THE Western Trust has apologised to a Fermanagh patient over medication recording errors that happened as a result of their transfer from the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) to Altnagelvin for emergency surgery.
The incident has once again raised questions as to how the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) could state it had encountered “no immediate patient safety issues” regarding the transfer of emergency patients from Fermanagh to Derry, during its recent review of these pathways.
That is because this patient had informed the RQIA review team of how they had been given morphine prior to their transfer, but this was not recorded in his medical record – which the Trust has since apologised for.
Indeed, the Trust noted the patient’s kardex, which records the drugs they have been given, had been mislaid.
The Trust also explained how a SWAH patient’s medical records were photocopied at the Enniskillen hospital to be sent with them when transferring to Derry, and if a new entry is added in the interim between transferring, this may not be reflected in their notes.
Campaign group Save Our Acute Services (SOAS) said it is aware of other patients who also reported medication errors during their transfer to the RQIA team.
“One of the biggest issues in the RQIA report is they didn’t highlight any of the medication issues at all,” said a SOAS spokesperson.
They added the World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported that more than half of patient safety issues across the world concerned medication.
SOAS has also noted the apology implies that the ‘double ED’ practice – which the RQIA report ordered an urgent halt to – would likely continue, since the Trust explained how patients may have to go from the SWAH ED to the Altnagelvin ED, when there is limited capacity at the Derry hospital.
The SOAS spokesperson pointed out Altnagelvin was experiencing ongoing capacity issues.
They added the issue of patients having to bring their own photocopied medical records, and the fact SWAH and Altnagevlin currently operate on separate systems, was also a serious cause of concern.
In February, RQIA published its report on the review it carried out last year on the pathways associated with the suspension of emergency general surgery (EGS) at the SWAH.
Much to the shock of many in the community – not least patients who had submitted their experiences to the review, RQIA said it had not found any immediate patient safety issues, but noted it had been working with limited data from the Trust.
“The review did not identify immediate patient safety issues during the review team site visits, and review of documents and limited data available,” the report stated.
“The review has identified several issues that are clearly impacting on the effectiveness of the of the clinical pathways put in place to mitigate the temporary suspension of emergency surgical services at SWAH.”
The report set out 10 recommendations for the Trust to implement, highlighting areas that needed attention. It can be found on the RQIA website.
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