By John Tingle
As the year 2020 closes and another year starts, it is important to reflect on significant patient safety events and trends in the National Health Service (NHS) in England.
To anticipate what might happen in 2021, we need to recognize what may be continuing patient safety issues.
By John Tingle
Many patient safety adverse events across the National Health Service (NHS) in England have common causes, which exist regardless of clinical specialty, such as failures in communication, poor record keeping, and poor staffing levels.
This commonality of cause means that patient reports emanating from various clinical areas can have general, health system-wide value, relevance, and application. From these reports, it is possible to extrapolate generally applicable patient safety themes that can apply in a wide range of health care settings.
By John Tingle
A recent publication by the World Health Organization (WHO), a first draft of a global patient safety action plan 2021-2030, seems to have rekindled conversations about the “inevitability of error” in the field of patient safety.
The “inevitability of error” argument indicates that mistakes in health care do inevitably happen; that they are the consequences of the complex nature of health care treatment. Nursing and medicine depend on people, and nobody is infallible — we all make mistakes.
By John Tingle
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated challenges facing the provision of health and social care in England, a recent report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) finds.
The CQC is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. Every year they produce an assessment of the state of the country’s health and social care. The yearly lookbacks include information on trends, challenges, successes, failures and opportunities.
The most recent report analyzes service provision both pre- and post COVID-19, and draws key conclusions from this information. From a patient safety perspective, the report contains important lessons about issues the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus. The report also highlights trailing patient safety problems that existed before the pandemic, and are still present as England grapples with the pandemic’s second wave.
By John Tingle
There are no quick fixes to developing an ingrained patient safety culture in health systems — change will not happen overnight. Nevertheless, the National Health Service (NHS) and the government in the U.K. are committed to continuing to improve patient safety.
In 2019, NHS England and NHS Improvement laid down an NHS Patient Safety Strategy roadmap, which continues to hold potential one year later.
By John Tingle
The second World Health Organization (WHO) World Patient Safety Day was held on September 17th, 2020.
WHO made a call for global support, commitment, and collective action by all countries and international partners to improve patient safety. The theme for the year is “health worker safety: a priority for patient safety.”
The annual WHO World Patient Safety Day campaign is a welcome one, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By John Tingle
Sadly, the NHS (National Health Service) has not been able to get its complaint system right, even after decades of trying.
Despite several reports published over two and half decades detailing the challenges the complaint system faces, as well as potential solutions, it still is not fit for purpose. Most recently, the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has produced a report on complaint handling with a focus on the NHS. It is a good, hard-hitting report, which spells out clearly the problems, difficulties, and opportunities to put things right with NHS complaints.
It is, however, another good NHS complaint system reform report in a long line of others. The other reports failed to change adequately the NHS complaints culture and there is little evidence to suggest that this one will succeed where the others have failed.
By John Tingle
A new hard-hitting report on medicines and medical device safety published in the U.K. presents controversial proposals that have the potential to improve National Health Service (NHS) patient safety.
The report, The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, was published on July 8th, 2020 after a two year investigation chaired by Baroness Julia Cumberlege. The review investigated two medications — Primodos and sodium valproate — and one medical device — pelvic mesh.
The reviews remit was to examine how the healthcare system in England responded to reports about harmful side effects from medicines and medical devices and how best to respond in the future.
By John Tingle
As the dust begins to settle around the COVID-19 pandemic, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge of possible litigation trends against the United Kingdom’s NHS (National Health Service) for actions taken during the crisis.
Many NHS services have been reduced or suspended during the crisis. Negligent delays in treatment are a common cause of action in clinical negligence and medical malpractice cases. Legal claims could be made by patients who argue that they have suffered, and continue to suffer, because of lack of access to care and treatment due to COVID-19 NHS emergency restrictions. These claims raise tort, public law and human rights concerns, and some law firms have already been approached by patients asking for advice in this area.
By John Tingle
After months of heavy criticism of the World Health Organization, President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the United States would end its relationship with the WHO.
As the organization shoulders sustained disparagement from President Trump, it is worth highlighting the critical work the WHO has done over the years. This post will focus on the role the WHO has played in promoting patient safety around the world and in the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) through useful materials and key initiatives.