Risk and Incident Management
Adverse occurrences are not anyone’s wish in our organisation. When things happen that should not have happened ordinarily, or that are not expected to happen, cause harm, damage or loss, there is a sense of frustration, disappointment, and failure for those concerned.
Many of our service users present with behaviours that are difficult to manage, which puts the person displaying it and others at risk of harm, injury, or poor quality of care. We recognise these scenarios, and we have systems and processes in place for managing these challenges. Improving safety is about reducing risk and minimising mistakes to reduce avoidable harm. Processes are in place for identifying, analysing, and controlling risks to eliminate or reduce these to an acceptable level and by doing so improve the experience and safety of our service users, clients, visitors, and staff.
We have a robust challenging behaviour monitoring system that produces real-life data, and information for clinicians to analyse and inform clinical decisions. We undertake all health and safety risk assessments, as relevant to our care practices and manage these risks safely. All staff have access to our service users’ safety management manual in the units, which provides practical guidance to ensure the safety of people using our services.
Recording, reporting, managing, escalating, and learning from incidents are important. All staff in the organisation are responsible for reporting incidents. When mistakes happen, we have a duty of candour to provide full and honest explanations and an apology. We learn from risks, incidents, and complaints in our Learning-N-Sharing meetings.
In addition to our Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plan, our Corporate Risk Register of top risks to our operations as identified, is subject to Senior Management Team review every month. These risks represent the most immediate safety, financial, resources, service delivery and/or threats to our organisation and the action being taken to manage these risks.
Our staff and service users are comfortable about raising safeguarding concerns or whistleblowing and how these are managed. If you experience an unexpected event or circumstance which resulted in or could have resulted in injury to yourself or loss or damage to your property because of your contact with us, you must tell us. Similarly, notify us if you have a worry or concern about something which could potentially cause you harm because of your contact with us.
