2020
  9. Patient Safety Learning
    As part of the NHS Digital Child Health programme, Personal Child Health Records or “Redbook” will receive a digital makeover.

    NHS Digital has considered the limitations of the physical Redbook and decided that digitalisation is the way forward for parents to easily access important health and development information.

    Nurturey has been evolving its product to align with NHS' Digital Child Health programme. It aims to be an app that can make the digital Redbook vision a reality and currently in the process of completing all the necessary integrations and assurances.

    It is hoped that by using smart digital records, parents will be more aware of their child’s health information like weight, dental records, appointments and other developmental milestones.  

    Tushar Srivastava, Founder and CEO of Nurturey, said:

    “Imagine receiving your child's immunisation alert/notification on the phone, clicking on it to book the immunisation appointment with the GP, and then being able to see all relevant immunisations details on the app itself. As a parent myself, I see the huge benefit of being able to manage my child’s health on my fingertips. We are working hard to deliver such powerful features to parents by this summer.”
    Read full story
    Source: National Health Executive, 5 February 2020
  10. Patient Safety Learning
    Patients who abuse NHS staff will be banned from receiving non-emergency care as new figures show more than one in four NHS staff have experienced harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or members of the public.
    The annual survey of more than 560,000 NHS workers found one in seven staff (15%) had experienced physical violence in the last 12 months while 40,000 staff (7.2%) had faced some form of discrimination during 2019 – an increase from 5.8% in 2015.
    A total of 13% of staff reported being bullied, harassed or abused by their own manager in the past 12 months and almost a fifth (19%) said they had experienced abuse from colleagues.
    The health secretary Matt Hancock has written to staff condemning the abuse and warning assaults on NHS workers will not be tolerated. Under new plans NHS England said that from April NHS hospitals will be able to bar patients who inflict discriminatory or harassing behaviour on staff from receiving non-emergency care. Previously, individual NHS organisations could only refuse services to patients if they were aggressive or violent.
    Hospitals will be required to act reasonably and take into account the mental health of the patient or member of the public.
    Read full story
    Source: The Independent, 19 February 2020
  11. Patient Safety Learning
    Lives may be at risk unless the NHS reviews how stand-in doctors are recruited, a coroner has warned.
    Harry Richford's death after a series of failings at a hospital in Margate, Kent, was ruled "wholly avoidable". An inquest heard he was delivered by an "inexperienced" locum doctor who was new to the hospital.
    A national review into the recruitment, assessment and supervision of locums should be carried out, Christopher Sutton-Mattocks said in a report. The coroner wrote that particular emphasis should be considered upon the scope of locums' activities before they are left responsible for out-of-hours labour care.
    He issued 19 recommendations to prevent future deaths, including a request that NHS England and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists consider such a review, warning "there may be a risk to other lives both at this trust and at other trusts in the future".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 19 February 2020
  12. Patient Safety Learning
    The Health Foundation will begin exploring the impact of data analytics and technology on health and care in the UK.
    The independent charity has launched its Data Analytics for Better Health strategy, which aims to tackle real-world problems that affect people’s health and develop a greater understanding of the role that technology and data plays in daily life. The strategy sets out how the Health Foundation aims to help policymakers, practitioners and the wider public get to grip with “seismic changes” taking place in the health sector.
    Dr Adam Steventon, Director of Data Analytics at the Health Foundation, said: “Data is being used to drive innovation in ways that can revolutionise health care, including early disease detection, easier access to care services and encouraging health promoting behaviours. But such technological advances also carry the risk of harm to patients. As a nation we need to advance our understanding of these fast-moving changes. This new programme of work will help us to do that, enabling us to explore how analytics and data-driven technology can create better heath and care for people across the UK.”
    Read full story
    Source: Digital Health, 6 February 2020
  13. Patient Safety Learning
    The NHS has launched a patient safety inquiry after a private contractor failed to send more than 28,000 pieces of confidential medical correspondence to GPs. 
    NHS bosses are trying to find out if any patients have been harmed after 28,563 letters detailing discussions at outpatient appointments were not sent because of a mistake by Cerner, an IT company. The letters should have been sent by doctors at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals in north London to GPs after consultations with 22,144 patients between June last year and last month. However, a “clinical harm review” is under way after it was found they had not been dispatched.
    The incident has prompted concern among GPs and patient representatives. “Patients who have attended these two hospitals will now be very worried about whether their care might have been compromised by this IT bungle”, said Rachel Power, the chief executive of the Patients Association.
    Read full story
    Source: The Guardian, 18 February 2020
  14. Patient Safety Learning
    When orthopaedic surgeons plan a surgical procedure, they demand that safe implants be used. When a patient accepts to undergo surgery, he or she expects the implants used to be safe. When the manufacturer produces and delivers implantsto be used in patients, they take the implants through a meticulous investigation followed by an evaluation of the products by regulators and notified bodies, before the implant is released for free use on the European market by physicians. In this way, all “stakeholders” expect and desire to do their best to bring about safe implants that are used in surgery for patients, which fulfills patients’ expectations of receiving safe treatment.
    However, history has shown that, although all participants in this process do their job to treat the patient safely, some implants may still unexpectedly fail. We need to know why this occurs and the trends associated with such failures, such as whether the implant or patient’s characteristics led to the problem or if there is some unforeseen reason that caused the implant to fail.
    Incoming EFORT president Prof. Klaus-Peter Günther, of Dresden, Germany, has set up regular meetings to bring all 'stakeholders' in the safety of orthopaedic implants together to regularly discuss relevant issues related to safe implants used to safely treat patients. 
    EFORT held the first such meeting, “EFORT Implant & Patient Safety Initiative. Inauguration Workshop,” on 21 January 21 in Brussels. Fifty participants from the EU Commission, notified bodies, regulators, patient organizations, European orthopaedic specialty societies, manufacturers and EFORT board participated in this first initiative. 
    The next meeting on this initiative will be held on 10 June during the EFORT Congress in Vienna, Austria.
    Read full story
    Source: Orthopedics Today, 13 February 2020
  15. Patient Safety Learning
    Today the results of the National NHS Staff Survey 2019 are out. This is of the largest workforce surveys in the world with 300 NHS organisations taking part, including 229 trusts. It asks NHS staff in England about their experiences of working for their respective NHS organisations.
    The results found that 59.7% of staff think their organisation treats staff who are involved in an error, near miss or incident fairly. While an improvement on recent years (52.2% in 2015) work is needed to move from a blame culture to one that encourages and supports incident reporting.
    It also found that 73.8% of staff think their organisation acts on concerns raised by patients/service users. It is vital that patients are engaged for patient safety during their care and there is clear research evidence that active patient engagement helps to reduce unsafe care.
    Patient Safety Learning has recently launched a new blog series on the hub to develop our understanding of the needs of patients, families and staff when things go wrong and looking at how these needs may be best met.
     
