Recognising good practice and seizing the opportunities to change how the NHS delivers care has the potential to make a huge impact on patient experiences and outcomes. This does not have to mean wholesale reorganisation but the NHS should embrace best practice…
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‘Hospital leaders need to embed a safety culture across their organisations’
It is just over a year after we appointed Dr Henrietta Hughes as our first ever Patient Safety Commissioner. She is a champion for patients and promoting their views in relation to the safety of medicines and medical devices…
‘Mandatory Yellow Card reporting is essential to prevent harm’
In the report First Do No Harm, Baroness Cumberlege described the health system as disjointed, siloed and unresponsive. Many changes have taken place since the publication of her report in 2020, not least the establishment of my role as the Patient Safety Commissioner…
‘Why we need a Sunshine Payments Act’
How would you feel if your doctor offered you a treatment your health condition with good results and very little risk? You might snap it up. But what if you subsequently found out your doctor took thousands of pounds from the treatment makers to write a scientific paper promoting it…
‘Monitoring the safe use of the most potent teratogenic medications’
I have recommended that NHS England set up a system for monitoring the safe use of the most potent teratogenic medications, starting with the safe use of sodium valproate in patients on a pregnancy prevention programme…
‘Clear guidance and transparency are needed’
In the 16 years of my career as a medic in the pharmaceutical industry, there is one experience that has become all too familiar. I sit in an auditorium. A doctor or other healthcare professional takes the stage to present on behalf of a pharmaceutical company…