Guidance

Managing safety incidents in NHS screening programmes

The processes for managing safety incidents in the NHS screening programmes.

Documents

Screening incident assessment form (SIAF)

Details

The Patient Safety Incident Response Framework will replace the Serious Incident Framework on 1 April 2024. This means that organisations operating under the NHS Standard Contract must apply PSIRF principles in their approach to learning from safety events.

As safety incidents within screening programmes may have implications wider than individual services, it is important that potential screening incidents continue to be reported to the Screening QA Service and local public health commissioning teams, using the SIAF

The Managing Screening guidance (2015) is being updated to reflect the PSIRF and the new version will be published here.

If you are unsure who to contact please contact the National QA service using the email address: england.nationalqa@nhs.net


Guidance to explain the incident management procedures for NHS screening programme providers and commissioners and provide a form for notifying incidents to the Screening Quality Assurance Service (SQAS).

Read this guidance alongside NHS England’s Serious Incident Framework.

This publication was previously published by Public Health England, which closed on 30 September 2021.

Updates to this page

Published 1 March 2015
Last updated 10 October 2024 + show all updates
  1. Added clarification that publication was previously published by Public Health England.

  2. As more providers adopt the use of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) the use of serious incident categorisation will no longer be used If you suspect that you have a screening incident, please still reference the screening incident guidance and liaise with your regular Screening Quality assurance contact to discuss the management of your issue/incident. Further guidance will be issued when the screening incident guidance is updated to reflect the PSIRF. If you are unsure who to contact please contact the National QA service using: england.nationalqa@nhs.net

  3. Screening incident assessment form (SIAF) updated

  4. Screening incident assessment form (SIAF) has been updated to include introduction of Lynch Syndrome

  5. Put into accessible HTML format.

  6. Updated version of 'Managing incidents in NHS screening programmes' document to include appendix 2.

  7. Added updated version of screening incident assessment form and guidance document.

  8. Updated versions of both documents added.

  9. New version, October 2015.

  10. Added the screening incident assessment form.

  11. First published.

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