"Competence of staff"

Dear Sir/ Madam,

Many thanks for taking the time to get in touch with us.

I am assuming your post relates to personal experience of surgical error and as such I would urge you to get in touch so that I can personally do what I can to address your concerns and provide you with the information you need.

As a trust we strive to make sure that our care is of the highest quality and as safe as possible working within strict guidelines and procedures.

When an error does occur we have a duty to be open and honest with patients and to take steps to make sure the error does not happen again.

We do this by investigating and monitoring all serious incidents, including surgical errors, and have a very robust system for this.

The number of incidents and how they are addressed is reported to the Care Quality Commission which oversees all hospital trusts.

Internally we also review the outcome of our investigations, timeliness of our response and contribution to shared learning via a quality panel system.

This involves the Clinical Lead for each service coming before panel to have the quality of their care reviewed: the panel will listen to patient feedback on that service, monitor the number of complaints or errors together with data on outcomes compared to the performance of similar services in our hospitals

The Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and the complaints process are widely advertised throughout the trust and there is a leaflet which describes the process.

If you would like to contact me to discuss the context of your comment please do, you can contact me by email: annie.laverty@nhct.nhs.uk

With best wishes,

Annie

Annie Laverty

Director of Patient Experience