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Showing results for tags 'Organisational culture'.
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News ArticleTheatre staff at a major hospital “deliberately slowed down” elective activity to limit the number of operations that could be done each day, an NHS England review has been told. The culture in theatres at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, run by East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust, was a “significant issue” according to an education quality intervention review report into trauma and orthopaedic training at the hospital. The review, dated October and made public by NHSE in December 2023, was launched after concerns were raised by staff at the trust in the General Medical Council’s national training survey, published every July. Problems raised by junior doctors and their supervisors to the NHSE review included perceptions that juniors were made to feel uncomfortable by the trauma theatre team and that there was also “animosity” from the trauma theatre team towards surgeons. The review said trauma theatre staff were heard “bragging” about their behaviour towards surgeons and that they resisted the number of cases scheduled on a list, claiming it was “unrealistic". Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 January 2024
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Content ArticleThis project aimed at understanding and tackling the barriers to sufficient hydration, breaks and refreshment facilities for NHS staff. Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was keen to introduce the Royal College of Nursing's (RCN) rest, rehydrate and refuel initiative, and did so through a project led by one of the chief nurse clinical fellows. First, staff were surveyed to understand the current situation and any barriers they may face. This was followed by a trial on two pilot wards, before roll our of a trust-wide campaign.
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Content Article
Monitor: The role of boards in improving patient safety (2010)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Boards
Patient care inevitably raises issues of safety. Safety measures can never be failsafe, but they can always be improved. The aim of this publication is to offer guidance to boards on helping to bring about these improvements. The publication was developed by Monitor for NHS foundation trusts, though its principles apply equally to other NHS settings. It draws on evidence and best practices from UK pilot sites, and also taps the experience of healthcare providers in other developed countries who use similar principles and approaches. The field research and work with the UK pilot sites took place between October 2009 and March 2010. -
Content ArticleThis guide by the Health Foundation can be used to make the case for improvement to policy, executive, operational and front-line audiences, and to initiate and support conversations about the benefits of improvement approaches among key stakeholders. The guide is divided into four broad areas improvement approaches can benefit: the health and care workforce patients, service users and society organisations and system-level bodies. Specific examples are given for each area, illustrating the diverse and multi-faceted benefits that come from improvement approaches.
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Content ArticleAfter an extreme traumatic event there are things that you can do to help yourself, and your colleagues, to move on. Fiona Day, medical and public health leadership coach and chartered coaching psychologist, Stacey Killick, consultant paediatrician at Glan Clwyd Hospital, and Lucy Easthope, professor in practice at Durham University’s Institute of Hazard, Risk, and Resilience and adviser on disaster recovery give their tips in this BMJ article.
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Content ArticleThis open letter penned by four senior female NHS doctors outlines the issues caused by ongoing misogyny in the medical profession in Wales. They call for real change to ensure that the trainees and medical students of the future do not experience the same harassment, inappropriate comments and bullying from senior colleagues that each of them can recall during their careers. "The four of us have risen to senior leadership positions in our respective specialties. We work in cancer, general practice, psychiatry and HIV medicine. And every single one of us can think of experiences from our own career that at the time we ignored, brushed off, pretended not to hear or not to see–but we saw, we heard, and we still remember."
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Content Article
#StayAndThrive podcast (10 May 2023)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Workforce and resources
in this podcast, Mark Doblas, lead clinical practice facilitator at Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust and Ruby Faruqi, Stay and Thrive matron at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Trust, share their first-hand experience of being international recruits to the NHS. They talk about how the #StayAndThrive programme has enabled them to support international recruits in their respective organisations. Simon Littlefield, director of nursing and integrated care at St. Georges, Epsom and St. Helier NHS Trust (GESH) explores the role of leaders in setting a culture that welcomes new international recruits. -
Content Article
In the past, long before Covid, doctors used to openly discuss complex cases and unexpected deaths on an anonymous basis either in the doctors' mess or in medical grand rounds hosted by their hospital’s clinical education department. What's happened to these forums for learning? Are these clinical conversations alive and well, and helping doctors and nurses alike to learn from safety incidents? Or have medical grand rounds disappeared from practice?- Posted
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A story of a bereaved mother’s experience with the Coroner's Service in the aftermath of her previously well 25-year-old daughter Gaia’s unexpected and unexplained death and why she set up TruthForGaia.com in her search for the truth. This case demonstrates systemic failings in the Coroner Service: the dismissive way that bereaved family members are treated through the inquest process and a lack of clinical curiosity to determine the primary cause of death. This inconclusive inquest prompts wider questions about who speaks up for the dead. Just as we have Martha’s rule in life, should there be a Gaia’s rule in death to help families be heard about failed inquests? Gaia’s death and failed inquest are chilling reminders that this could happen to any one of us and our families. -
Content ArticleRob Behrens reflects on the work the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has done over the last year to drive improvements in patient safety.
