Learning from incidents

Complications in clinical practice are not uncommon. For most patients, having a vascular access device or IV therapy will be the most invasive procedure they will experience during their hospital stay. Millions of vascular access procedures are undertaken in the NHS each year. So it's not surprising that sometimes things can go wrong and harms can occur. Extravasation and infiltration can cause significant harm to our patients and often the severity of these injuries is avoidable. That's why the National Infusion and Vascular Access Society (NIVAS) is so focused on preventing avoidable complications in IV therapy and vascular access. Often the cause of complications is because guidelines, policies and procedures are not followed. Sometimes there is an acceptable risk of complications that are unavoidable but the level of harm can be reduced, and sometimes there is little awareness that a complication might occur or what that complication looks like. In the last situation, we can do something to make a change and reduce the risk.