Safer Care

The East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (EMPSC) was established in 2014, as one of fifteen across England; it is hosted by HIEM.

We work alongside acute hospital trusts, community services, primary care, Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), care homes, and local authorities in the region on projects designed to improve patient safety and build quality improvement capacity and capability.

Our work covers four national safety improvement programme workstreams. We are also working with the Mental Health Alliance and the six mental health service providers across the region on a local improvement programme to improve the safety and outcomes of inpatient care across the East Midlands.

Learn more about Patient Safety Collaborative

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Impacts

Maternity and neonatal (April 2020 - March 2024).

865 women giving birth at less than 30 weeks of gestation received magnesium sulphate within the 24 hours prior to birth. This potentially means that 23 babies will not develop cerebral palsy, and a cost saving to welfare and society of between £18.4m and £23m.

Potentially, between 59 and 82 lives were saved due to getting timely interventions:

  • 329 women in preterm labour at less than 34 weeks of gestation received intravenous intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis to prevent early onset neonatal Group B Streptococcal (GBS) – This potentially means that 32 babies were born without Group B Strep and that 8 babies survived.
  • Between 40 and 60 babies born at less than 34 weeks gestational age potentially survived because their umbilical cord was clamped at or after one minute after birth.
  • Between 11 and 14 lives were saved because the mother got antenatal corticosteroids.

System Safety - EMPSC worked directly with the Midlands Regional Patient Safety Specialist and all 5 ICBs in the East Midlands to support a network of 30 NHS and independent provider organisations to successfully implement the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) in April 2024, which had an emphasis on involving those affected by the incident, and on learning and improvement for the wider system.

Mental health - A Mental Health Learning Event attracted 78 people to build skills and knowledge relating to the three community of practice areas of Improving Sexual Safety, Reducing Restrictive Practice and Preventing Suicide and Self-Harm.

Our Improving Sexual Safety Community of Practice gathered more than 130 responses to a region wide survey aimed at understanding staff's confidence levels related to having a conversation, managing and reporting on sexual safety incidents. This survey is informing and driving regionwide improvement work.

Next Steps

The success of our 2023-2024 workstreams sets a good basis for the 2024-2025 commission. New programmes for the year ahead include working with our acute trusts to implement Martha’s Rule and working with prescribers to improve care for people with a learning disability and for people with frailty by optimising their medicines.