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Content ArticleThe prolonged illness experienced by many patients following acute COVID-19 has been termed ‘Long Covid’ by the self-organised patient groups formed on platforms like Facebook. Some of these patients have now been symptomatic for over a year. Long Covid impacts on ability to work, which has implications for employers, occupational health (OH) services and the wider economy. Clare Rayner and Richard Campbell discuss this in an article in Occupational Medicine.
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Content ArticleIn healthcare, leadership is decisive in influencing the quality of care and the performance of hospitals. How staff are treated significantly influences care provision and organisational performance so understanding how leaders can help ensure staff are cared for, valued, supported and respected is important. Research suggests ‘inclusion’ is a critical part of the answer, as Roger Kline explains further in this BMJ Opinion article.
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Content Article
How are you feeling today NHS? toolkit (14 January 2019)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Staff safety
It’s easier to recognise someone’s physical wellbeing than their emotional wellbeing. We also find it much easier to engage in conversations about physical health, but often find talking about emotional wellbeing to be more of a challenge. The implications of decreased emotional wellbeing are detrimental as it can contribute to mental health and stress concerns, it is important to ensure good staff wellbeing by encouraging conversation in the workplace. -
Content ArticleThe Point of Care Foundation have developed Team Time in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Team Time is a 45-minute reflective practice that is run and facilitated online and provides an opportunity for people taking part to share experiences of their work in health and social care. As with Schwartz Rounds the focus is on participants’ emotional and social response to their work. However, unlike Schwartz Rounds, the audience is limited in size and is intended to be drawn from an area/department of a health/social care site rather than from across the organisation. The audience will comprise colleagues who have ‘common cause with others in a specialty/pathway’ and consider each other colleagues in the work of that area. Please note that Team Time training is available only to trained Schwartz Rounds facilitators.
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Content ArticleThe NHS risks losing thousands of nurses, doctors and other key workers in the longer term unless they are given the time and space to recover from the pandemic. Without this, the Government will fail to meet its key manifesto target of recruiting an extra 50,000 nurses, and it will take even longer for the NHS to address the impact of the pandemic on waiting times and other services. The NHS Confederation report warns that staff need to recovery time following the past 12 months. The NHS Confederation, which represents the whole health system, is calling on the Government to act now to avert a staffing crisis in the NHS as the country prepares to emerge from a year of restrictions. With the NHS still facing the threat from coronavirus and a massive backlog of treatment, there is a real risk that exhausted NHS staff may leave their roles unless expectations of their workload mean they are allowed time to recover.
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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 ArticleCOVID-19 presents many challenges to healthcare systems internationally, none more so than the significant reporting among healthcare workers (HCWs) of occupational fatigue and burnout or Long COVID related symptoms. Consensus on the extent of HCW fatigue during the pandemic remains largely unknown, as levels of Long COVID related fatigue in HCWs appears to be on the rise. What is known is that, among current levels, impacts of fatigue on HCW well-being and performance is likely. Developing strategies to mitigate fatigue are the responsibilities of all healthcare system stakeholders. Leadership that goes beyond organisational efforts of mitigating fatigue through mandated working hour limits alone are needed.
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Content ArticleHealthcare workers are among the heroes of the pandemic. One year in, many of us are experiencing stress, fatigue, and grief. But this can pale in comparison to the toll faced by those caring for the sick and dying on a daily basis. On the latest episode of The Dose, we listen to the stories of one group of frontline health workers: nurses. Often dealing with inadequate PPE and staff shortages, nurses are putting their own lives at risk — and many are experiencing burnout and exhaustion. In this podcast, guest, Mary Wakefield, takes us on a journey from rural hospitals to clinics in underserved areas, all through the eyes of nurses.
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Content ArticleTo safeguard patient safety and the wellbeing of healthcare staff, a realistic approach to tackling the backlog of non-COVID care is needed. NHS and public health services have been running ‘hot’ for a prolonged period of time and an overstretched and exhausted workforce must now be given time to rest and recuperate as they meet the challenges ahead. If staff are being pushed too hard to restore routine care in an unrealistic timeframe and without suitable resources, the likelihood is that we will see a workforce squeeze due to a combination of increasingly high staff absence rates and staff reducing their hours or leaving the workforce altogether. This would make it harder for health services to get back on track and provide timely and safe care to patients who need it.
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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
RCOG/RCM: Undermining toolkit
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Maternity
The undermining toolkit is an RCOG/Royal College of Midwives (RCM) initiative to address the challenge of undermining and bullying behaviour in maternity and gynaecology services. The toolkit is divided into four sections that can be used independently: Strategic interventions - Recommendations for over-arching institutions such as the wider NHS, GMC, RCOG, RCM and others Unit, trust and local education provider interventions- Recommendations for trusts and hospitals Departmental and team interventions - Recommendations for departments, particularly around team working between obstetricians and midwives Individual interventions - Recommendations for individual victims and perpetrators of undermining. Follow the link below for more information. -
Content ArticleFrom infection control to maintaining safe staffing levels, the COVID-19 pandemic has helped to highlight the intrinsic link between patient safety and staff safety. At the recent Future of Hospitals event from Health Plus Care Online, Helen Hughes, Patient Safety Learning's CEO, Timothy Clark, Founder & CEO of Leader Factor, and Claire Cox, Guys and St Thomas' Hospital, explore this further, considering how ensuring staff safety supports making improvements to patient safety. They consider the essential role that creating a psychologically safe workplace plays in enabling staff to speak up and effectively tackle incidents of unsafe care.
