Learning from when things go wrong

Our staff are committed to providing safe, high-quality care to our patients. However, rarely something may go wrong and we want to make sure that we learn from these errors and avoid the same thing happening again.

All hospitals participate in a national scheme to report when things go wrong. Since 1 April 2015, the Department of Health has agreed 14 types of errors which it believes should never happen and we are required to report these. They are called 'never events'.

How are we doing?

These errors should not occur and the numbers reported by all trusts are very small. Our target is therefore to have no never events.

Our recent performance:

• February 2018 – 0 never events
• January – 1
• December 2017 – 1.

'Never events' may not result in any harm to the patient, but they help us identify where an improvement is needed to ensure safe care.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of your care, please contact our PALS team, as we want to learn from our mistakes and improve our services.

Find out more

Details of 'never events' reported by all trusts in England are published by NHS England.