Keeping our patients safe is at the heart of everything we do.
We are measured and monitored by NHS independent regulators on a number of key areas.
We have also put our own measures in place to improve patient safety.
Mortality rate
The death rates for all NHS trusts are calculated and published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
These include deaths in hospital and deaths within 30 days of discharge from hospital.
The rates are published in a way that enables trusts to compare their performance with an expected level based on the national average.
Trusts are then placed into one of three bands: ‘ better than expected’ , ‘ worse than expected’ or ‘ as expected’.
Infection control
We take a zero tolerance approach to infections. We do everything possible to prevent infections such as MRSA and clostridium difficile (C.diff).
C.diff is present as one of the ‘normal’ bacteria in the gut of around 5% of healthy adults and in children under 2 years old but rarely causes a problem. It can cause illness when antibiotics disturb the balance of the ‘normal’ bacteria in the gut.
With MRSA many people can have it on their skin or up their nose (called colonisation) without it causing any problems. Others can go on to develop more serious infections. MRSA can be acquired in the community. Therefore all patients admitted to our hospitals are swabbed for MRSA to protect themselves and other patients.