Manifestos for a safer NHS

In the run-up to the general election there is no shortage of health and patient safety stakeholders stating what they would like a newly elected government to do. Each stakeholder is advancing their own agendas.

When reading these ‘manifestos’, it is an interesting exercise to ask whether what they are asking for would make a difference to NHS patient safety culture development. Would their policies, if adopted by a government, advance NHS safety culture development progress?

A fundamental question I also ask when considering election manifestos is how much control governments have over NHS patient safety culture development. Governments come and go, as do patient safety policies and practices. The nature of NHS patient safety problems are perhaps too big, complex and ingrained to be effectively solved by any one government at any one time.

The seminal patient safety document, An Organisation with a Memory, published in 2000, nearly a quarter of a century ago, highlighted significant patient safety problems, many of which are still with us today. Has much changed, patient safety-wise, since then?