Still doing the system’s business
Twelve years ago I received a phone call. I was working for a national body responsible for investigating concerns about serious care failures. The caller suspected that people with learning disabi...
A lay perspective on collaborative patient engagement
When you see best practice of effective collaboration between health care professional and patient, it stands out a mile. And there is a lot of it around, despite the temptation to always focus on ...
Out of a crisis: How the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch can build trust in the NHS
The Chinese word for ‘crisis’ can be translated as both ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. But when it comes to crises in the NHS – like at Southern Health, Morecambe Bay or Mid Staffordshire – the danger...
Striving for excellence and valuing general practice
Professor of Primary and Prehospital Health Care at University of Lincoln, A. Niroshan Siriwardena, shares some of his experience of the Quality and Outcomes Framework
184 and counting…
Achieving cultural change will take more than a list of initiatives. In his statement to parliament on Wednesday (9 March), the Secretary of State for Health remarked that there are two importan...
Planning the vanguard of infection prevention and control
Remember all the stories about dirty hospitals, infected patients and people frightened of going into hospital for fear of picking up a superbug? Although they were over 10 years ago, those stories...
Does the Lefroy Bill ring a bell?
It went unnoticed in most quarters, but today the Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Bill passed through parliament. This Private Member’s Bill was put forward by Jeremy Lefroy MP, whos...
What next for the Francis culture of safety? Six steps to start
No-one would claim that changing culture is easy, but it is possible. And in light of Robert Francis’s latest report we know that there is still much to be done if we are to create the learning cul...
The Francis Report: right diagnosis but will the treatment work?
‘We have still not moved away from a culture of blame’. So says Robert Francis in his erudite, if voluminous, report into the failings at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust published earlie...
What does it really take to improve patient safety?
How confident are you that the risk management processes in your organisation enable you to predict and manage all the risks your patients are likely to face? If you have doubts, you’re probably no...
