The Importance Of Safety Culture

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Safety Culture
Post Francis inquiry, lessons learnt have taught us that a culture change is needed within the NHS. Hunt (2015) states that ‘one of the four pillars of the government’s response is to get the culture right: more accountability for patients, more transparency over outcomes and a commitment to put patients in the driving seat for any decisions taken about them’. Moreover, that means creating a learning culture in which doctors, nurses and frontline staff always feel able to speak out if they have concerns about safety or care (Hunt, 2015). Ulrich and Kear (2014) define Patient safety culture as “the values shared among organisation member about what is important, their beliefs about how things operate and the interaction of these …show more content…

However, Howell (2015) retaliates stating that “A culture of safety has no consistent definition in the literature. However, a patient safety culture should be no punitive and emphasize accountability, excellence, honesty, integrity, and mutual respect”. Ammouri et al (2015) say that in order to create a patient safety culture, many factors must be present and these include effective communication, appropriate staffing, and procedure compliance, environmental safety, environmental security, culture, supportive leadership, orientation and training, and open communication about medical errors. All of which were identified in the Francis inquiry, and included in the recommendations of improvement. Many studies have been conducted about patients’ safety and have all in one way or another indicated that there is a relationship between element of safety culture and patients outcomes, suggesting that excellent safety culture can improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs (Clarke …show more content…

However, patient and families are important stakeholders to a health care organisation’s patient safety culture, and have traditionally been underutilized as an important source of information (Bishop and Cregan, 2015). Moreover, Longtin et al (2010) argues that patient participation is increasingly being recognised as a key component in the redesign of health care processes and is advocated as a means to improve patient safety and safety culture. Patients are dependent on healthcare professionals, and their decision making, however, their involvement in safety initiatives is crucial to the management of patient safety (Andersson & Olheden 2012). Vaismoradi et al (2015) states that the benefits of patient participation include raising awareness of adverse events and patient empowerment. Moreover, it is believed that possibility of prevention of incidents is a main motivation for engaging patients in patient safety initiatives, thus promoting a rigours culture of safety. Berwick (2013) included in his recommendations states that the goal is not for patients and carers to be the passive recipients of increased engagement, but rather to achieve a pervasive culture that welcomes authentic patient partnership – in their own care and in the processes of designing and delivering

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