Patient Safety Incident Reporting Framework
Providing the very best patient care is at the heart of everything we do, and patient safety is at the centre of this.Despite our best efforts, there are still times when things go wrong during patient care. When that happens, we need to support those involved and learn from these incidents. Our Patient Safety Incident Reporting Framework, or PSIRF, is based on compassion, patient involvement and open conversation. It involves speaking to patients, families and staff who have been affected by a patient safety event, to gather a clear understanding about what happened, and what they think should have occurred. This learning helps us to gain a balanced understanding to help us make any necessary changes or improvements to patient care in the future.
PSIRF also allows us to look more broadly and identify the most common types of incidents and themes within our Trust in a systematic way, fostering a culture of ongoing learning and development.
We have a dedicated Patient Safety Team that oversees and reviews patient safety events. The team is made up of clinical and non-clinical staff, all of whom have a wealth of experience in frontline clinical care and patient experience. They work in conjunction with colleagues from Health and Safety, Patient Experience and our Safeguarding and Quality Improvement Teams, as well as local managers and staff to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn from patient safety events.
We also have a number of Patient Safety Partners (PSPs), who are members of the local community with a lived experience of the ambulance service. A PSP is not a Trust employee, but a neutral person who can act as a ‘critical friend’ and help us to look constructively at our management of patient safety events.
Our EEAST Patient Safety Incident Response Plan outlines our safety priorities and explains how we manage them. It is regularly updated as we gather new information. It is important that we continually listen and act on what you, our patients, families and staff tell us, because what matters to you matters to us. PSIRF is just one of the ways we are able to do this.
