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Content Article
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On his last day in office at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), outgoing Chief Investigator Keith Conradi wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care reflecting on his time at HSIB. He outlined concerns about the approach of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England to patient safety work carried out by HSIB and the need to introduce a safety management system approach at all levels of healthcare. Patient Safety Learning also shared our thoughts on the issues raised in this letter and we were keen to explore these issues, and Keith’s experience as HSIB’s first Chief Investigator, in greater depth. Here, Patient Safety Learning provides an overview of the recent interview we had with Keith Conradi on this subject. The full transcript of the interview is available to download in the attachment at the end. -
Content ArticleReports showing that babies and mothers died or were harmed as a result of failures by, and sometimes heartless cruel treatment in, NHS maternity units are becoming worryingly common. Dr Bill Kirkup’s just-published 192-page exposé of an appalling catalogue of failings at East Kent NHS trust between 2009 and 2020 is the second in the last 12 months. As many as 45 babies and 23 mothers in East Kent died avoidably during that time because their care was substandard, his inquiry found. March brought Donna Ockenden’s grim findings about poor maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford trust. And Kirkup produced the first detailed exposition of what inadequate care of women and their offspring during childbirth looked like when in 2015 he laid bare “serious and shocking” lapses in care at Morecambe Bay trust. A fourth official inquiry, again being led by Ockenden, is under way into death, brain damage and other horrendous outcomes at the Nottingham trust. Families affected claim that, despite coroners’ findings, close scrutiny of the trust by regulators, media coverage of lapses in care and pressure for change, “babies, mothers and their families continue to be harmed”. No wonder Rob Behrens, the NHS Ombudsman, says: “The phrase ‘never again’ is starting to ring hollow.”
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Content ArticleThis joint position statement from The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) sets out a series of recommendations for making research part of everyday practice for all clinicians. Its recommendations are aimed at stakeholders across the health and care system, with the overall aim of embedding research in clinical practice: Trusts, health boards and integrated care systems (ICSs) Health Education England and NHS England and statutory education bodies and the departments of health in the other UK nations Regulators Funders
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Content ArticleHarry Richford was born at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM), Margate, Kent on 2/11/17. He died on 9/11/17 at the William Harvey Hospital, Ashford to where he had been transferred. The cause of death was 1a Hypoxic Ischaemic Brain Encephalopathy. There was a narrative conclusion setting out some seven failures in the care of Harry Richford together with a conclusion that his death was contributed to by neglect.
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Content ArticleA fit and proper person review into the conduct of former Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust chair Ben Reid, who left in August 2020, has been published by the board. The report follows complaints about Mr Reid’s conduct from the family of baby Kate Stanton-Davies, who died in the trust’s care and whose case – alongside that of Pippa Griffiths – sparked the original Ockenden inquiry.
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Content ArticleDevelop your understanding of your own health and wellbeing to better lead and support your colleagues, and organisation in this King's Fund online course delivered over 3 weeks.
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Content ArticlePreventable harm, from the systems of care intended to improve health, continues to occur at an unacceptable rate in the United States. Healthcare systems have an opportunity to learn and improve from each episode of preventable harm. Accordingly, every preventable patient death or injury must energise our efforts to prevent future patient harm. The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) believes that criminal prosecution of healthcare providers will make the work of preventing harm more difficult since it continues to shift the focus away from system improvements. They have released a position and policy statement outlining the rationale for opposing criminal prosecution and, equally important, recommends that all healthcare systems and organisations aggressively act, now, to improve their culture, processes, and training to reduce errors of all kinds and, specifically in light of recent events, medication errors. Some specific actions are recommended as examples of what can be done. Individual healthcare professionals should be mindful of their role in preventing errors and reporting errors that occur as well as taking action to encourage and enable their organization to improve the flaws in the systems in which they work that lead to harm to patients.
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Content Article
Advancing Quality Alliance: Safety Culture Survey
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Culture
This programme from the Advancing Quality Alliance (Aqua) provides participants with the tools, skills and knowledge to oversee the successful implementation of a safety culture survey in organisations. Participants of this programme will develop a working knowledge of safety culture theory and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) safety culture survey alongside the support that Aqua provides to enable deployment and analysis of the survey. This programme links directly to Aqua’ safety offers, including Psychological Safety, Human Factors and Improvement Practitioner programmes. -
Content ArticleIn this blog, Ted Baker, Former Chief Inspector of Hospitals at the Care Quality Commission, suggests that a false view that health services are intrinsically safe leads to defensive responses to safety concerns and perpetuates a culture of blame. He argues that the mismatch between safety as described and the reality of safety in practice prevents healthcare professionals being able to speak up about safety concerns. By taking an alternative approach that accepts the risk inherent in healthcare and the fallibility of individuals, he believes we can build organisations and systems that really learn from safety events. In order to do this, we need staff to feel able and supported to speak up, something that can be achieved through widespread understanding of safety society and building a supportive culture. Ted argues that this open culture is still lacking within many services.
