Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what guidance and support they have provided on the implementation of the NHS Improvement's Patient Safety Alert on hyperkalaemia.

On 8 August 2018, NHS Improvement issued a National Patient Safety Alert to support safe and timely management of hyperkalaemia through a range of resources that would help organisations ensure their clinical staff have easily accessible information to guide prompt investigation, treatment and monitoring options. The resources include clinical practice guidelines from the UK Renal Association on treatment of acute hyperkalaemia in adults and an awareness video from NHS Improvement for hospital staff. A copy of Patient Safety Alert: Resources to support safe and timely management of hyperkalaemia (high level of potassium in the blood) is attached.

National Patient Safety Alerts are issued through the Central Alerting System (CAS); a web-based cascading system for issuing patient safety alerts, important public health messages and other safety critical information and guidance to the National Health Service and others, including independent providers of health and social care.

NHS trusts are required to respond via CAS stating whether they are compliant with the actions and the timescale provided in all patient safety alerts or whether the alert is not relevant to them.

NHS Improvement has been working closely with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to ensure that inspection teams are aware of national patient safety alerts that have been recently issued and that they review the actions taken in response to national patient safety alerts during their inspections.

In addition, the Department commissioned the CQC to work with NHS Improvement to understand the issues in NHS trusts that contribute to ‘Never Events’; part of this work looked at how effectively trusts use safety guidance and how other system partners support the implementation of safety guidance. A report, Opening the door to change: NHS safety culture and the need for transformation was published at the end of last year and a copy is attached.