Patient Safety Collaboratives – Making care safer for all

The first report highlighting the achievements of the AHSN Patient Safety Collaboratives has today been published.

The report, ‘Patient Safety Collaboratives – Making care safer for all’, shows how Imperial College Health Partners and the 14 other Collaboratives in England are spreading improvements and influencing system leadership, two years after they were set up in response to the Berwick Report. Our project to reduce prescribing errors across North West London is featured on page 11. Download the report here.

A one minute video interview with AHSN Network Lead for Patient Safety Collaboratives, Dr Rosie Benneyworth, describing the report, can be found here.

The regionally based Collaboratives are the largest patient safety initiative in the history of the NHS and they work in all care settings ranging from maternity care and nursing homes, to GP practices and acute hospitals.

Operating across organisational boundaries, their achievements include:

  • Care bundles that reduced mortality after emergency laparotomies (a surgical procedure involving a large incision through the abdominal wall) by 42 per cent
  • Clearer clinician-produced guidance that improves discharge information on acute kidney injury which has been spread nationally
  • A 50 per cent increase in service users returning to mental health wards on time – reducing the risk of self harm, self neglect and suicide when service users abscond from a mental health ward
  • Safety ‘huddles’ that led to a reduction of 60 per cent in falls by inpatients
  • Reductions in inpatient medication errors across six NHS trusts from 11 per cent to nine per cent.

Each of the Collaboratives is based in one of England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) and works with teams in their local health economies, drawing on the talents of the NHS, academia and healthcare industries.

The report will be launched at the Patient Safety Collaboratives’ stand (no 14) at Patient Safety Congress, Manchester Central, 5-6 July. Please do come and say hello and pick up your copy. If you would like a printed copy, email Natalie.hudson@imperialcollegehealthpartners.com for more information.