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NHS England are asking Patient Safety Specialists to complete a short (9 minute) survey seeking information to help them understand how organisations are involving Patient Safety Partners (PSPs), how many have been successful in their implementation and what further support you need. Following the updates to the NHS standard contract 2025/26 about patient safety partners (PSPs), NHS England are keen to repeat the survey they undertook in 2023. They would also like to know what further work you are doing to involve patients in their own safety (part A) and what additional support might be helpful. One response per organisation. Closing date of 25 June 2025.- Posted
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Best and worst trusts to work at, according to bank staff
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS bank staff are almost always more likely to recommend their employer as a good place to work than permanent staff. Results published this week found that 67% of responding bank staff would recommend their organisation as a place to work. This compares to 60% of substantive staff. The bank staff score increased slightly on last year, while that for salaried staff fell – again marginally. The survey, which is coordinated by Picker on behalf of NHS England, revealed a quarter (25.3% of bank staff reported experiencing at least one incident of physical violence from patients and the public in the last 12 months The proportion of bank workers experiencing discrimination from patients and the public has also risen, from 13.1 to 14.8%. Other results from the survey showed improvements in work-life balance and a reduction in burnout rates. Picker Group chief executive Chris Picker said: “These latest results paint a mixed picture of life as a bank-only worker in the NHS. “While many continue to benefit from the flexibility and improved work-life balance offered by bank roles, rising reports of incidents of violence and discrimination from patients and the public are a cause for concern, particularly for the many bank nursing and healthcare assistants reporting experiences of these unacceptable behaviours.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 April 2025- Posted
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Healthcare-related harm affects 1 in 10 NHS patients
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Almost one in 10 people reported experiencing harm from NHS care in the past 3 years, according to a survey led by the University of Oxford. The study, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, found that 9.7% of respondents reported harm, with 6.2% attributing it to the treatment or care received and 3.5% citing lack of access to services. Researchers noted that these findings exceed those of two previous British surveys which reported harm rates of 4.8% in 2001 and 2.5% in 2013. While acknowledging that the pandemic’s impact on healthcare access may have contributed to the higher figures, they said that the study highlights issues that “may be hidden from official data on patient safety.” As well as the withdrawal of medical care attributed to the pandemic, the increase could also be explained by using a broader definition of harm to include psychological as well as physical harm, the study authors suggested. Lead author of the new study, Dr Michele Peters, medical sociologist at the University of Oxford, told Medscape News UK : “In the past, harm has usually been measured using clinical rather than patient perspectives.” She explained that this emphasis tended to highlight harm associated with clinical errors rather than harm related to system issues, such as long waits for treatment. The latest study is one of the first to explicitly assess actions taken following harm due to lack of access to care. Around half of those awaiting treatment experienced physical or psychological consequences, with longer waits more common in deprived areas. “Current waiting list management approaches do recognise that some people are particularly vulnerable to deterioration during the waiting period,” Peters said. This means they may end up in poor condition when called for treatment. She noted that some interventions, such as weight management or smoking cessation support, aim to maintain patients’ health while they wait for procedures like hip replacements. Read full story Source: Medscape, 2 April 2025- Posted
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Patient satisfaction with NHS has hit record low of 21%, survey finds
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Public satisfaction with the NHS is at a record low and dissatisfaction is at its highest, with the deepest discontent about A&E, GP and dental care. Just 21% of adults in Britain are satisfied with how the health service runs, down from 24% a year before, while 59% are dissatisfied, up from 52%, the latest annual survey of patients found. Satisfaction has fallen dramatically from the 70% recorded in 2010, the year the last Labour government left office, and the 60% found in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic. Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, which analysed the data alongside the King’s Fund, said the years since 2019 have seen “a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction. “It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey.” A&E is the NHS service the public is least happy about. Satisfaction fell from 31% in 2023 to just 19% last year – the lowest proportion in the 41 years the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey of the views of patients in England, Scotland and Wales has been carried out. Satisfaction with NHS dentistry has collapsed, too, from 60% as recently as 2019 to just 20% last year. More people (55%) are dissatisfied with dental care than with any other service. Similarly, fewer than a third (31%) of adults are satisfied with GP services. “The latest results lay bare the extent of the problems faced by the NHS and the size of the challenge for the government”, said Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund. “For too many people, the NHS has become too difficult to access. How can you be satisfied with a service you can’t get into?” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2025 -
