Patient safety

In the wake of the Lucy Letby case, new professional regulation is likely to be introduced. Suzie Bailey explores what will be needed from any new regulation.

Does the recommissioning of the Academic Health Science Networks’ patient safety collaboratives mark a renewed commitment to quality improvement for the NHS? In this blog, Ben Collins considers the NHS’s relationship with quality improvement and the challenges it faces in bringing about real improvements in quality.

Deteriorating performance against national waiting time targets is one of the most visible signs of the increasing pressures facing the NHS. But do the current headlines fully capture how long patients are now waiting for NHS care?

What more could the NHS do to improve flu vaccination uptake among staff? Bilal Sahib looks at the options.

Alex Baylis looks at how far research ethics have come in 50 years and reminds us of the importance of creating organisational cultures that put patients first and support staff to do the right thing.

Durka Dougall argues that improving quality of care for patients and delivering better value care are often two sides of the same coin.

Following our recent event on keeping people safer in the health and care system, David Naylor reflects on how the implementation gap between theory and practice can be narrowed.

Dr Suzette Woodward, national campaign director for NHS England's Sign up to Safety campaign, reflects on the difficulty of introducing new methods to improve patient safety and what can be done to improve the success rate when it comes to putting theory into practice.

Four months since the first caps on NHS agency staff spend were introduced by Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority, Phoebe Dunn looks at the impact so far.

A shift in emphasis, away from rules and regulation and towards developing positive organisational cultures that encourage risk taking and avoid blame, will be key as the NHS strives to improve quality

When the Care Quality Commission suggested in its recent State of Care report that safer, better care does not necessarily cost more the inclusion of the word necessarily was important, says Helen McKenna.

More health care is not always better health care. Sometimes the NHS delivers services that people don’t want or need: the problem of overuse.