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We manage a national safety reporting system. We receive confidential reports of patient safety incidents from healthcare staff across England and Wales. Clinicians and safety experts analyse these reports to identify common risks to patients and opportunities to improve patient safety.
We work with organisations providing NHS care, colleges and professional groups to set priorities and develop and disseminate actionable learning. Resources include:
Patient safety alerts, including Rapid Response Reports
Seven Steps series of patient safety guides
Regular feedback on the data we collect
Safety information on specific topics, such as safety of medicines.
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5 August 2010 Following the publication of the report of the arms-length body review on 26 July, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) would like to reinforce the importance of NHS organisations continuing to report patient safety incidents in the usual way through the National Reporting and Learning System. This is so that trends in safety incidents can be identified and acted upon as early as possible. This aspect of our work will continue within the new proposed structure of the NHS Commissioning Board and we will continue to work together in partnership with NHS organisations to make services even safer for patients. We will continue to monitor the implementation of all patient safety alerts and guidance.
A range of patient safety resources are available. From alerts and guidance to toolkits and data reports.
Targeted resources:
A key factor in providing high-quality care is providing systems for reporting when patients have, or could have been harmed.
This information is fed via local risk management systems to a national database. This data is used to identify trends and to inform the development of interventions to prevent future incidents.
Never Events are serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if the available preventative measures have been implemented.
More on Never Events
Matching Michigan is a patient safety project based on a model developed in the United States which, over 18 months, saved around 1,500 patient lives.
More on Matching Michigan
Seven Steps to Patient Safety is key patient safety guidance for healthcare organisations. The steps help staff to plan activities and measure patient safety performance.
More on Seven Steps to Patient Safety
Organisation Patient Safety Incident Reports
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Report a patient safety incident
Patient safety alerts
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