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 NHS Safety Thermometer User Guide Contents How to get the NHS Safety Thermometer .............................................................................2 Getting Started ......................................................................................................................3 Enabling Macros ................................................................................................................3 The Main Menu......................................................................................................................6 Recording a Survey ...............................................................................................................7 Recording Patient Information............................................................................................8 Finding, Displaying and Editing Surveys ............................................................................9 Charts ..................................................................................................................................10 Outcomes Report ................................................................................................................12 Administration Menu ............................................................................................................14 Summary..........................................................................................................................14 Merge Thermometers.......................................................................................................14 Data Export .....................................................................................................................16 New Thermometer ...........................................................................................................16 Export Chart Data – Ctrl Shift E .......................................................................................16 Region Split and Organisation Split..................................................................................17 Safety Thermometer Help Pages ........................................................................................18 Copyright 2012 © NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre
NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
How to get the NHS Safety Thermometer
The NHS Safety Thermometer is a tool for measuring Patient Safety, developed by the
NHS Information Centre (NHS IC). If you have not already got the Safety Thermometer
(ST) you can request it from the NHS Safety Thermometer page on the NHS IC website
http://www.ic.nhs.uk/services/nhs-safety-thermometer
The Safety Thermometer will be delivered to your mail address as Excel (.xls) file. Save it
to your computer. You may wish to set up a folder for the Safety Thermometer. Some
organisations don’t allow email attachments through their mail systems, so if it doesn’t
arrive, check whether it has been quarantined by your IT department.
The ST is an Excel application. You must have MS Excel 97-2003, MS Excel 2007 or MS
Excel 2010 in order to use it. ST has been tested in these three versions of Excel.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Getting Started
Enabling Macros
Different organisations have their systems configured in different ways so we can’t
guarantee that ST will always work the same in all environments. This guidance will be
appropriate for most users, but there may be cases where you’ll have to consult your local
IT experts.
Because ST is an application you’ll need to tell Excel that it can run the application. This
means that you will have to ‘Enable Macros’ or ‘Enable Content’ because you probably
have Excel configured to prevent macros from running.
If you are opening ST from within Excel, always remember to close any other open
workbooks first.
ST will display a message if it’s not running properly, with some brief guidance about
enabling macros. The method for doing that is different for each version of Excel, and it’s
different depending on how you have configured Excel.
Excel 97-2003
Set your macro security level through
‘Tools…Macro…Security
When you launch the ST, Excel will ask you
to Enable Macros each time you run it.
Remember to close any other open
workbooks before you start.
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Excel 2007
In Excel 2007 Macro Security
is set through Excel Options
…Trust Center. If you choose
the Macro Settings shown
here, Excel will display a
security warning each time you
run ST. You can then click the
Options button to allow ST to
launch.
Remember to close any
open workbooks before you
start.
Excel 2010
In Excel 2010 you
also need to
choose the
appropriate Trust
Center Macro
Setting and
Message Bar
settings
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Then, when you
launch ST, choose
‘Enable Content.
Remember to close
any other open
workbooks before
you start.
Now you should be able to launch ST. You can either
open Excel or then open the ST, or you can just double
click on the ST file icon. You did remember to close
any open workbooks didn’t you?
If you try to open ST from Excel when another
workbook is running ST will display a message with the
name of the first open workbook which you must close.
ST will then close itself.
That’s because ST
needs Excel to
itself, and it
doesn’t want to
damage any of
your other
workbooks, so
close those open
workbooks and try
again. When ST
launches properly
it will look like this.
It will hide all the
familiar bits of
Excel, but don’t
worry. It will put
them back again
when you close it.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
The Main Menu
This is what you will see when ST opens. You will mostly use the main menu and the
submenus to navigate around ST. At the top of the Main Menu is the Help. Click on that
and you will see the Help Menu. It’s
worth having a look at the Help topics.
