VIEWPOINT FOR 17 SEPTEMBER 2009
FROM DR. RICHARD TAYLOR

There is a welcome and exciting development affecting all the hospitals within our Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. 

Following the disasters at Stafford, perhaps helped by the recent Parliamentary Health Select Committee Report on Patient Safety and stimulated by the complaints about poor quality of care that I have passed on, the board of directors have appointed Dr. Steve Graystone, consultant anaesthetist, as Medical Director for Patient Safety with senior nurse, Ruth Mullett, who hopes to be appointed as his opposite number among nursing staff.

I had a useful meeting with them and the chief executive recently and was pleased to hear of their plans and determination to improve safety and hence quality of care where necessary throughout the Trust. 
I understand that 21st – 27th September is “Patient Safety First Week” throughout the NHS.

Dr. Graystone tells me: - “For patient safety week itself we have a number of initiatives planned to raise awareness of patient safety as our top priority and to check that we are as good as we think we are. We will be launching a Patient Safety Hotline and e-mail address where patients and their relatives and carers can draw the attention of the organization to issues that they feel are important regarding the safety of themselves or family members. This will not replace direct communication between the patients and their clinical team but will enable wider issues to be drawn to our attention.”
Also: -  “The board will be embarking on the first in a series of ‘Patient Safety Walkabouts’ where executive and non-executive board members will visit the ‘coal face’ of health care delivery and hear first hand the issues that the patients and clinical teams wish to see resolved to enhance the safety of the care they are endeavoring to deliver. The board and clinical teams will agree an action plan there and then, to address the issues discussed.” 
The first walkabout will take place at the Alexandra Hospital on 21st September. This measure alone will ensure that board members are aware of what is going on within their Trust. This was obviously not the case in Stafford and a major cause of the tragedies there.

Clinical teams are already hard at work on improving safety in two key areas. 

1. One is managing the 'deteriorating patient'. For this they have produced an observation and pain management chart that when filled in correctly will alert staff to the need for a senior or specialist opinion about the patient whose deterioration has been recognized.

2. The other is in the operating theatre to ensure that mistakes that should never ever happen, and yet still do in all hospitals, such as an operation on the wrong site or side, cannot occur. Additional checks and levels of communication between teams and team members, backed by the World Health Organisation are being introduced across the Trust.

To me these developments are very exciting as they show that the Trust is determined to improve safety and quality of care. I will acknowledge improvement when the complaints I receive, so often a result of poor communication and lack of continuity of care in Worcester, cease.

RT

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