Patient Safety Congress 2009 will be held 30 April - 1 May 2009 at the ICC Birmingham. Patient Safety Congress 2008 in London last May was a highly successful event with 800 delegates and over 100 speakers. The Health Service Journal and Nursing Times have again teamed up with the NPSA, the NHS Institute...

The third annual Auditors’ Local Evaluation (ALE) report from the Audit Commission , published on 2 October, shows an overall picture of financial improvement for many NHS organisations in England in 2007/08. Half of the 302 NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) assessed in England have performed...

Within healthcare, efficient and effective document management ensures that staff can access up-to-date information that is specific and relevant to them. This enables staff to follow the latest processes and procedures, which could enhance the quality of service delivery and patient care. In maintaining...

The Darzi report High Quality Care for All signalled a shift to better quality care being the main theme of NHS reforms in England. Consequently, quality will become an issue that will be at the centre of most systems of governance in the NHS. According to Jon Sussex and Adrian Towse, writing in the...

The cleanliness of most NHS hospitals in England is threatened by frequent invasions of rats, fleas, bedbugs, flies and cockroaches, a report claims. Figures released by the Conservatives show that 70% of NHS Trusts brought in the pest controllers at least 50 times between January 2006 and March 2008...

Hi Martin Thank you for your reply I am thinking of this from Two directions 1 - Staff members need to have records of their accidents in and around the lab i.e. needle stick injuries, cuts, trips breaks. also we need to log accidents that are major as IR1s as well - we do this as CA/PAs at the moment...

Nurses are to be rated according to the levels of care and empathy they give to patients under a new initiative to raise standards in the NHS, it was revealed today. Health Secretary Alan Johnson told The Guardian newspaper he wants the performance of every nursing team in every ward across England to...

Surgeons say equipment is being returned broken Operating theatres are being thrown into chaos and operations cancelled because of broken, missing or dirty surgical instruments, surgeons say. The Royal College of Surgeons of England said it had contacted 250 doctors with most reporting problems. The...

More than 8,000 GP practices will have to register with a new health and social care inspectorate to show they meet minimum safety and quality standards, the government has announced. At present, private providers of health and social care services must register with either the Healthcare Commission...

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