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Content ArticleLearning from mistakes generally is considered the upside to failure. But in healthcare, where staff members regularly face stressors and systemic issues that impede a strong culture of safety, creating that standard can be difficult. To understand why medical mistakes and care complications occur repeatedly Becker's spoke with Patricia McGaffigan, vice president of safety programmes for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Ms. McGaffigan outlined three factors that contribute to repeat medical errors, care complications or lost progress on quality improvement initiatives: A "whack-a-mole" approach to safety. Lack of focus on systemwide changes. Unhealthy or unsafe work environments.
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Content ArticleEverybody has a right to good care. Much attention is rightly focused on the occasions when people experience poor quality care, but it is also important to recognise where care is good and to celebrate the services that are getting it right. Some care providers do things well through innovative new ways of working, or by doing the basics well. Others can learn from them and solutions should be shared across the system. This publication from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is purposely focused on celebrating good and outstanding care that CQC's inspectors have seen.
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Content ArticleThis paper by Professor Paul Bate, Emeritus Professor of Health Services Management at University College London, looks at the importance of considering context in healthcare initiatives. It introduces various frameworks for viewing context and looks at key themes in existing research. It concludes by looking at key questions for future research on context.
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Content ArticleThis paper in the journal Social Science & Medicine reports from an ethnographic study of hospital planning in England between 2006 and 2009. The authors explored how a policy to centralise hospital services was promoted in national policy documents, how this shifted over time and how it was translated in practice. They found that policy texts defined hospital planning as a clinical issue and framed decisions to close hospitals or hospital departments as based on the evidence and necessary to ensure safety. They argue that this clinical rationale is sometimes a false reframing of a political motivation, that it constrains public participation in decisions about the delivery and organisation of healthcare, and that it restricts the extent to which alternatives can be considered.
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Content Article'The state of care in NHS acute hospitals 2014 to 2016' presents findings from the Care Quality Commission (CQC's) programme of NHS acute comprehensive inspections. The report captures what has been learned from three years’ worth of inspections. It gives a baseline on quality that is unique in the world – and also shows that it is possible, even in challenging times, to deliver the transformational change that is needed if the NHS is to continue delivering high-quality care into the future.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Melanie Ottewill, National Investigator and Senior Investigation Science Educator at HSIB, shares some key messages from a recent seminar delivered by Tracey Herlihey, Head of Patient Safety Incident Response Policy and Lauren Mosley, Head of Patient Safety Implementation at NHS England. The seminar looked at the new Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) published in August 2022. PSIRF fundamentally shifts how the NHS responds to patient safety incidents for learning and improvement, promoting a proportionate approach to responding to patient safety incidents. It focuses on ensuring resources allocated to investigating and learning are balanced with those needed to deliver improvement. Melanie describes the cultural shift needed to implement PSIRF so it really makes a difference, and talks about the important of compassionate engagement.
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Content ArticleIntegrated care systems (ICSs) and provider collaboratives are ushering in a move towards more collaborative working across organisations in health, social care and the voluntary and community sector – and digital health technologies have an important role to play. Digital technologies can help information and communication to flow across organisations, people and places, bringing benefits for both patients and staff, eg, fewer tests, improved patient safety, reduced costs and saving both patients and staff time. However, using digital health technologies to overcome silos, often referred to as interoperability, has been a longstanding challenge. The King's Fund undertook research to understand how to progress interoperability in health and care.
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Content ArticleThis article explores the question of why change management was an issue in the NHS in the 1980s. It reports the results of a study which explored reasons for variability in the observed rate and pace of strategic service change in the NHS. The article introduces the metaphor of 'receptive' and 'non-receptive' contexts for change, as well as outlining eight 'signs and symptoms' of receptivity. It provides a logic and language which may enable a better understanding of the processes of change in the NHS.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Jeremy Hunt MP, Founder of Patient Safety Watch, argues against introducing more targets for GPs. The new Health Secretary, Therese Coffey MP, plans to introduce a target to ensure that all patients see their GP within two weeks. The blog highlights two issues with this approach: Setting a new target won’t make it a reality Having too many targets result is a system that depersonalises patients, deprofessionalises frontline staff and means it is difficult for health services to prioritise It then proposes that the health system should learn from the UK education system's approach to regulatory oversight, which is aimed at driving up standards, rather than achieving grades.
