By Annabelle Collins 27 November 2022
- Research paid for by Jeremy Hunt before he was Chancellor sets out limitations to patient safety data
- Imperial College researchers find pandemic stopped progress of patient safety improvements
- Data reveals less than half of trusts report mortality rates
A report commissioned by Jeremy Hunt before he became Chancellor has highlighted how the pandemic ’stopped progress on patient safety in its tracks’ and called for more accurate data to be published on a range of measures.
The National State of Patient Safety was funded by Mr Hunt’s Patient Safety Watch charity and produced by Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation.
It highlights a rise in rates of MRSA and C difficile since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, as well as an increase in deaths due to venous thromboembolism and hip fractures. The report said the pandemic had also exacerbated issues associated with staff wellbeing, claiming there had been “notable rises” in staff burnout and ill-health.
The researchers described problems with the breadth and accuracy of available patient safety data and highlighted that only 44 per cent of trusts are meeting all of their obligations under the Learning from Deaths programme, which includes reporting their own estimated number of avoidable deaths.
Separate analysis of mortality rate data showed stark regional differences; between May 2011 and November 2021, London had a lower than expected summary hospital-level mortality indicator (the comparison of the number of patients who die following their admission to a hospital compared to the number of expected fatalities) than other regions.
Source: The National State of Patient Safety
The Midlands and east of England, north of England, and south of England were all found to include a larger proportion of trusts with a higher-than-expected number of deaths.
The researchers found that if all NHS hospital trusts in England had a summary hospital-level mortality indicator value that matched that of the top performing decile each year there would have been over 300,000 fewer deaths over the last decade.
Although the report added that “data on rates of avoidable deaths are not a panacea”, it described them as a “snapshot of safety and harm and are most usefully used to initiate further work to understand the causes of unwarranted variation”.
Included in the report’s ts recommendations was the “urgent need” for a workforce plan for health and social care, with “central assumptions independently verified and regularly updated”. The report also said integrated care systems must play a central role in monitoring patient safety and described the creation of ICSs as a “huge opportunity to collect and organise patient safety data at a health economy and population level”.
Lord Ara Darzi, co-director of Imperial’s Institute of Global Health Innovation, said improvements in patient safety can only be demonstrated when meaningful data are collected, routinely and consistently, over time.
He said: “Further work is required to understand safety concerns in near-real time, in settings outside of hospitals, and from the impact, both physically and psychologically, of people experiencing delays in their care or treatment.”
Source
The National State of Patient Safety: What we know about avoidable harm in England. Imperial College London (2022)
Source Date
November 2022