By Ken Thomas, medical negligence specialist
at
Harding Evans Solicitors
Last month, Cardiff played host to an international conference on
patient safety. This was an international event with hundreds of
health leaders from 27 countries across the globe attending.
Last month, Cardiff played host to an international conference on patient
safety. This was an international event with hundreds of health leaders from 27
countries across the globe attending.
This was the first time that various organisations have come together to act
globally to improve patient safety. Medical adverse incidents (as the profession
calls them) are not unique to England and Wales. The same issues arise the world
over. Healthcare systems may vary enormously from one continent to the next, but
there are some recurring themes.
Here in Wales, we do of course have our own issues with patient safety given the
apparent resourcing problems that afflict the NHS in Wales – lack of funds,
staff shortages and poor morale problems which seem to be in the news on a daily
basis. Of course, perhaps the most high profile example of medical treatment
going wrong of recent years occurred here in South Wales when pensioner Graham
Reeves had the wrong kidney removed at a West Wales Hospital.
June’s conference follows on from a World Health Organisation commitment to cut
the number of illnesses, injuries and deaths suffered by patients during
healthcare. The hope is to drastically reduce the number of poor treatment
outcomes thereby saving billions of dollars the world over.
One North Wales NHS Trust – Conwy and Denbighshire – has been selected to work
with an expert team for a two-year period in an attempt to bring about
improvements in patient safety. That NHS Trust, along with three others in the
UK, is expected to become role models, so that hopefully other hospitals can
learn from successes in patient safety terms.
The healthcare profession has looked at other industries to see how it can
improve its safety record. In particular the aircraft industry has been
scrutinised to see how it records and learns from “near misses”. It is widely
accepted that here in Wales and in other healthcare systems around the world, as
well as incidents where patients suffer actual harm, there are many more “near
misses” where patients could have been injured or died – the aim is to learn
from and prevent such incidents being repeated.
One thing must be accepted, of course. Whether one is receiving treatment from a
leading London Hospital, a third world clinic or a South Wales GP surgery,
doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals are only human. No amount of
training or reporting will totally eliminate the possibility for human error.
