Few improvements in NHS patient safety ‘despite millions spent’, review finds
NHS patient safety has seen few improvements despite millions of pounds being spent every year, a new review has found.
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A Government-commissioned report has found there has been a shift towards safety “but relatively small improvements have been seen”, despite safety reviews and inquiries estimated to have cost at least £100 million.
The report said several organisations and professional bodies have been set up to consider different aspects of patients safety, resulting in hundreds of recommendations for the NHS.
Various inquiries and reviews into maternity care over the last five years alone have resulted in more than 450 recommendations.
The report said: “Safety has also commanded significant resource. The various new organisations and bodies cost money (at least £60 million per year), while Department of Health and Social Care-sponsored reviews and inquiries into safety are estimated to have cost at least £100 million based on known costs. The indirect costs are considerably more.”
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These recommendations have often led to more staff, including more managers, but “there has been mixed progress in improving safety”.
This is against a backdrop of growing obesity levels, increasing numbers of people living with long-term conditions and continued high levels of variation in the number of people receiving effective care, the report said.
“It appears that the focus on safety has been at the expense of other aspects of quality of care,” it added.
The report, from new NHS chair Dr Penny Dash, also found the “current system for complaints and concerns is confusing and may lack responsiveness” while the “system for managing and learning from concerns and complaints is highly fragmented".
Health Secretary Wes Streeting accepted the review’s recommendations in full and issued a statement to the Commons.
He said there will be a new strategy for improving quality of care, “which will be delivered by revamping and revitalising the role of the National Quality Board”.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) should also continue to revamp and overhaul its registration and inspection processes, while the Health Services Safety Investigations Body “should continue as a centre of excellence for investigations, but as a discrete branch within the Care Quality Commission”, he said.
The office of the Patient Safety Commissioner should transfer to the medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), in order to “strengthen links between the patient voice in medicines safety and the MHRA’s work to capture adverse events more effectively”.
Meanwhile, the Patient Safety Commissioner’s work on wider patient safety will shift into a new directorate of patient experience in DHSC.
Mr Streeting added: “Local Healthwatch and the engagement functions of integrated care boards (for healthcare) and local authorities (for social care) should be brought together to ensure patient and community input into the planning and design of services, and the strategic functions of Healthwatch England should also be transferred into the new patient experience directorate in DHSC.”