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Michael was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of 12 and had his first operation at 14. He died last weekend and was the same age as me. Our daughters were in the same year at secondary school together, and we got to know each other that way at first and then through our mutual interest in health care. When he awoke from an operation to discover he had a stoma bag, he didn't wallow. He bought items online to make it a 'smart' stoma bag to be able to get an alert when it was near full and provide useful data to his medical consultants. This was the type of person he was. Whenever I needed help in anything and asked him, he would unconditionally do everything he could to help, and never failed to deliver – I wish I had been able to do more for him. When he realised that thousands of other patients would be able to benefit from his smart ostomy bag, he tried to get innovation funding to develop and manufacture it at scale for the NHS. He tried over 40 times and received over 40 rejections. People on the other side of the Atlantic were able to see what the NHS couldn't, and 11 Health (he was the 11th person to have a bowel transplant) moved to the West Coast of the USA and grew quickly. He was 'patient in residence' at Stanford Medical school, one of the first such roles in the world. With the clinicians at Stanford, they created the Everyone Included programme, a joint initiative between clinicians and patients which as he described it is "a framework for healthcare innovation, implementation and transformation based on principles of mutual respect and inclusivity". He mentioned this and his journey as a patient in his Ted X talk in 2018. In that talk, he calls for a Chief Patient Officer to work with healthcare execs in co-designing new services for patients or improving existing services. Involving patients in this sort of work is a key foundation for safer healthcare systems. This is not a non-exec role, it is not an arms length committee tick box role. It is a role that can have a profound effect on the ways that services are delivered to patients. It is hugely important and no UK care providers has anyone like this on their exec teams. If you know different, please comment on it below. I think it is about time that a movement to appoint Chief Patient Officers into Trusts was started, don't you? See here for a detailed interview with Michael in 2018: https://www.highland-marketing.com/interviews/hm-interview-michael-seres/

Dena’s vigilance and persistence as a whistleblower led to an investigation by The Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Based on interviews and a review of hospital records, CMS found specific events contributing to her mother’s death and issued findings in a Summary Statement of Deficiencies. Among the key problems, Martha had not been thoroughly assessed when changes in her condition occurred. In one instance, at 10:15pm, (14 hours after the procedure), the Registered Nurse failed to perform a thorough assessment, that included vital signs and notifying the doctor. The CMS report also showed how after Martha’s death the hospital tried to cover up what happened.