You can print the Help pages if you
wish, but if you’re reading this they’re
already included towards the back of
this Guide.
The other Menu items do what they
say. We’ll have a look at them in a
minute, but first, some information
about the Exit option.
Exit saves and closes the ST. You
can’t close ST by using the ‘x’ in the top
right hand corner – you will just get a
message asking you to use the Exit.
That is to make sure that ST closes
down tidily, saves any changes which
you have made, and restores your
Excel environment.
If Things Go Wrong
Should you ever encounter an error message which looks like this:
It means that an error has occurred. If
you can, please mail a screenshot of
the error to ‘enquiries@ic.nhs.uk’ so we
can investigate it.
Then choose the ‘End’ button, and
reset the ST by pressing Ctrl Shift and
O at the same time. That should get
you going again, but if you were in the
middle of entering data, please check
that it has been saved.
Now click on Surveys on the Main Menu.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Recording a Survey
A Safety Thermometer Survey is a snapshot survey of the four harms for all the patients in
a ward, or a round on a particular day.
Each ST Survey is identified by the name of your Organisation, the name of your Team or
Ward, and the date of the Survey. You can carry out Surveys as often as each day. ST will
analyse Surveys by week or by month in the Charts and by date in the Outcome Report –
more on those later.
Creating a New Survey
To record a new survey, click on the New Button
Choose your Organisation from the drop down list,
type in your Team/Ward name and the Date.
If your Organisation name isn’t in the drop-down
list, you can type it into the box. Please type it in
upper case, and spell and format it exactly the
same for each of your surveys.
Type in your Ward or Team Name. ST isn’t clever enough to understand that ward1,ward 1
WARD 1, WARD1, Ward1, Ward 1, Ward One, W1, w1 W 1, W 1 are all the same. So
please be consistent, otherwise ST won’t be able to analyse your data properly and it won’t
be able to make the charts for your Team or Ward.
You can edit the Ward name if you get it wrong, and you
can see all the previous surveys using the Find button –
so you can check that your Ward or Team name is
consistent, and fix it if it isn’t.
The other things to fill in at Survey level are the Service
and the Setting. These are used to help in analysing
data across different organisations. For these fields you
choose the appropriate value from the drop-down list.
Finally key in the number of patients that you are
surveying.
When you have filled in all the Survey information Click
Save. ST will open up the Patient Data area of the form
ready for you to fill in information for each Patient
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
If you’d prefer to use a paper form to write the information on your round, you can Print the
form. Then when you have the completed paper form you can Find the survey and fill in the
details. Alternatively you can key the Patient information straight into ST.
Recording Patient Information
Use one row for each Patient who you survey.
You complete each cell by choosing the
appropriate value from the drop down list. You
can check what they mean by hovering over the
heading.
Flags and Tags
There are two special fields at the end of the patient
row. If you want to record some other fact about
the patient, you can use the Flag field.
If you’re going to use the Flag, we suggest that you
agree across your organisation what you’re going to
use it for.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
The last Patient field is the Tag field. You can
use this to record more information about the
patient. For example, you might decide to tag
Patients with c.diff and mrsa infections. There is
a Chart for Flagged Patients in the ST Chart
Menu, and you can analyse all of the Charts by
Tags. You may wish to experiment with this by
creating a test Survey, then deleting it when
you’ve finished.
The Survey form calculates the number of harms by Patient, and by Type as you enter your
Patient information.
When you have completed the patient information be sure to
click on Save to save your Survey. You may need to click out
of the cell you are in before you can click the Save button.
Finding, Displaying and Editing Surveys
You can display any of the surveys in your ST by
using the Find button and then choosing the
survey which you wish to display from the list.
The Find box displays the Organisation Name,
Ward or Team Name, and Date of each Survey in
the ST. Double click on a Survey in the list to
display it.
After you have found a Survey you can edit it and
Save any changes. You can also Print it, and
finally, you can Delete the whole survey.
