Safer care - supporting all three shifts

The East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative is one of fifteen
across England and is hosted by Health Innovation East Midlands

We have been instrumental in the successful implementation of patient safety programmes across the East Midlands since 2014, when the 15 local Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) were set up.

One of the biggest safety initiatives in the history of the NHS, the PSCs build collaboration across health systems and organisations to promote continuous improvement, enhance a culture of safety, and deliver measurable outcomes in healthcare settings.

This approach embodies the three shifts, emphasising integrated care, outcome-focused strategies, and proactive, sustained improvements.

We work alongside NHS hospital trusts, community services, primary care, Integrated Care Systems, care homes, and local authorities across the East Midlands on priority clinical themes that both improve patient safety and support health professionals to provide quality care.

During the year, we focused on four national patient safety improvement programmes covering Maternity and Neonatal services, Medicines Safety, System Safety and Managing Deterioration. A summary of the programmes is included below.

Maternity and Neonatal Safety

We worked with partners across the health system to improve the safety and outcomes of maternal and neonatal care through:

  • Early recognition and management of deterioration in women and babies.
  • High-quality healthcare for all women, babies, and families across maternity and neonatal services.

This included implementing a package of nine interventions to optimise and stabilise preterm infants, and delivering a culture and leadership programme for clinical teams who focus on caring for mothers and babies just before and just after birth.

From April 2020 to March 2025, up to 112 lives have been saved in the East Midlands with our support, by ensuring timely interventions are in place where problems could arise:

  • 1,076 mums giving birth at less than 30 weeks received magnesium sulphate within 24 hours before birth. This meant up to 29 babies will not develop cerebral palsy, transforming the lives of the children and avoiding lifetime care costs of up to £29M.
  • 517 mums in preterm labour at less than 34 weeks received antibiotics to reduce the risk of the baby developing early onset neonatal Group B Streptococcal infection, which can lead to sepsis or meningitis. As a result up to 51 babies in the East Midlands were born without Group B strep.
  • Up to 20 babies’ lives were saved thanks to mothers receiving antenatal corticosteroids – medication for women between 24 and 34 weeks of gestation where there is a risk of preterm birth – which helps lung development in the foetus, reducing the risk of breathing problems and other complications in newborns.
  • Up to 80 babies born at less than 34 weeks gestational age survived because their umbilical cord was clamped at, or after one minute after birth.

Systems Safety

Between April 2023 and March 2025, we were commissioned to support the implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF).

PSIRF seeks to change the culture towards investigations in safety risks and issues, with patients and their families at the heart of this process.

In 2024 -2025 we:

  • Supported systems to embed PSIRF by hosting collaborative sessions and helping health care organisations identify gaps in their current practice.
  • Collaborated with all five East Midlands Integrated Care Boards to host webinars on key challenges, fostering regional learning and building momentum in patient safety initiatives.
  • Partnered with Health Innovation West Midlands to map health professionals’ skills gaps in relation to PSIRF competencies and encourage skill sharing.
  • Produced an induction booklet to support Patient Safety Partners’ recruitment.

“We are almost blown away by the level
of support we are now getting from
Health Innovation East Midlands. It has
far exceeded our expectations and has led
to real impact for our team – [HIEM] have
facilitated us in reflecting on our activities
– Patient Safety Partners, measuring
improvement and learning responses.”

Feedback from Leicester,
Leicestershire and
Rutland health system.

Managing Deterioration including Martha’s Rule

During 2024-2025 this included supporting systems to improve the prevention, identification, escalation and response (PIER) to physical deterioration of patients; and to implement ‘Martha’s Rule’, enhancing the Up to 35,000 adults safety of care for deteriorating patients.

We supported seven NHS hospitals in the East Midlands to pilot Martha’s Rule. This involves ensuring patients and families concerned about deteriorating health while in the hospital, can escalate their concerns by calling a dedicated number to a specialist team for review and action.

The pilot sites were Kings Mill Hospital, Lincoln Hospital, Kettering General Hospital, Northampton General Hospital, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester Royal Infirmary and Leicester General Hospital.

  • 119 calls were made between January and March 2025, with 21 leading to a review of care.
  • We set up and host the Martha’s Rule Midlands Community of Practice, which has become an important platform for collaboration and sharing.
  • We developed a data dashboard across the Midlands, which tracks progress against national measures, identifies emerging themes and supports learning and sharing. All Martha’s Rule pilot sites completed case studies to share learning and identify next steps.

Website by Volute

Terms of Use, Privacy and Cookies