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Content ArticleThis chapter from Lucian Leape's book Making Healthcare Safe: The Story of the Patient Safety Movement examines the history of the patient safety movement in the UK. It looks at Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson's publication of An organisation with a memory, the establishment and subsequent reorganisation of the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) and other patient safety efforts by the Government across the UK.
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Content ArticleThe Right Honourable Sir Anthony Hooper was asked by the General Medical Council (GMC) on 5 September 2014 to conduct an independent review of how the GMC engage with individuals who regard themselves as whistleblowers. Here is the GMC's action plan to address the recommendations in the Anthony Hooper’s review.
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Content ArticleEfforts to increase physician engagement in quality and safety are most often approached from an organisational or administrative perspective. Given hospital-based physicians’ strong professional identification, physician-led strategies may offer a novel strategic approach to enhancing physician engagement. It remains unclear what role medical leadership can play in leading programmes to enhance physician engagement. In this study, Rotteau et al. explore physicians’ experience of participating in a Medical Safety Huddle initiative and how participation influences engagement with organisational quality and safety efforts. They found that The Medical Safety Huddle initiative supports physician engagement in quality and safety through intrinsic motivation. However, the huddles’ implementation must align with the organisation’s multipronged patient safety agenda to support multidisciplinary collaborative quality and safety efforts and leaders must ensure mechanisms to consistently address reported safety concerns for sustained physician engagement.
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TED talk: Tribal leadership (Ted Logan, March 2009)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Leadership
David Logan talks about the five kinds of tribes that humans naturally form—in schools, workplaces, even the driver's license office. He argues that by understanding our shared tribal tendencies, we can help lead each other to become better individuals. -
Content ArticleIn a video and article published in Trends in Urology and Men's Health, Peter Duffy shares his experience of what it is to be a whistle-blower in the NHS, in the context of historical scandals of UK healthcare and whistleblowing, examining the roles of the NHS itself, the regulators and the law in the ensuing events.
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Content ArticleIn this opinion piece for the BMJ, Scarlett McNally looks at the issue of sexual assault and harassment by and against NHS staff. She argues that rather than focusing solely on reporting mechanisms, there needs to be more emphasis on prevention. In order to change the culture in NHS workplaces, all members of the team need to consider how they may contribute to a culture that allows sexual misconduct to happen.
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The Cultural Awareness Hub
Sam posted an article in Safety culture programmes
The Cultural Awareness Hub is a national service which provides interactive, expert experience and sustainable workshops which offer unique insights into culture and history for all organisations working with and supporting the public. It helps organisations to understand and identify barriers to services, while providing realistic and achievable solutions to ensure effective and efficient collaborative engagement is embedded with all communities. The training is developed to transform knowledge and empower both participants and the communities they are supporting. Understanding and respecting different cultures and communities is essential to ensure all services provide personalised care. Training provided through The Cultural Awareness Hub is subject to a fee, please contact us for more information. To find out more and to discuss creating your own training package, please contact TheCulturalAwarenessHub@EELGA.gov.uk. -
Content Article
This advocacy brief aims to raise awareness and calls for action to step up patient engagement in healthcare, in line with the objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2023. Its content was structured to follow the outline of the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030, which defines and makes recommendations to stakeholder groups. -
Content Article
In this blog, Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive Helen Hughes reflects on the charity’s work and some of the key patient safety developments in the past 12 months and looks ahead to 2024. -
News Article
Culture progress sees NHS Highland escalation eased
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS Highland will no longer receive extra government support in leadership, governance or culture, following improvements after the Sturrock review. The board was initially escalated to Stage 3 of NHS performance escalation framework in 2018 following concerns of a culture of workforce bullying and harassment. An independent report by John Sturrock QC, commissioned by the Scottish government, confirmed “fear, intimidation and inappropriate behaviour” and called for wide-ranging changes. The Healing Process was created in response, with an independent review panel established to speak to victims of bullying and come up with recommendations for the health board to make improvements. A total of 272 current and former NHS Highland and local health and social care partnership staff provided testimony between 2019 and March this year, with more than £2.8m paid out to those affected by bullying. Concerns were raised by some of the first people to go through the healing process that the system was “broken” and many victims could end up “bitterly disappointed”. The board has also established systems and processes to allow colleagues to speak up in the wake of the Sturrock Review, including an independent Guardian Service and staff training in Courageous Conversations. NHS Highland was handed oversight of its own escalation and de-escalation, rather than a Scottish government-led oversight group, in November 2021. Following a letter of assurance from the board chair earlier this year, the Chief Executive of NHS Scotland, Caroline Lamb, agreed to the de-escalation in September. Independent progress tracking shows the board has delivered significantly against many actions laid out by the review but the board concluded in its final June update that ‘culture change is not yet embedded at all levels of our organisation’. Read full story Source: Health and Care Scotland, 2023 -
Content ArticleJames Titcombe, Melanie Leis, and Peter Howitt delineate the major themes of a roundtable to address challenges in improving patient safety, emphasising the need for data sharing nuances, cultural shifts, optimising limited resources, prioritising workforce plans, and staff well-being.
