Ted Baker: My job is to make the NHS safer – this is how I’ll do it (22 January 2024)

Summary

In this interview for inews, Professor Ted Baker, Chair of the new Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), talks about the role of HSSIB in identifying system-wide safety issues in the NHS. He discusses why we need new approaches to tackling patient safety problems and outlines the importance of considering how the wider system leads to human error. He also talks about the impact of bullying on NHS staff, describing his own experiences as a junior doctor, which nearly led him to give up his career. He also describes the vital role of whistleblowers in making changes that genuinely improve patient safety, highlighting the problems currently facing staff who speak up for patient safety.