8,712 incidents of patient care being put at risk in East Lancashire (From Lancashire Telegraph)

8,712 incidents of patient care being put at risk in East Lancashire

2:00pm Monday 3rd September 2012 in News By Catherine Pye, Health reporter

PATIENT care has been put at risk 8,712 times at East Lancashire hospitals in the past year, new figures reveal.

But, according to health bosses, 99.02per cent of the cases were graded as causing no harm, or minimal harm.

From June 2011 to June 2012 at hospitals including the Royal Blackburn, Burnley General, Accrington Victoria, and Clitheroe and Pendle Community Hospitals, they have included:

• 2,984 slips, trips and falls
• 1,021 maternity incidents
• 806 pressure care incidents
• 727 medication incidents
• 571 incidents relating to communications
• 545 incidents related to admissions and discharge

The outcomes of the cases which resulted in harm have not been revealed.

The total number of clinical incidents was up 12per cent on the previous year’s figures of 7,696, putting the East Lanc-ashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) in the top 25per cent of incident reporters for Large Acute Trusts nationally.

Health bosses said the increase in the number of incidents was down to a 117per cent rise in clinical activity in 2011/12, and input from 950 extra community service staff, which previously would have been reported by Primary Care Trusts.

Matthew Grek, of the National Patient Safety Agency, said: “It’s an entirely voluntary reporting system. Trusts only have to report incidents if they lead to severe harm, or death.

“In the case of ELHT, the vast majority of clinical incidents have caused no harm, and that’s really good news. The increase in reports is in line with the national trend. It’s taken a while to get the system understood, and now we’re seeing more and more.

“To us it’s good news that incidents are being reported, because it shows that trusts are making a real effort to learn from incidents.”

A spokesman for the ELHT said: “The trust is concerned about any incident that has an impact on patient care, or causes patient harm.

“We have demonstrated that whilst the number of reported incidents has remained effect-ively constant, the reported harm to patients has been demonstrably reduced over time, and continues to fall.”

All staff at ELHT are encouraged to report incidents when an event, or near miss, occurs, in keeping with the National Patient Safety Alert.”