Introduction
NHS East Midlands is required to comply with Department of Health Guidance HSG(94)27 on independent investigations in mental health services and additional guidance published in June 2005. This ensures that when required incidents are investigated with the appropriate level of independence.
To support this process the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) published good practice guidance in February 2008. This guidance describes a three stage process; initial service management review, internal investigation by mental health and SHA independent investigation.
This document also provides guidance on supporting victims, perpetrators, families and carers who have been harmed as a result of incidents using the principles of honesty and openness outlined in the NPSA document Being Open – communicating patient safety incidents with patients and their carers.
Policy
NHS East Midlands has developed and implemented a policy for use across all mental health trusts in the East Midlands to ensure these requirements are met. NHS East Midlands is committed to sharing lessons learnt from investigations and will publish findings and recommendations once all legal proceedings have been completed and consent processes undertaken. Findings and recommendations of previously published investigations can be accessed by clicking on the subsection on the left hand side.
Legacy Audit
The Department of Health instructed all strategic health authorities to conduct an audit of ‘legacy cases’ to ensure these incidents had been investigated in accordance with HSG(94)27.
Legacy cases are those which occurred from 2002 to the establishment of NHS East Midlands on 1 July 2006. The outcome of this audit and progress with legacy cases can be viewed below. The Legacy Audit Table will be updated quarterly until all actions are complete.
Ongoing Independent Investigations
NHS East Midlands has commissioned several independent investigations, details of which can be found in the table below.
Published Independent Investigations
Please click link to left to view published independent investigations.
