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<p>The Government is committed to eradicating Never Events and ensuring best practice
is shared throughout the health care system.</p><p>That is why in December 2017, the
Secretary of State commissioned the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to undertake a safety
thematic review of Never Events, under Section 48 of the Health and Social Care Act
2008.</p><p>The CQC’s review, which is expected to report in autumn 2018, will examine
the underlying issues in National Health Service trusts in England that contribute
to the occurrence of Never Events and identify the learning that can be applied to
wider safety issues.</p><p>The ‘Never Events Policy and Framework’ was revised in
March 2015 and the definition of Never Events changed to provide further clarity over
their purpose, and; to ensure incidents are easily identifiable when they occur and
are not dependent on the severity of outcome of the incident.</p><p>The list of Never
Events was reviewed at the same time to ensure that they were all compliant with the
revised definition and to consider any new issues that were appropriate to be introduced
as Never Events into the NHS in England.</p><p>Further revisions to the Never Events
policy and framework and an updated Never Events list were published in January 2018.
Therefore it is not possible to compare the number of Never Events reported on an
annual basis.</p><p>As mentioned in my earlier reply to Question <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2018-06-12/152793/"
target="_blank">152793</a>, NHS providers are encouraged to report all Never Events,
and the CQC regards failure to report a Never Event, a breach of a provider’s registration
requirement.</p><p>The number of Never Events reported by independent providers is
also increasing as they report more incidents to our National Reporting and Learning
System.</p>
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