Nurse suspended following unexpected death at Shropshire hospital - amid seven other 'serious incidents' in a month
An agency nurse has been suspended from working at the trust running Shropshire's two main hospitals following an 'unexpected death', a new report has revealed.
It was one of eight serious incidents reported in December by The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust board, which runs Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.
A new report to the trust board, which meets today, says the death is being investigated and concerns have been raised relating to appropriate observations in the emergency department.
It says: "An agency nurse involved is this incident has been suspended from working at the trust pending completion of the investigation."
There were two serious incidents recorded surrounding maternity services.
The report says one related to the monitoring of a mother after a caesarean section and the other was recorded because a mother was not referred to triage in line with guidelines after an ultrasound scan.
A message was sent to all staff regarding protocol for an abnormal ultrasound scan and referral to triage.
An inpatient fall which resulted in fractures was also recorded as a serious incident.
'Delayed diagnosis'
Another three were recorded for a 'delayed diagnosis'.
One was for delay in treatment of a bowel cancer, another for bowel cancer not being identified in a screening, and a third for a delay in treatment for liver cancer.
The last serious incident was recorded for there being a delay of two hours until medication was given to a patient for high potassium.
The report says awareness was raised among staff regarding the handover of patients to the acute medical unit.
In a separate report to the board, SaTH's director for clinical effectiveness Edwin Borman, says the trust has been embedding an executive serious incident review group which has provided the means for all cases that may meet the national criteria to be reviewed, on a regular basis, by the relevant members of the executive team.
It says 'key learning points' from serious incidents are identified to reduce risk and improve quality and safety of care.
The directorate for clinical effectiveness was created in order to provide greater capacity within the trust to deal with the broad range of challenges that it is addressing, and to allow the trust to identify, at an earlier stage, areas requiring improvement.
It began functioning in June last year.