When you have finished working on Surveys, click
the Menu button to return to the Main Menu.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Charts
ST Charts bring together all of the data in your ST and
give you functions to select and filter which surveys you
display, and how you display them. All of the different
Charts work in a similar way.
When you choose a Chart type from the Chart Menu ST
will display a chart of all the data which it contains.
All of the Charts are laid out as time series, with the
Month or the Week along the bottom. They display as
Months and Percentages when you first choose the
Chart Type.
The Charts cover a rolling 13 Months or 28 weeks. You
won’t start to see the time series until you have
recorded a number of Surveys. The examples used
here show what ST Charts look like as the information
builds up.
At the top of the Chart there are controls which
you can use to choose what’s displayed, and how
it’s displayed. Starting at the top left, if you have data from more than one organisation in
your ST you can choose which Organisation to display from the drop down list.
The next control, to the right, lets you
choose which Ward to display.
If you are using Tags, the Tag control
will filter your charts by your different
Tag values.
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On the second row, if you have more than one
Team or Ward in your ST you can select by
Service and by Setting, by Age Band, and by
Sex. You can choose any combination of
controls. ST will redraw the graph straight
away.
There are three radio buttons on the control
panel. You can choose either Months or
Weeks as the Time Period, and you can show
either percentages or numbers on the Chart
and on the Data Table below the Chart.
On most of the Charts you have the choice of showing a
Summary or Detail view. The Detail view shows the data
which go to make up the Summary. Here’s the first Chart with
the options to display numbers (not percentages), Detail and
to filter to show only patients aged between 18 and 70.
The Clear button on the control panel will clear all the
selection settings on the Chart and take you back to the
opening view. You can use Copy to Copy and Paste the
Chart into another application – for example, a document,
a presentation, and Print will print the Chart.
or
If your ST contains data for more than one Organisation you won’t get the controls for Tags
– because Tags are locally defined. Neither will you be able to Chart the data by weeks,
because that level of time period is only useful at the Ward or Team level.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Outcomes Report
This report summarises all the information in the Safety Thermometer on a single form. It
displays counts of each type of harm, and totals for all Harms.
You can use the controls at the top of the form
to choose particular Organisations, Wards,
Teams and Survey Dates. You can also switch
the display between counts and percentages. After you have made your selections, press Go
to display the filtered results.
The Clear button will reset your selections. You can also display two reports – for example,
for different Surveys - side by side by using the
blue > button to copy data to the rights hand
side of the form, then choosing another
selection on the left hand side.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
The Copy button copies the report to your clipboard, so that you can paste it into another
document. The Print button prints the report.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Administration Menu
This is where you’ll find all the functions to combine data from different STs, to spawn
Regional or Organisational STs, and to submit your data to the NHS IC.
Summary
The first menu item tells you what’s inside your ST – the number of Patients, Surveys,
Organisations and Regions.
The ST Summary also displays the Safety Thermometer Version Number. You can check
whether you have the latest version by comparing this with the version number on the
Safety Thermometer home page.
Merge Thermometers
This function merges all the Surveys from all the STs and DataBase Exports in your folder.
It creates a new ST which containing all the data. It doesn’t matter if data is duplicated in
different STs which you are merging. The Merge process simply takes the latest version of
any duplicate Surveys.
You will use Merge to combine data from different STs. For example, if each Team or Ward
in your organisation is using a separate ST, you’ll merge their data to produce a single
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
merged ST to show all the results for you organisation. You will also Merge your
organisation’s data before you submit it to the NHS IC using the DataBase Export function.
You may also need to use the Merge function to upgrade to a new version of the Safety
Thermometer. In this case you would download the new version and Merge your old data
into it, creating a new version containing all your data.
Before you Merge, make sure that you have all the files (Safety Thermometers and
DataBase Exports) which you wish to Merge in the same folder.
