In addition to the services delivered by the Medical Exposures Group (MEG) in UKHSA, the Radiotherapy team is tasked with leading on the national patient safety initiative in radiotherapy. One workstream includes the maintenance and development of the national reporting system for radiotherapy errors and near miss events (RTE).

RTE are submitted on a voluntary basis by radiotherapy departments throughout the UK to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) or Learning from Patient Safety Events System at NHS England and NHS Improvement or directly to UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). RTE are analysed by the Radiotherapy team using frequency trend analysis based on the classification from Towards Safer Radiotherapy (TSRT) and the pathway coding, including safety barriers (failed & effective) and causative factor taxonomy from the Development of Learning from Radiotherapy Errors (DoL).

The Radiotherapy team, in conjunction with the Patient Safety in Radiotherapy Steering Group (PSRT) provide regular updates on their work via the Safer Radiotherapy E-Bulletin, publish learning from these events, on a triannual basis and summarised on a biennial basis, so their occurrence might be mitigated. The radiotherapy reporting and learning system is a feedback process, which supports a risk-based approach to improving patient safety. To receive notifications of new Safer Radiotherapy publications sign up to e-subscribe.