PATIENTS at Winchester hospital have been put at unnecessary risk by failures to comply with safety alerts, says a health charity.

Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare Trust (WEHT) is one 29 nationally that have failed to comply with 10 or more warnings, according to a report by Action for Victims of Medical Accidents (AVMA).

The alerts, issued by the National Patient Safety Agency, are about known problems that have repeatedly caused harm or killed patients.

But the Royal Hampshire County Hospital (RHCH) says since the report's data was gathered it has complied with 10 of the 11 outstanding items.

Among the alerts the trust had failed to comply with is using NHS numbers to identify patients.

Last month (July) the hospital hit the headlines when two patients with the same name were confused, leading to an elderly woman wrongly having a bronchoscopy.

It prompted the RHCH to tell staff to use two ways of identifying patients, such as their address and NHS numbers.

Jane Gordon, spokeswoman for RHCH, said the trust 'takes these alerts extremely seriously as part of an overall process of putting patient safety first'.

Dr Chris Gordon, acting chief executive of the trust, said: “I would like to reassure readers that patient safety is an absolute priority at Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare Trust.

“Our systems and processes are robust and we have made a considerable investment in this area.

“We do not ignore patient safety alerts - far from it. We go to great lengths to ensure complete compliance and I am pleased to say that we are well on the way to complying with the remaining one outstanding alert.”

In its conclusions the AVMA said: “Many trusts have shown that it is possible to be 100 per cent compliant with patient safety alerts, and they are to be applauded for their commitment to patient safety.

“Yet, astonishingly, many other trusts still appear not to be giving them the priority they deserve. Even more worryingly there is no co-ordinated system for monitoring and regulating compliance with the alerts, which is urgently needed.”

In a similar report in February AVMA said WEHT had failed to comply with 10 warnings, which included: promoting safer use of injectable medicines, preventing incorrect dosing of oral anti-cancer medicines and reducing risk of harm from oral bowel cleansing solutions.

But by June WEHT had complied with just one warning, which centred on 'female urinary catheters causing trauma to adult males'.

Meanwhile the report said Southampton University Hospitals Trust had four outstanding alerts; Basingstoke and North Hampshire Foundation Trust, two; and Southampton City PCT and Hampshire Primary Care Trust, nil.

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