Monday 14 October 2013

Not dummies after all...

[Originally published on the Aspley Consultants website]

This summer's story about a baby having a dummy taped to its mouth contains encouraging signs of a learning culture developing at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

Whilst the incident itself causes concern, it was encouraging that it came to light as the result of a member of staff alerting their colleagues to what had happened.

Quoted on The Telegraph website, Colin Ovington, director of nursing and midwifery at the trust, said [emphases added],

“One of our recent incidents involved a dummy that was found taped onto a baby’s face. Fortunately, the baby was unharmed. The incident is under investigation by the Police and so we are unable to give any more information at the moment.

“We cannot emphasise strongly enough that this incident is exceptional and apologise again to the family. We want other hospitals to learn from this incident so that we can be sure that it does not happen to any other baby.

‘We have a zero tolerance approach to poor patient care and we take immediate, appropriate action as soon as we know about any potential serious incidents which happen in our hospitals. We are proud that our staff now feel confident to report any incidents which happen… We will continue to encourage staff to do this, and will continue to report incidents, even before they have been fully investigated, despite any negative attention this may create.”

It is refreshing to have such an attitude in an organisation under investigation for poor standards of care in the past.  Previous incidents might have resulted in “No comment” or perhaps the statement as shown but without the bits on bold.  However, the response as given suggests that Mid Staffs is learning and wants others to do so as well.

They should be encouraged on their journey.

For more information on learning cultures, please follow this link to the relevant pages on the Knoco website.

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