Patient Safety Committee

The Patient Safety Committee was formerly known as the Joint Standing Committee for Patient Safety and the Women’s Health Patient Safety Expert Group.

Meeting dates (10:00 start)

2022

• Thursday 10 February 2022
• Thursday 12 May 2022
• Thursday 15 September 2022
• Thursday 24 November  2022

Purpose

The purpose of the committee is to provide a cohesive network for information sharing within women’s health across national and regional organisations and networks, to enable the RCOG to identify where it can add value in providing:

• Feedback on consultations and requests for information on patient safety issues within women’s health
• Guidance around good practice in non-clinical aspects of delivering high quality care for women
• Consent advice
• The RCOG’s Invited Review Service
• A bi-annual QI event.

Terms of Reference

1. To promote safe, high quality women’s healthcare across the healthcare system, including NHS policy and guidance, national organisations and committees, local services and in response to our service users’, Fellows and Members’ interests and concerns.
2. To recognise that the quality of women’s health care transcends national boundaries and cultures and respect that all systems have benefits and challenges that can be shared. To that end the committee seeks to ensure representation from across the four nations of UK and linkage to its international counterparts.
3. To respond to national reports, guidance and other requests for information related to patient safety in women’s healthcare.
4. To oversee the development of Good Practice Papers.
5. To oversee the work of the Consent Task and Finish group, ensuring its work to refresh RCOG Consent Advice is women centred and meets the needs of Fellows, Members and Trainees.
6. To oversee the bi-annual RCOG event ‘Improving the Quality of Women’s Healthcare’, ensuring the programme is relevant and of interest to those working within women’s healthcare.
7. To oversee the RCOG’s Invited Review Service, including:
   1. Ensuring it is appropriately evaluated and developed to meet the needs of commissioners,
   2. The recruitment and training of clinical and non-clinical assessors, and
   3. Recurrent themes from reviews are triaged for action into learning reports, guidance and other products and services for clinical directors, Fellows and Members and trainees.
8. Meeting four times a year and responding to requests between meetings.
9. Report to the Clinical Quality Board.
10. To have representation on Clinical Quality Assurance Group.
11. To have representation on other national committees to include the Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT).

Appointments, membership & extended linkage

Committee membership will be multi-professional and include representation from the RCOG, RCM, RCoA and lay representation from the Women’s Network.

Committee will co-opt additional members from organisations such as NHS Improvement, MBRRACE & NHS Insights as appropriate.

Reporting procedures

The Patient Safety Committee reports to the Clinical Quality Board. The Chair / Vice Chair are expected to attend monthly meetings.

All reports submitted to the Group must be accompanied by a fully completed cover sheet which must effectively summarise the report, explain all acronyms used and clearly specify whether the report is for approval, assurance or discussion.

Confirmed minutes of meetings shall be circulated to all members.

Function

The purpose of the Joint Standing Committee for Patient Safety is to collaboratively improve the culture and safety for women and their babies receiving care across the UK.

Terms of reference

• To advise on NHS developments in the area of service safety and quality, and assess their potential impact on the service
• To influence national policies in relation to service through input to national consultations.
• Encouraging and supporting the development of new information sources on priority areas for patient safety.
• To consider the developing themes from College service reviews and develop advice for the membership, in particular clinical directors.
• To support clinical directors through input to the Clinical Directors’ Forum.
• Developing and running patient safety events.
• To develop service models in line with College recommendations.
• Identifying appropriate measures for success, evaluating and reporting progress
• Meeting four times a year and, where appropriate, providing advice on urgent issues between meetings.
• Report to the Clinical Quality Board.

Membership

Membership will be multi-professional and include representation from the RCOG, RCM, and RCoA, as well as lay representation.

Additional membership may include relevant organisations in a position to promote learning and provide data on patient safety priorities, e.g.  Confidential enquiries, national clinical audit programmes and research institutes. The group will have a core membership and wider membership that can be accessed for specific relevant issues.

If a member of the committee is not able to attend, they should nominate a deputy to attend in their place where possible.

Please send all correspondence to the committee secretary.

Current membership

Contact

Email: clinicaleffectiveness@rcog.org.uk