Developing the Safety Priorities of the Trust

Project summary

Background

The current safety priorities of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust require efficient consideration and development. The selection of priorities, the ways in which they are measured and the ways in which they are used for improvement are not obviously the work of an Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC).

Methods

A variety of methods are being employed to develop, select and make effective use of the Trust’s safety priorities. The methods that have been used so far are listed below:

• Interviews with a variety of Trust staff (at different levels of the organisation) have been conducted to investigate their views on what the safety priorities should be and how they should be used to inform improvements.
• A patient safety workshop has been held in which patient representatives came in to the Trust to learn about patient safety and to discuss their views on what safety means to them and ultimately what they think the safety priorities of the Trust should be.
• Some work has been conducted to look at and explore the board reports of the five other UK AHSCs to explore their approaches to patient safety and to see if we can learn anything from their specific techniques.

• Framework for a systematic literature review is currently in development to look at how we can develop ‘the ideal indicator’.

Aims

The ultimate aims of this project are listed below:

• To effectively develop and improve upon the safety priorities of the Trust taking into consideration the views of Trust staff, the views of patient representatives and the approaches of the other UK AHSCs.
• To effectively measure and monitor the safety priorities.
• To implement these measures onto a monthly scorecard.
• To use the scorecard effectively to support improvements in patient safety across the Trust.