  16. Patient Safety Learning
    A three-month-old boy died from sepsis after ‘gross failures’ by medics to give him antibiotics until it was too late, an inquest ruled. Lewys Crawford died a day after he was admitted to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff with a high temperature last March. Jurors at Pontypridd Coroner’s Court said the failure of doctors to treat his illness with antibiotics until seven hours after his arrival had ‘significantly contributed’ to his death. They found the little boy died from natural causes contributed to by neglect in his care.
    Read full story
    Source: The Metro, 15 February 2020
  17. Patient Safety Learning
    A trust unfairly dismissed a senior nurse after she tried to invoke its formal whistleblowing policy, an employment tribunal has ruled.
    North Tees and Hartlepool Foundation Trust had suspended Linda Fairhall for 18 months without a “meaningful or adequate” explanation prior to her dismissal, the judgment said. 
    Ms Fairhall, who led a team of 50 district nurses in Hartlepool, reported on the trust’s risk register that a “change in policy” by the local authority had directly led to increased workloads for her staff. The change meant staff had to monitor patients who had been prescribed medication “so as to ensure the correct medicines were being taken at the correct time”, the judgment said.
    She reported numerous concerns to senior management between December 2015 and October 2016, amounting to 13 protected disclosures according to the tribunal, ranging from work-related stress, sickness, absenteeism and a need to retrain healthcare assistants.
    A patient’s death triggered a meeting involving her and senior managers, which she said could have been prevented had her earlier concerns “been properly addressed”.
    Ms Fairhall told care group director Julie Parks she wanted to initiate the formal whistleblowing policy on 21 October 2016, before going on annual leave a few days later. When she returned, she was told she had been suspended for 10 days.
    The judgment, handed down at Teesside Justice Hearing Centre and published last week, added: “No reasonable employer, in all the circumstances of this case, would have conducted the investigation in this manner.”
    The judgment said the tribunal believed the principal reason for her dismissal was because she had made protected disclosures. It upheld her claim that her dismissal was automatically unfair.
    Read full story (paywalled)
    Source: HSJ, 17 February 2020
  18. Patient Safety Learning
    With a focus on pharmaceutical supply chain regulation, Bonafi is one of the latest companies to launch within the regtech startup sector.
    “Companies operating in the global pharma industry must verify that those they are buying from and selling to are authorised to handle medicinal products for human use in their own countries,” explains its founder, Katarina Antill. “At present, this verification process is manual. Companies are using screenshots as proof and relying on spreadsheets to track verification activities, which increases the risk of errors.”
    “Manual processes are very labour intensive not least because companies must deal with multiple registries across multiple countries,” she says. “Most pharma manufacturers and wholesalers don’t have the resources to reverify their trading partners more than once a year, which is the current minimum legal requirement, and this too creates a potential vulnerability that can ultimately have an impact on patient safety and increase corporate risk.
     “I could see that this huge volume of manual work was a threat to patient-safety and extremely inefficient,” she adds. “Our solution gives companies much greater control over their compliance activities because they no longer have to rely on manual processes. It can also retrieve and aggregate data from multiple registers across multiple countries and has a constant monitoring and alert system, quality management dashboards, electronic signatures and workflows and will strengthen the attributes of traceability, transparency and security. It is all designed to help companies to be pro-active in their compliance activities, enabling them to go beyond compliance alone to reduce corporate risk and patient risk.”
    Read full story
    Source: The Irish Times, 13 February 2020
  19. Patient Safety Learning
    The Equality and Human Rights Commission have launched a legal challenge against the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care over the repeated failure to move people with learning disabilities and autism into appropriate accommodation.
    Their concerns are about the rights of more than 2,000 people with learning disabilities and autism being detained in secure hospitals, often far away from home and for many years. These concerns increased significantly following the BBC’s exposure of the shocking violation of patients’ human rights at Whorlton Hall, where patients suffered horrific physical and psychological abuse.
    The Equality and Human Rights Commission have sent a pre-action letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, arguing that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has breached the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) for failing to meet the targets set in the Transforming Care program and Building the Right Support program.
    These targets included moving patients from inappropriate inpatient care to community-based settings, and reducing the reliance on inpatient care for people with learning disabilities and autism.
    Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief Executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: 'We cannot afford to miss more deadlines. We cannot afford any more Winterbourne Views or Whorlton Halls. We cannot afford to risk further abuse being inflicted on even a single more person at the distressing and horrific levels we have seen. We need the DHSC to act now."
    "These are people who deserve our support and compassion, not abuse and brutality. Inhumane and degrading treatment in place of adequate healthcare cannot be the hallmark of our society. One scandal should have been one too many."
    Read full story
    Souce: Equality and Human Rights Commission, 12 February 2020
  20. Patient Safety Learning
    The government has announced an independent review into maternity services at an NHS trust where a number of babies have died.
    “Immediate actions” have also been promised and an independent clinical team has been placed “at the heart” of East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust. It comes amid reports that at least seven preventable baby deaths may have occurred at the trust since 2016, including that of Harry Richford.
    Harry died seven days after his emergency delivery in a “wholly avoidable” tragedy, contributed to by neglect, in November 2017, an inquest found.
    Speaking in the House of Commons, the health minister Nadine Dorries confirmed the independent review would be carried out by Dr Bill Kirkup, who led the investigation into serious maternity failings at Morecambe Bay. It will look at preventable and avoidable deaths of newborns to ensure the trust learns lessons from each case and will put in place appropriate processes to safeguard families.
    The review is expected to begin shortly and work in partnership with affected families.
    Read full story
    Source: 13 February 2020
  21. Patient Safety Learning
    A double amputee suffered fatal pressure sores caused by "gross and obvious failings" in her hospital treatment.
    Janet Prince, from Nottingham, developed the sores after being admitted to Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in July 2017. The 80-year-old died in January 2019.
    Assistant Coroner Gordon Clow issued a prevention of future deaths report to Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH).
    Nottingham Coroner's Court had heard Ms Prince was taken to QMC in Nottingham with internal bleeding on 15 July 2017. The patient was left on a trolley in the emergency department for nine hours and even though she and daughter Emma Thirlwall said she needed to be given a specialist mattress, she was not given one.
    "No specific measures of any kind were implemented during that period of more than nine hours to reduce the risk of pressure damage, even though it should have been easily apparent to those treating her that [she] needed such measures to be in place," Mr Clow said.
    Ms Prince was later transferred to different wards, but a specialist mattress was only provided for her a few days before she was discharged on 9 August, by which time Mr Clow said her wounds "had progressed to the most serious form of pressure ulcer (stage four) including a wound with exposed bone".
    Mr Clow said there were "serious failings" over finding an appropriate mattress and other aspects of her care while at the QMC, including "a gross failure" to prevent Ms Prince's open wounds coming into contact with faeces.
    Mr Clow said the immediate cause of her death was "severe pressure ulcers", with bronchopneumonia a contributory factor. Recording a death by "natural causes, contributed to by neglect", he said he was "troubled by the lack of evidence" of any changes to wound management at NUH.
    NUH medical director Keith Girling apologised for the failings in Ms Prince's care, claiming the trust had "learnt a number of significant lessons from this very tragic case".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 14 February 2020
     
