Safety recommendation
HSIB recommends that NHS England and NHS Improvement amends Health Technical Memorandum 01-01 to define ‘top management’ and its commitment to quality, and that external independent audits are reported directly to the responsible executive director in a trust who is accountable for the service, not just the certified department.
Response:
Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 01-01 “Decontamination of surgical instruments” currently provides guidance to the NHS on this area. NHS England has a rolling programme to update Health Technical Memoranda (HTM’s) and Healthcare Building Notes (HBN’s). A formal process has been established to review all guidance in relation to its priority for updating based on relevant factors including the related risks, emergence of new technology, date of last review, available resources and changes by the NHS to clinical procedures. Actions identified in safety recommendations by the HSIB are included in these reviews. HTM 01-01 has been reviewed and the outcome is that it is not currently in our near term (next 4 year) prioritization, though it will be included in future reviews, so its status is subject to change.
However, having reviewed your recommendations, NHS England:
- Have joined the Department of Health and Social Care’s oversight group for decontamination – whilst we appreciate recommendation R/2022/193 was for the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England wanted to take a pro-active approach to best inform the next iteration of the HTM.
- Are proposing to undertake two discrete pieces of work to address your recommendations R/2022/194 and R/2022/195. Guidance resulting from this work is expected to be issued to the NHS as Technical Bulletins which will act as intermediate amendments to the HTM before its formal review. Our proposal is that we will start this work in financial year 2022-23 and we will update you once each item has been completed.
Action planned to deliver the safety recommendation:
- NHS organisations will be provided with guidance on the safety recommendation setting out the changes required, by 31 March 2023. Resources in place: A proposal to deliver Technical Bulletins is being developed to issue actions such as these recommendations. Other dependencies identified: The proposed Technical Bulletins system will need approval from NHSE senior management.
Response received on 1 November 2022.