Publish date: 19 August 2021
From 1 September 2021 Mersey Care will begin a process of reviewing all deaths that involve patients who have been receiving clinical care from our Trust; including patients who die within 30 days of discharge from our Physical Health Services or within months from Mental Health Services. This is to follow Trust policy based on the ‘National Guidance on Learning from Deaths’ (a framework for NHS trusts published by NHS England).
What does this mean for the Mid-Mersey Division?
From 1 September 2021, all deaths that occur within the Mid-Mersey Division – up to and including 30 days of discharge (Physical Health services) or up to 6 months of discharge (Mental Health services) - must be reported via the Datix reporting system.
The category and sub-category for reporting a death has been amended on the Datix report form to help make this process easier. This has been updated to reflect the range of patient deaths that might be reported.
Standard Mid-Mersey processes will continue to apply to unexpected deaths, and all will also be subject to the Mersey Care mortality review process. This review process is separate from that for any incident relating to a death which appears to meet the Serious Incident (SI) criteria and for which Duty of Candour will still need to be considered.
Once the Mortality and Incident Review Practitioners (MIPs) team have reviewed the reported deaths, feedback will be provided to teams.
The Trust Learning from Deaths Policy (SA45) explains the process in more detail.
For those who review incidents, over the next few weeks you will see changes made to the Datix form for the Mortality team to use as a part of this process.
For more details or to find out more on the work of the Mortality Team, please contact Kim Bennett, Mortality and Incident Review Manager on 07557 566389.
Click here for more information.