HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2017: Patient Safety in Surgical Care

The Department of General Surgery designed a novel new emergency rota for consultant surgeons and set mandatory minimum standards for the care of all acute surgical admissions. This was to respond to national guidelines from the Royal Colleges about safe provision of emergency surgical patients, which has long been identified as an area in which care needs to be improved.

There have been several improvements in the process and satisfaction but our most significant achievement was to reduce mortality after emergency laparotomy by half from 12 per cent to 6 per cent after the change in our working practices. 

The judges thought that this was an example of shared medical leadership and teamwork at its best, with demonstrable improvements in a range of safety outcomes.

Highly Commended was South Tees Foundation Trust.