National patient safety incident reports: 23 September 2020

Analysis of the patient safety incidents reported in England to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) up to June 2020.

The data

Every six months we publish official statistics on patient safety incidents reported to the NRLS. The National patient safety incident reports (NaPSIRs) set out the number of patient safety incidents reported to the NRLS and describe their patterns and trends. The data include all patient safety incidents reported by NHS organisations in England.

For practical reasons we publish two sets of NaPSIRs simultaneously. This publication includes reports covering incidents to June 2020, and to March 2020; the commentary analyses data to March 2020.

Two sets of data and analysis are presented in each NaPSIR data report:

  • the number of reports made to the NRLS by quarter, using data based on the date that the report was received
  • an overview of patterns and trends in incident reports using data based on the date that the incidents occurred

NaPSIR commentary

NaPSIR up to June 2020

This workbook includes data for the period April – June 2020, which shows a decrease in the numbers of incidents reported to the NRLS compared to the same period in the previous two years. April – June 2020 was when the NHS was at a key stage of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic which may have had an impact on reporting to the NRLS. There were also major shifts in service provision during this time which could have led to limited staff capacity and lower patient demand for non-COVID-19 services. We thank staff for their efforts to support patient safety by continuing to report incidents during this challenging time.

NaPSIR up to March 2020

Official statistic compliance

We produce the national patient safety incident report official statistic publications in accordance with the code of practice for statistics. The documents below describe our compliance with the code.

Supporting documents

Supporting information on patient safety incident reporting and the NRLS, what this data is, the methodology, and why we publish it.

How we use incident reports submitted to the NRLS to improve patient safety

You can find details of  how we identify issues and risks by reviewing patient safety incident reports, and the action we take as a direct result to protect patients from harm in our Patient safety review and response reports. These reports include information and case studies on what we’ve done to address ‘rare and under-recognised’ safety issues identified through the NRLS and other sources.

Contact us

If you have any queries in relation to the data contained in the workbooks please contact us.