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National statutory reporting: not even ticking the boxes? The quality of 'Learning from Deaths' reporting in quality accounts within the NHS in England 2017-2020

Brummell, Z; Braun, D; Hussein, Z; Moonesinghe, SR; Vindrola-Padros, C; (2023) National statutory reporting: not even ticking the boxes? The quality of 'Learning from Deaths' reporting in quality accounts within the NHS in England 2017-2020. BMJ Open Quality , 12 (1) , Article e002092. 10.1136/bmjoq-2022-002092. Green open access

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Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Regulation through statutory reporting is used in healthcare internationally to improve accountability, quality of care and patient safety. Since 2017, within the National Health Service (NHS) in England, NHS Secondary Care Trusts (NSCTs) are legally required to report annually both quantitative and qualitative information related to patient deaths within their care within their publicly available Quality Accounts as part of a countrywide patient safety programme: The Learning from Deaths (LfDs) programme. METHOD: All LfDs reports published between 2017 (programme inception) and 2020 were reviewed and evaluated through a critical realist lens, quantitatively reported using descriptive statistics and qualitatively using reflexive thematic analysis. RESULTS: In 2017/2018, 44% of NSCTs reported all six statutory elements of the LfDs reporting regulations, in 2019/2020 35% of NSCTs were reporting this information. A small number of NSCTs did not report any parts of the LfDs regulatory requirements between 2017 and 2020. Multiple qualitative themes arose from this study suggesting problematic engagement with the LfDs programme, erroneous reporting accuracy and errors in written communication. CONCLUSIONS: The LfDs programme has, to some extent, reduced variation and improved consistency to the way that NSCTs identify, report and investigate deaths. However, 3 years into the LfDs programme, the majority of NSCTs are not reporting as required by law. This makes the validity of National statutory reporting in Quality Accounts within the NHS in England questionable as a regulatory process.

Type: Article
Title: National statutory reporting: not even ticking the boxes? The quality of 'Learning from Deaths' reporting in quality accounts within the NHS in England 2017-2020
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1136/bmjoq-2022-002092
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2022-002092
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Keywords: Health policy, Hospital medicine, Patient safety, Qualitative research, Quality improvement, Humans, State Medicine, Patient Safety, Delivery of Health Care, England, Health Facilities
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci > Department of Targeted Intervention
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10165780
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