NHS trusts in England ranked by ability to learn from mistakes

Jeremy Hunt has announced changes designed to improve patient safety and take the NHS into a “new era of openness”.

Part of these changes include a “learning from mistakes league” table, which has rated 120 trusts as outstanding or good, 78 with “significant concerns” and 32 with a “poor reporting culture”. The first annual league has used feedback from staff based on their freedom to speak when mistakes are made.

Mr Hunt has said that health services must “unshackle ourselves from a quick-fix blame culture and acknowledge that sometimes bad mistakes can be made by good people”.

The announced changes include:

• Recognition given to NHS staff at professional tribunals, who are “honest about mistakes and apologise
• Legal protection provided to anyone providing information following a hospital mistake
• An independent Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, which will allow staff to report on their concerns without risk of conflict with their employer or linking their names to reports
• From April 2018, all deaths will be reviewed by expert medical examiners, who will confirm the cause of death.

Chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents Peter Walsh, said that, although he did welcome the initiatives, he still remained concerned about the “woeful inconsistency and often inadequate quality of NHS investigations into serious incidents”.

He added that Mr Hunt’s announcement did “nothing” to reassure his organisation that immediate action would be taken to address the quality of the investigations.

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Posted by Karen Motley, Paralegal, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (karenmotley@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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