New guidelines on serious mistakes in NHS in Scotland

National guidelines have been launched to help the NHS deal with serious mistakes in patient care and become more open in reporting them in Scotland. The framework, published by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), sets out how NHS boards should handle incidents that could have caused, or did result in, harm. It follows a scandal where NHS Ayrshire and Arran withheld more than 40 reports about serious incidents involving patients from staff. Hundreds of reports of serious incidents in the NHS across Scotland were later published, including several where patients had died as a result of errors or accidents. The guidelines