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Patient Safety

Surgical site infection prevention bundles: a focus on preoperative skin decolonisation

Preoperative bathing is a generally accepted practice within surgery as a measure to reduce the risk of avoidable surgical site infections. Evidence to favour the routine use of antimicrobial agents...

Different stakeholder perspectives on NHS safety

An independent expert panel commissioned by the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee (HSCC) has issued the report of its findings on the Government's progress on meeting patient safety...

Changing the culture around hospital-based nutrition

The aim was to develop a wide, multifactorial collaborative approach to reduce the risk of such incidents recurring following a serious event..

A palpable sense of frustration with NHS patient safety culture development

Patient Safety Learning (2024) is a charity for improving patient safety that provides excellent resources to share learning. It has recently produced a report analysing the results of questions...

Still a long way to go on patient safety

Outgoing Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Rob Behrens, in an interview with The Guardian (Campbell, 2024), said that there were still ‘too many examples of care not being safe’ and suggested...

Improving patient safety through nurse education

Patient safety is central to the delivery of care and is, therefore, an essential component of the education of current and future health professionals.

Be careful about what you wish for in NHS patient safety reform

‘Patients struggle to navigate the complaints system and it may take some time to find the correct organisation to complain to.’ .

Clinical negligence: should the NHS consider a no-fault system?

‘… costs … have continued to grow at an eye-watering rate. Ten years ago, the NHS paid £900 million in damages; last year it was £2.17 billion – equivalent to the annual running costs of the biggest...

The enormity of the NHS patient safety culture development challenge

Improvement recommendations are made after a patient safety crisis, often repeated ones, but the system does not change much or at all. Errors are repeated, lessons go unlearnt. This might seem a...

Patient engagement, patient empowerment and patient safety

‘I have discovered that we need a seismic shift in the way that patients' and families' voices are heard. This requires changes in legislation, regulation, policy, commissioning, education,...

Back to patient safety basics: improving communication with patients

‘Trusts receive too many safety-related messages from too many different sources. The trusts we spoke to said there needed to be better communication and coordination between national bodies, and...

Maintaining patient safety in medication administration

Despite being a relatively new professional role, the Registered Nursing Associate (RNA) has a key part to play, working alongside registered nurses and other healthcare staff, to ensure patient...

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