Flowcharts showing the steps to take to help ensure correct and safe identification of babies and mothers at antenatal and post-natal stages.

The NPSA uses the term ‘wristband’ which covers both wristbands and any other form of identity band. If a wristband is produced by a non-regulated person (i.e. Maternity Care Assistant), it must be counter-checked by a registered professional.

This summarises research on manual checking and the use of technologies for patient identification.

This paper is about how patients can erroneously receive health care which is not intended for them or be matched with specimens other than their own. It reviews the background to such mismatching and sets out the findings from two pieces of research commissioned by the NPSA, one on checking using manual methods and the other on technology based systems.

Reducing and, where possible, eliminating errors in the matching of patients with their care is central to improving patient safety in the NHS. Three main types of error can occur.

Patient Safety Alert on ways to minimise the risk of surgery on the wrong part of the body.

The goal of the initiative is to strengthen the commitment of clinical staff to address safety issues within the surgical setting. This includes improving anaesthetic safety practices, ensuring correct site surgery, avoiding surgical site infections and improving communication within the team.

A core set of safety checks has been identified in the form of a WHO Surgical Safety Checklist for use in any operating theatre environment. The checklist is a tool for the relevant clinical teams to improve the safety of surgery by reducing deaths and complications.

Safer Practice Notice on ensuring acute hospital inpatients wear wristbands.

All hospital inpatients in acute settings should wear wristbands (also known as identity bands) with accurate details that correctly identify them and match them to their care.

Between November 2003 and July 2005, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) received 236 reports of patient safety incidents and near misses relating to missing wristbands or wristbands with incorrect information. Research and anecdotal evidence show that patients often do not have wristbands and that this increases the risk of them being incorrectly identified and given the wrong care.

Safer Practice Notice recommending both high and low-tech solutions to making blood sampling and transfusions safer.

Blood transfusions involve a complex sequence of activities and, to ensure the right patient receives the right blood, there must be strict checking procedures in place at each stage.

An initiative has been launched that offers a range of long and short term strategies to ensure blood transfusions are carried out safely. The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), the Chief Medical Officer’s National Blood Transfusion Committee (NBTC) and Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) have collaborated to develop and evaluate these strategies.

Safer Practice Notice recommending standardisation of wristband design, patient identifiers, colour coding, printing and processes for producing, applying and checking wristbands.

Wristbands are used to identify hospital inpatients. Over the 12 month period February 2006 to January 2007, the NPSA received 24,382 reports of patients being mismatched to their care.

It is estimated that more than 2,900 of these related to wristbands and their use. Standardising the design of patient wristbands, the information on them, and the processes used to produce and check them, will improve patient safety.