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NHS: Amputations

Answer

The Department of Health does not routinely collect this information centrally. However, the Government are concerned about National Health Service patients affected by adverse events, including instances in the NHS where the wrong limb has been amputated instead of the limb intended. It established the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) in July 2001 to improve the safety of NHS patient care by promoting an open and fair culture and by introducing a national reporting and learning system for adverse events. This system is now in place across the NHS. The reporting and learning system will, in time, enable us to understand the nature and extent of adverse incidents, including instances in the NHS where the wrong limb has been amputated instead of the limb intended, and take further action to prevent them being repeated where appropriate. On 2 March 2005, the NPSA and the Royal College of Surgeons of England jointly launched new advice to the NHS to help make surgery safer in the form of a patient safety alert. The recommendations in the alert promoting "correct site surgery" encourage a consistent approach to marking the patient for surgery and provide staff with a checklist to ensure important steps have been taken to protect the patient.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

74; 672 c22-3WA

Session

2005-06

Related items

NHS: Amputations
Thursday, 7 July 2005
Written questions
House of Lords

Subjects

NHS Negligence Surgery Orthopaedics

Contains statistics

Yes