Accountable officers must establish and operate arrangements for sharing information. Currently, primary care trust accountable officers have additional responsibilities, as they are required to establish and operate a local intelligence network (LIN).
Collaboration and local intelligence networks
Accountable officers
must establish and operate arrangements for sharing information. Currently,
primary care trust accountable officers have additional responsibilities, as
they are required to establish and operate a local intelligence network (LIN).
With the revised structures emerging for the NHS in England, similar
arrangements will be put in place once PCTs are abolished.
A LIN must involve
all accountable officers from local hospitals: NHS, including foundation
trusts, independent sector, hospices, ambulance trusts and local care providers
along with representatives from any relevant local and national agencies who
may be involved in any aspect of CD management or inspection, such as
professional regulatory bodies, the CQC and police forces. Although the Health
Act placed a legal duty of collaboration on responsible bodies, the precise
make-up of a LIN is decided locally.
LINs often have
their own local information-sharing codes and proce-dures; they provide an
excellent forum to share learning from CD incidents or investigations and can
also act to encourage good practice developments.
The LIN enables
concerns to be raised and encourages intelligence and information-sharing,
which may include situations involving individuals who give cause for concern.
Each accountable officer in the LIN must present quarterly occurrence reports
to the primary care trust accountable officer who leads the network. Each
occurrence report will describe details of any con-cerns the organisation has
regarding the management of CDs, or confirmation that they have none.
All hospital
pharmacy staff should be clear how they report concerns about CD issues, either
through their management arrangements or in some instances directly to their
organisation’s accountable officer.
The CQC is
responsible for making sure that healthcare providers and regulators are
creating a safer environment for the management of CDs. Designated bodies must
notify the CQC of the appointment of their account-able officer and of any
subsequent changes; the CQC is required to publish a list of accountable
officers in England and this list can be found on the CQC website
(http://www.cqc.org.uk/).
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