Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patient safety incidents have been reported to the National Reporting and Learning System in each month since May 2010.

We do not hold information on the number of patient safety incidents that have occurred in England in each year since 2000. Patient Safety Incidents occurring in the National Health Service are reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) whose primary purpose is to enable learning from patient safety incidents. The NRLS was established in late 2003 as a largely voluntary scheme for reporting patient safety incidents, and therefore it does not provide the definitive number of patient safety incidents occurring in the NHS. However, from 1 April 2010 it became mandatory for all providers registered with the Care Quality Commission (including all NHS trusts and foundation trusts) in England to report all serious patient safety incidents to the Care Quality Commission. To avoid duplication of reporting, providers of NHS services are encouraged to report all incidents resulting in death or severe harm to the NRLS which then reports them to the Care Quality Commission.

At present, more than 100,000 patient safety incidents (including those resulting in no harm) are reported to the NRLS each month. However, these data are collated on a quarterly, rather than monthly basis. Detailed breakdowns on incidents reported are published twice-yearly and can be accessed via the following link:

http://www.nrls.npsa.nhs.uk/resources/collections/quarterly-data-summaries/

The most recent spreadsheet providing quarterly data for the number of patient safety incidents reported to the NRLS from October 2003 to June 2014 is attached.

The NRLS is a dynamic reporting system, and the number of incidents recorded as occurring at any point in time may increase as a greater proportion of incidents are reported. Experience in other industries has shown that as an organisation’s reporting culture matures, staff become more likely to report incidents.