Keeping up to date with patient safety reports: weathering the perfect storm?

Given the size of the NHS, its mission and complexity of structure, developing a proper patient safety culture is always going to be fraught with problems. These include the failure of some NHS staff to learn from patient safety incidents and to change practices. In some places there is a focus more on reputation management than on the interests of patients.

We can also add into the mix the complexity and overlap of NHS organisations that have a patient safety remit, now subject to the Dash Review (Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), 2024). Allied to this is the fact that a veritable plethora of patient safety reports, policies, guidelines and recommendations is published at regular intervals. The sheer volume of patient safety information produced can cause problems.

It can be difficult for busy NHS staff, often working in resource-constrained environments, to work out which reports, policies, guidelines and recommendations to read and follow. Some documents may even duplicate or conflict each other in terms of content and messaging. Also, what about costing and the research base?