The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has announced an initiative that will see the NHS and healthcare industries develop safety design solutions which will improve patient safety.
The NPSA’s latest Patient Safety Alert advises all NHS organisations across England and Wales to introduce purchasing for safety initiatives to eliminate the use of luer universal connectors and intravenous infusion spikes in spinal (intrathecal), epidural and regional devices. This should further minimise the risk of wrong route errors. NHS organisations are being asked to ensure that all spinal (intrathecal) bolus doses and lumbar puncture samples are only performed using syringes, needles and other devices with connectors that will not also connect with intravenous luer connectors. The deadline for compliance to this Patient Safety Alert is April 2011. The Patient Safety Alert also stresses the need for all epidural, spinal (intrathecal) and regional anaesthesia infusions and bolus doses to be performed with devices with safer connectors that will not connect with intravenous luer connectors and intravenous infusion spikes by April 2013. NPSA’s head of Safe Medication Practice, Professor David Cousins, said: “Devices with safer connectors are not currently available. By issuing this alert the NHS is stating clearly to medical device manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industry that it will only buy products that facilitate safe practice in the future. “The timescales within the alert give NHS organisations adequate time to ensure they have systems in place to introduce the devices with safer connectors by the specified deadline.”
