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 have been harmed by a healthcare system that is slow, siloed and disjointed and does not listen.
Harm is not abstract but it is hidden from view, in patients’ homes and with wide-ranging impacts on people’s lives. Harm is compounded when the healthcare system turns its back on those who have suffered. When it does not listen to the voices of patients and those caring for them and does not put things right. Disadvantaged communities who need our closest attention have worse outcomes and face greater barriers to speaking up.
We need to turn this around and have clear accountability for decisions including those made far away from the frontline. It is time for all of us to move the healthcare system in a new direction where patient partnership is our destination and where patients are seen as part of the team.
We need a set of guiding principles that, when we are faced with tough choices, will help us to make the right choices. When we are unsure will help us to know we are doing the right thing. When we feel unsafe, when the healthcare system asks the impossible and when it is not putting patients at the heart of decisions, we will have a north star to guide us to a supportive and compassionate approach.
The Patient Safety Principles, published today following our public consultation, will help us to do all of these.
In our everyday interactions the Patient Safety Principles will sit in the background, be part of our professionalism, directing our daily actions and interactions and the norms that build a culture of safety for all.
Following these shared principles when we are planning care, whether building new hospitals, moving care closer to home or addressing the gaps in care between different parts of the system, will help to prevent harm. It will help to keep the patient at the heart of everything, with particular reference to equity and addressing healthcare inequalities. Transparency and accountability will rebuild trust and avoid compounding harm to patients.
And where we see actions or instructions that conflict with the Patient Safety Principles, we can point to them and say, stop and think, will these actions harm patients today or in the future?
Alongside the Patient Safety Principles, we have developed a toolkit to help embed and implement them into your work. Safety is everyone’s business so think about how you can bring these to life in your role, in your organisation, and in your interactions with patients, families and colleagues. Thank you for everything you are doing to listen to patients and keep people safe.