The urgent need for review, rationalisation and consolidation of NHS patient safety organisations

There is an urgent need for a movement away from the cluttered patient safety organisational landscape that we have. The NHS must put its patient safety house in order and review, rationalise and consolidate its organisations with responsibilities in this area. The review of patient safety organisations recently announced by the government (Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), 2024a) as part of Penelope Dash's final Care Quality Commission (CQC) review (DHSC, 2024b), provides the opportunity to do so.

No doubt the final Dash report on the CQC will also find that the NHS health regulatory, governance framework, patient safety system is too complex, overlapping, fragmented and ripe for reform. This is a well-known fact and has been chronicled in several reports over the years and continues to be reiterated. According to the CQC (2018:6):

‘Arm's-length bodies, including CQC, royal colleges and professional regulators, have a substantial role to play within patient safety, but the current system is confused and complex, with no clear understanding of how it is organised and who is responsible for what. This makes it difficult for trusts to prioritise what needs to be done and when.’