“NHS Safety Thermometer: Patient Harms And Harm Free Care” – Statement From Independent Age

Commenting on today’s Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) report entitled “NHS Safety Thermometer: Patient Harms and Harm Free Care”, Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Independent Age, the older people’s charity, said:

“With nearly 18,000 falls recorded in the past year leading to patients experiencing harm, it remains a real worry that people continue to fall in hospital and other NHS settings. In general, the over-65s are at the greatest risk of falling and too many preventable falls are occurring in places where older people ought to be at their safest. Meanwhile, a total of 165,000 incidents of harm, such as developing pressure ulcers or unitary tract infections, have been reported. We need to do more to understand why the harm that occurs in hospitals and across the NHS keeps on taking place.”