Hospitals that botch a list of eight treatments causing patient harm or deaths, will not be paid under new guidelines.

List of eight blunders the NHS must never commit released by watchdog
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The list includes operating on the wrong side of the body, such as removing the wrong kidney, administering cancer treatment incorrectly which can be fatal and leaving surgical instruments inside a patient after surgery has been drawn up as 'never events' by the National Patient Safety Agency.

The events are potentially harmful or even fatal to patients and are largely preventable.

Health minister Lord Darzi proposed last year that primary care trusts, which pay hospitals for the treatments carried out on patients from their areas, should monitor how often these event occur and from next year block payments for botched care.

A similar system is used in America and has led to a reduction in healthcare blunders.

The Government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has reported that 350 errors in surgery are reported every day, including implanting hearing aids in the wrong ear, replacing the wrong knee joint and drilling holes in the wrong side the head.

The never events also include inpatient suicide using bed rails that do not collapse, escape from a medium or high secure mental health service by patients and the deaths of a woman due to haemorrhage after a planned caesarean birth.

How often never events occur will be monitored and reported publicly each year."

No doubt many of us wish the list could be extended! - Let us hope it does some good and that some needless suffering is avoided. The oxygen of publicity should help.

Airline-style checklist is to be introduced in NHS operating theatres after a worldwide study shows it cuts deaths and complications after surgery.

Airline-style checklist to be introduced in NHS operating theatres
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The checklist, drawn up by experts at the World Health Organisation, involves stopping all work at three points in an operation, where the staff present confirm they have the right patient, equipment is working, they are about to do the correct surgery, and all needles and swabs are counted before and after to ensure none have been left in the wound.

Eight hospitals around the world recorded surgical complications and deaths before implementing the checklist and afterwards with a total of 7,688 patients involved.

The results, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, showed that major complications reduced from 11 per cent to seven per cent – a reduction of one third – and deaths dropped from 1.5 per cent to 0.8 per cent – a 40 per cent reduction.

St Mary's Hospital in London, where Health Minister Professor Lord Darzi still works as a surgeon, took part in the study between October 2007 and September 2008.

During the time the hospital was piloting the checklist surgeons removed the gall bladder of the wrong patient, which is exactly the kind of mistake the checklist is designed to stop. The error was made in an operating theatre that was not involved in the study.

A spokesman for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust which runs the hospital, said: "The international pilot was undertaken in a limited number of operating theatres, which did not include the one in which the incident took place. Ensuring effective trust-wide implementation of the checklist is a key part of our response to the incident."

Lord Darzi said: "The beauty of the surgical safety checklist is its simplicity and – as a practising surgeon – I would urge surgical teams across the country to use it. "Operating theatres are high-risk environments. By using the checklist for every operation we are improving team communication, saving lives and helping ensure the highest standard of care for our patients. The amazing results from the global pilot puts this beyond any doubt."

The National Patient Safety Agency alerted all NHS trusts to the checklist and will require all relevant organisations to implement a modified version of it by February 2010."

Reducing avoidable deaths and complications would certainly be welcome. - Bearing in mind my own recent experience, I'd recommend also ensuring that bandages are not put on too tightly on patients with thin, delicate skin and weak veins, and are changed for dressings as soon as possible, to avoid unnecessary bruising, swelling, pain and further skin-thinning.

A surgeon at a flagship hospital mistakenly removed a woman's gall bladder instead of carrying out a gynaecological operation.

Surgeon removes woman's gall bladder by mistake
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Managers at St Mary's Hospital in London, where the junior health minister Lord Darzi is Professor of Surgery, have apologised to the woman for the "regrettable error" involving what it described as a "minor surgical procedure".

An investigation has been launched into measures to identify patients at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which includes St Mary's, after the blunder."

More than three million NHS patients are still being admitted to mixed-sex wards each year despite repeated promises by ministers to end this.

Mixed-sex NHS wards for 3m patients

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"A study published by the Healthcare Commission has also found that hospitals were getting dirtier, fewer staff were always washing their hands before touching patients and a fifth of people who needed help with meals were still not getting it.

Its survey of 76,000 inpatients in England – the largest of its kind – measured hospitals on factors that included quality of care, dignity and respect, privacy, waiting times, complaints and quality and availability of information."

"Last year, almost 13 million people stayed at least one night in hospitals in England, meaning that up to 3.2 million were admitted to a mixed-sex ward.

Nearly a third of patients also reported having to use a bathroom shared with members of the opposite sex.

Medway NHS Trust in Kent was the worst in the country for mixed-sex wards, with a score of 54.83. The Cardio­thoracic Centre in Liverpool rated highest on 97.45.

Labour first promised to abolish mixed-sex wards in 2002 but after arguments over what constituted a ward or a sleeping area, Lord Darzi, the health minister and a practising surgeon, said single-sex wards were "an aspiration that cannot be met". "

Scores of hospital departments such as maternity units and cancer clinics will be closed or merged under plans for a radical shake-up of the NHS.

NHS shake-up to axe hospital services

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Ministers are preparing for a summer of protest as residents campaign against proposals that could mean local hospitals losing specialist services to large regional centres.

In an attempt to head off the reaction that could mar the 60th anniversary of the NHS in July, Lord Darzi, the health minister, has pledged that patients would be involved in decisions and hospital units would not close before new ones opened."