Published at 11:08, Thursday, 26 July 2012

A NEW patient safety scheme has been introduced at North Cumbria’s hospitals to help prevent falls, infections, pressure ulcers and blood clots.

The national NHS initiative has been taken up by staff at the West Cumberland Hospital and at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary.

The two hospitals have been under increasing scrutiny in recent months after staff flagged up safety concerns, including a shortage of staff and beds and potentially serious near-misses.

However, this campaign aims to ensure patients are “protected from harm”.

In the past year, over 100 NHS organisations have tested the Harm Free Care programme. It focuses on reducing harm in four key areas – from pressure ulcers, falls, urinary catheter infections and blood clots.

The key message to staff is to think about complications from a patient’s perspective and aim for the absence of all four potential ‘harms’.

On one day every month, North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the two hospitals, will now measure these four factors on all of its wards. To do this, staff will use the NHS Safety Thermometer, a computer programme that gauges harm and the proportion of ‘harm free’ patients.

Gill Long, the trust’s productive ward co-ordinator, said: “The Harm Free Care programme is a great opportunity for ward teams to focus on patient safety and build on work already implemented, ultimately improving the experience of our patients.”

Staff look at everything from a patient’s footwear and bedside set-up to their medication and whether they are eating and drinking.

They are also trained to spot possible signs of pressure sores at an early stage.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk