A study conducted in the Netherlands and published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) confirms an earlier report, from the US, that the use of a surgical safety checklist significantly reduces surgical morbidity and mortality.
The study shows that, with the use of a checklist, surgery complications were reduced by more than one-third and deaths reduced by almost half (from 1.5% to 0.8%). In January 2009, the NPSA issued a patient safety alert, requiring NHS organisations to implement the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist.
