Health safety drive brings in patients to inform doctors

The 500,000 research project will see patients give direct feedback to health professionals to improve safety, with the experiences of people who have suffered clinical errors being used to teach trainee doctors across the region.

Professor John Wright of Bradford Institute of Health Research, who is leading the project, said: "While staff in the NHS work hard to provide the safest possible care, mistakes still happen which can result in harm to patients.

"Initiatives to improve patient safety have so far focussed on ways in which healthcare is organised and delivered, and getting doctors and nurses to adopt safer working practices.

"There has been little involvement of patients in shaping safety improvement measures but our study will explore how best to achieve patient involvement and make the best use of the patient experience to improve safety and train the next generation of new doctors entering the NHS."

The research team needs four new panel members to join the eight people already recruited.

Senior research fellow and project co-ordinator, Anna Winterbottom, said: "The main aim of the project is to help change the way junior doctors are taught about how to handle incidents where patients experience harm while in hospital and what better way to do that than by talking to people who have been most affected.

"We'd like to talk to people who have experienced some sort of 'safety incident' whilst being cared for by the NHS, for example, a prescribing error, wrong site surgery, etc..

"Participants need to attend three teaching sessions where they will talk to groups of around 30 trainee doctors about their own personal experiences of their safety incident. The teaching will be held at a hospital site in either East or West Yorkshire and I'd like to reassure anyone interested that it will definitely not be at the trust where the patient incident occurred."

Each year, incidents causing harm to patients are estimated to occur in ten per cent of all NHS hospital admissions.

To find out more contact Anna Winterbottom on 01274 383694 or email [email protected].