When you choose Merge from the Administration Menu you will see this screen, and you’ll
be asked to confirm that you wish to go ahead. ST will ask you to input a name for the new
Merged ST.
ST will then Merge all the Surveys in the
folder. It will open each file in the folder,
check that it contains ST data, read that
data, and assemble a new Merged ST.
You don’t need to do anything, but
Merging could take a few minutes if you
have many files.
When Merge is complete, ST will display
a message confirming the name of the
Merged ST. It will then close itself.
If you look in your current folder you’ll find a new ST which contains all of the Merged data.
All of the other files in the folder will be unchanged.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Data Export
The Data Export function creates a new file which contains the Survey data from your ST.
The new file isn’t an ST it’s a single sheet of ST data.
You will use DataBase Export files to submit your data to the NHS Information
Centre. You can also use them to conduct local Merges in your organisation. To create a
DataBase Export, click on the Menu Item. As usual, ST will ask if you wish to proceed. If
you reply ‘Yes’ it will create a DataBase Export file in your current folder. ST will display a
message confirming that it has created the file, and the name of the file.
DataBase Export
file names always
have the same
format. They are
made up of
‘ST10DBExport’
followed by a date
and time stamp.
Do not rename
these files when
you submit them
to the NHS IC.
After ST has
created the
DataBase Export
file it will check if you have Outlook mail running. If you have, it will offer to submit the
Export file directly to the NHS IC.
If you don’t have MS Outlook email running, ST will save the DataBase Export file in your
current folder. To submit your data to the NHS IC, you must then email the DataBase
Export file to: safetythermometer@ic.nhs.uk. When we receive your DataBase Export file
we’ll send you a receipt.
New Thermometer
The New Thermometer function creates a new, empty Safety Thermometer in your current
folder. It leaves your existing ST untouched. You’ll usually use this function if you need to
provide an ST to a Ward or a Team for the first time.
Export Chart Data – Ctrl Shift E
This option isn’t available from the Menu. You can launch it by pressing Ctrl Shift E at the
same time.
It produces a data file with one row for each
Patient. You may wish to use this to feed into
local data analysis tools, because it is a little
easier to process than the DataBase Export
which compresses each Survey into one row.
The Chart Data file is exported to your current folder, with a file name which starts with
‘Chart Data’. The following table describes the structure of the Chart Data file:
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Attribute
Values
Organisation Name
Text
Ward or Team Name Text
Survey Date
Date Serial Number
Setting
Text
Service
Text
Date/Time Stamp
Date Serial Number
Organisation Code
ODS code
Region
Short Name
Region Code
ODS code
Age Band:
1 = <18, 2 = 18-70, 3 = >70
Sex:
1 = M, 2 = F
Old PUs
1 = None, 2 = Cat 2, 3 = Cat 3, 4 = Cat 4
New PUs
1 = None, 2 = Cat 2, 3 = Cat 3, 4 = Cat 4
Falls
1 = No Fall, 2 = No Harm, 3 = Low Harm, 4 = Moderate Harm, 5 = Severe
Harm, 6 = Death
UTIs
1 = No UTI, 2 = Old UTI, 3 = New UTI
Catheters
1 = No Catheter, 2 = 1-28 days, 3 = >28 days, 4 = Days Not Known
VTE Risk
Assessment
1 = No, 2 = Yes, 3 = N/A
VTE Prophylaxis
1 = No, 2 = Yes, 3 = N/A
VTE Treated
1 = No VTE, 2 = Old DVT, 3 = Old PE, 4 = Old Other, 5 = New DVT, 6 =
New PE, 7 = New Other
Flag
1 = No, 2 = Yes
All PUs
1 = None, 2 = Cat 2, 3 = Cat 3, 4 = Cat 4
Catheter & UTI
1 = No, 2 = Yes
Number of Harms
1 = No Harms, 2 = 1 Harm, 3 = 2 Harms, 4 = 3 Harms, 5 = 4 Harms
VTE Harms:
1 = No, 2 = Yes
New Harms
1 = No Harms, 2 = 1 Harm, 3 = 2 Harms, 4 = 3 Harms, 5 = 4 Harms
Tags
text string
Region Split and Organisation Split
These options only appear if your ST contains data for more than one Region, or for more
than one Organisation. They are typically used by clusters, regions, and the NHS IC to
create separate STs for each Region or each Organisation.
