Canterbury DHB

Incidents and Consumer Feedback

Incident Reporting

An Incident is defined as any event that has resulted in, or could have under different circumstances resulted in unintended and/or unnecessary harm or death not related to the natural course of the patient’s illness or underlying condition. Clinical Incidents are defined as Adverse Events or Near Misses.

A formal report must be filed for ALL adverse events and near misses.

The CDHB promotes a no-blame culture.

The reporting of incidents (near misses and adverse events) is to:

• help determine why an event has occurred,
• look at all the underlying factors that have caused an incident, e.g., environment, equipment design, procedures, culture, training, organisational factors, human error etc, and
• enable steps to be taken to reduce the risk of a recurrence and to look for any trends that may be occurring over time from seemingly one-off incidents.

The overall aim of this is to improve on quality systems and procedures which will improve on patient outcomes.

Formal reporting of incidents is done electronically, via Safety1st. Access Safety1st via the following link: CDHB Clinical Incident Management procedure.

Patient (Consumer) and Family Feedback

Consumer, family and whānau feedback is an important part of Canterbury DHB’s quality improvement programme.

Feedback (the good and the bad) can be placed in the blue customer response boxes situated around the hospital. The Quality and Risk Group receives this information and disseminates it to the relevant Clinical Directors.

Complaints

Staff are accountable for forwarding any complaints to Customer Services as they are received (within 24 hours of receipt of a verbal or written complaint). If the complaint is verbal, record and verify the details with the complainant. Where possible, get the complainant to fill in the Suggestions, Compliments and Complaints form situated by the blue box and place information in the blue box or post to Customer Services Office.

The Customer Services Office will provide assistance and information to those working to resolve complaints. It works to ensure that complaints are dealt with within the time frames required by the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights.

Customer Services Office is situated in the Quality Department on the Lower Ground Floor, Riverside Block, Christchurch Hospital.

• Phone: 80843
• Fax: 81364

See the CDHB Complaints Policy and associated forms for further information

Topic Code: 4654