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The Nuffield Trust and The King’s Fund join forces each year to analyse and present findings from the gold-standard survey of public attitudes and opinions towards the NHS and social care, as surveyed by NatCen. The 2024 survey results show that the British public are deeply unhappy with the way the NHS runs – just 1 in 5 people said they were satisfied. Key findings Satisfaction with the NHS In 2024, just one in five British adults (21%) were ‘very’ or ‘quite’ satisfied with the way in which the NHS runs. This is the lowest level of satisfaction recorded since the survey began in 1983 and shows a steep decline of 39 percentage points since 2019. Only 2% of respondents were ‘very’ satisfied with the NHS, down from 4% in 2023. The percentage of people who were ‘very’ or ‘quite’ dissatisfied with the NHS rose to 59% in 2024, from 52% in 2023. This represents a statistically significant 7-percentage-point increase from the year before, which already had the highest dissatisfaction seen in 40 years of the British Social Attitudes survey. A higher proportion of people in Wales (72%) were dissatisfied with the NHS compared to the survey average and compared to people in England (59%). Supporters of the Reform party were less likely to be satisfied (13%) than the survey average and this was significant after controlling for other variables like age and income. There is a divide between generations, with satisfaction lower and falling in younger age groups. While the proportion of people who were satisfied rose slightly for those aged 65 and over, from 25% to 27%, among those under 65 it fell significantly, from 24% to 19%. Satisfaction with social care In 2024, only 13% of respondents said they were ‘very’ or ‘quite’ satisfied with social care (the same figure as 2023). 53% of respondents were ‘very’ or ‘quite’ dissatisfied. Respondents in Wales (69%) were again significantly more likely to be dissatisfied than the survey average. Satisfaction with different NHS services Public satisfaction with A&E services has fallen sharply, from 31% to just 19%, and dissatisfaction has risen from 37% to 52%. These are the worst figures on record by a large margin and make A&E the service with lowest satisfaction levels for the first time. Satisfaction with NHS dentistry has continued to collapse. As recently as 2019 this was at 60%, but it has now fallen to a record low of 20%. Dissatisfaction levels (55%) are the highest for any specific NHS service asked about. Satisfaction with GP services continued to fall, mirroring the trend over the last few years. 31% of respondents said they were satisfied with GP services, compared with 34% in 2023. Inpatient and outpatient hospital care is the part of the NHS with the highest levels of satisfaction, with 32% saying they were satisfied and only 28% dissatisfied. Attitudes to standards of care, staffing and efficiency The majority of the public (51%) said they were satisfied with the quality of NHS care. People aged 65 and over were more likely to be satisfied (68%) with the quality of NHS care than those under 65 (47%). Dissatisfaction with waiting times and the ability to get an appointment is widespread, and is consistent across respondents from all ages and UK countries: 62% of all respondents were dissatisfied with the time it takes to get a GP appointment. 23% were satisfied. 65% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the length of time it takes to get hospital care. 14% said they were satisfied. Dissatisfaction levels are highest regarding the length of time it takes to be seen in A&E. 69% of respondents said they were dissatisfied, while just 12% said they were satisfied. Only 11% agreed that ‘there are enough staff in the NHS these days’. 72% disagreed. NHS funding, principles and priorities 8% of respondents said that the government spent too much or far too much money on the NHS; 21% said that it spent about the right amount, and 69% said that it spent too little or far too little. When asked about government choices on tax and spending on the NHS, the public would narrowly choose increasing taxes and raising NHS spend (46%) over keeping them the same (41%). Only 8% would prefer tax reductions and lower NHS spending. Only 14% of respondents agreed that ‘the NHS spends the money it has efficiently’. 51% disagreed with this statement. Respondents felt the most important priorities for the NHS should be making it easier to get a GP appointment (51%) and improving A&E waiting times (49%), with increases in staff (48%) and better hospital waiting times close behind (also 48%). A&E has now slightly overtaken staffing as a priority, reflecting the sharp fall in satisfaction described above. People under 65 were more likely to prioritise improving mental health services (34%) than those aged 65 and over (21%). As in previous years, a strong majority of respondents agreed that the founding principles of the NHS should ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ apply in 2024: that the NHS should be free of charge when you need to use it (90%); the NHS should primarily be funded through taxes (80%); and the NHS should be available to everyone (77%). The percentage of people saying that the NHS should ‘definitely’ be available to everyone decreased from 67% in 2023 to 56% in 2024. This is the only statistically significant change year-on-year across all three principles. Supporters of the Reform party (20%) were significantly less likely to say that the NHS should ‘definitely’ be available to everyone than the survey average.- Posted
