A new report, Action Against Medical Accidents, has highlighted the failure of two Bradford district NHS trusts to take action on patient safety alerts!

Unfolding a ‘snapshot’ of the patient safety alerts position as on July 21 this year – pertaining to all patient safety alerts that have been issued since 2004 for which the deadlines had already passed -, the report noted that there were three outstanding alerts for Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and one outstanding alert for Bradford District Care Trust.

Overall, the report said that as many as 195 trusts – that is, nearly one-half of all NHS trusts – failed to adhere to key alerts on patient safety within the required time.

While it is the National Patient Safety Agency that issues the alerts, the NHS Trusts are responsible for taking action on certain problems that can apparently spell harm for the patients. And, these actions have to be executed by a specific deadline which is stated beforehand.

About Bradford District Care Trust’s reported failure to take action on patient safety alerts, the Trust’s associate director Andrew Morris said that the Trust has one patient safety alert which related to the recording of NHS numbers as a national identifier “has now been addressed.”

Meanwhile, as per the information forwarded by a spokesman for Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, “appropriate action plans” were already in place so as to make sure that there is “full compliance with the outstanding alerts identified in this report”!