Serious Incidents

Following extensive consultation, the UK NSC's guidance on managing serious incidents in the non-cancer screening programmes is now available and can be downloaded from the Quality Assurance section of the UK Screening Portal.

This guidance, as part of the National Framework for Reporting and Learning from Serious Incidents requiring Investigation, which was published by the National Patient Safety Agency in March 2010, is intended to build on and align existing policies at local, regional and national level.

Incidents reported to the Programme Centre

The December 2011 issue of the blood spot screening programme's newsletter, FootPrint, features a report on incidents and serious incidents that were reported to the Programme Centre between April and September 2011. In the newsletter, two vignettes describe in more detail the incidents and the lessons learned. A third vignette, 'Babies missing out on newborn blood spot screening', is available to view here.