Guest blogs

The third in our series of blogs in the lead up to World Patient Safety Day is from Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association. She reflects on progress on patient engagement and what needs to happen next.

As part of our series leading up to World Patient Safety Day, David Lawson, who leads the DHSC’s medical technology directorate, discusses how patients are influencing the strategy development.

In the lead up to World Patient Safety Day on 17 September, we are running a series of blogs from a range of experts considering different aspects of patient engagement and participation. The first is from Sue Strudwick, a Patient Safety Partner at Kingston Hospital, on involving patients in policy-writing.

I’m a medical educator and for many years I have trained doctors and other health professionals to become better listeners. Nearly all the people I have taught have thought they were good at listening but then found how to do so better.

Over the past few years, technology has been a driver for better patient care, from the proliferation of electronic medical records, continuous monitoring on general floors, to data analytics turning output from multiple inputs into useful information that can improve health, wellbeing, and patient outcomes.

As a patient, it is often hard to find patience during changes of regulation for a chronic condition. Whether it is changing medicines, doctors, time zones, or even diagnoses, finding trust in the process is inevitably challenging.