COMPLIANCE WITH AN INCIDENT REPORT SCHEME IN ANESTHESIA

Voluntary, anonymous reporting of incidents, which occur during anaest hesia is a mechanism for obtaining information about such problems. Ou r objective was to estimate the compliance with reporting such inciden ts. For 3 months, alongside the incident report form, another form, wh ich had to be completed for every patient, was used. This form listed a series of defined events which could occur intra-operatively. Compli ance with the incident reports was estimated by comparing the data obt ained from the two sets of forms. Overall compliance was only about 30 %. There were differences in compliance for different events. Complian ce was high with more serious events and poor in the case of common ev ents, or when successful recovery had occurred. In order to improve co mpliance, incident report forms should be available on each anaestheti c machine and staff should be made more aware of the fact that reporta ble incidents are not limited to events which harmed the patient, but also include those which could have affected patient safety.