21/09/2010

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is taking a positive approach to improving its health and safety processes following a regular inspection by the Health and Safety Executive.

Following the HSE visit in May and June this year, a report was published to the Trust in July. During August the Trust produced a thorough action plan.

The actions required are not in response to incidents that have occurred. They are about making improvements to the process and the way that health and safety activities are carried out, recorded, and monitored. They are about ensuring robust systems and approaches.

The plan will be considered by the Trust Board at its meeting on Friday September 24th.

Dr Frank Harsent, Chief Executive of Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We have been aware of some of the issues raised by the HSE and actions were in place to address them, for example the testing of water and work to replace ‘deadleg’ water pipes in order to prevent the opportunities for legionella to develop. We are taking this as a positive opportunity to refresh and strengthen a number of our other processes.

“I am personally highly committed to the safety of patients, staff and all visitors to our hospitals. From now on I will be chairing our Trust Health and Safety Committee and will be championing Health and Safety at Board level.”

Board members will be undertaking IOSH accredited health and safety training in October.

The HSE positively welcomed the Executive Walkabouts which involve Board Members paying regular visits to wards and departments across the Trust, in order to give staff the opportunity to speak directly to them about any issues, and to share views on a variety of issues facing both frontline and support staff.

David Smith, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development, said: “In January this year we approved the Staff Safety Strategy which starts to build upon and improve our approach managing violence and aggression in our hospitals. We don’t have a problem with levels of violence and aggression; however we do need to improve our preparedness for the rare occasions when they do occur’

This will be improved by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of staff who are called to assist with incidents, improving their training and promoting use of the internal emergency number.

Mr Smith said: “We recognise that our staff coming to work have an absolute right to be able to carry out their work in the full knowledge that they will be supported and protected if there is an incident which could be described as violent or aggressive. The changes we had planned and the improvements described in our action plan will result in better trained and better prepared staff.”

The Trust talked to its Council of Governors about the report, prior to the Board meeting at the end of September. The Chief Executive has also talked to key partners such as the Gloucestershire Health, Community and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Gloucestershire PCT; so that they are made aware of the issues and the action that the Trust is taking.

The full action plan was available from Tuesday September 21st on the Trust website within the Trust Board Papers at www.gloshospitals.nhs.uk