  22. Patient Safety Learning
    Dedicated to caring for the sick and vulnerable, junior ­doctors should expect to be ­supported and valued as they carry out their vital work. However, hundreds have revealed they are subjected to bullying and harassment at overstretched hospitals that have been plunged into a staffing crisis by a decade of savage health cuts.
    A Mirror investigation uncovered harrowing stories of young medics being denied drinking water during gruelling shifts, working for 15 hours on their feet non-stop and of uncaring managers tearing into them for breaking down in tears over the deaths of patients.
    One was even accused of “stealing” surgical scrubs she took to wear after suffering a miscarriage at work. The distraught woman finished her shift wearing blood-soaked trousers, instead of going home to rest.
    Doctors are now quitting in their droves, leaving those left ­struggling to cope with a growing ­workload. The Mirror investigation reveals the reality of working for an NHS which has been subject to a record funding squeeze and is 8,000 medics short.
    Health chiefs vowed to ­investigate the Mirror’s evidence from 602 ­testimonials submitted to the lobbying group Doctors Association UK.
    Chairman Dr Rinesh Parmar said: “These heartbreaking stories from across the country show the extent of bullying and harassment that frontline doctors face whilst working to care for patients".
    Read full story
    Source: The Mirror, 12 February 2020
  23. Patient Safety Learning
    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
     
