Barriers to staff reporting adverse incidents in NHS hospitals

Our study assessed barriers to reporting adverse incidents (AIs). Adverse incident reporting (AIR), although it is a pillar of risk management, has a wide variation in staff perception and usage. A questionnaire was used in five NHS hospitals to assess 267 members of multidisciplinary team (MDT) staff usage of AIR. Thirty-three percent of staff had never reported an adverse incident (AI). Fourty-one percent of staff had missed opportunities to report AIs due to a poor response to previous reports. The group who missed opportunities had a significantly higher proportion of not having received feedback to their previous AI (p=0.03). In the group who had received training, 79% had submitted an AI. This was significantly higher than the group who had not received training (63%, p=0.02). Our study revealed that training and feedback following AIR are two major factors that could improve confidence in and use of AI reporting.