Hospitals Saving Lives The Army Way
Safety precautions pioneered by airlines and the Army are to be rolled out across the NHS in Scotland after a test scheme showed they could prevent mistakes and save patients’ lives.
The systems put in place by NHS Tayside have been credited with a dramatic improvement in patient safety, leading to a reduction in so-called “adverse events” of more than 50% since 2004.
Hospitals across Scotland will take part in the Scottish Patient Safety Alliance, which will build on this success by introducing systems intended to cut down on preventable infections, errors in prescriptions and slow responses to medical emergencies.
Harry Burns, Scotland’s chief medical officer, said yesterday at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee: “The NHS in Scotland is a safe, high quality service which puts patients first. Healthcare relies on a range of complex interactions between people, skills, technologies and drugs.
“Sometimes things can and do go wrong. We will help our hard working NHS staff to minimise any unintentional harm caused during clinical care.
“This will save lives and further improve patient care.”
The Safer Patients Initiative at NHS Tayside, which was highlighted by The Herald last year, had safety standards more normally employed by heavy manufacturing adopted by hospitals.
It was based on an American campaign by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement which claimed it had saved an estimated 122,300 lives over an 18-month period.
Tayside’s initiative was based around introducing robust procedures that have been shown to improve patient safety. For instance, pneumonia patients are given antibiotics within four hours of hospital admission, following research that shows this reduces their risk of succumbing to the disease.
Another practice, borrowed from pre-flight airline checks, has surgeons, anaesthetist and nurses liaising before embarking on the day’s surgical procedures, to ensure that medical information is shared effectively.
Ninewells Hospital in Dundee has also introduced a system established in Army hospitals whereby nurses can flag up concerns over patients whose condition is deteriorating and call for a rapid response. Regular pulse, respiratory, blood pressure and temperature checks have also been introduced to help spot deteriorating conditions.
Gerry Marr, chief operating officer with NHS Tayside, said: This is about managing risk and making hospitals safer by putting in reliable and measurable procedures.”
The Scottish Patient Safety Alliance will have five objectives: to reduce healthcare associated infections, including potentially lethal MRSA infections acquired from dirty hospitals, reduce adverse surgical incidents and drug events, improve critical care outcomes and improve the organisational and leadership culture on safety.
The measures were welcomed both by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Scottish Consumer Council.
