In line with the CQC’s recommendations in its review of how the NHS investigates patient deaths in December 2016, the National Quality Board has recently published (March 2017) the first edition of a new national framework for NHS Trusts – ‘National Guidance on Learning from Deaths’.
The purpose of the new framework is to introduce a more standardised approach to the way NHS Trusts report, investigate and learn from patient deaths, which should lead to better quality investigations and more embedded learning.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trusts has had a standardised mortality and morbidity process which has been reviewed and revised several times in response both national and local requirements.
The focus of the new framework is on improving governance processes around patient deaths (including new board leadership roles, a new system of ‘case record reviews’, quarterly reporting of specific information about deaths in care and a new Trust policy on how individual organisations will be implementing all this) and on ensuring the families/carers of patients who have died in care are properly involved at every stage.