Safety

Dr Stephen Mannion from the South Infirmary-Victoria University Hospital in Cork draws our attention to a situation where a hospital failed a gas supply safety check because the cylinders had passed their expiry dates. Please see below content of this email in full for your information. ‘Our hospital recently failed a gas supply safety check because all the oxygen, nitrous oxide and air cylinders on all anaesthesia machines were out of date although all were full. As our hospital has consultants from Cork University Hospital working…

The Health & Safety Authority (HSA) have issued an advisory notice about the use of portable oxygen cylinders. This followed a recent fatal accident in an ambulance. Please visit the HSA website for further information and guidance:  http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Safety_Alerts/2017/Portable_Medical_Oxygen_Cylinder/    

Quality & Safety News   Please check below link for QSA News February 2017: Quality and Safety News February 2017 (download pdf)

To improve identification of medical gas cylinders and bring them in line with European standards, the HPRA has approved changes to the colour coding of cylinders to reduce the risk of administering the wrong gas to the patient. In future, to distinguish medical gas cylinders from non-medical cylinders, the medical cylinder bodies will be white. The shoulder colours will not change, and these will identify theindividual gases. Cylinders will also carry the name of the medical gas in large letters on the cylinder body to help identification….

  The Department of Health recognises patient safety as the corner stone to quality healthcare. The new National Patient Safety Office will focus on leading key patient safety policy initiatives.  They will ensure safe health services are informed by good data and supported by legislation; commence surveillance of patient safety information to inform and direct patient safety improvements for hospital and community care; develop a model for a new national patient advocacy service; and extend the national clinical effectiveness framework to promote evidence based healthcare….