Patients: Safety

(asked on 18th March 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS trusts and foundation trusts have had action taken against them for not implementing guidance from patient safety alerts since May 2010; and what action was taken in each such case.


Answered by
Dan Poulter Portrait
Dan Poulter
This question was answered on 23rd March 2015

Healthcare providers are expected to implement all the actions contained in a patient safety alert that are relevant to them and ensure that all relevant parts of their organisation and staff are aware of the information and/or the required changes. Providers should be scrutinising the implementation of their alerts and satisfying themselves that the alerts are complete by the designated deadline.

NHS England publishes monthly data about any trusts who have failed to declare compliance with stage one, two, or three of the National Patient Safety Alerting System’s (NaPSAS) alerts by their set due date. Provider compliance should also be an integral part of the commissioners’ responsibilities for improving quality.

As part of its inspections, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) looks at how providers respond to patient safety alerts as evidence of how effectively they manage and address safety concerns, and how they use this as learning to improve their safety systems and processes. CQC is continuing to develop and embed its approach to the use of data and intelligence across all the sectors it regulates as an integral part of its new approach to inspections, and has given greater prominence to safety alerts in its revised surveillance model. CQC’s Intelligent Monitoring system for the Acute Sector includes a composite indicator around completion of safety alerts and CQC is currently considering whether this can be implemented for the other sectors it regulates. This contributes to providers’ overall risk scores, which inform both the scheduling and prioritisation of inspections and the identification of focus areas for inspections.

Monitor is responsible for ensuring NHS foundation trusts are well-led so that they can provide quality care on a sustainable basis and would expect to be alerted by their providers of anything that might have a bearing on compliance with their licence including where there are significant issues regarding compliance with patient safety alerts. The NHS Trust Development Authority (TDA), as part of its oversight and escalation process, uses quality surveillance monitoring which it reviews on a monthly basis and which it uses to hold trusts to account for the timely compliance with alerts. This is undertaken via the TDA’s regular integrated delivery meetings with the trusts.

The Government has agreed to consider with relevant organisations the options for transferring NHS England’s responsibilities for safety to a single national body and this will include responsibility for patent safety alerts. No decision has yet been taken about the specific functions to be transferred and until such time, NHS England will continue to be responsible for these functions.

Reticulating Splines