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More than 1 in 6 physicians have thought about or attempted suicide. 38% of them knew of at least one fellow doctor who had suicide ideation. A Medscape survey asked physicians what factors they saw behind the suicide issues, the role their job stress plays and where doctors in a crisis can turn for effective professional help.- Posted
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Discrimination hits record high for second year running
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Discrimination against NHS employees reached its highest level for the second year in a row, while one in seven experienced physical violence from the public, according to the 2024 annual staff survey. Results published for England showed the percentage of staff who had faced discrimination from the public in the past 12 months had risen from 8.5% in 2023 to 9.3% cent in 2024. The figure has reached its highest level since the question was first asked in 2019, when it was 7.2%, and has risen year-on-year post-pandemic. This has also increased among managers, team leaders and colleagues, from 8.4% in 2020 to 9.2% in 2024. More than half of respondents (54%) said the discrimination was due to their ethnic background. Survey results also found 14.4% of staff had faced violence from patients, their relatives or other members of the public in 2024. This figure has increased slightly from 13.9% in 2023 but is below levels seen during covid. More than 774,000 staff in England responded to 2024 survey between September and November 2024, the highest in its 20-year history, at a response rate of 50 per cent. This is up from 707,000 the previous year and 636,000 the edition before, out of a 1.5 million workforce. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 March 2025 Read Patient Safety Learning's response to the NHS Staff Survey- Posted
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In this blog, Patient Safety Learning looks at the results of the NHS Staff Survey 2024, focusing on responses relating to reporting, speaking up and acting on safety concerns. We highlight that, alongside other evidence, the survey results point to a lack of progress in improving safety culture in the health service. In its major restructure of healthcare governance in England, Patient Safety Learning argues that the Government needs to prioritise decisive, practical action to create cultures in which staff feel safe to speak up. On 13 March 2024, the NHS published the results of its 2024 staff survey. 774,828 staff from 263 organisations took part and the results provide a snapshot of their experiences of working in the health service.[1] The survey included a range of questions specifically about reporting, speaking up and acting on patient safety concerns. Unfortunately, the responses show little positive progress on these areas from previous years, underlining the persistence of blame cultures and a fear of speaking up in significant parts of the NHS. Survey results Reporting of errors, near misses and incidents Two-fifths of survey respondents, over 300,000 NHS staff, were unable to say with confidence that their organisation treats them fairly if they are involved in an error, near miss or incident. This is set against a much higher number of respondents, 86.43%, who said their organisation encourages staff to report errors, near misses or incidents. Responses to both these survey questions have not significantly changed in the past three years. This demonstrates that staff see a significant disconnect between what their organisation tells them about reporting patient safety issues and how they feel they will be treated if they actually raise concerns. There is also a significant problem when it comes to what staff think about how their organisations respond to patient safety issues. 68.21% of staff said that when errors, near misses or incidents are reported, their organisation takes action to ensure that they do not happen again. It is a major concern that over 240,000 NHS staff feel unable to agree with this statement. Connected to this, nearly two-fifths of respondents, 38.71%, did not agree that they are given feedback about changes made in response to reported errors, near misses and incidents. When staff are unable to clearly see their organisation’s approach to learning and acting on safety concerns, it is understandable that they might not have confidence these are being acted on. This issue is likely to be amplified further for patients and the public who do not have an inside view of the NHS. We need to see action for improvement being shared transparently within organisations and with the wider public. Concerns about clinical safety and speaking up The percentage of staff who say they would feel secure raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice has changed very little in the past five years, hovering at just above 70%. The response rate in 2024 means that over 200,000 NHS employees, 28.47% of survey respondents, could not say that they would feel secure raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice. When asked if they were confident that their organisation would address these concerns, only 56.83% of staff responded positively, a figure very similar to last year’s results and down nearly 4% from 2020 (56.87% in 2023, 60.57% in 2020). When it comes to speaking up about broader issues, 38.18% of respondents, nearly 300,000 NHS staff, could not say that they felt safe to speak up about anything that concerns them in their organisation. When asked about their confidence in their organisation acting on any concerns, the picture looks worse, with half of all respondents not having confidence that their concerns would be addressed (50.48%). Published in July 2019, the NHS Patient Safety Strategy identifies a patient safety culture as one of the two foundations required in working towards its safety vision “to continuously improve patient safety”.[2] This ambition clearly remains a long way out of reach when, for four consecutive years, nearly two-fifths of NHS staff surveyed have said they do not feel safe to speak up about concerns. No signs of culture change The 2024 staff survey results show no significant change from recent years in responses to questions on reporting incidents, clinical safety and speaking up about patient safety issues. While the survey only provides an annual snapshot of what it is like to work in the NHS, its findings are reinforced by evidence elsewhere. Blame cultures are a recurring theme echoed across many different inquiries into major patient safety scandals.[3] [4] [5] By creating an environment in which staff fear retribution if they are involved in a patient safety incident, blame cultures encourage staff to cover up the causes of avoidable harm rather than reporting them. The shocking experiences and testimonies of whistleblowers in healthcare are further evidence of staff not feeling safe to speak up and suffering severe repercussions when they do. Too often, staff raising patient safety concerns to their organisation are met with a hostile and aggressive response, rather than one that welcomes challenge and scrutiny. Staff who speak up for patient safety often receive personal threats, vexatious referrals to regulatory bodies, pay cuts and demotions, disciplinary action and contractual changes. We are highlighting these issues as part of a new interview series, Speaking up for patient safety, in partnership with Peter Duffy, an NHS whistleblower and Chair of the Healthcare Working Group at WhistleblowersUK.[6] The series looks at how people who speak up in healthcare are treated by organisations, leaders and regulators, and how this acts as a barrier to staff raising patient safety concerns. In each interview, Peter and Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive Helen Hughes, talk to with someone who has spoken up about patient safety in healthcare or who works to help staff raise concerns. We need to move from ambition to action At Patient Safety Learning, we believe it is vital that we create a culture in healthcare that supports raising, discussing and addressing the risks of unsafe care. It is difficult to imagine that this type of evidence of an unsafe culture in other safety-critical industries—where the consequences of incidents may also be serious injury or loss of life—would be considered acceptable. Responses to patient safety questions in this year’s NHS Staff Survey were very similar to the 2023 results, which we analysed in our report, We are not getting safer: Patient safety and the NHS staff survey results.[7] This year’s survey results indicate that in too many parts of the health service, staff don’t feel safe to speak up and don’t have confidence that their concerns are being listened to and acted upon. These results support our view that the health service needs a more transformative effort and greater commitment to creating a safety culture. As detailed in ‘We are not getting safer’, NHS England has made some positive progress by introducing new guidance and information that aims to help develop a safety culture in the NHS.[7] However, there is little detail about how to effectively implement safety culture guidance and best practice across NHS-commissioned health and social care providers. There is also a lack of clarity about how improvements in culture will be monitored, evaluated and shared for wider adoption. The way that the NHS will operate in future years is currently subject to significant change. The forthcoming 10-Year Health Plan and the recent announcement that NHS England will be incorporated back into the Department of Health and Social Care are signs of significant structural change.[8] Patient safety must be at the centre of this new operating model, with organisations supported and held to account in creating a culture where staff feel safe to speak up. We need to move beyond rhetoric and into practical action. References NHS Staff Survey. Results, Last Accessed 13 March 2025. NHS England. The NHS Patient Safety Strategy: Safer culture, safer systems, safer patients, July 2019. Department of Health and Social Care. Independent review of maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. Ockenden Report: Findings, conclusions and essential actions from the independent review of maternity services at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, 30 March 2022. Department of Health and Social Care. Independent Investigation into East Kent Maternity Services. Maternity and neonatal services in East Kent – the Report of the Independent Investigation, 19 October 2022. The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, 6 February 2013. Patient Safety Learning. Speaking up for patient safety: An interview series with Peter Duffy & Helen Hughes, 15 January 2025. Patient Safety Learning. We are not getting safer: Patient safety and the NHS staff survey results, 26 March 2024. Department of Health and Social Care. World’s largest quango scrapped under reforms to put patients first, 13 March 2025- Posted
