BHRUT – Notification of Internal incident regarding ED discharge summaries
The trust was made aware that there was an absence of discharge summaries being sent to GP practice mailboxes from BHRUT ED for a period ranging from 23rd February 2024 – 5th March 2024.
This was formally raised and logged on the trust incident reporting system so it could be investigated. This was overseen by our corporate quality and safety team, clinical information director and the trust director of IT.
Unfortunately, a faulty network cable was found from the physical server at Queen’s which caused the system to be offline and therefore ED reports were not sent to the practice mailboxes. The cable has been replaced and therefore the issue has been corrected and resolved now. Our servers are already on plan to be updated to newer systems but IT have put solutions in place so in the unlikely event that this should happen again there is an alert process established as well as notifications to IT teams that flags any issues to trust IT staff.
In terms of patient harm, a review has been undertaken and led by one of the ED doctors and the clinical team has investigated the potential for patient harm. Patient discharge summaries were reviewed and any further action or follow up has been done by ED. There is no action for GPs. The risk has been assessed and validated and the outcome has been deemed to have low harm.
IT will re-run the discharge summary reports for the offline period and practices will see those come through to the usual mailboxes so that you have a record of the report on your system and for the patient files. Our GP Liaison Manager has contacted the practices with the highest number of reports but if you have any concerns, you can contact janet.bartlett@nhs.net
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Atul Aggarwal, Dr Jagan John, Dr Anil Mehta
Associate Medical Directors, Primary Care, BHRUT
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