This quarterly data summary analyses patient safety incident reports received by the National Reporting and Learning Service between October 2003 and the end of September 2009.
English and Welsh data are analysed separately. The documents provide details of the volume of incident reports received, the sector they are from, the type of incidents they describe, and the level of harm to the patient(s) involved.
Two sets of data and analysis are presented:
- Section 1 describes the level of reporting by quarter and uses data based on the date that the report was received. The data covers the period from October 2003 until the end of September 2009.
- Section 2 contains an overview of patterns and trends in patient safety incident reports. It uses data based on the date that the patient safety incidents were reported as having occurred. The data covers the four quarters between April 2008 and September 2009.
The report contains a feature on why it is important to improve the quality of data submitted to the RLS, the introduction of the NRLS data quality standards and how implementing the standards will improve the quality of data.
The report is accompanied by a workbook. As well as containing all the data underpinning the analysis in this summary (frequencies and percent), the workbook provides charts showing trends in the data on a quarterly basis. The workbook presents the data for both England and Wales, whilst also showing the combined figures.
