The Patient Experience Library: Red flags for harm (April 2025)

Summary

Learn how to spot the red flags for harmful cultures in healthcare.

The Patient Experience Library's Responding to Challenge report reveals the patterns of behaviour that crop up time and again in healthcare disasters.

It explains what poor cultures look like - in teamwork, compliance, accountability, organisational learning and more. It can support staff training and organisational learning - helping people to get a better idea of what "culture" actually means in healthcare, and how it can go wrong.

Use the Red Flag Tracker to find real-life examples of warning signals, drawn from ten years of official inquiries in UK health and care settings.

The tracker will be useful for people charged with the task of "reading the signals" of harm - complaints managers, patient experience staff, Freedom to Speak Up Guardians and local Healthwatch staff, as well as service managers and Trust Board members.