THE NUMBER of serious incidents reported within East Lancashire hospitals has increased, figures reveal.

The latest East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust board meeting revealed there had been an increase of serious incidents from 33 in April and July in 2018 to 42 during the same period this year.

That is a rise of more than 25 per cent on last year.

Figures also reveal the breakdown into the types of serious incidents that have happened at the trust.

The top three categories are pressure ulcers, also known as bed sores, with 33 reports, while thee were 18 reports of trips and falls, 17 to do with diagnosis failures and 17 for treatment problems.

The trust has also reported one serious incident in June 2018/19 that met the criteria of the

NHS Never Event Framework, which are the kind of mistakes that should never happen in the field of medical treatment.

The trust describes a serious incident as an act or omission in care that results in an unexpected or avoidable death, injury or resulting in serious harm.

Dr Ian Stanley, acting medical director for the trust, said the figures only told half the story.

He said “While the number of serious incidents reported between April and July 2019 did rise, this tells only half the story and does not mean more serious incidents are happening at the trust.

“The trust has a lower threshold for reporting an incident as ‘potentially serious’ which is reflected in the fact that, following a full investigation and subsequent review with local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups, almost half of these reported incidents are de-escalated (not considered serious). This reflects the culture within the trust to ensure that we are open and honest and seek to learn so that we can continually improve the care we give.

”In addition, an important aspect of providing high quality treatment and care are our harm reduction programmes to reduce incidents including pressure ulcers and falls," he added.