EVERY death in Worcestershire’s three major hospitals will be reviewed from this month onwards to determine if lessons can be learned.
The new initiative was announced at a meeting of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust’s board on Wednesday, September 3.
Chief medical officer Mark Wake announced a review would be carried out of every death in Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital from this month onwards to determine if anything could have been done differently to improve the care the patient was given and if it could have been prevented.
He added as a matter of course the trust preferred patients to spend their last days either at home or at another facility more geared to caring for people at the end of their lives.
“The intention of the trust is to move down death rates in hospitals as much as possible,” he said.
Between May 2013 and April 2014 108 patients died in one of the hospitals run by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital.
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