  24. Patient Safety Learning
    Pioneering robotic surgery to remove hard-to-reach head and neck cancers has been performed in Wales for the first time.
    More than 20 patients a year from across Wales are expected to benefit from the new service at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
    Surgeons use a precision robot with several arms to remove tumours and improve the chances of recovery. The first patient is recovering well from his operation in December.
    A human surgeon's wrist can turn 180 degrees, whereas the robot's four 'hands' can rotate four or five times.
    This dexterity reduces the need for more invasive surgery – in some cases this might have involved breaking the jaw open – and patients can recover much more quickly.
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 14 February 2020
  25. Patient Safety Learning
    The boss of an NHS trust at the centre of concerns about preventable baby deaths has claimed the scale of the failings is not clearly defined.
    Susan Acott, Chief Executive of East Kent Hospitals Trust, said there had only been "six or seven" avoidable deaths at the trust since 2011. However, the BBC revealed on Monday that the trust previously accepted responsibility for at least 10.
    Ms Acott said some of the baby deaths were "not as clear-cut".
    A series of failings came to light during the inquest of Harry Richford who died seven days after his birth at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate in November 2017. A coroner ruled Harry's death was "wholly avoidable" and was contributed to by hospital neglect.
    Ms Acott added she had not read a key report from 2015 drawing attention to maternity problems at the trust until December 2019.
    Ms Acott claims that from 2011 to 2020 there were "about six or seven" baby deaths that were viewed as preventable. She says the other deaths were being investigated adding "these things aren't always black and white".
    Read full story
    Source: BBC News, 12 February 2020
×
×
  • Create New...