NHS building

When Will the NHS Get Its Complaints System Right?

By John Tingle

The National Health Service (NHS) in England has been trying to get an effective, fit-for-purpose complaints system for at least 28 years, and it has still not succeeded.

This has been one of the NHS’s perpetual and intractable problems. History has not served the NHS well here, despite the publication of countless reports on patient safety and NHS complaint handling, and several major crises happening, such as Mid Staffordshire.

More often than not, the reports into patient safety crises and NHS complaints system reform all say the same (or similar) thing, and point to the same issues.

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Health Care Providers’ Legal Duty to Be Open and Honest with Patients

By John Tingle

Last September, the first ever prosecution of a National Health Service (NHS) trust for failure to comply with the regulation concerning duty of candor was adjudicated.

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust was ordered to pay a total of £12,565 after admitting it failed to disclose details relating to a surgical procedure and to apologize following the death of a 91-year-old woman.

Duties of candor require that patients be informed of adverse events as soon as possible after they occur. These duties serve as mechanisms to help balance power dynamics in health care and to advance patient rights. In England, duties of candor are contained in the professional codes of ethics of doctors and nurses, and in statutory regulations.

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Busy Nurse's Station In Modern Hospital

What’s in a Name? The Value of the Term ‘Never Events’

By John Tingle 

The Healthcare Safety Inspection Branch (HSIB) in England, which conducts independent investigations of patient safety concerns relating to the country’s National Health Service (NHS), has just published a learning report that examines the findings of investigations they have carried out on incidents classified as “Never Events.”

England’s NHS defines Never Events as “patient safety incidents that are wholly preventable,” in accordance with the implementation of “guidance or safety recommendations that provide strong systemic protective barriers.”

In the National Health Service’s policy and framework, Never Events are listed under the following headings: surgical, medication, mental health, and general. These headings include incidents such as overdose of certain medications, failure to remove a foreign object used during a procedure, and transfusion of incompatible blood.

The investigations for the HSIB report cover seven of the 15 types of Never Events listed in the National Health Service (NHS) Never Events policy and framework published in 2018. These seven categories account for over 96% of the total Never Events recorded in 2018 – 2019.

Controversially, the HSIB report recommends that NHS England and NHS Improvement revise the Never Events list to remove several which don’t have “strong and systemic safety barriers.” “These events,” the report states, “are therefore not wholly preventable and do not fit the current definition of Never Events.”

This suggestion is, arguably, not in the spirit of advancing the patient safety agenda in the NHS in England.

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doctor holding clipboard.

The Inherent Value of Patient Safety Reports as Key Educational Tools

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.

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COVID-19 and the State of Health and Social Care in England

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.

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WHO flag.

A Dose of Perspective on World Patient Safety Day

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.

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The Enormity of the Patient Safety Challenges Facing the NHS in England

By John Tingle

Adding to the enormity of the challenges facing the NHS in developing a patient safety-focused culture, NHS Resolution and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have recently produced important reports on NHS litigation and poor care. The analysis of these reports will help to reveal the full nature and extent of the NHS’s patient safety problems.

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NHS building

The Long and Winding Road of NHS Complaints System Reform

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.

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