All healthcare work sometimes includes making truly difficult decisions, decisions that can have serious consequences for patients and their families, now, or in the future. This stretches from wards to Boards and into every part of the healthcare system. You only need…
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’Striking the right balance with antidepressant prescribing’
Antidepressant prescribing is at record levels in England, with around one in five adults receiving these medicines for a range of mental health conditions and chronic pain. Prescriptions have…
’Ask for something that is actionable’
I am the chief executive of Demos, a cross-party think tank that works to put people at the heart of policy making to improve how policy is developed as well as trust in politics. Think tanks sit outside government and are…
The New Zealand Experience
In 2016 the Health Quality Safety Commission (HQSC) in NZ launched a five-year programme that improved and standardised the way health care systems recognised and responded to deterioration. There were three main work streams…
‘New principles will help us make the right choices’
Every day we have to make tough choices, balancing benefits and risks. Those choices impact on patient safety, right now or far into the future, with effects that we might have never intended or anticipated. There are too many tragedies where people…
Introducing Ryan’s Rule, the forerunner of Martha’s Rule
Ryan’s Rule was developed in response to the tragic death of Ryan Saunders in 2007. Sadly, Ryan died from an undiagnosed streptococcal infection that led to toxic shock syndrome. Worried that Ryan’s condition was worsening, his parents…