Patient safety reports and crisis events round up

There is a famous quote attributed a former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, that ‘a week is a long time in politics'. A lot can happen in a week politically and the same can be said about patient safety in the NHS. Recently the media spotlight has turned yet again on some poor NHS care practices in maternity care, following the publication of the Care Quality Commission's (CQC) survey findings. Another development has been publication of the national NHS patient safety syllabus. Before discussing these, it is important to provide some context.

I have said before in my BJN column that the NHS is no sloth when it comes to developing patient safety initiatives, policies and reports. The problem is that these so often seem to falter at the implementation stage, largely at trust level, and some get parked or even forgotten. This is evident from the failure of the NHS to develop an ingrained patient safety culture over the years. Some progress has been made, but not enough when the history of NHS policymaking in the area is analysed.