Patient Safety Commissioner
Listening to Patients
More than 20 years ago, my husband and I took our 15-year-old son Lewis to an American children’s hospital for elective thoracic surgery. Our 10-year-old daughter accompanied us. Four days later we made the lonely trip home with only our daughter. Our son left the hospital via another route: the morgue…
The national implementation of Martha’s Rule is a major step forward in the commitment to improve patient safety. It is a shame that it has come about following the unnecessary tragic death of 13-year-old Martha Mills. Unfortunately, Martha and her family are not the only ones to suffer…
How do we make change happen at scale across a complex health system? It has been said that the best way to understand something is to try to change it. Through the sprint policy development meetings to devise the plan to make Martha’s Rule a success in England, we heard from…
The Patient Safety Commissioner’s strategy aims to ‘embed patient safety and patient voice throughout the healthcare system’. This really matters. Time and again, it is patients and families who are sounding the alarm on healthcare safety…
Getting it right for the most vulnerable means it is better for everyone. This applies as much to improving patient safety as anywhere else. We need to identify harmful events and put controls and systems in place to prevent them…
Retiring NHS Ombudsman Rob Behrens calls for a cultural transformation in the NHS so it becomes collegiate, respectful, and well-led, prioritises patient safety, and listens to patients and all who speak up for them.