A new strategy for protecting patient safety across primary care settings outlines the health service’s ambitions to bring greater consistency and certification to the use of technology by general practices
NHS England has outlined an ambition for general practices to implement proactive IT systems “that automatically flag patient safety issues”.
Such issues would include “missed patient referral follow-ups, safeguarding, diagnoses and medication issues”, according to proposals included in a new Primary care patient safety strategy published by the health service.
In deploying these kinds of tech platforms, GPs and other primary care services would take their lead from “industries such as nuclear power [that] have a structured approach to safety management via the use of safety management systems… [that] take a proactive and integrated approach that combines hazard identification and risk management, monitoring of safety performance and the impact of interventions, training and education and promotion of safety”.
Over the coming months, the NHS will explore how a similar model could be used across the primary-care sector to better protect patient…
