Further details about PSIRF
Key to improving the services we deliver is monitoring the outcomes of the care we give and reflect learning from good practice, to be sure our services are having the right impact. But also exploring and investigating when things don't go so well, understanding why this was, and learning. Sometimes things in healthcare don’t go as planned, resulting in an incident; we call these patient safety incidents.
Since 2015 we have been managing patient safety incidents across the NHS through the Serious Incident Framework; in 2023 this was replaced nationally by the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF).
PSIRF is 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.
It is a key part of the NHS patient safety strategy, which 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 focussed on strengthening response system functioning and improvement.
For further reading and information about PSIRF please visit NHS England Patient Safety Incident Response Framework
Leading up to the implementation of PSIRF we have been working with our teams to understand how we can use this framework to learn and improve when we are responding to patient safety incidents where a service user was or could have been harmed.
In line with national guidance we have recruited six patient safety partners (PSPs) who are people who use our services or are carers and are interested in supporting us to improve our patient safety culture. Our PSPs will support our patient safety work by ensuring the patient’s voice is heard throughout our processes.