Organisation and Management
The Role of Managers
The critical role of management and leadership in promoting and improving patient safety within health care organisations is often emphasised and has been offered as the key to achieving significant quality gains. Within high risk industry, the impact of leadership upon effective safety management has been the focus of considerable research, but little comparable work exists in healthcare. By managers we mean all those who have management responsibilities, which includes many doctors, nurses and other professionals as well as designated NHS managers. Through undertaking a broad programme of work that addresses the role of managers at all levels we will seek to answer important questions regarding management control and strategic processes for quality and safety. We will do this through formal studies and by working alongside NHS managers within formal Trust structures
* Assessing management attitudes and commitment to safety
* Managing quality and safety: A cross-industry perspective
* The role of managers and organisational factors in controlling infection
* Understanding organisational resilience: infection control
* Understanding strategic process of safety improvement for whole health care organisations
An Organisational Perspective
There is increasing recognition in research studies that organisational, rather than traditional clinically-focused approaches are the key to resolving endemic patient safety problems, such as high rates of infection or poor clinical outcomes. In other high risk industries, organisational factors; systems, process and human have long been acknowledged to play a significant role in addressing risk issues. These factors are increasingly being reviewed for their application to a health setting. The research programmes will examine the use of human factors and systems methods in relation to improvements in patient safety.
The Safer Patients Initative study
This large, longitudinal study is designed to capture the lessons learnt for UK healthcare from the experiences of organisations participating in the Safer Patients Initiative (SPI). The SPI programme was in place in 24 healthcare organisations across the UK and aimed to improve safety through the application of Continuous Quality Improvement methods and the introduction of specific clinical change packages. The aim of our study is to understand how whole healthcare organisations can make significant and sustainable improvements in the quality and safety of care delivered to patients, offering valuable lessons which can be applied across the NHS.
More information on SPI study >>