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Healthcare systems are trying to reduce “low-value” work, which are tasks that waste time without improving patient outcomes. While low-value clinical treatments are identified through strong evidence, patient safety practices often originate informally and lack clear proof of benefit. Many persist because they provide emotional reassurance or a sense of protection for staff, making them harder to remove. A new article by researchers from the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber PSRC highlights that de-implementing low-value patient safety practices requires different approaches than reducing low-value clinical care, as their origins and meanings are more complex.

Clinical practices guidelines (CPGs) play a fundamental role in improving healthcare and patients’ outcomes by helping clinicians make the best evidence-based decisions for their patients in a time-efficient manner. By following the available methods and criteria to create trustworthy CPGs, panel members can develop high-quality guidelines. However, despite the improvements over the years, CPGs are still subjected to biases and limitations, with conflicts of interest being the ugliest problem GCPs must face. This review discusses the main characteristics of clinical practice guidelines, their pros and cons, and the future challenges they need to overcome.

The Essentials of Safe Care is a practical package of evidence-based guidance and support that enables Scotland’s health and social care system to deliver safe care. It forms the building blocks for each Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) programme of work. Working in partnership with health and social care teams and several representative bodies across Scotland, the following essentials have been identified as being central to supporting the safe delivery of care across health and care. A people-led approach to the planning and delivery of safe care Effective and inclusive communication Leadership at all levels to support a culture of safety Safe clinical and care processes

NHS England has commenced a review of digital clinical safety standards DCB0129 and DCB0160 to ensure they remain up-to-date, practical and aligned with the latest advancements in healthcare technology and clinical practice. Compliance with these standards is required under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. They provide essential requirements for manufacturers of health IT systems and healthcare providers in assessing and managing clinical risks to ensure the safety of digital solutions used across the NHS and adult social care services in England. NHS England are actively seeking input from a range of stakeholders, including NHS professionals, IT manufacturers and those involved in digital risk assessment. This will support us to review the standards and ensure they remain effective in safeguarding patient safety and practical in their application. To register your interest in participating in a DCB0129 focus group, please complete the expression of interest form by 10 January 2025.

A hospital-acquired pressure ulcer (HAPU) is a localised lesion or injury to the underlying tissue (wound) that happens while a patient is staying in hospital. It occurs when standardised nursing care is not correctly followed in the presence of friction and shear, leading to skin or underlying tissue breakdown. Unfortunately, inadequate knowledge of nurses to assess and provide standardised care for pressure ulcers or manage HAPUs results in patient harm. This study shared lessons from a reported HAPU incident and aimed to address the knowledge gap in patient safety risk assessment, identification and wound management at Nyaho Medical Centre (Accra, Ghana). A review of HAPU incidents was conducted using quality improvement tools such as cause-and-effect analyses to identify contributing factors and root causes. Subsequently, plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles were used to test interventions to improve pressure ulcer assessments and wound management. A run chart was used to analyse and evaluate the interventions over time. Development of policies, SOPs and training for assessing and managing pressure ulcers and wounds reduced the number of HAPUs during the project period. This project demonstrated that the combined use of quality methods and tools can be suitable for improving processes and outcomes for patients at risk for HAPUs.

This policy paper from the Department of Health and Social Care sets out the Government’s response to the recommendations of the investigation into the death of Elizabeth Dixon in respect of the failures of care she received from the NHS. Elizabeth Dixon was a child with special health needs. She had been born prematurely at Frimley Park Hospital on 14 December 2000. Following treatment and care at Great Ormond Street Hospital and a children’s hospice she was nursed at home under a care package. As a result of a failure to clear a tracheostomy tube she asphyxiated and was pronounced dead at Frimley Park hospital on 4 December 2001. The investigation chaired by Dr Bill Kirkup looked at the events surrounding the care of Elizabeth and makes a series of recommendations in respect of the failures in the care she received from the NHS. The report which set out the findings and recommendations of this investigation, The life and death of Elizabeth Dixon: a catalyst for change, was published on the 26 November 2020. This policy paper details the UK Government’s response each of the report’s recommendations. It also highlights a number of areas where action is being taken by government departments, arm’s length bodies and other organisations in response to the investigations recommendations.

Many diagnostic mistakes are caused by reasoning errors, but lack of feedback makes it difficult for healthcare providers to make improvements in this area. This paper, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, describes the reason for and process of developing 'The Diagnosis Learning Cycle', a new model for feedback and improvement in diagnosis. The model is based on theory and knowledge from both outside and within the field of healthcare. It proposes a standardised feedback mechanism that includes concrete measures of factors such as reasoning and confidence.

The Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) is a method that can help clinical teams make care safer by combining improved teamwork, clinical best practices, and the science of safety. The Core CUSP toolkit gives clinical teams the training resources and tools to apply the CUSP method and build their capacity to address safety issues. A number of toolkits are available to help clinical teams adopt the CUSP method to make care safer. Most teams will want to start with the Core CUSP Toolkit to learn key principles of the CUSP method. Once you’ve learned the basics, additional toolkits can help you target certain safety issues in specific settings of care. Created for clinicians by clinicians, the Core CUSP toolkit is modular and modifiable to meet individual unit needs. Each module includes teaching tools and resources to support change at the unit level, presented through facilitator notes that take you step by step through the module, presentation slides, tools, and videos. Learn about CUSP Assemble the Team Engage the Senior Executive Understand the Science of Safety Identify Defects Through Sensemaking Implement Teamwork and Communication Apply CUSP The Role of the Nurse Manager Spread Patient and Family Engagement Learn about CUSP Assemble the Team Engage the Senior Executive Understand the Science of Safety Identify Defects Through Sensemaking Implement Teamwork and Communication Apply CUSP The Role of the Nurse Manager Spread Patient and Family Engagement

A report on the investigation into the death of Elizabeth Dixon and a series of recommendations in respect of the failures in the care she received from the NHS. Elizabeth Dixon was a child with special health needs. She had been born prematurely at Frimley Park Hospital on 14 December 2000. Following treatment and care at Great Ormond Street Hospital and a children’s hospice she was nursed at home under a care package. As a result of a failure to clear a tracheostomy tube she asphyxiated and was pronounced dead at Frimley Park hospital on 4 December 2001. The investigation chaired by Dr Bill Kirkup looked at the events surrounding the care of Elizabeth and makes a series of recommendations in respect of the failures in the care she received from the NHS. Recommendations Hypertension (high blood pressure) in infants is a problem that is under-recognised and inconsistently managed, leading to significant complications. Its profile should be raised with clinicians; there should be a single standard set of charts showing the acceptable range at different ages and gestations; and a single protocol to reduce blood pressure safely. Blood pressure should be incorporated into a single early warning score to alert clinicians to deterioration in children in hospital. Community care for patients with complex conditions or conditions requiring complex care must be properly planned, taking into account and specifying safety, effectiveness and patient experience. The presence of mental or physical disability must not be used to justify or excuse different standards of care. Commissioning of NHS services from private providers should not take for granted the existence of the same systems of clinical governance as are mandated for NHS providers. These must be specified explicitly. Communication between clinicians, particularly when care is handed over from one team or unit to another, must be clear, include all relevant facts and use unambiguous terms. Terms such as palliative care and terminal care may be misleading and should be avoided or clarified. Training in clinical error, reactions to error and responding with honesty, investigation and learning should become part of the core curriculum for clinicians. Although it is true that curricula are already crowded with essential technical and scientific knowledge, it cannot be the case that no room can be found for training in the third leading cause of death in western health systems. Clinical error, openly disclosed, investigated and learned from, must not be subject to blame. Conversely, there should be zero tolerance of cover up, deception and fabrication in any health care setting, not least in the aftermath of error. There should be a clear mechanism to hold individuals to account for giving false information or concealing information relating to public services, and for failing to assist investigations. The Public Authority (Accountability) Bill drawn up in the aftermath of the Hillsborough Independent Panel and Inquests sets out a commendable framework to put this in legislation. It should be re-examined. The existing haphazard system of generating clinical expert witnesses is not fit for purpose. It should be reviewed, taking onto account the clear need for transparent, formalised systems and clinical governance. Professional regulatory and criminal justice systems should contain an inbuilt ‘stop’ mechanism to be activated when an investigation reveals evidence of systematic or organisational failures and which will trigger an appropriate investigation into those wider systemic failures. Scrutiny of deaths should be robust enough to pick up instances of untoward death being passed off as expected. Despite changes to systems for child and adult deaths, concern remains that without independent review such cases may continue to occur. The introduction of medical examiners should be reviewed with a view to making them properly independent. Local health service complaints systems are currently subject to change as part of wider reform of public sector complaints. Implementation of a better system of responding to complaints must be done in such a way as to ensure the integration of complaints into NHS clinical governance as a valuable source of information on safety, effectiveness and patient experience. The approaches available to patients and families who have not been treated with openness and transparency are multiple and complex, and it is easy to embark inadvertently on a path that is ill-suited to deliver the answers that are being sought. There should be clear signposting to help families and the many organisations concerned. Ministerial Statement Patient Safety Learning's statement on the Dixon Inquiry report

