On Tuesday 14 November, Kelly Tolhurst MP called for greater levels of patient safety across the nation’s hospitals, highlighting the success of Medway Maritime Hospital which achieved improved patient safety ratings when it came out of special measures earlier this year.
The Rochester and Strood MP has called on the Health Secretary to use the successes at Medway to show other NHS trusts what can be achieved.
The Secretary of State, The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, praised the work of Lesley Dwyer and her team and the ‘fantastic job’ they have done. He added that it was the amazing work of staff at Medway that overcame numerous challenges to deliver success.
However, it remains that we still have high levels of avoidable harm across the NHS. In response, the Government will be launching campaigns to improve maternity safety, to deal with medication error and to improve transparency when there are avoidable deaths.
Kelly Tolhurst MP said afterwards,
“I am proud of the success in my local area when it comes to patient safety and it’s great news for the people of Medway that we have a service we can trust.
“This is a result of many hours of hard work, dedication and professionalism from clinical and management staff to bring our hospital out of special measures and establish a model for real improvement.
“The Health Secretary has always taken a real interest in Medway Maritime Hospital, and hopefully the model created by Lesley and her team can be used to help improve safety levels elsewhere in the country.”
