Patients' voices to be heard in new safety review

The new team is tasked with ensuring patient concerns are acted on when things go wrong in treatment

A hospital trust has appointed a family liaison team to help patients and their families when things go wrong with treatment.

The move by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) is aimed at improving responses to patient safety incidents, by learning from their experiences.

A failure to deal properly with incidents of harm was highlighted by the Ockenden Report into maternity failings, but the Care Quality Commission praised SaTH for improvements in 2023, saying incidents were now "managed well".

The trust's director of nursing Hayley Flavell said: "We will continue to strive towards providing excellent care for the communities we serve."

The new members of staff will "prioritise and support the needs of patients and families" affected.

They will also help colleagues speak to patients and relatives in the right way, ensuring their experiences and concerns are acted on.

The appointments are part of a policy approved last year in order to meet new NHS standards on dealing with patient safety incidents at the trust's two hospitals, the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal in Telford.

Missed opportunities

SaTH had previously come under fire for its handling of such issues, most notably in the Ockenden Report.

The trust was criticised for downgrading some incidents that should have been formally classified as "serious", and producing poor quality reports on those of that gravity.

"There was a lack of learning and missed opportunities to improve safety," concluded senior midwife Donna Ockenden in her final report.

Families, who gave evidence to the review, were deeply critical of the way the trust dealt with them, after failures in treatment which killed or harmed babies.

With the new liaison team, SaTH said its new ways of dealing with safety incidents represented a "fundamental change" in the way they were investigated and learned from.

Ms Flavell added she was "delighted" to have made the appointments, "to improve how we engage compassionately with patients and families affected by patient safety incidents".