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John Tingle

The alarming gap between theory and practice in NHS patient safety

The first batch of level 1 and 2 learning materials are now available on the elearning for healthcare (elfh) platform for NHS staff to access. Level 1 is called ‘Essentials for patient safety’ and...

Keeping afloat in a sea of patient safety information: reform and patient views

‘Staff are struggling to cope with large volumes of safety guidance, they have little time and space to implement guidance effectively, and the systems and processes around them are not always...

Balancing the books or balancing the scales: what should drive reforms?

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) (2017), when discussing the increasing costs of clinical negligence claims, states:.

Moving beyond the rhetoric to a sustainable NHS patient safety culture

‘Approximately 810 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, around 6700 newborns die every day, amounting to 47% of all under-5 deaths. Moreover,...

The need to reflect, declutter, reappraise, reset and decolonise

A key issue is how best to deal with this kind of concept. One buzzword that has been doing the rounds for some time now is ‘decolonisation’, which seems to pervade vast areas of academic and...

Compensating for clinical negligence: the need to go back to basics

With clinical negligence litigation today, there is a much more cooperative, ‘cards on the table’ approach than formerly. As NHS Resolution annual reports show us each year, most clinical negligence...

Considering claims against the NHS

In 2020/21 NHS Resolution received 12 629 clinical negligence claims and reported incidents, compared with 11 678 in 2019/20. This represents an increase of 951 (7.5%). The total included 973 new...

The computer says no: AI, health law, ethics and patient safety

‘Fletchers, the largest UK medical negligence law firm, has teamed up with the University of Liverpool with the aim of creating a clinical negligence ‘robot lawyer’—in practice, a decision support...

The never-ending story of Never Events in the NHS

‘Never Events are defined as Serious Incidents that are wholly preventable because guidance or safety recommendations that provide strong systemic protective barriers are available at a national...

Giving essential content to the National Patient Safety Syllabus and curricula

Under Domain 1, ‘Systems approach to patient safety’, sections include:.

Examining the new NHS National Patient Safety Syllabus

The National Patient Safety Syllabus is to be welcomed as it combines and integrates several important patient safety-related disciplines into a well-focused and proactive syllabus. The syllabus...

Making the NHS safer: learning from case reports and investigations

It is true to say that cultures do not change overnight but, in the case of the NHS, we are talking about decades. Some things never seem to change, and the same patient safety errors can be seen to...

Will the NHS ever get its complaints system right?

‘Some employers were referring nurses without any investigation at all, while half of initial enquiries to the NMC were rejected or required further work. She told The Independent this emphasis on...

Developing a just culture in the NHS

‘There is no single definition of “just culture” and most discussion of it is limited to the issue of being fair to healthcare staff.’ .

The urgent need to improve health professionals' communication skills

In a healthcare context these basic expectations of how the communication process between health professional and patient should proceed will take on an increased significance because of the power...

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