The successful implementation of clinical practice guidelines should improve quality of care by decreasing inappropriate variation and expediting the application of effective advances to practice. However, despite wide promulgation, practice guidelines have had limited effect on changing physician behavior. Cabana et al. conducted a systematic review of the barriers to physician adherence to clinical practice guidelines, practice parameters, clinical policies or national consensus statements. They found that physician adherence is dependent on physician awareness (31 examples), agreement (68 examples), self-efficacy (13 examples), outcome expectancy (12 examples), motivation (3 examples), and the absence of external barriers to perform guideline recommendations (62 examples). The findings suggest that studies describing interventions to improve physician adherence may not be generalisable, since barriers in one setting may not be present in another. Using this analysis, the authors propose a framework which describes the barriers that must be overcome to improve physician adherence. This framework can be used (1) as a method to profile barriers or sources of poor adherence and thus (2) as a diagnostic tool to standardise and select appropriate interventions to improve adherence. The selection of interventions to change physician behaviour has been haphazard in the past. This analysis offers a more rational approach towards improving physician adherence to practice guidelines as well as a framework for further research.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is a non-departmental public body that provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care in England. This manual explains the processes and methods used to develop and update NICE guidelines.

Clear communication, awareness of core values and the right incentives are all key to a successful clinical audit, writes George Absi in this HSJ article.

