Patient suffered fractured skull in 'serious incident' at Doncaster trust's hospital

Governors at the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals Trust were told this week that the patient had suffered what were described as ‘moderate injuries’ in a fall, which has been recorded at a time when falls at the trust’s hospitals have been increasing.

The trust runs Doncaster Royal Infirmary, Montagu Hospital in Mexborough, and Bassetlaw Hospital in Worksop.

The monthly governors meeting was told on Tuesday, in the trust’s quality and experience report on patient safety and serious incidents in June 2020: “There has been one serious incident for a care issue reported at the end of June.

"This incident is currently being investigated. This takes the total number of serious incidents for care issues, reported year to date, to five.

"This includes one never event. All incidents are thoroughly investigated by appropriately trained investigators and progress monitored through the serious incident panel, which has continued weekly throughout the Covid pandemic.”

The document added the total number of patients suffering falls in the first quarter of the current financial year was 259. It coincides with the Covid 19 crisis.

It said: “There have been increases in patients falling resulting in harm (April – 24 patients, May 23 patients, June 35 patients).

"There has been one fall in June with moderate harm (head injury‐skull fracture) which has been reported as a serious incident.

"This is a total of two falls with severe harm being reported as a serious incident, year to date. The total number of patients in quarter one who have fallen, resulting in moderate or severe harm is six. Three have sustained moderate harm (two head injuries and a fractured wrist ‐ April and June) and three severe harm (two fractured hips and one head injury ‐ all in May).”

All falls are investigated using the by the trust, and its falls strategy is currently under review to assess what steps needed to reduce the current number of falls.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you

Nancy Fielder, editor