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News ArticleWomen in labour at a London maternity unit deemed “inadequate” were left alone with unsupervised support workers who were not given any guidance, an NHS safety watchdog has found. In a scathing report of North Middlesex Hospital’s maternity services, the Care Quality Commission also found examples of delays to induction of birth for women, and one case of a woman with a still-born baby who was left waiting for the unit to call her in for an induction. Inspectors have downgraded the maternity unit from “good” to the lowest possible rating “inadequate” following an inspection earlier this year. Staff reportedly told inspectors they felt they were “criticised” or “bullied” when reporting safety incidents within the unit. “We heard that the criticism or bullying was worse if the incident reported was relative to other staff and their perceived behaviours,” the report said. There was also evidence the hospital was not recording the severity of safety incidents correctly for example two “never events”, which are among the highest category incidents, were categorised as “low harm”. Other findings included women and babies came to harm as the hospitals did not follow standards to language interpretation despite covering a higher than average minority ethnic population. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 December 2023
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Content ArticleMartha Mills was 13 when she tragically died due to a series of medical errors. In this video by the Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF), Martha's mother Merope Mills tells her story and aims to raise awareness about the consequences of medical errors. Merope advocates for improved patient safety measures including the introduction of Martha's Rule, which will allow patients and their families to trigger an urgent clinical review from a different team if they are in hospital, are deteriorating rapidly and feel they are not getting the care they need.
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News Article
Black Country doctors back vote of no confidence in management
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Doctors at a Black Country mental health trust have backed a vote of no confidence in their management team. Sources say that the Black Country Healthcare NHS Trust is not acting in the best interests of patients and they believe it wants to cut beds. They also have no confidence in the way that the trust has removed its chief medical officer, Mark Weaver. The NHS Trust said it was aware of concerns and had agreed to work on them going forward. The doctors wrote to the trust board following a meeting of the Medical Advisory Committee claiming that over the past two years the relationship with the board had become fractured. In the letter they claimed the voice of doctors was not being taken seriously by the board and that clinical priorities were secondary to financial performance. They also said they were seriously disturbed with the way in which Mr Weaver had been asked to step down and that the deputy chief medical officer Dr Sharada Abilash had not been asked to take over while due process occurred. Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 December 2023 -
Content ArticleLucy Letby was allowed to continue working with new-born babies despite her colleagues raising concerns about her for months. Her conviction highlighted how NHS executives put the reputation of the Countess of Chester NHS Trust ahead of patient safety. But what happened in Cheshire was far from a one-off. File on 4 hears from doctors with unblemished medical careers who were sacked after raising patient safety concerns. The programme follows one medic through an Employment Tribunal as he attempts to save his career, and hears the emotional, brutal toll the process takes on him. For the first time, a top doctor who won record damages talks about the extraordinary steps her managers took to undermine her. Their tactics included relocating her to an empty office with a broken chair and telling colleagues that she agreed with their assessment she was incompetent. And a former NHS executive tells the programme that trusts are more interested in “flying LGBT flags” than tackling concerns about patient safety. With widespread calls for NHS managers to be regulated, File on 4 asks who should take on the role, given the willingness of the NHS to redeploy managers found to have ignored patient safety concerns, or even punished those who dared to raise them.
