UKHSA National Patient Safety Alerts

Question

Accepted Answer

NatPSAs are only issued for safety-critical reasons that will impact on patient safety, with strict criteria.

The threshold is ‘more likely than not of one or more potentially avoidable deaths or disability in healthcare in England in a year’.

NatPSAs are targeted at senior management in healthcare organisations for system-wide action, sent through the Central Alerting System (CAS).

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is accredited to publish NatPSAs to ask healthcare providers to take action to prevent or reduce the impact of a threat to public health from:

communicable diseases, such as outbreaks of infectious disease, microbial contamination of products (but not medical devices)
non-infectious hazards, such as exposure to radiation and chemicals
supply disruption such as vaccines