World Patient Safety Day 2023: Safe care needs patient voices. Is the NHS ready to listen? (PHSO, 17 September 2023)

Summary

The idea of patient feedback as an essential tool for improving the safety of services is a familiar one. In recent years there has been a more fundamental shift towards recognising patients not just as commentators on the safety of the healthcare they experience, but as contributors to improving the safety of care. In this blog, Kate Eisenstein, Director of Strategy at the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) looks at the ways in which patients and their families contribute to safe care. She also highlights the fact that in many cases, their voices are still being ignored, with catastrophic consequences for individual patients and the system as a whole.