In this week’s edition…
- Is being confident to speak up enough?
- KSS AHSN Job Vacancies
- Value proposition reviews – free help to get your product or service right for the NHS
- AAL Call Challenge Led
- International Seminar Series
Is being confident to speak up enough?
This month we have seen two key messages come through regarding patient safety. The first was the publication of Sir Robert Francis’ Freedom to Speak Up. The second was a report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) which found significant variation in the quality of NHS investigations into complaints of avoidable death and avoidable harm. Both reports have generated significant coverage and debate.
It will also be 15 years this April since the publication of the report An organisation with a memory. This report made a number of key recommendations which underpin the findings in the two recent report highlighted above. It stated that “If the NHS is successfully to modernise its approach to learning from failure, there are four key areas that must be addressed. In summary, the NHS needs to develop:
- unified mechanisms for reporting and analysis when things go wrong
- a more open culture, in which errors or service failures can be reported and discussed
- mechanisms for ensuring that, where lessons are identified, the necessary changes are put into practice
- a much wider appreciation of the value of the system approach in preventing, analysing and learning from errors”
These messages and ambitions are still current and sadly still beyond the immediate scope of most NHS organisations.
‘Freedom to Speak Up’ highlighted how a significant proportion of health workers are afraid to speak out against unsafe practice, and that many of those who had blown the whistle had been bullied. Government pledges of overhauls to medical and nursing training to make it “rigorous and enhanced” have followed.
Health Education England have recently established the commission on education and training for patient safety, which they intend to use to “make recommendations to ensure that all healthcare staff and in particular, those in training, are fully aware of all aspects of patient safety, including raising concerns and responding to those concerns”.
They have also published Raising concerns: speaking up about patient safety – the first of a number of instructional videos which they intend to build into a range of resources to assist all staff. This commission is a key component of the educational ambition required to realise the ambitions behind Sir Robert Francis’ recommendations.
Underpinning many of these factors is the thorny issue of organisational culture. One of the key workstreams for the Kent Surrey Sussex Patient Collaborative (KSS PSC) is leadership, culture and capability. The ability of an individual to speak up about concerns over patient safety is in part based on their own confidence of how they as an individual will be treated by their organisation. The reflections on this are well discussed in the ‘Freedom to Speak Up’. Another critical issue is how the information is used to help the organisation develop and learn. Part of the initial work planned by KSS PSC is to engage with a number of organisations and develop a model of assessing and improving workplace culture.
As highlighted above the PHSO report highlights variation in the quality of investigations. Additionally many organisations are under pressure to increase the volume of incident reporting that occurs. Finally the recent introduction of duty of candour will significantly increase the volume of investigations individual organisations will be expected to conduct. All of these processes are of course vital to ensure that intelligence is gathered. Yet to focus on these areas alone would avoid the key issue, namely embedding the learning that flows from these incidents and investigations.
The key ambition of the KSS PSC is to work collaboratively with all our partners, in all sectors. Through this process we hope to provide a conduit through which we can spread best practice and help all of us to provide the best possible safe care to all our patients. Hence using a “system approach in preventing, analysing and learning from errors” across a region and therefore developing a group of organisations with memories.
Kind regards,
Tony Kelly
Co-Director, KSS PSC
P.S.
Get LinkedIn with patient safety
The Kent Surrey Sussex Patient Safety Collaborative is now on LinkedIn. Follow the PSC and get the latest news and opinion on all things patient safety in Kent, Surrey and Sussex at:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kent-surrey-sussex-patient-safety-collaborative
KSS AHSN Job Vacancies:
KSS Patient Safety Collaborative Clinical Leads Vacancies
[Kent Surrey Sussex Patient Safety Collaborative]
The Kent Surrey Sussex Patient Safety Collaborative (KSS PSC) is co-designing the package of support for health and care organisations. Fundamental to this will be clinical leadership and we are seeking expressions of interest in these roles. The leads are required for:
- Sepsis
- Safe transfer and discharge
- Medication errors.
For further information, job description and person specification, please click here.
Alternatively please contact Co-Directors:
Tony Kelly, tony.kelly@bsuh.nhs.uk / 07767444526
or
Kay Mackay, kay.mackay1@nhs.net / 07747847782
KSS AHSN Clinical Lead: #Neck of Femur – Vacancy (One Day per Month)
[KSS AHSN Enhancing Quality Pathway]
The KSS AHSN Enhancing Quality Pathway is seeking an experienced Clinician (likely to be, for example, a Consultant Geriatrician, Consultant Orthogeriatrician or Anaesthetist) with extensive knowledge and a keen interest in #NOF to work with us for approximately one day per month to support the AHSN through proactive engagement with academia, industry and all sectors of the NHS.
Please click here, to view the full job description and for further details.
For an informal discussion please contact: Peter Carpenter, Director of Improvement on 01293 600300 ext. 3528 or
07500 608 386.
To apply, please send your CV and a supporting statement (not more than two A4 sides) to:
Julie Hall: julie@templetreeconsulting.co.uk. She can be contacted on 07702 049555. Closing date: Wednesday 25 February 2015
Value proposition reviews – free help to get your product or service right for the NHS
[KSS AHSN / SEHTA]
With the NHS funding capped and limited opportunities for interacting with NHS staff, selling to the NHS will inevitably become more challenging. With a better understanding of their priorities and how cash flows around the system you will be able to prepare a more compelling and comprehensive value proposition.
Rob Berry, Head of Innovation at the Kent Surrey and Sussex AHSN and Dr David Parry, CEO of SEHTA are offering one to one appointments to review value propositions for high value products or services which are on or close to market.
For further information, please click here.
AAL Call Challenge Led- Living actively and independently at home
[Ambient Assisted Living© / KTN Health Community]
The 2015 Call Challenge of the AAL JP aims to support ICT based innovative, translational and multi-disciplinary collaborative projects with a clear market orientation that allow older adults of today to live both independently and actively.
For more information on the call and to download the call document, please click here.
KSS AHSN Call Support/Facilitation: KSS AHSN recognises that most successful bids are based on a combination of excellence, impact and the strength of the delivery consortium or partnership. KSS AHSN has unique strengths in identifying and facilitating integrated collaborative partnerships and can also offer support to bid writing and project implementation.
KSS AHSN is now actively supporting organisations and companies that are interested in pursuing innovative solutions with a specific theme of developing services and enhancing the care of older patients.
For further information as to how KSS AHSN could support your interest in this AAL call from the Knowledge Transfer Network please contact: Paul Hitchcock, Business Development Manager: paul.hitchcock@nhs.net
International Seminar Series
[KSS AHSN and The Health and Europe Centre]
Our 2015 series of free seminars are designed to strengthen collaboration between industry, academia, health and social care.
By inviting speakers who are leaders in their field, we share lessons from overseas and other sectors, and offer networking opportunities for committed change agents working in Kent and Medway, Surrey and Sussex. To view flyer with full list of seminar dates, please click here.
Next event:
Big Data and the Intelligent Organisation
With a guest speaker from the Open Data Institute,
founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Wednesday, 25 March 2015 from 17:30 to 19.30 (GMT)
Sofitel Hotel, Gatwick Airport
RH6 0PH
United Kingdom
Building on our previous seminar about innovation, we’ll look at some key technological innovations from the emerging field of ‘Big Data’. While people everywhere can identify powerful possibilities in this area, most of these possibilities remain unrealised.
We’ll explore what’s possible for Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and how to turn the possible into reality.
Introduction to Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures (PROMs) – 12th March 2015
[York Health Economics Consortium]
Patient-reported outcomes (PRO) are increasingly being used to capture patients’ experiences of their interactions with healthcare professionals, services and interventions. This one-day course will provide attendees with a background to PROs and the instruments used to collect PRO data, including the development and validation of these instruments.