Implementing a Patient Safety Team to reduce serious incidents

The Division were experiencing a high number of serious incidents, and the Team felt that a good safety strategy would improve the quality of care given. Through multidisciplinary engagement they wanted to learn from these, encourage reporting and focus on a fair blame culture. The ultimate aim was to increase incident reporting, decrease serious incidents and improve quality. The key aim of the project was to improve the quality of care for the woman and their babies, we reduced the incidence of serious incidents and increased the incident reporting of less serious incidents, this was based on the theory of the Heinrich Ratio which theorises that for every serious incident there will be 300 less serious / near miss incidents. The Team wanted to ensure that the multidisciplinary team were engaged and felt confident to report incidents, and would receive the appropriate feedback and support. In addition all staff involved in the incident would be involved in the investigation and be at the heart of the decision making. The key measure for improvement was the increase in incident reporting (44% increase 2011 - 2012) and the decrease in serious incidents. The figures support the theory that the increase in minor incidents being reported and managed has reduced the incidence of serious incidents. Staff engagement in the process was paramount, and this was driven by a passion to ensure the woman was at the centre of every decision or safety improvement that was made. Women and their families would be involved in the quality improvement process.