THE trust that runs the borough’s hospitals has been shortlisted for the patient safety gong at the Health Service Journal Awards.

It rewards the significant improvements made in the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust’s national and learning incident reporting systems since last year.

Pauline Law, director of nursing, said: “I am absolutely delighted we have been shortlisted for this award.

“The increase in reporting supports our culture and ethos of openness and transparency.

“Incident reporting has a huge positive impact on patient safety and outcomes because it allows us to learn from our mistakes, making future care safer and more effective and efficient.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve our patient care, and incident reporting plays a big role in supporting us to do this.”

Following analysis of the trust’s incident reporting in 2014, it became apparent that improvements were needed.

In response the trust’s executive team and the governance and assurance team established a strong multidisciplinary approach to increase patient safety and improve incident reporting.

The trust says it has produced ‘top levels of performance when it comes to patient safety’ over the past year.

A spokesman for the trust added: “Our board continues to strive to improve safety at all the trust’s locations.

“For example, the chairman is leading on an incident reporting project, aimed at creating an even stronger culture of safety and incident reporting.

“Our chief executive has also recently hosted a Learning from Excellence event based on ‘Black Box Thinking’ and our executive directors are always happy to meet with patients and families if they have any concerns.”

The trust will discover it if has won the award at the HSJ Awards ceremony at the InterContinental London O2 hotel on November 23.

Prior to the ceremony the trust and all other nominees will complete presentations and interviews to a judging panel made up of senior and influential figures in the health sector.