The Birmingham Post reported the death of a patient who fell from a hoist while being transferred from a commode to a bed. The moving and handling of this person did not come up to standard.
Alice Belle hit her head during the fall which put an end to her ninety years of life. The trust in which the incident occurred was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £17,500. Two auxiliaries selected a sling which was inappropriate for Mrs. Belle, and the result was that Mrs. Belle fell through the sling and was killed. There was no system in place for allocating slings to individual patients and so it was left to chance as to which sling was chosen.
Judge William Davis, QC, made an interesting statement, he said, “Those who are most vulnerable, as Alice Belle was, need the most careful care.” To us then we should never think that the rush of the job gives us an excuse to be less careful with our care.
Amanda James of the HSE said: “The moving and handling risk assessment, in place at the time, did not specify which sling should be used for the patient....
... A suitable risk assessment, carried out by competent staff, would have identified and recorded the appropriate type and size of sling and this should then have been communicated to all staff involved in moving and handling (Mrs. Belle).
Regular readers of this newsletter will remember the video of me falling from a hoist where the sling wasn’t applied correctly. I received e-mails from certain individuals who claimed that this is unrealistic, in fact the youtube version has a comment to that effect posted next to it. Since 2004 there have been over 100 incidents reported to the HSE resulting in at least 11 deaths.
I urge you to watch the video again in M&H TV, even if you are familiar with correct hoisting.
