Improving patient safety in the NHS: the culture change agents

摘要

The CQC is a major patient safety culture change agent. Itsjob is to ensure that health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality care. The CQC encourages care service providers to be on an upward trajectory of improvement. It has recently produced a report (CQC, 2017a) that looks at the CQC's impact on quality and improvement in health and social care. A fundamental question asked is whether the CQC makes any difference to the environment of health care. If its reports and findings are ignored, then the organisation has failed in its mission. This, however, is not the case. The CQC is listened to by health providers and others, its advice is clear and it is making a difference. The report is a positive one for the CQC. The CQC is making an effective, contribution to the NHS as an active patient safety change agent. It is doing this by identifying patient safety and health quality failings and lapses in hospitals and elsewhere and drawing attention to them. Safety remains its greatest concern (CQC, 2017b) and it drives home this message that patient safety must improve in the NHS