Patient Safety - Keeping you safe during your stay in hospital

 
Why is patient safety important

Patient safety is our number one priority. More than a million people are treated successfully each day in the NHS but some patients admitted to hospital do experience adverse events or harm. These are unexpected and unintended events related to medical care (e.g. an infection caught in hospital, the wrong dose of medication, or a deep vein thrombosis after an operation). It is staff’s responsibility to keep you safe but we want you to work with us and help us avoid such events.

Nottingham University Hospitals have signed up to a national patient safety campaign called Patient Safety First, and we are doing everything we can to eliminate avoidable harm.

We are here for you

Our ambition is to be the best acute teaching Trust in England by 2016. We believe our patients deserve nothing less. We listened to patients (and to staff) to understand what being the best meant to them. You told us that patients should always feel cared for, safe and confident in the treatment they receive. We pledge to our patients that ‘we are here for you’. Our core values include being vigilant and speaking up to keep patients safe, and having clean hands and a clean hospital so that patients feel safe.

How you can help

There is a lot that you can do as a patient or relative to help us improve safety:

• Tell us about your medical history and symptoms in full.

• Know what medications you are taking (or have a list).

• Tell us about your allergies and any problems you have had with medications.

• Tell us about any underlying health conditions such as diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, heart disease and stroke.

• Check that the details on your identity band are correct and ask for a band if it is not put on or falls off.

• Check your name above your bed – let staff know if it is incorrect or misspelt.

• Ask questions if you have any concerns.

• When a family member or friend is in hospital and has trouble speaking for themselves you can ask questions for them.

• If you are pregnant or you think you might be, make sure you tell the doctor or nurse before you have any treatment, operations or X-rays.

Patient Safety is our number one priority and we want you to know that if you have any questions or concerns please speak to a member of staff.

Our patient safety leaflet

• Download our patient safety leaflet from here.

• Download the audio version from here.