Swann announces plan to combat Serious Adverse Incidents

Robin Swann
Northern Ireland’s health minister Robin Swann (Photo by William Cherry/Press Eye)

Health minister Robin Swann has announced plans to improve the Serious Adverse Incident (SAI) review process in Northern Ireland’s health and social care system.

Serious Adverse Incident reviews are initiated following unexpected and unintended incidents of harm. Their objective is to ensure service providers learn from harm and make improvements to services.

Swann said changes to the process must promote a culture of safety, openness and compassion and deliver benefits for patients and their families.

He was commenting following the publication of a major review into SAIs in Northern Ireland by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), which identified shortcomings in the current SAI procedure and its implementation. It recommends that the Department of Health work collaboratively with patient and carer representatives and the health and social care system to design a new regional SAI procedure.

The review advocates “an evidence-based approach for determining which adverse events require a structured, in-depth review”.

Swann said: “Every day, many people experience safe, high-quality health and social care services delivered by highly skilled and dedicated professionals across our health and social care sector. However, when the care or treatment delivered does not meet expected standards and harm occurs, it is important that we identify what happened, understand how and why it happened and learn from it.

“I am committed to supporting the redesign and implementation of a new regional SAI procedure which ensures HSC staff, service users and their families are all supported as active partners in the review process.

“My department will be guided by this important RQIA report as it co-designs a new regional procedure.  This will support an improved approach to learning from reviews where harm has occurred, thus driving quality improvement and delivering safer services.”

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