100 Day Challenge Survey Report
Today the Patients Association published the results of its 100 Day Challenge.
Launched at its October 2008 summit Safety first- Top of Your Boards Agenda, the 100 Day Challenge asked all NHS Boards to put patient safety as the first agenda item at Board meetings. An electronic survey of NHS Boards was sent out after the 100 day deadline to measure the response to the challenge and to gauge the priority given to patient safety in general.
Key findings include:
v 45% of participants had Patient Safety as the first agenda item every time or most of the time.
v All Acute Hospital Trust respondents had significant discussions on patient safety every time or most of the time for all the respondents but only 80% of PCT respondents did, with 75% of those selecting other competing priorities as the reason.
v On average, 28% of the time at Board meetings was taken up discussing patient safety. But there was wide variation-from 10% to 70%. Once again, Acute Hospital Trusts reported spending more time on the issue than Primary Care Trusts.
v Lack of funding, lack of personnel capacity, organisational change and competing priorities were listed as barriers to introducing patient safety measures
Author of the report and Director of Policy at the Patients Association Kieran Mullan said “Many parts of the NHS are waking up to patient safety but every part needs to. It’s clear a number of organisations are leading the way-patients shouldn’t have to wait whilst the others catch up. There is a clear postcode lottery on patient safety. I find it hard to understand how any NHS Board, dealing with a harm rate of about 1 in 10, only spends 10% of its time at meetings on patient safety.”
The Health Select Committee released a report on Friday highlighted serious shortcomings in patient safety in the NHS. Matching the 100 Day Challenge one of its recommendations was for every NHS Board to put patient safety as the first agenda item on its meeting agendas every time with no exceptions. Considering their recommendation Kieran said “The Health Select Committee made the same recommendation in its report on Friday- putting patient safety at the top of the agenda can make a real difference.”
He added
“The 100 Day Challenge report adds to a long list of reports and initiatives aimed at getting all NHS leadership on board with the patient safety agenda. This is yet another report that shouldn’t be ignored. Patients deserve to know their local NHS is doing everything it possibly can to keep them safe. Mistakes will always happen but there can be no more excuses from Trust Boards who aren’t following the recommendations aimed at avoiding them.”
Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Executive of the Appointments Commission who helped facilitate the survey writes in a foreword “This survey from the Patients Association, which we helped to facilitate, provides some interesting information on the current situation in local trusts and makes a number of valuable recommendations. I hope Boards will be able to use the report to support their own initiatives and build on the progress they have already made.”
Notes for editors
The 100 Day Challenge Survey was an online survey emailed to every NHS Strategic Health Authority, Primary Care Trust, Acute Hospital Trust, Ambulance Trust, Mental Health Trust and Care Trust. The Patients Association sent the survey to Foundation Trust organisations and the Appointments Commission sent it to non-Foundation Trust organisations.
The survey began on Monday 9th March 2009. Some questions related specifically to the preceding 100 day time period of the challenge (excluding holidays) and others were more general. The survey totalled 27 questions and was divided into the following subject areas:
What part of the NHS do you work in?
Patient Safety on the organisation Board meeting agenda
Responsibility for Patient Safety
Communication between the Board & the organisation
Measures to Improve Patient Safety
Barriers to improving patient safety
Patient Safety-what does it mean?
54 organisations participated in the survey consisting of 26 Acute Hospital Trusts, 25 Primary Care Trusts and 3 Mental Health Trusts. This represents 15% of all Acute Hospital Trusts, 17% of all Primary Care Trusts and 4% of Mental Health Trusts. The average population size for Primary Care Trusts is over 300,000 (NHS Information Centre GP List Populations of Primary Care Organisations (2008)) people meaning the size of the population served by our sample organisations will likely run into the millions.
