Fundamentals of patient safety

Now in its third year, Patient Safety Congress 2010 was better and more diverse than ever. Over 1,000 attendees came together in Birmingham’s ICC representing acute and foundation trusts, primary care trusts, ambulance trusts, third sector organisations, SHAs, mental health trusts and international health bodies. Delegates ranging from chief executives to frontline practitioners had the opportunity to hear from over 100 speakers including Joe McCannon, Dr Phil Hammond and Jim Easton.
    
The lively exhibition area showcased 42 companies including IT suppliers; pharmaceutical organisations; medical suppliers and health charities, as well as the Patient Safety Congress partners: Department of Health; NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement; Health Foundation and National Patient Safety Agency. It proved to be an event filled not just with education but with emotion and optimism in the continuing quest to improve patient care.

Conference agenda
The week’s activities began with the Fundamentals of Patient Safety conference – a jargon-free guide to the basic principles of patient safety. This practical training day covered core topics including infection prevention and medicines management, providing a solid foundation of knowledge and innovation to delegates who then went on to attend the Congress.
    
Chaired by Dr Phil Hammond on day one and Maxine Power on day two, the Congress agenda combined a series of plenary sessions and streamed workshops examining patient safety in acute care, community care, primary care and mental health. Across 48 streamed sessions, speakers’ contributions were categorised as leadership, communication and culture change, improvement journeys and patient stories, intervention, improvement skills and measurement techniques. Speakers included winners of the inaugural Patient Safety Awards which took place on 5 February this year. Showcasing the very best of patient safety practice, the Awards celebrated the commitment and creativity shown by individuals and organisations, and disseminated best practice throughout the UK and beyond.
    
Joe McCannon delivered a keynote session detailing how to build a patient safety movement. Pulling on experiences from the United States and his work in Africa and Europe, Joe identified 10 lessons for building social movements including listening to patients and service users and effectively using social networking such as Twitter and Facebook to hear the community. He also stressed the importance of having a shared story reminding us that while people will forget facts and figures, they will never forget a moving story and a shared story has the power to propel change and power a movement.
    
Human factors played a significant part in the Congress and some of the most thought provoking sessions were those which told real life stories. In the emotionally charged presentations, Julian Hendy and Clare Bowen’s heartbreaking tales of personal tragedy had the audience in tears and served as a hugely powerful reminder of why the event is so important. Providing a more clinical perspective, Dr Cheryl Crocker’s presentation – ‘Bob’s story’ – followed the journey of a patient, highlighting the importance of communication between services and agencies to ensure the patient’s safety is never overlooked. Delegates were also invited to attend lunchtime learning sessions hosted by the event partners and the Patient Safety Dinner, which provided informal networking along with some entertainment in the form of the Siren string quartet.

Key themes
Whilst the 2008 Congress raised the national profile of patient safety and 2009 turned policy into practice, the 2010 event took place in the context of an unprecedented political situation and financial strain. Against a backdrop of biting funding cuts and increased need for collaboration, the recurring key themes from the Congress were SBAR, patient engagement and communication – having the courage to speak up if something doesn’t feel right and to engage in the “difficult conversations”.
    
While delegates benefited from hearing real life examples of how organisations have succeeded in reducing infection rates and tackling outbreaks of C.diff, the audience was also reminded that patient safety is not about solving crises, but having the right systems and the right people in place to ensure safe and effective care.
    
Throughout the event, a cartoonist was capturing the major themes of the discussion in eye-catching, quirky sketches which were on display in the exhibition area – attracting delegates’ attention and stimulating discussion and debate when asked to vote on the one that best summed up the event’s key messages for them. The most popular sketch depicted patient safety as the beating heart of every NHS organisation.
    
The Patient Safety Congress received a record breaking 250 poster submissions, 105 of which were accepted and displayed in the exhibition. Delegates voted for their favourite poster via text, and the winning poster came from Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust titled ‘Improving documentation and handover communication for hospital inpatients using standardised weekend management planned stickers’. The Patient Safety Cinema was another focal point of the exhibition, showing films from partners, speakers and exhibitors communicating best practice in patient safety. The Congress also led a ‘Change One Thing’ campaign – encouraging delegates to pledge to do one thing differently in order to improve patient safety in their organisation. This engagement, dynamism and positive contribution was a theme that ran throughout the event, with speakers, delegates, exhibitors and sponsors all keen to celebrate the successes achieved so far and look closely to the future to keep improving.
    
Hopefully the great enthusiasm of the three days translates into real improvements in patient safety, which will of course be the true measure of success. Next years’ Congress will take place 17-18 May 2011 at The ICC in Birmingham.