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Safety Thermometer Help Pages
Surveys
The Safety Thermometer is a tool for recording and analysing Patient Harms. A Safety
Thermometer survey records any harms which patients in a ward or a team have suffered.
It’s carried out on a particular date. A Survey is identified by:
• Organisation Name: - the name of the organisation providing patient care
• Ward or Team Name – the name of the ward or team which is being surveyed.
• Survey Date – the date when the survey is carried out
You can carry out surveys as often as you wish to track local improvement. You must
submit monthly returns, but you may decide to survey weekly to get a more timely picture of
your performance. The Safety Thermometer can record up to one survey a day in the
same team or unit. The other pieces of information recorded at the Survey level are the
Care Setting and Service, from drop-down lists in the Survey form and the Number of
Patients.
For each Patient there is a row of data in the Survey Form with fields for Age Band, Sex,
Old and New Pressure Ulcers, Falls, UTIs, Catheters, VTE Risk Assessment, VTE
Prophylaxis and VTE Treatment. There is also a Flag field which you can use for recording
a locally defined harm, and a Tag field for adding text tags to each Patient.
Pressure Ulcers
Record the patient’s WORST old pressure ulcer and WORST new pressure ulcer. An ‘old’
pressure ulcer is defined as being a pressure ulcer that was present when the patient came
under your care, or developed within 72 hours of coming under your care. A ‘new’ pressure
ulcer is defined as being a pressure ulcer that developed 72 hours or more after the patient
came under your care.
To collect the data, you may wish to assess or ask the patient about any skin damage they
have experienced as well as consulting their notes or handover documents.
In each of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ pressure ulcer columns, record the category of the WORST
pressure ulcer the patient has, using the drop down menu provided. The category is based
on the European Pressure Ulcer Scale:
• Category 2- partial thickness skin loss or blister. Partial thickness loss of dermis
presenting as a shallow open ulcer with a red pink wound bed, without slough. May also
present as an intact or open/ruptured serum-filled blister.
• Category 3- full thickness (fat visible). Full thickness tissue loss. Subcutaneous fat may
be visible but bone, tendon or muscle is not exposed. Some slough may be present. May
include undermining and tunnelling.
• Category 4- full thickness loss (bone visible). Full thickness tissue loss with exposed
bone, tendon or muscle. Slough or Eschar may be present. Often includes undermining
and tunnelling.
If the patient has no pressure ulcer, or a pressure ulcer that is less severe than a Category
2, choose the ‘None’ option from the drop down menu.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Falls
Record the severity of any fall that the patient has experienced within the previous 72 hours
in your care setting (including home if the patient is on a district nursing caseload). A fall is
defined as an unplanned or unintentional descent to the floor, with or without injury,
regardless of cause (slip, trip, fall from a bed or chair, whether assisted or unassisted).
Patients ‘found on the floor’ should be assumed as having fallen, unless confirmed as an
intentional act.
To collect the data, you may wish to assess or ask the patient about the harm resulting from
their fall as well as consulting their notes or handover documents.
Use the ‘Fall’ column to record the severity of the fall using from drop down list provided.
The severity of the fall is defined in accordance with NRLS categories:
• No harm- fall occurred but with no harm to the patient
• Low harm- patient required first aid, minor treatment, extra observation or medication.
• Moderate harm- likely to require outpatient treatment, admission to hospital, surgery or a
longer stay in hospital
• Severe harm- permanent harm, such as brain damage or disability, was likely to result
• Death- where death was the direct result of the fall
If the patient did not experience a fall, choose the ‘No Fall’ option from the drop down
menu.
