This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
‘Little progress’ made improving patient safety
The Chief Inspector of Hospitals at the Care Quality Commission has warned that ‘little progress’ has been made improving patient safety in the NHS over the past 20 years.
Speaking to a safety conference at The King’s Fund, Professor Ted Baker revealed that he receives between 500 and 600 reports of ‘never events’ a year, those incidents that are wholly preventable whatever the circumstances. Such serious accidents remain commonplace due to an ‘insidious’ culture of defensiveness and blame.
Baker also warned that hospital managers routinely hide evidence from the Care Quality Commission, because they regard the organisation, which conducts routine inspections of NHS trusts, as out to blame them.
The NHS estimated in July that 11,000 patients a year may be dying as a result of blunders, partly as a result of a ‘blame game’ culture between staff. The chief inspector urged for a fundamental change in hospital culture whereby NHS bosses drove safety improvements for their own sake, rather than in order to pass an inspection.
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