I'm Martin. In this blog I want to talk about my role as a Macmillan acute oncology clinical nurse specialist (CNS) and what our team has done to improve patient safety within the acute ward of our hospitals. Coming from a non-oncology background there was a lot to learn when I moved into acute oncology. My background was mainly acute cardiac and respiratory, but this allowed me to notice how powerful and time effective the presence of an acute oncology CNS could be in improving cancer patient safety within the emergency department. Managing neuropenic sepsis My role as an acute oncology CNS is to improve cancer services. Part of my role is the treatment and management of neutropenic sepsis. Neutropenic sepsis is an oncological emergency following chemotherapy, whereby the patient’s immune system has been depleted by the treatment for their cancer. The body’s natural defense system has been wiped out from the cytotoxic drug, making the patient more susceptible to infections and, therefore, sepsis. The national standards for treatment of neutropenic sepsis are: Early warning symptoms: call the chemotherapy 24-hour hotline, manned during the day by the chemotherapy nurses and out of hours by the oncology ward nurses who are trained in giving advice to patients on chemotherapy. A high or low temperature is normally the worrying symptom. The UKONS 24 Hour Triage Tool: an algorithm used to support the nurses' advice. The patient is then advised to attend A&E or, if acutely unwell, call an ambulance. Once the patient arrives in the emergency department, the national standard 'door-to-needle time' is to receive antibiotics for suspected infection within 1 hour. How we improved cancer patient safety Monthly audits showed that for 65% of all patient's suspected to have neutropenic sepsis, none received appropriate treatment. This was usually because of contra-indicating admission i.e., came in with left flank pain, or poor triage. An alert card is given to every patient receiving cancer treatment for them to present to the emergency department, alerting everyone that the patient is receiving cytotoxic drugs and advice on how to manage this. The audits I performed highlighted that the patients who presented to the emergency department out of hours did not receive appropriate antibiotics in time. This correlated to no acute oncology nurse present. These findings led to us changing our practice to a nurse-led service. We asked the chemotherapy hotline to alert us to anyone they had advised to attend the emergency department. This allowed us to meet the patient at the front door, and to support and arrange for doctors and nursing staff to give the correct management in time, expediting and eliminating error. The errors I speak of were never incompetence; they were human error. One nurse to 20 unwell patients in the emergency department is unsafe. The emergency department is the frontline in all acute trusts. In the trenches, fantastically skilled but overworked and under-valued. This was noticed by the acute oncology team. I derived that we as a team needed to change our working hours. 10 hours days, 4 days a week. Excluding weekends, where the oncology registration would stand in for the acute oncology service. This worked on days where neutropenic sepsis admissions were many, but still did not support the out of hours admissions. Teaching and training were my next focus. I set up a trust-wide acute oncology conference where I invited all trust staff to attend, inviting guest speakers, experts in their field, to teach and train nurses, doctors, the receptionist, anyone who would meet a patient on cancer treatment. We trained emergency department nurses to be able to prescribe and administer the first dose of antibiotics to ensure the door-to-needle time less than 1 hour was adhered to. Training empowered the emergency staff. Training is investing not scolding. Following these changes, our monthly audit numbers went from 65% to 80–90% over the course of 3 months, which showed a huge success. However, then January came, ambulances queuing down the hill from the emergency department. 345 admissions with only two beds within the trust. 25 staff shortage. Door-to-needle times became 3 hour rather than 1 hour. Our team consisted of three CNS to cover the acute hospitals with emergency departments. 50 referrals a day predominately for new diagnosis of cancer. Door-to-needle times on audit were at an all-time low of 25%. The worst I had seen it. Look at the contributing factors: 25 staff nurses down, huge demand on admissions and beds, limited capacity to review patients. During this month, acute oncology CNS predominantly lived in the emergency department, prescribing and administering the antibiotics ourselves to ensure safe practice. This did not come at a cost to the rest of our service and ensured patient safety. It dramatically improved our door-to-needle times. Acute oncology CNS are a necessity and, I personally think, the unsung heroes of an acute trust. We can prevent hospital admissions and avoid delayed discharges, freeing up beds and supporting and advising doctors to investigate patients appropriately and safely. Why I love my role I enjoy my role. It is a rewarding role. I have had the privilege to meet and work with the most beautiful people in the most harrowing of times. The worst times. But it is worth it. Meeting someone who has been in pain and suffering for 3 months at home who has come into hospital because the pain had got to much. They are aware something is wrong but isn’t sure what. Breaking the bad news that this is a cancer and having the time and resources to support that patient and their family. Knowing I am making a difference. Even when the outcome is that this person is not fit enough for further investigations or would not be safe enough to have chemotherapy, but advising them that the main focus of care should be symptom management and palliative care to ensure quality of life. To feel that I have made a difference and, more importantly, to hear that I have. Ensuring patient safety through diagnosis to treatment and to the end of life care. Something we must not overlook the importance of. Although acute oncology CNS is not as well-known as critical outreach nurses or heart failure nurse specialists, it is equally important and necessary. A case study I would like to end this blog with a case study of a patient named Brendan*. Brendan was a 24-year-old man who presented with a 3-day history of right upper quadrant pain. Clinically jaundice. 10/10 pain. Unable to move. He had an ultrasound in the emergency department on Wednesday pm. He was referred to acute oncology in light of suspicious radiological diagnosis of cancer. Within 48 hours, acute oncology had reviewed him and broken the bad news to him that he had cancer. Cancer of unknown primary. The young man was discharged from hospital. We ensured a support service in system (given him our CNS number), managed his pain, arranged further investigations and discussed in a multidisciplinary meeting the best site for biopsy. We booked the biopsy and arranged a clinical appointment 1 week later with our acute oncology consultants. We called this young man every day for symptom reviews and holistic support for him and his family. He received chemotherapy within 3 weeks of diagnosis and is alive to this day, with a cancer that is rare and difficult to treat. Having only had six hospital admissions. This is why acute oncology are a necessity to any hospital and community service. *Name has been change to ensure confidentiality.

ECRI Institute's mission is to protect patients from unsafe and ineffective medical technologies and practices. More than 5,000 healthcare institutions and systems worldwide, including four out of every five U.S. hospitals, rely on ECRI Institute to guide their operational and strategic decisions. ECRI Institute's Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2019 names diagnostic errors and improper management of test results in electronic health records (EHRs) among the most serious patient safety challenges facing healthcare leaders. Other items address systemic issues facing health systems, such as behavioural health concerns, clinician burnout and skills development. Mobile health technology, number four on the list, opens up a world of opportunities by transporting healthcare to the home, but also presents potential risks.

This alert describes the procedure which must be taken within Alberta Health Services (AHS) when a clinical adverse event (CAE) occurs.

Despite consensus that preventing patient safety events is important, measurement of safety events remains challenging. This is, in part, because they occur relatively infrequently and are not always preventable. There is also no consensus on the ‘best way‘ or the ‘best measure’ of patient safety. Borzecki and Rosen discuss what the 'best' measure for patient safety is in this Editorial published in BMJ Quality and Safety.