for Invasive Procedures (NatSSIPs)

OFFICIAL
safety steps printed permanently upon them in addition to printed checklists to act as
aide memoires and to ensure that every safety step in LocSSIPs is properly
completed for every patient undergoing invasive procedures. Organisations do not
need to document every detail of every step performed in every LocSSIP, as it is
more important that the checks are conducted properly than that the performance of
every step is recorded. Organisations should work with commissioners and
regulators to determine an appropriate level of detail for records that will support
audit and investigation while not placing an intolerable burden upon procedural
teams.
3.5.3 Accountability and responsibility
Every team member is responsible for the delivery of safe care
Organisational leaders, i.e. Trust Boards or equivalent, shall be ultimately
responsible for the creation of LocSSIPs, their implementation, governance, audit
and modification, and will be accountable for these to Clinical Commissioning Groups
and to the Care Quality Commission. Multidisciplinary procedural teams, e.g.
operating theatre teams, to include medically qualified, registered and non-registered
practitioners, will be responsible for the development, implementation and continuous
appraisal of the safety and efficacy of LocSSIPs, working with patient groups where
appropriate. The line of accountability will pass up from these teams through clinical
and non-clinical managers to the Trust Board or equivalent. However, the
responsibility for ensuring that the LocSSIPs are followed accurately for every patient
will be the responsibility of every member of the procedural team. Those members of
the team who are registered healthcare professionals will be accountable both to
their registering bodies and to their employers. Those members of the team who
work in non-registered roles will be accountable to their employers. The fundamental
basis of the delivery of LocSSIPs in the patient pathway is the sharing of
responsibility between every member of the procedural team. When a document is
signed as indicating that a step in a LocSSIP has been performed by a member of a
procedural team, that member is signing on behalf of the whole team, and every
member of the team therefore shares the responsibility for the performance of the
LocSSIP, while sharing accountability for its full completion. The basis of safe care is
teamwork, and the aim of both NatSSIPs and LocSSIPs is to promote and develop
teamwork.
3.5.4 Organisational culture and teamwork
Effective teamwork in a supportive environment makes patient care safer
Leaders of organisations providing NHS-funded care should take positive steps to
ensure that LocSSIPs are introduced and managed within a culture of openness and
transparency in which any member of any procedural team knows that they can
speak up to express concerns about the process or patient safety at any time in the
patient or procedural pathway. Although this document does not demand the
implementation of a “Stop the Line” system similar to that used in vehicle
manufacture, the implementation of such an approach, when it is safe, is encouraged
within organisations. There must also be openness in the analysis of audit data of
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