Patient safety and human factors: Scotland
Safety is one of the key drivers of the quality strategy for NHSScotland which identifies five specific areas of activity building on the improvements delivered through the success of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme:
- accelerate roll out of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme in acute care, reducing hospital mortality and harm
- implement patient safety programmes for primary care and mental health
- accelerate medicines reconciliation across all transitions of care
- ensure synergy with the work of the HAI taskforce to secure further reductions in infection
- extend the Electronic Care Summary and make widely available.
(Scottish Government 2010, p.11)
Scottish Patient Safety Programme
The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP), co-ordinated by Healthcare Improvement Scotland, has provided the national focus for patient safety activity since it commenced in January 2008, and is being implemented in every acute hospital in Scotland. The programme, which reached the end of its first phase in 2012, is making good progress towards its aim of reducing mortality by 15 per cent and adverse events by 30 per cent across Scotland's acute hospitals.
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has announced that the programme will be extended until 2015, with a focus on achieving harm free care in the NHS. A challenging aim to ensure that at least 95 per cent of people receiving care do not experience harm - such as infections, falls, blood clots and pressure sores - will be introduced. Further information is provided in a news item on the Scottish Government website, see: Patient Safety Programme extended.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland has also completed an 18 month national improvement programme on nutritional care and has used the learning from this to develop resources and activities which support safety in nutritional care (Healthcare Improvement Programme 2012a; Royal College of Nursing 2012).
Primary care
The aim of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) - Primary Care is to reduce the number of events which could cause avoidable harm from healthcare delivered in any primary care setting. The programme is focussing on three main workstreams: leadership and culture; safer medicines; safe and effective patietn care across the interface. Tools and resources are being developed to support the programme (Healthcare Improvement Scotland 2012b). The programme and its aims are summarised in Patient safety in primary care - it's no trouble at all (Healthcare Improvement Scotland 2012c).
Educational support
NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is "committed to supporting improvements in patient safety through a range of educational research, development and delivery" (NES 2012a). NES Clinical Skills and NES Patient Safety Multidisciplinary Group are developing human factors educational resources. Information about developments and activities so far is available (NES 2012b).
More information about policy, programmes and guidance is available at UK resources. You can find out about:
- current and recent campaigns, programmes and networks
- key agencies - government bodies and other organisations
- policy and strategy in the different UK countries
- details of guidance and tools.
For further information relating to quality improvement and other clinical governance issues in Scotland visit the Clinical Governance resource.
For fortnightly updates on patient safety and other themes you can register for the Quality and safety e-Bulletin.
References
These resources were last accessed on 19 November 2012. Some of them are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (2012a) Improving nutrition, improving care, Healthcare Improvement Scotland website.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (2012b) Patient safety in primary care, Healthcare Improvement Scotland website.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (2012c) Patient safety in priimary care - it's no trouble at all (PDF 1.5MB), Edinburgh: Healthcare Improvement Scotland.
NES (2012a) Patient safety and clinical skills, NES website.
NES (2012b) Human factors, NES webiste.
Royal College of Nursing (2012) Nutrition and hydration resource. RCN website.
Scottish Government (2010) The healthcare quality strategy for NHSScotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.