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NHS Staff Survey National Results 2024 (13 March 2025)
Mark Hughes posted an article in Culture
The NHS Staff survey is one of the largest workforce surveys in the world and is carried out every year to improve staff experiences across the NHS. It asks staff in England about their experiences of working for their respective NHS organisations. Of the 1.5 million NHS employees in England, 731,893 staff responded to the survey in 2024. Responses to key patient safety questions in this year’s survey included: Reporting of errors, near misses and incidents 33.60% of staff have seen errors, near misses, or incidents that could have hurt staff and/or patients/service users in the last month (2023: 33.47%, 2022: 33.69%). 59.71% of staff said their organisation treats staff who are involved in an error, near miss or incident fairly (2023: 59.51%, 2022: 58.21%). 86.43% of staff said their organisation encourages staff to report errors, near misses or incidents (2023: 86.40%, 2022: 86.14%). 68.21% of staff said that when errors, near misses or incidents are reported, their organisation takes action to ensure that they do not happen again (2023: 68.22%, 2022: 67.42%). 61.29% of staff said that they are given feedback about changes made in response to reported errors, near misses and incidents (2023: 61.05%, 2022: 59.91%). Concerns about clinical safety 71.53% of staff said they would feel secure raising concerns about unsafe clinical practice (2023: 71.45%, 2022: 72.05%, 2021: 75.13%, 2020: 72.82%). 56.83% of staff said they were confident that their organisation would address their concern (2023: 56.87%, 2022: 56.76%, 2021: 59.51%, 2020: 60.57%). Speaking up about concerns 61.82% of staff said they feel safe to speak up about anything that concerns them in their organisation (2023: 62.34%, 2022: 61.53%, 2021: 62.07%, 2020: 65.70%). 49.52% of staff said they were confident that their organisation would address their concern (2023: 50.08%, 2022: 48.67%, 2021: 49.77%). Care for patients and service users 74.38% of staff said that care of patients or service users is their organisation's top priority (2023: 75.16%, 2022: 74.07%, 2021: 75.65%, 2020: 79.54%). 70.92% of staff agree that their organisation acts on concerns raised by patients or services users (2023: 70.64%, 2022: 69.17%, 2021: 72.12%, 2020: 75.03%). Workload and resources 47.26% of staff said they are able to meet all the conflicting demands on their time at work (2023: 46.59%, 2022: 42.85%, 2021: 42.91%, 2020: 47.53%). 58.08% of staff said they have adequate materials, supplies and equipment to do their work (2023: 58.40%, 2022: 55.51%, 2021: 57.20%, 2020: 60.24%). 34.01% of staff said there are enough staff at their organisation for them to do their job properly (2023: 32.28%, 2022: 26.24%, 2021: 26.93%, 2020: 38.16%).- Posted
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Patient-Reported Indicator Surveys initiative (PaRIS) was set up by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to allow countries to work together on developing, standardising and implementing a new generation of indicators that measure the outcomes and experiences of healthcare that matter most to people. The PaRIS survey aims to fill a critical gap in primary healthcare by asking about aspects like quality of life, physical functioning, psychological well-being and experiences of healthcare. This website explains how PaRIS works and provides access to research outputs. -
Content Article
RCOG: Women's Health Research Priorities survey
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Women's health
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) is undertaking an important project to identify the most critical unanswered research questions for women’s health. To inform this, they want to hear from women, people and stakeholders based in the UK. The results of this project will be used by the RCOG to shape future UK women’s health research. The project aims to identify the most pressing unanswered questions in the health of women and people from the perspective of members of the public themselves. The topics that may be covered within this work are broad ranging and could include: Gynaecological conditions Fertility and early pregnancy Obstetrics and maternity care Abortion Sexual and reproductive health Health during older age.- Posted
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NHSN is a secure, web-based surveillance application that is the nation’s most widely used healthcare-associated infection (HAI) tracking system. The application is managed and maintained by the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While ensuring data security, integrity, and confidentiality, NHSN gives healthcare facilities the ability to see their data in real-time and share that information with clinicians and facility leadership, as well as with other facilities (e.g., a multihospital system) and partners such as health departments or quality improvement organizations. CDC provides the standard national measures for HAIs as well as analytic tools that enable each facility to assess its progress and identify where additional efforts are needed. In addition, NHSN is the conduit for facilities to comply with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) infection reporting requirements. NHSN provides medical facilities, states, regions, and the nation with data collection and reporting capabilities needed to: identify infection prevention problems by facility, state, or specific quality improvement project benchmark progress of infection prevention efforts comply with state and federal public reporting mandates drive national progress toward elimination of HAIs. NHSN includes the following components: Patient Safety, Long-term Care Facility, Outpatient Dialysis, Healthcare Personnel Safety, Biovigilance, Outpatient Procedure, and Neonatal.- Posted
