Back to patient safety basics: improving communication with patients

In analysing complex problems and situations, often a simple solution can turn out to be the best one. It is possible to overcomplicate our approach and to neglect the obvious. It is increasingly difficult for NHS staff to keep up to date with the amount of patient safety information produced and to distil, analyse and if appropriate incorporate into policies and practice at the workface.

All this adds up to what can be regarded as a perfect storm of patient safety information overload for NHS staff and others, presenting the question: how can we effectively navigate through all this information and select what is relevant to us? Not surprisingly, there are no easy answers, which has been flagged before:

‘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 greater clarity around the roles of the various organisations that send these messages.’