Plans to reduce avoidable deaths and serious injuries in the NHS will not work unless an overarching strategy is put in place, a campaign group has warned.
The Patient Safety Commissioner for England has drawn up a list of ‘principles’ to improve patient safety, which not-for-profit campaign group APIL says is a positive step. But it has warned that the principles will not work without a fundamental change in approach to patient safety.
“There is an urgent need for a co-ordinated, overarching strategy to tackle the issues which cause needless injuries and deaths in the NHS in the first place,” said Guy Forster, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) joint vice president.
“The current approach to patient safety is extremely fragmented, with a multitude of programmes, frameworks, reporting schemes and organisations.
“These principles, while laudable, will not work without strong and coherent leadership in patient safety, with meaningful links between patients, regulators, healthcare providers, and policymakers,” he said.
APIL analysis of NHS data shows there has been a 30 per cent rise in incidents that caused severe harm or death in the 10 years up to 2022/23. In 2022/23 alone there were 14,383 such incidents. Severe harm is defined as a permanent injury, including loss of sight or mobility.
“Every day on average, 39 patients die or are severely injured because of a patient safety incident,” said Mr Forster.
“Lack of transparency and openness still exists today in healthcare and this compounds the heartache for families even further. This is despite the introduction ten years ago of a statutory duty of candour, requiring openness and honesty when things go wrong,” he explained.
“Our members often represent patients and relatives who have been left in the dark about what happened. They struggle to move on and rebuild their lives as a result. At times individual healthcare staff apologise for failings initially, but as hospital trust investigations get underway a wall of silence emerges and accountability is denied again and again,” he went on.
“The lack of consistency in application of the duty of candour remains a significant problem and the quality of engagement with patients and their families, who should be at the centre of things, is often poor. There will be no improvement in learning from failings until healthcare staff all adhere to the duty of candour and live and breathe a culture of transparency,” he said.