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Reform Think Tank: Changing demand for hospital care
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Research
The nature of demand for hospital care is changing significantly. This is largely due to increasing numbers of: patients with multiple long-term conditions - referred to below as multimorbidity older people who are at highest risk of adverse outcomes such as falls, disability, admission to hospital, or the need for long-term care, due to an ageing population - referred to below as frailty. This survey from Reform Think Tank will help to understand how this shift in demand changes how care is delivered on the ground in hospitals, and how effectively hospitals have responded to this shift. Your answers will contribute to a paper series from Reform Think Tank – the cross-party, public services think tank. -
Content Article
Staff reports of sexual harassment in the NHS have tripled in the past 5 years, according to a Medscape UK survey on sexual harassment in the workplace. The online survey gathered responses between April and September this year from 689 clinicians, including 452 physicians and 170 nurses. Among the doctors who responded, 9% said they had personally experienced sexual abuse, harassment, or misconduct within the past 3 years, three times the rate reported in Medscape’s last survey in 2019. Almost as many (8%) reported witnessing harassing behaviours by others, double the 2019 proportion of 4%. Those admitting to having been accused of such behaviours remained fairly constant at 1%.- Posted
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Seven in 10 GPs in UK suffer from compassion fatigue, survey finds
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Seven in 10 GPs suffer from compassion fatigue and struggle to empathise with patients because they are worn out from caring for them, a survey has found. Family doctors say they are so emotionally and physically exhausted from hearing about patients’ problems and circumstances that it is compromising the quality of care they provide. A poll of 1,855 doctors across the UK found that 71% of GPs and 62% of medics overall have experienced compassion fatigue, which undermines the doctor-patient relationship. “Compassion fatigue is effectively a hidden, secondary trauma with symptoms that can ultimately make it extraordinarily difficult for family doctors to treat their patients,” said Dr John Holden, the chief medical officer at the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland (MDDUS), which undertook the survey. GPs are “particularly vulnerable” to the syndrome because of their “prolonged exposure to patients’ suffering and trauma”, and their heavy workloads because the NHS is overloaded, he said. Holden added: “The extent of compassion fatigue being suffered across all doctors is shocking but the impact on GPs is markedly more pronounced.” Doctors being too exhausted to provide compassionate care “inevitably has an impact upon patient safety”, he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 January 2025- Posted
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One in 20 outpatients in the United States experiences a diagnostic error each year, but there are no validated methods for collecting feedback from patients on diagnostic safety. This mixed-methods study in the Journal of Patient Safety examined patient experience surveys to determine whether patients’ free text comments indicated diagnostic breakdowns. The study aimed to evaluate associations between patient-perceived diagnostic breakdowns reported in free text comments and patients’ responses to structured survey questions. The authors concluded that patient feedback in routinely collected patient experience surveys is a valuable and actionable information source on diagnostic breakdowns in the ambulatory setting. The more easily monitored structured survey data provide a screening method to identify encounters that may have included a patient-perceived diagnostic breakdown and therefore require further examination.- Posted
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Co-designing solutions with patients is the best way to create engaging and impactful digital health solutions. The Patient Engagement Roadmap, a co-created, step-by-step guide aims to better integrate patient perspectives in the development of digital health solutions. Inspired by Patient Engagement Quality Guidance, Design Thinking, and Lean Startup methodologies, this roadmap will outline when and how to effectively engage patients for impactful co-design collaborations. Patients, caregivers, innovators, health professionals, policy-makers and digital health experts from around the world are invited to take the survey.- Posted
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WHO: Global report on infection prevention and control 2024
Mark Hughes posted an article in Infection control
