By STEPHEN NAYSMITH

A NASA scientist who was involved in the aftermath of the Columbia space shuttle tragedy spoke to leading Scottish health and care professionals to help improve safety in the NHS.

Dr Nigel Packham addressed an audience in Glasgow including Scotland's chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood amid claims that running the NHS is as complicated as putting a man in space.

However, skills learned in the space programme – such as how to prevent the loss of muscle mass – can also be put to use in the care of frail and elderly patients, Scottish health chiefs claim.

Dr Packham is the manager of NASA's Flight Safety Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and project managed the inquest after Columbia broke up on re-entering Earth's atmosphere in 2003, killing all seven of its crew.

He said: "The risks we face in human spaceflight are surprisingly similar to the ones you are looking at when you are dealing with patient safety.

"Medics deciding whether or not to perform a procedure on an elderly patient need to weigh up the benefit against the risk. In NASA we are doing the same thing. The risks may be greater but determining how much is acceptable is much the same."

The fate of the Columbia astronauts in February 2003 was determined three weeks earlier.

Damage sustained when insulating foam broke off during the shuttle's launch and struck the leading edge of the wing meant it was impossible for the craft to survive re-entry, although the crew did not know this.

But such foam strikes had become an expected feature of launches, NASA staff had become blase about them, Dr Packham says.

"We had seen foam break off before and didn't think it could do that kind of harm," he said.

The inquest he led was damning about this complacency, but the openness from the space agency was vital, he says.

He added: "We published our report to the general public. Everything in there told a bad story about Nasa, and the mistakes – these were technical and managerial."

Now, the NHS is using probabilistic risk assessment of the sort used in the space programme and the nuclear industry to help decide whether to go ahead with operations or make other changes.

Meanwhile the same openness now employed by NASA is vital in the health service, he argues. "It is about sharing information when there are close calls or significant incidents."

Dr Packham was invited to take part in the session for 120 NHS professionals at Glasgow Science Centre's Planetarium last night by NHS Health Improvement Scotland.

Dr Brian Robson, Clinical Director at HIS, said: "Healthcare is hugely complex and may even be as complicated as putting humans in space.

"NASA can tell us about anticipating where problems will occur, what the risks are and human factors such as 'how do you design systems so it is easy to do the right thing?'"

"If things do go wrong, how do you go about understanding what went wrong and how to improve."

An example is astronauts who lose significant muscle mass during lengthy space missions, Dr Robson said. "Frailty is a real concern for us in the Scottish NHS, leaving elderly people at risk of falls and further complications.

"To avoid muscle loss, astronauts do three hours of exercise daily. There are lessons there about people in hospitals who are bedbound, or living in care homes – we need to get them mobilised really quickly."

Meanwhile checklists for medicine check or what to do in the case of a disease like sepsis make it easier for NHS staff to do the right thing, he added. "We have a list of six easy things to do if someone has sepsis. It's the same as airlines doing pre-flight checks, it is all about practical routines."

Dr Packham also touched on the need to protect and encourage whistle-blowers. He said: "One of the big issues with Columbia was previous safety concerns were not taken as seriously because nothing had happened as a result of them before. Meanwhile engineers and others felt their careers might have been at risk if they had spoken up."