Safety recommendation
The Department of Health and Social Care commissions a set of standards for the NHS that utilises appropriate technologies to provide digital alerts when incorrect intraocular lens are selected.
Response:
The Department of Health and Social Care accepts Recommendation 2018/015 as formulated and commits to work with NHS Improvement, NHS England and the MHRA in conjunction with other relevant organisations to develop and agree an implementation strategy.
The resulting strategy will set out proposed standards and next steps for the NHS to utilise appropriate technologies to provide digital alerts when an incorrect intraocular lens is selected.
DHSC commits to completing the strategy within six months from the date of this response and to reporting back to HSIB on progress periodically until this work is complete.
The DHSC notes the work currently underway in response to a previous HSIB recommendations (2018/004 and 2018/005) to implement a similar system of alerting in theatre environments to identify wrong protheses prior to implantation in a patient and will utilise the remit and experience of this work prior to creating a similar system for IOLs.
Response received on 5 February 2019.