With the aim of improving patient safety outcomes in GI bleeding, the National Patient Safety Agency, commissioned the Royal College of Physicians and the British Society of Gastroenterology to undertake a project to describe models of best practice in out-of-hours (OOH) endoscopy services, and determine how these can be used to support the development of UGIB services throughout the UK: the result is the Upper gastrointestinal bleeding toolkit.
Partners
The toolkit was produced in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Association of Upper GI Surgeons, the British Society of Gastroenterology, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Radiologists. It defines nine service standards that are required to manage this patient group and will form the basis of both commissioning and redesigning care at local level.
Acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a common, potentially life threatening emergency, associated with over 4,000 deaths a year in the UK.
The purpose of this project is to help hospitals provide a better service for patients who present with acute gastrointestinal bleeding.
The toolkit has been developed to provide practical support to providers and commissioners of healthcare to consider changes to their UGIB services to:
• help improve the quality of care for their patients with UGIB
• avoid unnecessary deaths.
Project background
A UK-wide audit in 2007 highlighted significant deficiencies and inconsistencies in service provision and care of patients presenting with upper GI bleeding (UGIB), in particular there were less good outcomes for patients attending hospitals where there was a lack of on-call consultant led endoscopy in the out of hours setting.
Access the toolkit via the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges website
Partner websites
- Related topics: Patient safety
- Related specialties: Gastroenterology
- Author/Department: Clinical Effectiveness and Evaluation Unit
