Whenever there is an incident in a hospital that could affect patient safety, we need to learn from it to make sure it does not happen again. This is where the patient safety team at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust comes in.
The team makes sure the patient journey with us is safe and supports staff in dealing with complex issues.
We’re changing the way we think about patient safety in the NHS, and our focus is on the systems and processes we work in. We want to support understanding and pro activity, from talking about harm to talking about safer systems that provide the right care.
Patient Safety is about maximising when things go right and minimising things going wrong. We do this by supporting a culture within our organisation where staff feel comfortable raising concerns, reporting incidents when things unexpectedly happen, celebrating great care, and identifying learning from everything we do.
The patient safety team work with staff to offer training sessions to ensure our workforce is well informed and learning form patient safety events. The team also supports incident management, provides reports, and completes learning responses to understand and improve issues.
Louise Lodge, Patient Safety Lead said:
We aspire to support staff to provide the right care, as intended, every time and learning from what works, not just what does not
Louise Lodge, Patient Safety Lead