Supporting NHS Trusts with ‘Fair’ incident resolution

Last month we saw the publication of NHS Resolution’s ‘Being Fair’ report which was created to ensure NHS Trusts respond to incidents in a way that is fair to both the patient and staff involved, and that errors are not repeated.

There are some key themes coming through in this report that Radar Healthcare welcomes and can wholeheartedly support with our software:

Identifying what good practice looks like

There is an acceptance within the report that organisations are at different stages and are still learning about what works.  With a variety of approaches being taken, and no single approach recommended over another, NHS Trusts need to understand what ‘good’ looks like to them; and how standard operating procedures can be tailored in line with the principles of the ‘Just and  Learning Culture Charter’ so that everyone knows what’s expected of them.

To facilitate this, Radar Healthcare doesn’t take a ‘one size fits all’ approach – the software underpins specific processes and procedures through a personalised approach to incident management.

Through fully configurable workflows, Radar Healthcare helps you perform effective investigations, root cause analysis and trend reporting; helping you to quickly identify positive and negative trends, recognise best practice, and promote standardised ways of working to support continuous improvement.

Ensuring workforce competency and compliance

The report outlines one of the questions to ask before progressing a disciplinary: “Have you reviewed the worker’s knowledge against their skills and determined if the worker knew of the rule or performance standard?”

Radar Healthcare’s integrated competency checking tool provides the ability to manage and track your employee’s training, appraisals, supervisions and compliance requirements to ensure a fully competent and compliant workforce.  If there’s an area requiring improvement, Radar Healthcare provides the ability to quickly create simple training materials to support these areas, and helps evidence your employee’s awareness and understanding.

Through a robust document management facility, you can also ensure your employees have access to the relevant policies and procedures necessary to do their job, with a clear audit trail to track whether they have read and understood them.

When a concern is raised or an investigation is required, clear governance must be in place to ensure that investigation reports are followed up and actions are taken

The ‘Just and Learning Culture Charter’ outlines that “We need to take the blame out of failure. This means changing the mindset and the language associated with safety – from blame to learning. However, this does not mean an absence of accountability. Accountability is about sharing what happened, working out why it happened, and learning and being responsible for making changes for the future safety of staff and patients.”

Within Radar Healthcare, accountability is the cornerstone of the incident management process.  Every incident and event type has a defined workflow that must be followed by the assigned manager to ensure full compliance with standard operating procedures.

Each incident is risk assessed and any mitigating actions logged through the software with automated notifications to the person(s) responsible for carrying out these actions.

Further reporting to external regulators can also be incorporated into the workflow, reducing duplication of workload for mandatory notifications.

Developing a just and learning culture

The report recognises the importance of role models and leading by example for senior leaders at executive level.  This also aligns with the CQC’s ‘well-led’ key line of enquiry which takes into account the leadership and governance at Trust board and executive team-level; the overall organisational vision and strategy; organisation-wide governance, management, improvement; and organisational culture and levels of engagement.

With an exponential rise in the use of technology in healthcare organisations, we know that embedding a culture of continuous improvement is about more than introducing a software package, it requires the redefinition of staff roles and responsibilities and support for them to work differently, connecting organisational silos.

Radar Healthcare was created to support the cycle of continuous improvement and is based on a proven behaviour-changed focused methodology.

Here is the full ‘Being Fair’ report from NHS Resolution.

About Radar Healthcare

Quality and compliance focused software that helps improve the delivery of health and social care, whilst helping you evidence effectiveness and continuous improvement. We know you aspire to be outstanding, so we help simplify the regulatory complexities you face, giving you more time to focus on delivering excellent care. Want to know more? Get in touch with us today, or book a demo of our software here.