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20
Feb 2021
NHS urged to offer more support to patients harmed by mistakes
Patients and families who suffer avoidable harm as a result of NHS errors should be given targeted support and help to recover.
Patient safety charity Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) and campaign group the Harmed Patients Alliance believe the NHS needs to develop a specific harmed patient pathway to care for families affected by mistakes in their care.
There are currently over two million safety incidents reported in the NHS each year, with more than 10,000 incidents resulting in severe injury and death.
Under the proposed harmed patient pathway, those who have suffered avoidable mistakes would be assessed and their needs recorded. This may include being meaningfully engaged with investigations into what went wrong, specialist counselling, access to independent advocacy services and being involved in helping organisations learn from their mistakes to improve patient safety.
AvMA’s chief executive Peter Walsh, said “The impact of lapses of patient safety on patients and their families is fairly well known, but untold “second harm” is caused by the way the system responds and fails to support the people affected. This has to stop.
“We are calling on government and the NHS to commit to specific measures in a harmed patient pathway to do just that.”
The NHS has in recent years been persistently criticised for its “blame culture” following a number of safety scandals in patient care.
Aidan Fowler, National Director of Patient Safety, said “While patient safety incidents are thankfully rare, when they do occur, we expect staff to be able to discuss these openly among their teams and with family members of the patient.
“The NHS is already piloting a new framework to help organisations in their response to patient safety incidents and this includes supporting patients and their families following an incident and throughout any investigation.”
Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist team of clinical negligence lawyers have years of experience in medical negligence claims, providing support and guidance after life-changing events. Not only do we represent clients in Yorkshire, but because of our reputation we also represent clients nationally.
If you believe that you or a relative may have been injured as a result of clinical/medical negligence, please call for free legal advice from our medical negligence solicitors on the freephone number below.
Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
Freephone : 0800 304 7382
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