The PSIRF is part of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy and outlines how providers should respond to patient safety incidents. It will be implemented in all NHS organisations starting in Spring 2022, and will replace the Serious Incident Framework.

Instead of having a defined list of serious incidents, there will be a systems-based learning approach to patient safety with a smaller list of incident categories that will need to be reported externally (via StEIS). This will include Never Events, Patient Deaths, Mental Health Homicides and Maternal and Neonatal deaths which meet “Each Baby Counts” criteria.

The PSIRF takes a risk-based approach which is more proactive and allows for prioritisation of incident reviews within the organisation.

The purpose of these changes is to make sure reviews are designed for safety and learning rather than performance management. Timescales for reviews will be agreed with patients and their families and will be completed on a new template with a new methodology (no longer root cause analysis).

Further information can be found in the Introductory version of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework

The Patient Safety Specialist role is in place to encourage a culture of patient safety across the Trust. The Patient Safety Specialist will:

  • Escalate risks or issues to the executive team
  • Work in networks with Patient Safety Specialists in other organisations to share good practice
  • Lead and support patient safety improvement
  • Ensure that systems thinking, human factors understanding and just culture principles are embedded in all patient safety processes

The Patient Safety Specialist for Mersey Care is Panchu Xavier.

Patient Safety Partners (PSPs) are patients, family members or other members of the public who work with the Trust to improve patient safety. The purpose of introducing patient safety partners is to promote transparency and openness, help the Trust to understand what feels unsafe to patients, and to help the trust to provide information that is accessible to patients.

The NHS Patient Safety Strategy requires all Patient Safety and Governance committees to include 2 trained PSPs by July 2023.