Highest number of overdue patient safety alerts at UH Morecambe Bay

Figures extracted from the NHS system show that on 21 July UHMB had yet to comply with nine different safety alerts that had passed their deadline for completion.

The alerts are issued by the National Patient Safety Agency, informing NHS staff of actions to help address avoidable problems which have repeatedly caused harm or death. Before January, data on non-compliance was not routinely made public.

Peter Dyer, the trust’s medical director, said: “Patient safety has always, and will remain to be, one of our top priorities. The key actions have been implemented in all of the nine outstanding National Patient Safety Agency alerts. Three of these cases have now been fully completed and in order to sign off the remaining six cases, audit and monitoring arrangements need to be confirmed.

“It is important to say that patients have not been put at risk at any point by the delay to sign off these alerts. Any alert or new guidance that we receive is taken seriously and the key actions implemented as soon as possible to allow our staff to continue to offer the safest possible care to our patients,” he added.

While UHMB had the largest number of overdue alerts outstanding, it was not among the trusts that had left alerts outstanding for the longest periods.

The most overdue alert at UHMB was titled “safer administration of insulin”, which had a completion deadline of 16 December 2010.

According to the data extracted, other trusts had yet to complete work on alerts dating back to at least 2007.