Safer Care Victoria (SCV) has received some concerns from patients, families, carers and next-of-kin about the quality and content of the Serious Adverse Patient Safety Event (SAPSE) review reports provided following a SAPSE. These concerns centre around transparency and openness, particularly during the Statutory Duty of Candour (SDC) process.
SCV has identified that some health services are providing a summarised or abridged SAPSE report to patients, families, carers and next-of-kin and claiming this to be the SAPSE review report. This report is less detailed than the SAPSE report that has been submitted to the SCV sentinel event portal.
To ensure health services are compliant with the Health Services Act 1988, Health Legislation Amendment (Quality and Safety) Act 2022 and Health Services (Quality and Safety) Regulations 2020, we have now released a position statement on SAPSE review reports. SCV’s position is that the SAPSE report that is provided to the patient, family, carer or next-of-kin as part of the SDC and SAPSE review process is the SAPSE report referred to in the legislation and contains the same details as the SAPSE report submitted to SCV.
Please note that Safer Care Victoria does not give permission to print SAPSE reports from the sentinel event portal for the purposes of meeting SDC requirements. Health Services are required to provide SAPSE reports using their health service letterhead and branding.