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Content ArticleHospital boards members are charged with developing appropriate organisational strategies and cultures and have an important role to play in safeguarding the care provided by their organisation. However, recent concerns have been raised over boards’ ability to enact their duty to ensure the quality and safety of care. This paper in BMC Health Services Research provides a critical reflection on the relationship between hospital board oversight and patient safety. It highlights new perspectives and suggestions for developing this area of study.
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EventuntilHow can we better support nurses and midwives to flourish and thrive in their work? Join the King's Fund at this free online event to discuss the changes needed to empower nurses and midwives to shape and provide the compassionate, high-quality care that they aspire to in a sustainable way – through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. The conversation will explore: workplace stressors, work conditions and ways of working – including workload, shift patterns and supervision – that have an impact on nurse and midwife wellbeing, and how these can be positively transformed organisational cultures and leadership styles – including those around diversity and inclusion, psychological safety and compassionate leadership at all levels – that need to be cultivated, and how progress can be achieved lessons and examples of good practice from across the health and care system, from both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Register
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EventuntilThis virtual conference from The King's Fund will share practical ideas about transforming work and workplace cultures. It will explore how leadership and teamworking influences people’s work experiences, releasing their full potential to drive improved outcomes for patients and citizens. Discuss with other local health and care leaders how to create compassionate cultures with improved support for staff to make sure that the NHS and social care organisations are good employers and great places to work. Register
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EventuntilThe story of Alison Bell, and her family's uncovering of the truth about what happened to her in the care of an NHS Trust will be told by her brother Tom. He will describe the nature of the various investigations that were held into Alison's death and the role of the prevailing cultures within the public sector organisations they have dealt with; the NHS, Police, CPS and Regulatory Bodies. This true and ongoing story shines a light on the personal, emotional and financially costly impact that public sector service cultures can have on the lives of their service-users and their own bottom-line. Tom’s lived and current experience will help us to explore the implications for our own practice and the organisations we might seek to influence, manage and lead. Registration
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Content ArticleThose who have read Professor Edmondson's book "The Fearless Organization" will know that psychological safety is required for team high-performance. Psychological safety is defined as "a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes". If you do not feel safe in a group, you are likely to keep ideas to yourself and avoid speaking up, even about risks. Furthermore, if mistakes are held against you, you then look to avoid making mistakes and so stop taking risks, rather than making the most out of your talents. Low psychological safety, therefore, gets in the way of both team performance, innovation, learning, and personal success. For you to be successful in your team, and "as a team", psychological safety is the enabler. In collaboration with professor Amy C. Edmondson, The Fearless Organization has developed 'The Fearless Organization Scan'. This scan maps how team members perceive the level of psychological safety in their closest context. To improve team performance, it helps to know the Psychological Safety levels in your team, as this is a critical predictor of how your team will learn and work together. By improving the level of psychological safety, you significantly increase the likelihood of team success.
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Content ArticleCOVID-19 has disrupted many industries and reshaped the way most organisations operate. Healthcare organisations have been especially affected by the disruptive force of this global pandemic. Yet all hope is not lost. Gallup analytics discovered that business units experiencing disruption are at an increased advantage and more resilient than their peers when employee engagement is strong.
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Content ArticleRobbie Powell, 10, from Ystradgynlais, Powys, died at Swansea's Morriston Hospital, of Addison's disease in 1990. Four months earlier Addison's disease had been suspected by paediatricians at this hospital, when an ACTH test was ordered but was not carried out. Although Robbie's GPs were informed of the suspicion of Addison's disease, the need for the ACTH test and that Robbie should be immediately admitted back to hospital, if he became unwell, this crucial and lifesaving information was not communicated to Robbie's parents. At the time of Robbie's death, the Swansea Coroner refused the Powells' request for an inquest claiming that the child had died of natural causes. However, the Powells secured a 'Fiat' [Court Order] from the Attorney General in 2000 and an inquest took place in 2004, fourteen years after Robbie died. The verdict was 'natural causes contributed by neglect' confirming that an inquest should have taken place in 1990. Since Robbie's death, his father Will Powell, has mounted a long campaign to get a public inquiry into Robbie's case.
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