Catheters & UTIs
Record information about any UTI treatment and urinary catheterisation. In the ‘UTI treat’
column, record whether or not the patient is being treated for a UTI. This is defined as the
patient having relevant symptoms (for example, nocturia, urgency, urgency and/or stress
incontinence, slow urinary stream, straining, feeling of incomplete emptying) AND being
treated with an appropriate antibiotic.
If the patient is being treated for a UTI, record whether the treatment started before the
patient came under your care (old) of after the patient came under you care (new). If the
treatment for the UTI started before the patient came under your care, select ‘Old UTI’ from
the drop down menu in the UTI column. If the treatment for the UTI started whilst the
patient was under your care, select ‘New UTI’. If the patient is not being treated for a UTI,
select ‘No UTI’.
The Safety Thermometer also asks you to record any information about an indwelling
urethral urinary catheter. This EXCLUDES supra-pubic catheters and other stents. If the
patient has, or has had, an indwelling urethral urinary catheter at any point in the last 3
days, record the number of days that it has been in place. There are four options for
recording this information available on the drop down menu on the survey form; ‘1-28 days’,
‘>28 days’, ‘Days Not Known’ and ‘No Catheter’. If the patient does not have an indwelling
urethral urinary catheter and has not had one at any point in the last 3 days, record ‘No
Catheter’.
To collect the data, you may wish to assess or ask the patient about any UTI symptoms or
indwelling urethral catheters as well as consulting their notes or handover documents.
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VTE
Record whether or not a patient is being clinically treated for a Venous Thromboembolism
(VTE) of any type. A patient is defined as having a new VTE if they are being treated for a
deep vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism (PE) or any other recognised type of
VTE with appropriate therapy such as anticoagulants.
To collect the data, you may wish to assess or ask the patient about any VTE symptoms or
treatment as well as consulting their notes or handover documents.
If treatment for a VTE was started after the patient came under you care, select one of the
‘new’ categories from the drop down menu; this will be one of ‘New DVT’, ‘New PE’ or ‘New
Other’. If treatment for the VTE started, or the VTE was acquired before the patient came
under your care, use the ‘Old’ categories from the drop down menu; this will be one of ‘Old
DVT’, ‘Old PE’ or ‘Old Other’. If the patient is not being treated for a VTE, select ‘No VTE’.
VTE Risk Assessment and Prophylaxis
If these questions are not appropriate for your setting, choose the ‘N/A’ options. VTE
information is required for all in-patients.
VTE Risk A: Venous Thromboembolism Documented Risk Assessment: does the patient
have a documented risk assessment for VTE?
• No
• Yes
• N/A
VTE Prophylaxis
Venous Thromboembolism Appropriate Prophylaxis
If at risk, has the patient started appropriate VTE prophylaxis?
• No = the patient is not receiving VTE Prophylaxis
• Yes = the patient is receiving VTE Prophylaxis
• N/A = VTE Prophylaxis is not appropriate for this patient
VTE Treatment
Record whether or not a patient is being clinically treated for a Venous Thromboembolism
(VTE) of any type. A patient is defined as having a new VTE if they are being treated for a
deep vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism (PE) or any other recognised type of
VTE with appropriate therapy such as anticoagulants.
To collect the data, you may wish to assess or ask the patient about any VTE symptoms or
treatment as well as consulting their notes or handover documents.
If treatment for a VTE was started after the patient came under you care, select one of the
‘new’ categories from the drop down menu; this will be one of ‘New DVT’, ‘New PE’ or ‘New
Other’. If treatment for the VTE started, or the VTE was acquired before the patient came
under your care, use the ‘Old’ categories from the drop down menu; this will be one of ‘Old
DVT’, ‘Old PE’ or ‘Old Other’. If the patient is not being treated for a VTE, select ‘No VTE’.