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Content ArticleThe Health Innovation Network's Patient Safety and Experience team have been working with behavioural insights specialists to create materials based on a behavioural science approach to support frontline health and care staff to prioritise their physical health and emotional wellbeing needs that may have been neglected due to the impact of COVID-19. The campaign takes a peer to peer approach since it was found staff can struggle to identify signs of stress in themselves and are better at spotting this within colleagues.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic provides a stark reminder of the importance of health worker safety. Inadequate personal protection equipment (PPE) has been a problem in many settings and there have been too many examples of health workers becoming infected and dying from COVID-19.The harsh consequences of inequalities have also been laid bare by the pandemic. In countries such as the UK and USA, a disproportionate number of infections and COVID-19 deaths have occurred among Black and ethnic minority communities and people in the lowest socioeconomic groups. But what the COVID-19 pandemic has also made clear is how dependent patient safety is on health worker safety. It is crucial to highlight that there can be no patient safety without health worker safety. As in previous outbreaks of Ebola virus disease, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and severe acute respiratory syndrome, only when health workers are safe can they keep patients safe and provide health systems with stability and resilience.
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Content Article
It has become imperative that we discuss the issue of mental health in doctors and other healthcare staff. The mental wellbeing of a healthcare staff forms the bedrock of patient safety. It takes a safe and supported person to deliver safe healthcare and we must give this attention as we try to find ways to improve the quality of care within our healthcare systems. Ehi Iden, hub topic lead for Occupational Health and Safety, OSHAfrica, reflects on the increasing workload and pressure healthcare professionals face, the impact this has on patient safety and why we need to start 're-humanising' the workplace. -
Content ArticleThis study by Sexton et al. was performed to determine whether health care worker (HCW) assessments of good institutional support for second victims were associated with institutional safety culture and workforce well-being. They found that perceived institutional support for second victims was associated with a better safety culture and lower emotional exhaustion. Investment in programmes to support second victims may improve overall safety culture and HCW well-being.
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Content ArticlePatient safety incidents can have significant effects on both patients and health professionals, including emotional distress and depression. This, published in British Journal of Surgery (BJS) Open, study explores the personal and professional impacts of surgical incidents on operating theatre staff. This study, published in BJS Open, involved 45 face-to-face interviews, with participants including surgeons, anaesthetists, scrub nurses, ODPs and healthcare assistants. The authors state that the results indicate that more support is needed for operating theatre staff involved in surgical incidents. They also suggest that there needs to be greater transparency and better information during the investigation of such incidents for staff.
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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 Article
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At Patient Safety Learning we believe that sharing insights and learning is vital to improving outcomes and reducing harm. That's why we created the hub; providing a space for people to come together and share their experiences, resources and good practice examples. This month, our Content and Engagement Manager, Steph, has hand-picked seven resources, particularly relevant for patient safety managers working in hospital settings. Shared with us by hub members and patient safety advocates, they are jam-packed with practical tools and rich insights. -
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 systematic review, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, looks at different support resources in healthcare organisation that are available to healthcare professionals who have been involved in a patient safety incident. The authors identify a range of challenges to the implementation of these, including persistent blame culture, limited awareness of program availability, and lack of financial resources.
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Content ArticleAfter an investigation of an event, it’s important to touch base with the healthcare team and everyone involved so they can get some closure. This is an important part of the healing process that we have neglected too often. Alberta Health Services provide tips on how to support staff involved in adverse events.
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Content Article
Should HR be worried about Long Covid? (28 January 2021)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Blogs
With 1 in 10 people with coronavirus still have debilitating symptoms six months on, people professionals will need to keep sickness policies and return to work front of mind writes Elizabeth Howlett in this article for People Management. -
Content ArticleA "Fair and Just Culture" supports learning from unsafe acts that result in potential or real harm as a way to prevent future errors. A fair and just culture strikes a balance between a punitive culture and a blame free culture. Differentiating acceptable from unacceptable behaviour associated with harmful events requires a consistent approach to determine culpability of individuals against system flaws that contribute to unsafe acts. More than one unsafe act by more than one individual can contribute to an event. For optimal learning and fair treatment of staff, each act should be considered individually using the same structured approach.
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Content ArticleInterventions to decrease burnout and increase well-being in health care workers (HCWs) and improve organizational safety culture are urgently needed. This study from Sexton et al. was conducted to determine the association between Positive Leadership WalkRounds (PosWR), an organizational practice in which leaders conduct rounds and ask staff about what is going well, and HCW well-being and organizational safety culture.
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