‘Put patient safety at centre stage’, says Stephen Thornton
In a powerful opening speech at this year’s Patient Safety Congress, Stephen Thornton reminded everyone of the huge progress that has been made in patient safety over the last decade.
He went on to tell the audience that the government needed to make tough decisions, but not to lose the momentum that has been gained over the last decade in regards to patient safety.
He suggested two things that Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, should do to make a difference:
- Take care when getting rid of quangos and NHS management bodies as the consequence would be to lose a valuable resource for patient safety that has taken a decade to build.
- When making tough local decisions on service configuration, keep a strong focus on what the evidence says about the safety implications.
Stephen ended by advising Andrew Lansley to ‘Put patient safety centre stage; build on the best of what is already underway; nurture the scarce resource you have for implementing and leading safety improvement; and resist those telling you improvement is not possible by forcing them back to the evidence.’
