The Harmed Patient Pathway: A consultation issued by Action against Medical ​Accidents (AvMA) and the Harmed Patients ​Alliance (HPA)

Summary

This Harmed Patient Pathway was launched, and is being led, by the patient-safety charity Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) and the Harmed Patient Alliance (HPA).

Healthcare providers are used to pathways that guide them in how to care for patients with a particular diagnosis. This pathway is intended to encourage providers to recognise harmed patients as suffering a particular form of trauma for which there should be a pathway that seeks to optimise recovery. It is also intended as an obligation for providers to do what is possible to ease suffering and avoid causing further distress.

Content

The Harmed Patient Pathway is built around six key commitments based on what real harmed patients and their families explain is needed. The six commitments are:

1. Effective and compassionate communication in line with patient/family needs and experience.
2. Providing support and independent specialist advice to patients/families.
3. Meaningful patient/family involvement in patient-safety investigations.
4. Meaningfully involving patients/families in safety-improvement work.
5. Accepting and respecting the needs of patients/families using parallel processes to achieve satisfactory answers and/or accountability that they perceive as unattainable without using those processes.
6. Promotion of a just and restorative culture that is as attentive to the needs of harmed patients and families as it is to organisational and staff needs.

AvMA and HPA are consulting on the Harmed Patient Pathway at this draft stage before they go further with developing guidance or resources. 

The closing date for responses to this consultation is 2 December 2024.