This report highlights the burden of health care-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the related harm to both patients and health workers in care settings. It also presents an updated global situation analysis of the implementation of infection prevention and control (IPC) programmes at the national and health care facility levels, including a focus on the WHO regions. Headline points from this report include: On average, out of every 100 patients in acute care hospitals, seven patients in high-income countries (HICs), and 15 patients in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), will acquire at least one HAI during their hospital stay. Almost up to one third (30%) of patients in intensive care can be affected by HAIs, with an incidence that is two to 20 times higher in LMICs than in HICs, in particular among neonates. One in four (23.6%) of all hospital-treated sepsis cases are health care-associated and this increases to almost one half (48.7%) of all cases of sepsis with organ dysfunction treated in adult intensive care units. In 2023–2024, according to the system established to monitor the status of country progress towards the implementation of the AMR global action plan (the Tracking AMR Country Self-assessment Survey), 9% of countries did not yet have an IPC programme or plan. Only 39% of countries had IPC programmes fully implemented nationwide, with some being monitored for their effectiveness.- Posted
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In this paper, the authors engage with claims of expert identities within the field of patient engagement by analysing a subset of data collected as part of a 2020 pan-Canadian survey of patient partners. The analysis is based on 446 qualitative responses to one target question: “Do you think the lived experience you bring to your patient partner role makes you an expert? Please explain in the box below”. Through a discursive analysis of the comments, the authors explored the meanings ascribed to concepts of expert, expertise, and experience. Ultimately, they found nuanced and sometimes contradictory understandings. Thus, dilemmas of expertise in the patient engagement field may not be entirely about claims to specialized knowledge. Instead, discourses seem to be mobilised in response to the thorny, political question: “who is authorised to speak on behalf of patients”? To meaningfully advance the conversation within patient engagement research and practice, we argue for more sociological and political understandings of forms of expertise, objects of expertise, and deployments of expert status in different kinds of knowledge spaces.- Posted
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Are you currently working on an inpatient mental health ward in the UK? We would like to learn about how you feel towards restrictive practices on mental health wards. Go to https://tinyurl.com/restrictivepractices to find out more.- Posted
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Chris Graham of the Picker Institute and Jacob Lant from charity National Voices join host Annabelle Collins to discuss patient experience revealed by recent national surveys, how the findings should be used to improve quality and reduce health inequalities, and whether there is a bigger role for “real-time” experience measures.- Posted
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In January 2023, NHS England’s Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency services committed the health service to ease the growing pressure on hospitals by scaling up the use of ‘virtual wards’. Also known as ‘hospital at home’, virtual wards allow people to receive treatment and care where they live, rather than as a hospital inpatient, while still being in regular contact with health professionals. This article by The Health Foundation looks at how NHS staff and the UK public feel about the use of virtual wards, based on the results of a survey of 7,100 members of the public and 1,251 NHS staff members. The survey aimed to assess how supportive these groups are of virtual wards and what they think is important for making sure they work well. Key findings The UK public is, overall, supportive of virtual wards (by 45% to 36%). But this support is finely balanced – with a further 19% unsure whether they are supportive or not. So there is further to go in raising awareness and in understanding and addressing the public’s concerns as this model of care is developed. Support for virtual wards is higher among disabled people and those with a carer – groups that typically have greater health needs and who might therefore be expected to be more intensive users of virtual wards. Those in socioeconomic groups D and E are on balance unsupportive of virtual wards, so it will be important to understand and address needs and concerns here. Notably, survey respondents in these socioeconomic groups who said that they would not want to be treated through a virtual ward were also more likely to say that their home would not be suitable for a virtual ward compared with those in other socioeconomic groups. Nearly three-quarters of the UK public (71%) are open to being treated through a virtual ward under the right circumstances, while 27% said they would not be – suggesting that, if implemented well, virtual wards should be acceptable to a large majority of service users. Interestingly, a higher proportion of the public, 78%, told us that they would be happy ‘to monitor their own health at home using technologies, instead of in a hospital’ – describing a scenario often seen as part of a broader virtual ward service, but avoiding the term ‘virtual ward’ – with only 13% saying they would not. This raises the question of whether using different terminology or providing more explanation could help alleviate concerns and build wider support. NHS staff in our survey were, on balance, clearly supportive of virtual wards (by 63% to 31%). When asked what will matter for making sure virtual wards work well, their top two factors were the ability to admit people to hospital quickly if their condition changes, and the ability for people to talk to a health professional if they need help.- Posted
