Gisborne Hospital Report - Health and Disability Commissioner

Gisborne Hospital 1999 – 2000
Patient Care in ICU and Surgery
7. unification of management with clinical staff to give a clearly stated
strategy of support for an on site intensive care unit.
4.10 The new Chief Executive, Mr Jim Green, advised that:
“Following the report of Associate Professor Jack Havill and Hayley
McConnell, known as the Gisborne Hospital Quality Review of Ward 7 [ICU]
which was received in August 2000, THL began a process of implementing
the recommendations of the report. There were seven recommendations and by
[mid-February 2001] all of the recommendations had been instituted except
the final review of staffing levels, which was commenced in February 2001.
In September 2000 Peter Gow and Mary Gordon carried out a report on the
Incident Reporting System at Gisborne Hospital. The final report was
received in October 2000 and with the reaffirmation of the role of the Clinical
Board it was decided that the Board should review and put in place a
programme to implement the recommendations of this report. The Clinical
Board completed and approved an action plan by December 2000. The
Clinical Board now has a reporting mechanism each month from the plan with
specific members responsible for reporting back to the Board on the
implementation process.
Coupled with this is the wider Surgical and ICU Quality Improvement Actions
Report. While this report contains actions that are the same as the Havill &
McConnell report and the Gow & Gordon reports, there are also a series of
actions instituted by the organisation. These are part of the ongoing quality
improvement programme that has always been in place but which has been
boosted over the more recent period as part of re-affirming the organisation’s
focus on quality of service provision. TDH is committed to continuing this
focus into the future both by the completion of the external review
recommendations but also through a robust quality improvement programme
centered on patients’ needs.”
4.11 The new Chief Executive provided a table of Quality Improvement Projects in
intensive care and surgical services and commented:
“There has been consistent progress to improve the quality of services
provided by the Intensive Care Unit and Surgical Services.”
4.12 I have reviewed the table of Quality Improvement Projects and am impressed
by the range of activities being undertaken by Tairawhiti District Health to
improve the quality of patient care in ICU and Surgery at Gisborne Hospital.
5. OPINION
5.1 The anonymous letter (described in para 1.2 above) was written by an
experienced ICU nurse concerned about patient safety. In a well functioning
organisation I would expect a nurse concerned about patient safety to be able
to approach his or her immediate leader or someone in a position of
responsibility within the organisation, and to have the concerns dealt with in
an appropriate manner. I do not expect that management will always agree
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