Published on: 28 June 2023

On Wednesday 21 June, the Trust held its first Patient Safety Conference at the Beacon of Light, Sunderland. Two hundred and twenty two colleagues attended the event to celebrate success, stimulate innovation and share best practice in patient safety.

Speakers at the event included: 

  • Sir Liam Donaldson, Chair of the North East and North Cumbria ICB. He is also an international champion of public health and patient safety and was the 15th Chief Medical Officer for England.
  • Graham Kirkpatrick, Head of Patient Safety (Advice & Guidance) NHS England. He discussed the journey of a patient safety incident – from reporting to alerting.
  • We were also joined by Jan Sunman, Rosi Reed, Frank Mullane from Making Families Count. They delivered a powerful presentation about the importance of positive family engagement. 

Throughout the course of the day 12 workshops were delivered by STSFT staff, to share their learning and best practice. Workshops included: 

  • The implications of missed medicines for patients 
  • Learning from national never events and clinical incidents 
  • Learning from never events in theatre 
  • Learning lessons from maternity services
  • Evaluation of a pilot SALT led 2WW ENT clinic
  • Development of Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST)
  • Falls Enough is E#NOF 
  • A pilot of simulation training in response to patient safety incidents in theatres 
  • Rise and shine project 
  • Health literacy in patient safety
  • The new NHS Patient Safety Incident Response Framework
  • Identifying and managing the risk of transfusion related circulatory overload 

At the end of the event, awards were given to the top three poster presentations on patient safety initiatives and innovations. All posters were judged by our Executive Medical Director Dr Shaz Wahid. 

Other posters submitted include: