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Showing results for tags 'Staff factors'.
Found 844 results
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan discuss resilience, the importance of recovery and how we can build resilience.
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Content ArticleThis study by Hall et al. looked at whether there is an association between healthcare professionals’ wellbeing and burnout, with patient safety. The authors found that poor wellbeing and moderate to high levels of burnout are associated, in the majority of studies reviewed, with poor patient safety outcomes such as medical errors, however the lack of prospective studies reduces the ability to determine causality. Further prospective studies, research in primary care, conducted within the UK, and a clearer definition of healthcare staff wellbeing are needed.
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Content ArticleThe National Guardian’s Office today publishes its Annual Report for 2020, highlighting the progress which has been made in Freedom to Speak Up in health and the impact of the pandemic on speaking up.
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Content Article
Freedom to Speak Up Guardian survey 2020
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Speak Up Guardians
This is the fourth year that the National Guardian’s Office has surveyed Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in order to understand how speaking up is supported within organisations. Their views give valuable insights into both how the Guardian role is implemented and what further support and learning is needed to truly create a culture where speaking up is business as usual. The results also reveal details about their perceptions of the barriers to speaking up, the sources of detriment for speaking up and the network’s demographics. -
Content ArticleThe Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) programme has now been collecting data on race inequality for five years, holding up a mirror to the service and revealing the disparities that exist for black and minority ethnic staff compared to their white colleagues. The findings of this report do not make for a comfortable read, and nor should they. The evidence from each WRES report over the years has shown that our black and minority ethnic staff members are less well represented at senior levels, have measurably worse day to day experiences of life in NHS organisations, and have more obstacles to progressing in their careers. The persistence of outcomes like these is not something that any of us should accept. It is in recognition of these realities that the People Plan 2020/21 has ‘belonging’ as one of its four pillars.
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Content ArticleThis study, published in Occupational Medicine, aimed to identify the rates of probable mental health disorder in staff working in intensive care units in nine English hospitals during June and July 2020. Results showed: Almost half of intensive care unit staff who participated in this study report symptoms consistent with a probable diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression or anxiety or problem drinking. Around one in seven intensive care unit staff in this study report recent thoughts of self-harm or of wanting to be better off dead. Nursing staff in this study were more likely to report higher levels of distress than doctors or other clinical staff.
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Content Article
Addressing the risk of moral injury (February 2021)
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Staff safety
This blog, published by the Good Governance Institute, looks at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the mental health of frontline intensive care unit (ICU) staff - within the context of moral injury. Moral injury refers to the intense psychological distress which can follow the taking of actions, or inaction, which strongly clash with someone’s moral or ethical code. This blog includes advice for Boards on how to begin to respond and support their workforce. -
Content ArticleNHS Solent share their policy on healthcare workers screening and immunisation. The primary purpose of this policy is to reduce the risk of transmission of infection (as far as reasonably practical) from an infected healthcare worker-to-patient. The main known risks of infection through bloodborne virus in the clinical setting are from hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. This measure is not intended to prevent those healthcare workers from working in the NHS but rather to restrict them from working in clinical areas where their infection may pose a risk to patients in their care and by early diagnosis; allows them to manage their own health.
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Content ArticleThe number of intrapartum stillbirths referred to the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) between April and the end of June 2020 increased compared to the same time in the previous year. The data initiated a HSIB national learning report, which explores the findings from their maternity investigations during this time. They investigated intrapartum (labour) stillbirths after 37 weeks, where a baby was thought to be alive at the start of labour and was born with no signs of life.
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Content ArticleThe Royal College of Midwives is calling for "common sense" from NHS trusts and boards on staff access to water and other drinks. The college is concerned that the health and wellbeing of midwives could be in jeopardy as a result of having limited opportunities to stay hydrated on long, hot shifts. .In new guidance to its members, the RCM sets out the importance of staying hydrated on shift and the potential implications of not doing so. These included an impact on decision making, memory, attention span, mood and tiredness. The document also debunks myths suggesting that having fluid bottles on units is a cross infection risk.
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Content ArticleThis is the National Guardian's Office annual data report covering the 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021. It analyses the themes and learning from the speaking up data shared by Freedom to Speak Up Guardians across this period. There are over 700 Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in the NHS and there were 20,388 cases raised with them in 2020/21.
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Content ArticleThis list, produced by the Health and Safety Executive, bullet points the job, person and organisation factors that influence human performance.
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Content ArticlePsychological safety, a shared belief that interpersonal risk taking is safe, is an important determinant of incident reporting. However, how psychological safety affects near-miss reporting is unclear, as near misses contain contrasting cues that highlight both resilience (“we avoided failure”) and vulnerability (“we nearly failed”). Near misses offer learning opportunities for addressing underlying causes of potential incidents, and it is crucial to understand what facilitates near-miss reporting. This study by Jung et al. found near misses are not processed and reported equally. The effect of psychological safety on reporting near misses becomes stronger with their increasing proximity to a negative outcome. Educating healthcare workers to properly identify near misses and fostering psychological safety may increase near-miss reporting and improve patient safety.
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Content Article
HPMA newsletters
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Leadership for patient safety
The Healthcare People Management Association (HPMA) is the professional voice of HR in healthcare. Set up over 40 years ago, it has over 4,000 members ranging from HR directors and deputy directors through to trusts and CCGs. Its aim is to support and develop HR staff to improve the people management contribution in healthcare and ultimately improve patient care. -
Content ArticleIn this report, Exploring Freedom to Speak Up: Supporting the introduction of the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian role in Primary Care and Integrated Settings, the National Guardian's Office illustrates the challenges and benefits of implementing Freedom to Speak Up in different primary care settings. In 2019, the National Guardian’s Office began a two-year project working with primary care providers to understand how the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian role could be introduced in primary care and integrated settings. This report describes some of the variety of organisations, and the different Freedom to Speak Up models they have adopted.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic has imposed extraordinary strains on healthcare workers. But, in contrast with acute settings, relatively little attention has been given to those who work in mental health settings. Liberati et al. aimed to characterise the experiences of those working in English NHS secondary mental health services during the first wave of the pandemic.
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Content ArticleIn 2019 the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) carried out a survey which evidenced the extent of non-consultant hospital doctors’ concerns about different aspects of their ability to deliver out of hours care. Respondents were also asked to give examples or aspirations of best practice. This report uses this survey data and examples of best practice to provide a proactive guideline to support trainee surgeons. The survey found that there were five key areas requiring improvement for nonconsultant hospital doctors when working OOH, specifically: a) electronic systems; b) supervision; c) training; d) staffing; e) facilities. This document considers the results of the survey to make recommendations on best practice that will support non-consultant hospital doctors and protect patients out of hours.
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Content ArticleThis article, published by the National Health Executive, is written by John Duncan, the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust.John argues that:"Driving positive change around inclusion will help ensure the NHS has a motivated, included and valued workforce; one where everyone has equal access to career opportunities and receives fair treatment in the workplace. This, in turn, will allow us to continue to deliver high quality patient care, achieve increased patient satisfaction and high levels of patient safety."Read the full article through the link below.
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Content ArticleWhile healthcare quality has been improving on average in OECD members countries, patient safety remains a central priority for policy makers and health care leaders. A growing research body has found that patient safety culture (PSC) is associated with numerous positive outcomes, including improved health outcomes, improved patient experience, and organisational productivity and staff satisfaction. Tools to measure PSC have proliferated in recent decades and are now in wide-spread use. This report includes findings from OECD countries on the state of the art for measurement practices related to PSC. Overall, measurement of PSC is prevalent across OECD countries, though the application, purpose, and tools vary. International learning and benchmarking has significant potential for better understanding and improvement of patient safety and health care quality.
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Content ArticleDoctor Laura Mount reveals in a new series in the Guardian how staff sickness, spiralling waiting lists and political pressure have left GPs on the brink.
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Content ArticleWhen students enter medical school or junior doctors start specialist training, they don’t aim to be a “good enough” doctor—they want to be the best. However, we make mistakes or a patient has complained. It’s likely that someone picked up the error and no harm resulted, and the complaint may not be deserved—but still it punctures your pride and reminds you that you’re not perfect. It may even make you question whether you’re good enough. None of us is perfect, and self-criticism can wear us down or burn us out. Helen Salisbury in this BMJ article, suggests however, that in the long term we’re of more use to the world if we can live with our errors, share them, and learn from them. Our patients would prefer that we never made any, but they accept that we’re human and fallible. Learning to admit those errors to patients, and to say sorry, is one of the hardest but most important steps to becoming a good enough doctor.
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Content ArticleImproving patient safety culture (PSC) is a significant priority for OECD countries as they work to improve healthcare quality and safety—a goal that has increased in importance as countries have faced new safety concerns connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from this OECD benchmarking work in PSC show that there is significant room for improvement.
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Content ArticleProviders led by GPs of an ethnic minority background have raised with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) concerns that they do not receive the same regulatory outcomes from CQC as providers led by GPs of a non-ethnic minority background. To investigate and respond to these concerns, CQC started a programme of work in February 2021. The focus of this has been on how CQC's regulatory approach affects ethnic minority-led GP practices and how it can improve its methods to address any inequalities identified.
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Content ArticleAfter nearly two years of pandemic, 5,000 inpatients and 1,000 deaths, the staff of one of the largest hospitals in north-west England are frustrated and exhausted. While ministers talk of encouraging signs that the Omicron wave may be receding in parts of England, staff at the Royal Preston are struggling to keep their heads above water. The hospital has seen a near four-fold increase in Covid patients since Christmas Day, rising to 103 last week. It is one of the largest hospitals in a region with the highest infection levels in the UK and two neighbouring NHS Trusts have declared critical incidents. Despite a recent slowdown in admissions, the “horrendous” levels of staff absence means the pressure is ratcheting up.
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Content ArticleThe CQC inspection framework now includes multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) for end of life care, tumours and weekly MDTs for people with complex needs. However lack of time and staff availability for this is a real problem. MDTs are under increasing pressure and are already seeing an erosion of their power to assure safe and appropriate care. Anecdotally, non-attendance by key MDT members is a significant quality issue for many hospitals. This is not a problem of engagement — all MDT members and are willing to provide input — but staffing pressures and the complexity of rostering makes holding these MDT meetings near-impossible. So how do we stop this degradation? How can hospitals better manage the burgeoning requirement for MDTs? One possible answer is to change the emphasis from a single meeting to a managed series of recorded opinions and decisions. If properly supported by the right workflow technology, we can move away from the ‘single-point’ MDT meeting (MDTM) to a ‘multi-point’ MDT process (MDTP) which could allow better and more auditable decisions to be made. Where significant differences of opinion exist, then a meeting can be called – but the MDT members could act independently and in parallel using a suitable recording and monitoring system. In this article, Dr D J Hamblin-Brown explains how this might work.
