THE way deaths in Worcestershire’s three acute hospitals are reviewed to determine if their care could have been improved or their death prevented is to be overhauled.

At a meeting of the board of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust on Thursday, May 28, the organisation’s interim chief medical officer Andy Phillips announced a series of measures were being put in place with a view to identifying opportunities to improve patient care overall.

Among these are to better support staff in reviewing deaths and to implement a new tool for recording data.

Mr Phillips said he hoped the improvements would be fully implemented by the end of July.

“By reviewing patients who die in hospital we can learn a lot about the good care as well as where we can improve,” he said.

“Some patients who die in hospital get absolutely the best care and it’s the right place for them.

“But there are some patients who die who have care which we recognise could have been better.”

He said the trust – which runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital – had previously tried to improve the review process but with little success.

“What we’ve tried to do and the past has been very well intentioned but hasn’t really worked,” he said. “This is never, ever going to be completed – it will be improved as it goes on.”

The most recent data available shows 115 people died in one of the county’s three acute hospitals in January, above the trust’s target of 100 or less.

The last time this was achieved was in October 2014, when 99 deaths were recorded.