New initiative to help surgeons learn from others’ mistakes

On 16 July,2021 | In News

A new partnership has been launched between The Medical Defence Union (MDU) and the Confidential Reporting System for Surgery (CORESS), which is the independent charity promoting safety in surgical practice.

CORESS publishes confidential incident reports from surgeons and theatre staff to educate fellow surgeons and reduce the chances of similar incidents in future. 

It serves all surgical disciplines in both private and public healthcare and focuses on improving services rather than appointing blame.

Mr Jerrard Ross

MDU medico-legal adviser Mr Jerard Ross said his union was looking forward to working with CORESS to ensure doctors were supported to learn from incidents – and that this learning was disseminated to as wide an audience as possible. 

CORESS programme director Prof Frank Smith added: ‘CORESS is dedicated to making surgery safer by encouraging clinical staff to anonymously submit reports of cases where things went wrong or turned out to be near-misses.

‘Unlike mandatory reporting systems, CORESS does not systematically analyse and feedback information to NHS organisations. Rather, CORESS aims to provide individual feedback to surgeons and to the surgical community in general.’

To learn more about the partnership between the MDU and CORESS, see the latest issue of the MDU journal. 

Click here to watch the 2021 CORESS Safety in Surgery Symposium on demand.