Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF)

What is PSIRF?

To support the NHS to further improve patient safety, NHS England have introduced a new Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), outlining how providers should respond to patient safety incidents and how and when a patient safety investigation should be conducted.

The PSIRF is a key part of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy published in July 2019. It supports the strategy’s aim to help the NHS to improve its understanding of safety by drawing insight from patient safety incidents.

What do Trusts need to do to comply?

NHS England expects secondary care providers to complete the transition from the current Serious Incident Framework to PSIRF by Autumn 2023.

An organisation’s patient safety incident response policy should describe its overall approach to responding to and learning from patient safety incidents for improvement and identify the systems and processes in place to integrate the four key aims of PSIRF. It should describe;

• How those affected by a patient safety incident will be engaged

• What governance processes for oversight are in place

• How learning responses are translated into improvement and integrated into wider improvement work across the organisation

• How patient safety incident response integrates with other activities such as clinical governance, HR and complaints management

• The methods it intends to use to maximise learning and improvement and how these will be applied to different patient safety incidents.

Organisations are required to train all those involved in incident investigations in Systems Based Approaches and how to involve patients, their families and staff in investigations, as well as ensure that those involved in investigation oversight have an understanding of the PSIRF approach.

How can MedLed help?

Our PSII learning journeys take a Systems Approach to investigations and helps you to meet the requirements of the NHS PSIRF. Our unique programmes have been piloted and co-developed with a PSIRF early adopter site to ensure that it fully meets the needs of NHS professionals and fulfils the framework. 

More importantly, those who complete the learning journeys will be ready to conduct far more robust investigations, resulting in better outcomes for patients, families, staff and your organisation.

Our programmes have also been approved by NHS England and The East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub. The East of England NHS Collaborative Procurement Hub is an award-winning, not-for-profit NHS organisation which provides member trusts and publicly-funded bodies with strategic purchasing support and specialist knowledge across the entire health economy. Their aim is to help members to reduce risk whilst improving the quality and efficiency of patient care and driving healthcare innovation. You can find out more about EoECPH, access and eligibility via the Human Factors and Safety Investigations Leads at NHS Improvement/England.

The MedLed PSII learning journeys

Our PSII learning journey is flexible to the needs of your organisation. It can be broken down into four key learning areas:

• Systems approach to Patient Safety Incident Investigations (12 CPD points)

• Creating a just and learning culture (6 CPD points)

• Patient, family and staff involvement in learning from Patient Safety Incidents (6 CPD points)

• Oversight training - Systems approach to Patient Safety Incident Investigations (6 CPD points)

Each learning area can be held as a standalone course, delivered online or in-person, or as part of our curated learning journeys. 

In conjunction with early adopter sites and embedded NHS experts, we have developed two pathways.

Oversight

In addition to our learning journeys for those involved in the day-to-day PSII matters, we have also created a 6 CPD point/1 day course for executive teams, commissioners and regulators who wish to gain an understanding of PSIRF/PSII. As well as covering the fundamentals of the framework, participants will explore their roles and potential for impact during and after implementation. 

This can be added onto either Path 1 or Path 2, or held independently.

You can find out more about each journey and learning area over the following pages.