Hospital deaths 'may have been preventable'
GoogleA hospital trust says seven patient deaths in 2024/25 were "more likely than not" due to problems with the care provided.
Fifty deaths were subject to investigations and a further 258 subject to case record reviews, according to an annual quality report prepared on behalf of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Room for improvement in clinical or organisational care was identified with seven cases considered "probably or possibly preventable".
The trust said the figure represented 0.4% of the 1,966 patient deaths over the period in question.
The trust scrutinises about 98% of patient deaths, contacting medics that cared for a patient at the time of death and any family, while also reviewing records.
Patient deaths can be referred on to a mortality surveillance team, consisting of four consultants and an experienced nurse, if any concerns are raised.
One of the cases highlighted involved a patient with a urology disease who was said to be "lost to follow up" for ten months, during which time the disease progressed significantly.
LDRSThe report addressed the trust's Summary Hospital Level Mortality Indicator, used to assess the death rate in hospitals.
The report said: "Despite the high level of need in the population the trust serves, the organisation has historically fallen behind other trusts in recording the number of other medical conditions patients have, alongside the main illnesses being treated.
"The trust is in the process of implementing electronic records systems which are expected to address this comorbidity recording anomaly over time."
It added: "The number of deaths in the trust is variable from year to year, depending on the severity of respiratory and other seasonal infections each year, and the pattern during the pandemic was unlike any previous year in the trust's history.
"However, the trend outside the seasonal variations and the pandemic years has remained stable over a long period of time, despite an aging population and increasing complexity of the condition patients have when admitted to hospital."
Safety panel
The report, which considered the performance of a range of areas across the trust, separately highlighted so-called never events.
Five of these occurred in the 2024/25 period, an increase on the 12 months previous, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The trust, which has been contacted for comment, said it had a patient safety incident response plan and carried out "after action reviews, hot debriefs, thematic analysis and patient safety investigations".
It said in the report: "We have implemented a safety and quality panel which provides a weekly overview of emerging safety and quality data and allows for effective escalation of areas of concern.
"Each week three key messages are produced and shared in a bulletin by the trust communications team to ensure effective sharing of learning trust-wide."