The Importance of Maintenance

Following some very tragic incidents in the 1970’s and 80’s - Chernobyl / The Challenger Disaster / Three Mile Island - studies were undertaken on the latent causes of accidents. It was clear that maintenance related activities were the most productive source of event root causes.

All of the incidents have the same thing in common, the maintenance service was there to support the primary function of the industry, whether it be nuclear or aeronautics. The only difference between these incidents and what is happening in healthcare is that the incidents in the 70’s and 80’s are one off events that caught the news, rather than individual, isolated incidents spread over years.

Evidence from the National Patient Safety Agency points to a level of harm caused by the infrastructure of the estate, but it is also recognised that there is both significant under reporting on incidents directly caused by infrastructure as well as incidents that had a causal impact on incidents.

It is incumbent on estates professionals to ensure that all incidents are reported so we can get a full picture of the impact on the patient pathway.