Imperial to take on national patient safety role

A leading London acute trust is to take on responsibility for collecting information on patient safety incidents at NHS trusts when the National Patient Safety Agency is wound up next year.

The National Reporting and Learning Service, the world’s largest source of patient safety information, is to transfer to Imperial College Healthcare Foundation Trust on a temporary basis in April 2012.



The trust board has agreed in principle to take on the service for two years while a full procurement for the service is developed, including a competitive tendering process.

The decision to scrap NPSA was taken following the government’s review of arm’s-length bodies in 2010.
Subject to the passage of the Health Bill, responsibility for the NRLS, which collects and analyses data on patient safety incidents from trusts across England and Wales, will transfer to the NHS Commissioning Board when the NPSA is abolished next spring.

A report to Imperial’s board this afternoon said the DH had felt there was insufficient time to run a full procurement including a competitive tendering process before next year and so, after drawing up a “limited short list” approached the trust to ask them to run it on a temporary basis.
The decision will not prevent the trust bidding to run the service on a more permanent basis when it is put out to tender.
Under the service level agreement for NRLS, Imperial would not have any NHS facing role. Instead the 17 staff who will transfer from NPSA will provide reports to the NHS Commissioning Board, which will disseminate information.
The report said taking on the NRLS could help raise the profile of Imperial and its academic health science centre. It also suggested running the service could have a favourable influence on the National Institute for Health 
Research’s decision to renew funding for the trust’s Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality research. A decision on the funding, worth £14m over five years, is due next spring.

The trust estimates the service will cost £3.9m to run over the two years. NPSA is providing £3.7m.

NPSA chief executive Sarndrah Horsfall said: “The two year temporary transfer of the NRLS to ICHT is a vital step in strengthening the patient safety culture across the new NHS in England and Wales.

“It is important that NHS organisations continue to submit their patient safety incident reports to the NRLS to support ongoing learning. We welcome the acceptance in principle by ICHT of the temporary transfer and look forward to working closely with them.”