Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on February 6 gave a wide-ranging speech on the future direction of patient safety in the NHS. The speech is important as it gives key insights into government priorities for patient safety policy development in the NHS.He stated that we all trust nurses and doctors more than any other profession. He spoke about the importance of a “just culture” in the NHS and openness, honesty, and trustworthiness. Read More
Tag: Patient Safety
The role of the National Health Service (NHS) Constitution in balancing patient rights
The Department of Health and Social Care in England has just published two important publications on the NHS Constitution. The Handbook to the NHS Constitution for England, updated and the Third Report on the Effect of the NHS Constitution. Read More
Patient Safety in the NHS: Opening the Door to Change
The NHS (National Health Service) in England is developing a new patient safety strategy which will be published in the Spring of 2019. A consultation paper is out and responses are invited until next month. The strategy will sit alongside the NHS Long Term Plan and hopefully will ingrain safety within it. Read More
Regulating the Statutory Duty of Candor in the NHS
A recent report for the patient safety and justice charity, AvMA (Action against Medical Accidents) identifies some short comings in the way the NHS statutory duty of candor is regulated. The report is not all doom and gloom, however. Some improvements are also noted. Read More
No room for complacency in patient safety in the NHS
Matt Hancock, the recently appointed Government, Health and Social Care Secretary, made a keynote speech on patient safety in London recently. The speech spelled out the future direction of NHS (National Health Service) patient safety policy development in England and also contained some very useful observations and policy which have relevance to patient safety policy developers globally, as well as in England.
Patient Safety and Communication Breakdown
Good communication is an essential prerequisite for good and safe patient care. To effectively communicate is an everyday life skill and it’s one of the most basic that we all must master in some way.
From a patient safety context, poor health carer communication practices are a worldwide problem which continues to cause global patient harm. The WHO states that communication failures are the leading cause of inadvertent patient harm.
Successive Health Service Ombudsman in England have maintained that communication failures are a leading cause of patient complaints. In 2014-2015 poor communication, including quality and accuracy of information, was a factor in one third of all health care complaints.
Surgical ‘Never Events’ in the NHS
NHS Improvement has just published a report on Surgical ‘Never Events’.The report presents an analysis of the local investigation reports into 38 surgical, ‘Never Events’ from across England that occurred between April 2016 and March 2017 (the last full year with data available).
Patient Safety in Mental Health Care
By John Tingle
Mental health care is a high government NHS priority. There is a real drive to rob this care area of its Cinderella image. Mental health care should not now be seen as the poor relation of acute physical care in terms of resource allocation as it has been seen in the past. However, a recent report by the Health and Social Care Regulator of England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) seems to push this care area back into the Cinderella limelight again with the finding that sexual incidents appear commonplace on mental health wards in the NHS. The CQC is a very important health and social care regulator in England and it produces excellent reports on health care quality and patient safety. The organisation makes sure health, social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care, and they encourage care services to improve.
Seeking out global patient safety research
By John Tingle
Unsafe health care is a problem of global proportions .The remedies and solutions to many patient safety problems are unlikely to be found in just one countries health care system. Health is one of the world’s great generics, it transcends countries borders, we are all dealing with the health of human beings which is the common denominator. Whilst country contexts may change the subject matter, the patient, remains constant. WHO state:
“Ensuring the safety of patients is a high visibility issue for those delivering health care – not just in any single country, but worldwide. The safety of health care is now a major global concern. Services that are unsafe and of low quality lead to diminished health outcomes and even to harm. The experience of countries that are heavily engaged in national efforts clearly demonstrates that, although health systems differ from country to country, many threats to patient safety have similar causes and often similar solutions (p.1).
End of year report cards from NHS Resolution and the Care Quality Commission
By John Tingle
Two key NHS (National Health Service) organisations have recently produced reports. NHS Resolution has produced its annual report and accounts.The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has produced a report on the experiences of adult in -patients in NHS hospitals.These reports are excellent for real-time trend analysis and important patient safety and clinical negligence trends are identified.