What is Patient Safety?
Patient safety is the avoidance of unintended or unexpected harm to people during the provision of health care. South Yorkshire ICB supports providers of health care to minimise patient safety incidents and drive improvements in safety and quality. Patients should be treated in a safe environment and protected from avoidable harm.
The NHS Patient Safety Strategy describes how the NHS will continuously improve patient safety, building on the foundations of a safer culture and safer systems. The strategy sets out how the NHS will support staff and providers to share safety insight and empower people – patients and staff – with the skills, confidence and mechanisms to improve safety.
Managing Patient Safety Incidents
There are a number of initiatives within the National Patient Safety Strategy. One of these is the introduction of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework – PSIRF.
Patient Safety Incident Response Framework – PSIRF
The PSIRF is a new approach to responding to patient safety incidents and replaces the ‘Serious Incident Framework’.
PSIRF represents a significant shift in the way the NHS responds to patient safety incidents and is a major step towards establishing a safety management system across the NHS. The PSIRF supports the development and maintenance of an effective patient safety incident response system that integrates four key aims:
- Compassionate engagement and involvement of those affected by patient safety incidents
- Application of a range of system-based approached to learning from patient safety incidents
- Considered and proportionate responses to patient safety incidents
- Supportive oversight focused on strengthening response system functioning and improvement
This animation describes PSIRF
Who does PSIRF apply to?
The PSIRF is a contractual requirement under the NHS Standard Contract and as such is mandatory for services provided under that contract, including acute, ambulance, mental health, and community healthcare providers. This includes maternity and all specialised services. Primary care providers may also wish to adopt PSIRF, but it is not a requirement at this stage.
Provider Trusts in South Yorkshire publish their PSIRF plans. Please see links below:
Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals
South Yorkshire ICB also has a responsibility to publish our own PSIRF policy that will detail our responsibilities. When our policy has been ratified it will be posted here.
