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UK's National Health Service turns to Standards Australia for risk-management solution

First, Standards Australia taught the British how to handle complaints by selling them the Australian standard, and now it is teaching them how to manage their risks with an online risk-management program for the $100 billion a year UK National Health Service (NHS).

Standards Australia developed the world's first risk-management standard, and now Europe's largest workforce, the million-strong NHS have chosen revolutionary Aussie know-how to help them manage the many risks of a large health system.

The NHS launched the new online risk management elearning program, developed for them by Standards Australia, at their National Conference at Wembley Conference Centre, London, on 17 May.

Stuart Emslie, Head of Controls Assurance for the National Health Service in England said today: Standards Australia offers the worlds only risk-management standard and now, a range of online learning solutions that offer the most efficient and cost-effective way of teaching risk management in the NHS.

Recent evidence also suggests that adverse events and failures of all types in healthcare happen because of failures somewhere in the continuum of care and service. As many as 80% of adverse events occur because of the failure of a system, rather than a person.

Ross Wraight, Chief Executive, Standards Australia said: "This joint venture project will set the standard for healthcare providers in managing risk through online learning solutions."

The elearning package will cover the development of training programs designed to allow the NHS to allocate and prioritize resources efficiently, identify key healthcare risks and determine greater accountability.

The project will be carried out in two stages. The first stage will focus on developing a governance and controls assurance elearning module for NHS board directors. The second stage will be for the front-end staff, and will provide them with the necessary tools and a range of approaches for managing risk.

According to Mr Emslie: "By implementing the standard we are seeking to change the culture by making the risk takers the risk managers. Standards Australia's risk-management solutions give us an assurance that risks will be identified, assessed and managed as part of a sound system of internal control. Risk management is driven by the demand for higher standards and a narrow margin for error and is a symbol of the health industry's strength, maturity and potential.

"The current thinking around healthcare systems is making accountability for point-of-care problems an organisational issue that is the responsibility of the board and senior managers rather than purely an individual mistake. It was for this reason that we decided to adopt the Australian risk-management system approach. The program will contain templates for users to record actions, responsibilities and reporting processes. At the end of each module employees will be asked to do a self-test to ensure comprehension.

According to Mr Wraight: "It is important for organisations to make informed decisions to either accept, transfer, treat, or ignore their risks. The risk-management approach puts forward a prioritisation process designed to help facilitate that decision."

For more information see: http://www.standards.com.au