The PSC (for England) has issued a set of draft Principles of Better Patient Safety to act as a guide for senior leaders in how to deliver safer care for patients and reduce avoidable harm. Once finalised, they will provide a clear framework for decision-making, planning and collaborative working, with patients as partners. They are for healthcare providers, commissioners, regulators, manufacturers, and the broader supply chain. The public consultation is one of the PSC’s statutory duties.
Click the link below to watch the video, read the draft principles, and then click through to respond to the consultation.
Do you agree with the principles as PSC have set them out?
The idea is that, once agreed, the PSC (and others) can hold them up and assess reality against them. And identify deficiencies. This is your chance to agree or disagree with what the PSC have proposed.
Thank you for clarifying. TBH, I didn’t know the PSC even existed. No reference to Duty of Candour, which appears to be universally ignored without consequences in all its forms. I know the PHO has launched a consultation into why Statutory Duty of Candour has failed.
For anyone who does not know of the Patient Safety Commissioner,
Delivering a culture for change
While the Patient Safety Commissioner is independent of government and the healthcare system the Commissioner’s funding is provided by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The PSC remains accountable to Parliament including through the Health and Social Care Committee. The Office of the Patient Safety Commissioner is resourced by civil servants and maintains a working relationship with the DHSC. This helps us to influence government, offer constructive advice on policymaking, and amplify the patient voice into the Department. While we work constructively with the Department, we remain outside of it, and are guided by the Patient Safety Commissioner’s strategic priorities.
This means the Office can focus on what matters to patients and advocate for that with the Department and other parts of the healthcare system. In addition, a constructive, working relationship with the Department helps us most effectively utilise the back-end processes the Office needs in order to function, which is important to ensure the effective use of public funds.
The role of the first Patient Safety Commissioner in the world was created by the government after a recommendation from the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review in 2020, First Do No Harm, conducted by Baroness Cumberlege.
Her review uncovered a health system that failed to listen to patients, specifically in relation to the use of pelvic mesh, sodium valproate and the pregnancy hormone drug Primodos. It also spotlighted a health system that was disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive and failed to recognise that patients are its sole purpose and to listen to their concerns.
Along with nine other recommendations, the review called for a Patient Safety Commissioner to be appointed to be the patients’ port of call, the listener, the advocate, that holds the system to account, monitors trends, and demands action where necessary.
Thanks RedApple. I filled mine in yesterday. I thought it was mostly well written except for one GLARING issue, which I commented on again and again throughout.
So much of it down to common sense really but alas that does appear to be missing amongst the doctor classes and many in management roles.
With doctors I put it down to many of them coming from a privileged background. When I worked in personnel employing doctors, it was rife. It was tougher for those not coming from that background but unfortunately some developed along the lines of emulation, losing what they originally could have brought to the table. It’s a culture apart. They just had no idea how to conduct themselves. They were ‘removed’ from ordinary people. A kind of boys club.
Why on Earth would they have to have this stuff explained to them? What has their education aimed for? Just passing exams? No actual thinking required.
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