CONCERNS have been raised that staff at Salisbury District Hospital are not reporting errors, near misses and incidents.

According to a recent survey, the hospital scored highly among trusts in the country for the number of staff witnessing cases of unsafe clinical practice but they were among the worst when it came to reporting them.

Speaking at a Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust board meeting last Monday, Alison Kingscott said: “Interestingly, we were in the top 20 per cent [of NHS Trusts in the country] for staff witnessing errors, near misses and incidents which is great so they recognise something is happening.

“What we haven’t done so well in is staff then reporting those errors, near misses and incidents. We’re trying to understand why we sit very high in one area and not in the other.

“We’ve made it very easy for people to report so it’s understanding what the barriers are and then how we can unblock that.”

Nursing director Lorna Wilkinson said the discrepancy between the two sets of figures was “an interesting conundrum”.

She said: “On the one hand, staff are saying we have got a positive safety culture so we’re in the top 20 per cent for that and we also know from NHS England that we have a high reporting culture with the vast majority of reporting being low harm incidents yet we’ve got this one question.

“I wonder if the more that people are aware of these issues, the more likely they are to say ‘oh I don’t report everything’ because the [survey] question is asking if you report everything you witness.”

The hospital scored just below the national average for the measure in the NHS Staff Survey.

It was also in the bottom 20 percent of trusts in the country for the percentage of staff working extra hours.

Mrs Kingscott said work was ongoing to understand why staff were working extra hours, whether there were particular hotspots and what action could be taken.

The hospital was among the best performing trusts in the country in 18 of the 32 key findings, down from 25 the previous year.

This included a high percentage of staff who felt that the hospital was one of the best places in the NHS to work and receive treatment.

Just over 1,100 of the 3,200 staff eligible to participate responded to the survey.

The 2016 results were lower than the previous year’s which placed the hospital among the best performing trusts in the country in 25 of the 32 key findings.

Mrs Kingscott said this was reflective of the engagement work that was ongoing in preparation for the hospital’s Care Quality Commission visit, adding that the drop in 2016 also indicated the increasing pressure on the health service and its impact on staff.