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Flag
You can use the Flag to mark patients according to a category of your own choosing. You
can set the Flag for each patient to 'Yes' or 'No'. You could use it to record whether a
patient has received a particular treatment, or to record a particular comorbidity. You can
analyse and report on Flagged patients using the Flag chart.
Tags
You can use tags to add extra information for patients which you sample. For example, you
could use tags to record a comorbidity, or to record a particular treatment. You can enter a
tag in the Tag field on the right hand side of each patient record on the Survey form.
You can then use the tags to filter data in any of the Safety Thermometer charts. If you are
going to use tags to add extra information you need to be consistent in the tags which you
use and you need to decide in advance what tags you will use.
Getting Started
The NHS Safety Thermometer (ST) is an Excel Visual Basic 97-2003 application. You
need Excel 97-2003 or later installed on your computer to use it. You will need to 'Enable
Macros' to use the ST. Your Excel Help will tell you how to do this.
ST won't run at the same time as other Excel Workbooks. If there are other active
workbooks it will tell you and then close itself
When you launch ST, it will hide all of the familiar bits of Excel, but don't worry, and when
you exit the ST it will put everything back. After launching ST you'll see that there is a
navigation menu on the right hand side of the Thermometer image. Each of the menu
items on the Main Menu leads on to another form or a submenu. Help is embedded
throughout ST, and there's a separate Help submenu with more detail.
To close the Safety Thermometer you must use the 'Exit' option on the Main Menu. That
will close and save any changes. It will also close Excel and restore your Excel toolbars.
If you are running Excel 2007 or later it's advisable not to save the file in a later version as a
.xlsm file. You can't run a .xlsm Safety Thermometer in Excel 2003. If you need to convert
an .xls file into .xlsm, or an .xlsm into .xls, do so by using the 'Save As' command in
Windows Explorer.
Should you encounter an error message which offers options to 'End' or 'Debug', please
report the error, Ideally by mailing a screenshot to enquiries@ic.nhs.uk. You can restart ST
following an error by choosing 'End' and pressing Ctrl Shift O simultaneously.
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NHS Safety Thermometer: User Guide
Merge
Use Merge to bring all of your data together into a single Safety Thermometer.
.
Merge will create a new Safety Thermometer which contains all the Surveys from all the
Safety Thermometers and ST Data Export files in this current folder. Put all the files which
you wish to Merge in the same folder as this one, and click the button.
Merge will ignore any duplicate Surveys. Merge will leave all the STs which it Merges just
as they were, so there's no risk of losing anything. When you click the button you'll be
prompted for a name for the new merged ST. When the Merge is finished, this ST will
close. You will then find the new Merged ST with the name that you gave it in this folder.
Data Export
This will create a Data Export file containing all the data in this Safety Thermometer. The
Data Export file will be saved in your current folder. The name of the file will be
'STDataExport' followed by a date and time stamp. Please do not rename the file.
If you are responsible for merging your organisation's data, send your monthly Data Export
file to the NHS IC.
If you are running MS Outlook email ST will offer you the option of emailing the Data Export
directly to the NHS IC.
Otherwise you will have to attach the Data Export file saved in your current folder to an
email and send it to: safetythermometer@ic.nhs.uk.
You'll get an email confirmation that your Data Export has been received. You can submit
only one Data Export file at a time.
Charts
These charts analyse different types of harm and combinations of harm.
They all have similar structure and options. You can use the form at the top of each chart
to select data by Organisation, Ward, Setting, Service, Age Band and Sex. If your Safety
Thermometer contains surveys for just one Organisation, you will see additional options for
reporting by Tag, and for presenting the data as a Weekly time series.
You can display data as proportions (percentages) or numbers.
Many of the charts which display a summary line offer a 'Detail' option to split the data down
a level.
Copyright 2012 © NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre
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