Mistakes may be covered up by one-fifth of hospitals

A government review has reported that 20% of hospital trusts in England could be covering up mistakes, suggesting that this might be a sign of “poor” safety culture.

An analysis has shown that out of 141 trusts in England, 29 had not registered the anticipated number of safety incidents.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that hospitals needed to be “open and honest” and that it was important that patients know about reporting issues.  In March this year, he set up a target to save 6,000 lives over the coming three years by minimising the amount of serious mistakes that were being made.

Trusts have been asked to join the Sign Up To Safety campaign, and put in place plans and procedures to cut “avoidable harm” such as blood clots, bedsores and medication errors, by 50% by 2016-17.

The government is about to launch the next stage of this campaign, which is a website set up to allow patients to view hospital performance in areas including infection rates and safe staffing levels.

The website will also show which trusts have received poor ratings for honest and open reporting.  These trusts will be followed up by officials from NHS England.

Mr Hunt, speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, said “The NHS is there for patients and if a hospital has a problem with its reporting culture, I think patients have a right to know that.

“Unsafe care causes immeasurable harm to patients and their families, and also costs the NHS millions in litigation claims.”

He added that if patients knew about these problems, hospitals would then be motivated to act quicker.

Sir David Dalton, Chief Executive of Salford Royal Hospital and leader of the safety campaign, asked that hospitals be open, saying “Healthcare carries inherent risk and while healthcare professionals work hard every day to reduce this risk, harm still happens.

“Some is unavoidable but most isn’t .  Sign Up To Safety seeks to reduce this harm and is a unique opportunity for us all to work together to listen, learn and act to make a difference.”

Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist team of clinical negligence lawyers have years of experience in Medical negligence compensation claims, and have obtained substantial compensation for our clients.  Not only do we represent clients in Yorkshire, but because of our reputation we also represent clients nationally.

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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (anthonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), Medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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