Feedback in incident reporting –
more needed
Abhijit Basu
North West Deanery, Sale, UK
Deepa Gopinath
Trafford General Hospital, Manchester, UK
Naheed Anjum
Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow, UK, and
Susan Hotchkies
Trafford General Hospital, Manchester, UK, and
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the prevalence of feedback following adverse
clinical incident reporting among trainee doctors in obstetrics and gynaecology within the
Northwestern Deanery of England.
Design/methodology/approach – An anonymous questionnaire was circulated among the
Specialist Registrar trainees within the specialty attending a regional teaching session. The
questionnaire was analysed.
Findings – There were 50 responses, of those 45 (90 per cent) had been involved in an adverse clinical
incident; 44 had submitted an incident form related to the incident. Three had submitted incident
forms without being involved in an adverse incident. Most (80 per cent) had submitted an incident
form as well as a related statement. Feedback was available to 23 (51 per cent) of those involved in
adverse incidents. More of the senior trainees received feedback than the junior ones. A lecture on
clinical incident reporting was available to only 35(70 per cent) of the respondents on the hospital
induction day at their latest clinical placement.
Research limitations/implications – This study is limited to adverse clinical incident reporting
among the trainees in a single specialty within one deanery in UK; hence the small numbers.
Practical implications – This study demonstrates the presence of awareness regarding adverse
incident reporting among the trainees in a high-risk specialty. It also shows the suboptimal rate of
feedback following adverse incident reporting, which does not encourage a learning environment. It is
suggested that a lecture should be dedicated to incident reporting at the junior doctors’ induction day
programme in every hospital.
Originality/value – This paper highlights the lack of adequate feedback following adverse clinical
incident reporting.
Keywords Clinical medicine, Risk management, Feedback, Obstetrics, Gynaecology
Paper type General review
Introduction
Clinical incident reporting is an essential component of risk management integral to
every UK NHS hospital. Approximately 10 per cent of patients admitted to UK
hospitals are involved in some kind of patient safety incident (Meadows et al., 2005).
Incident reporting is generated by trigger lists before root cause or systems analysis
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The authors would like to thank Sally Basu for the underlying idea for this paper.
CGIJ
14,1
38
Received March 2008
Revised July 2008
Accepted July 2008
Clinical Governance: An International
Journal
Vol. 14 No. 1, 2009
pp. 38-41
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-7274
DOI 10.1108/14777270910933451