National training survey 2014: concerns about patient safety

"some doctors in training told us negative stories about their experiences of raising concerns at their workplace. In this report, we explore some of this information and outline the action that we intend to take."

National training survey 2014: concerns about patient safety
General Medical Council
November 2014

Read more here.

Reducing the need for restrictive interventions

"Wherever possible, people who use services, family carers, advocates and other relevant representatives should be engaged in all aspects of planning their care including how to respond to crisis situations, post-incident debriefings, rigorous reporting arrangements for staff and collation of data regarding the use of restrictive interventions." 

Positive and Proactive Care: reducing the need for restrictive interventions
Social Care, Local Government and Care Partnership Directorate
Department of Health
April 2014

Read more here.

General Medical Services: guidance and audit requirements

"This document provides information on contractual changes in 2014/15 as well as detailed guidance and the assurance management arrangements and audit requirements to support practices and NHS England area teams."

General Medical Services contract 2014/15: guidance and audit requirements
NHS England
March 2014

Read more here.

Statutory duty of candour for health and adult social care providers

"The duty of candour will require all health and adult social care providers registered with CQC to be open with people when things go wrong. The regulations would impose a specific and detailed duty of candour on all providers where any harm to a service user from their care or treatment is above a certain harm-threshold."

Open consultation: Statutory duty of candour for health and adult social care providers
Department of Health
March 2014

Read more and respond to the consultation here.

International prevalence of adverse drug events in hospitals

"Adverse drug events (ADEs) are frequent in hospitals, occurring either in patients before admission or as a nosocomial event, and either as a drug reaction or as a consequence of a medication error. Routine data primarily recorded for reimbursement purposes are increasingly being used on a national level both in pharmacoepidemiological studies and in trigger tools. The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence rates of coded ADEs in hospitals on a transnational level."

International prevalence of adverse drug events in hospitals: an analysis of routine data from England, Germany, and the USA
J Stausberg
BMC Health Services Research, 2014, 14:125

Read more here.

Building a culture of candour

"Leaders within health and care organisations have a responsibility for ensuring that both the organisational commitment and the resources for building a culture of candour as part of a wider culture of safety, learning and improvement are in place."

Building a culture of candour: A review of the threshold for the duty of candour and of the incentives for care organisations to be candid
D Dalton, NS Williams

March 2014

Speaking up for patient safety by hospital-based health care professionals

"This review focused on health care professionals’ speaking-up behaviour for patient safety and aimed at (1) assessing the effectiveness of speaking up, (2) evaluating the effectiveness of speaking-up training, (3) identifying the factors influencing speaking-up behaviour, and (4) developing a model for speaking-up behaviour."

Speaking up for patient safety by hospital-based health care professionals: a literature review
Ayako Okuyama, Cordula Wagner and Bart Bijnen

BMC Health Services Research, 2014, 14:61 

Read more here.

Challenging bureaucracy

"Our review has uncovered a number of ways to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy from national bodies on NHS providers. We believe our recommendations will help manage the volume of requests, reduce the effort involved in responding and, crucially, maximise the value of information for staff, patients and the public."

Challenging bureaucracy
NHS Confederation
November 2013

Read more here.

Evaluating adverse drug event reporting in administrative data from emergency departments

"Adverse drug events to outpatient medications were underreported in emergency department administrative data compared to the number of adverse drug events diagnosed and recorded at the point-of-care."

Evaluating adverse drug event reporting in administrative data from emergency departments: a validation study
CM Hohl, L Kuramoto, E Yu, B Rogula, J Stausberg, B Sobolev
BMC Health Services Research, 2013, 13:473

Read more here.

Speech: The silent scandal of patient safety

This speech, delivered by The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP on 21st June 2013, describes the issues with patient safety, and what the NHS needs to do to improve:

"Through better measurement and reporting of the extent of harm free care in our hospitals. But most of all, through by creating a new culture which engages and listens better to frontline staff so they help us to design systems that prioritise safety whatever the pressures."

Read the full speech here.

Raising and acting on concerns about patient safety

The GMC has published guidance on raising and acting on concerns about patient safety. The guidance sets out their "expectation that all doctors will, whatever their role, take appropriate action to raise and act on concerns about patient care, dignity and safety."

Access the guidance here.

Reporting guidelines for systematic reviews with a focus on health equity

"Increased use of these reporting guidelines will help improve the reporting of effects on both inequities in health outcomes and health care use across gender, socioeconomic position, and other characteristics, both in systematic reviews and eventually primary research, thus contributing to the global agenda to improve health equity."

PRISMA-Equity 2012 Extension: reporting guidelines for systematic reviews with a focus on health equity
V Welch, M Petticrew, P Tugwell, D Moher, J O'Neill, E Waters, H White,
PLOS Med, 2012, 9(10): e1001333

Read more here.

Increasing reporting rates and reducing harm

"Actively developing a transparent and positive safety culture at the unit level can improve medication safety."

Increasing medication error reporting rates while reducing harm through simultaneous cultural and system-level interventions in an intensive care unit
KM Abstoss, BE Shaw, TA Owens, JL Juno, EL Commiskey, MF Niedner
BMJ Quality and Safety, 2011, 20(11):914-922

Read more here.