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- Virtual ward
- Digital health
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Content Article
The Maternity Survey 2022, run by Ipsos on behalf of the Care Quality Commission, looked at the experiences of women and other pregnant people who had a live birth in early 2022. In this article Anita Jefferson from Ipsos looks at the results of this and considers what they tell us about experiences of maternity services. Results from the Maternity Survey 2022 that this article highlights includes: Across the maternity pathway there has been a decline in the proportion of respondents who say they can always get help when they need it. Related to the availability of staff, the provision of information and advice has also dropped. While most (82%) respondents felt they were given appropriate advice and support at the start of their labour, this is a drop from 88% in 2019 and 84% in 2021. Almost a quarter of women and people who had given birth (23%) felt that when they raised a concern during labour and birth, it was not taken seriously. There are some areas of care that have seen an upward trend across the years. One of these is the experience of discharge from hospital, where around two-thirds of women and other people who had given birth report no delay to their discharge (62%, up from 56% in 2019). The results show an improved experience around support for mental health across the maternity pathway. -
Content Article
Technology holds promise for the future of healthcare. It can prevent illness, enable early diagnosis, empower health management and support general wellbeing. But how might people use technology to have more control over their health and wellbeing? And do they want to? This report explores the role of technology in managing, improving and supporting health and wellbeing. The NHS Confederation, in partnership with Google Health, commissioned Ipsos to explore people’s behaviours, attitudes and beliefs about responsibility and control when it comes to their health, the role that health technologies play in this and their expectations about the future of healthcare. A survey of more than 1,000 adults in the UK – a third of whom live with one or more long-term conditions (LTCs) – and interviews with individuals with LTCs and who have frequent interaction with the health system, forms the centrepiece of this report. Key points While individuals feel accountable for their health and wellbeing and want to be empowered to improve it, what became evident is that, frequently, they lack the confidence, tools and technologies to take control as much as they would like. We heard that people want more control over their health but need their actions, and the tools they can use, to be endorsed by healthcare professionals. They also want to make better use of health technology, but not at the expense of face-to-face contact with their doctor or other healthcare worker. While the vast majority of people use some form of health technology and find that useful, they are not totally satisfied by what is currently on offer. Across all age groups more than 7 out of 10 (72 per cent) would use technology to avoid a hospital admission, with a similar proportion happy to use technology to monitor their health and share information and data with their doctors. Many individuals are not confident about using technology to manage their health, leading to a fear that they may be locked out of healthcare if they cannot access or use digital tools. People think there is a larger role for health technologies in the future; many are not confident in using them now. Three areas emerged as necessary building blocks that could enable greater patient empowerment: digital access and inclusion, patient satisfaction, and user confidence. This report concludes that the health service must design services in collaboration with patients to address these issues and empower patients. The next phase will explore health leaders’ and practitioners’ experiences and views and identify practical examples that speak to resetting the social contract between the public and the NHS.- Posted
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- Patient engagement
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The role of Patient Safety Specialist was introduced by the NHS in England in 2019, as part of wider plans designed to help improve patient safety. There are currently several hundred Specialists in place. All NHS organisations in England are required to identify at least one Patient Safety Specialist, and they will play a key role in delivering the NHS Patient Safety Strategy. The This Institute wants a detailed understanding of the background to the Patient Safety Specialist role and its implementation to date. This study aims to offer insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with delivering improvement though a designated role like the Patient Safety Specialist. The study aims to highlight ways to support Patient Safety Specialists and provide recommendations to NHS England about future policy and strategy around their role.- Posted
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- Patient safety strategy
- Leadership
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