New Family Liaison Officers at hospital trust to improve support for patients and relatives
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which runs the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) and the Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford, has appointed to the new roles within the Patient Safety Team.
It is part of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) which launched last year.
The aim of these roles is to prioritise and support the needs of patients and families affected by patient safety incidents within the Trust. They will also play an important role in the education and support of staff to have conversations with patients and families when incidents occur, the legal requirements of Duty of Candour and ensuring that patient and family experiences and concerns are acted on.
They will also ensure that patient and family voices are included in learning and actions are produced from patient safety reviews, learning responses and incident investigations.
Hayley Flavell, Director of Nursing, said: “We are delighted to have appointed new family liaison officer roles to our Trust to improve how we engage compassionately with patients and families affected by patient safety incidents.
“As we move into the next phase of our improvement journey, we will continue to strive towards providing excellent care for the communities we serve.”
PSIRF has fundamentally changed the way SaTH investigates and learns lessons from incidents, in line with the national Patient Safety Strategy This new way of working is growing the Trust’s learning culture by increasing understanding about how incidents happen and increasing learning through earlier identification of themes.
Hayley continued: “Thank you to all colleagues who have embraced and embedded PSIRF. It has meant a huge change in process for incident review and quality governance and the support and enthusiasm of everyone has been fantastic.”
We are very pleased to see the introduction of Family Liaison Officers to help support patients and families who have been affected by patient safety incidents. We have long called for support for these patients and hope that this new initiative will ensure that patients and families are kept fully informed during the investigation process and that their voices inform the learning that comes out of incidents.
