Patient safety 4 - Involving children, young people and their families in making healthcare safer

01/31/24 • 53 min

It is imperative that children and young people are central to the co-design and co-production of our patient safety improvement interventions.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Jane Runnacles, consultant paediatrician at St. George's Hospital, and Dr Victoria Dublon, paediatric diabetes consultant at the Royal Free Hospital. Both are champions of improvement work that puts the young person and their needs first.

As Jane and Victoria describe, involving children, young people and their families in improvement work improves the experience and outcome for all involved. There are fantastic examples of co-creating and co-producing safety improvements in healthcare.

We discuss the practicalities of how to do this and who to involve in your healthcare setting, and we hear about some of Jane and Victoria’s successes.

Thank you for listening.

Dr Natalie Wyatt, RCPCH Clinical Fellow and Jonathan Bamber RCPCH Head of Quality Improvement Produced by 18Sixty

Please be advised that this podcast series contains stories relating to child death and harm. All views, thoughts and opinions expressed belong to the guests and not necessarily to their employer, linked organisations or RCPCH.

Download transcript (PDF)

About the patient safety series

As doctors we ‘first, do no harm’. However, the systems in which we work are rife with safety issues and resultant harm. In thinking about how to improve this, we have brought together leaders in the field to discuss challenging and thought-provoking issues around keeping our children safe in healthcare settings.

We hope you will be entertained, educated and energised to make strides in improving the safety of the children that you care for.

The RCPCH Patient Safety Portal has lots of resources. And our engaging children and young people web pages can help you get started on your engagement journey to effectively work with children and young people to improve their healthcare.

Dr Victoria Dublon is based at the Royal Free Hospital and part of the Trust-wide diabetes team. She has been a paediatric diabetes consultant for eight years, working primarily at the Royal Free Hospital as well as running clinics at Barnet Hospital and Chase Farm Hospital. As a registrar, she trained in adolescent health as well as endocrinology and diabetes and this continues to be a big part of her work. Victoria is involved in improvement work within the department as well as being a champion of ‘Me First’, striving to put the young person and their needs first.

Dr Jane Runnacles is a consultant in ambulatory paediatrics at St George's hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London and clinical governance lead for her department. She has an interest in acute paediatrics, simulation and quality improvement. During her postgraduate training in London, she was awarded distinction in her MA in clinical education and spent a year as a Darzi clinical leadership fellow at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Jane is a Training Programme Director for the London School of Paediatrics and leads their leadership and QI education programmes.

Topics/organisations/papers referenced in this episode

It is imperative that children and young people are central to the co-design and co-production of our patient safety improvement interventions.

We discuss the practicalities of how to do this and who to involve in your healthcare setting, and we hear about some of Jane and Victoria’s successes.

Thank you for listening.

Dr Natalie Wyatt, RCPCH Clinical Fellow and Jonathan Bamber RCPCH Head of Quality Improvement Produced by 18Sixty

Download transcript (PDF)

About the patient safety series

We hope you will be entertained, educated and energised to make strides in improving the safety of the children that you care for.

Topics/organisations/papers referenced in this episode

Previous Episode

Patient safety 3 - How do we improve how we learn from harm?

It is not enough just to collect data on harm occurring to children in healthcare settings. We need the data to be robust, comparable across the NHS and for it to be transformed into effective, meaningful changes in outcome.

In episode 3 of our series on paediatric patient safety, we speak with Dr Damian Roland, a paediatric emergency medicine clinician scientist and head of service for the Children's Emergency Department at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

As Damian discusses on the podcast, in order to learn from harm and prevent it occurring again we need to collect data and investigate what is occurring across the healthcare system rather than looking to individuals. Removing the individual, more punitive approach to harm investigations could improve the quality of how we record and report harm.

There is already a wealth of learning available from a range of sources including national reports, coroner’s findings described in regulation 28 reports to prevent future death and large-scale reviews like those of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body. We can investigate whether the causes of harm identified in these reports are occurring where we work and make proactive steps to avert it.

Damian also shares the progress of the SPOT programme (System-wide Paediatric Observation Tracking). This looks to reduce harm and improve how we learn from harm by creating a standardised common language to identify and discuss children whose health is deteriorating.

Thank you for listening.

Hosted by Dr Natalie Wyatt, RCPCH Clinical Fellow and Jonathan Bamber RCPCH Head of Quality Improvement | Produced by 18Sixty

Download transcript (PDF)

Please be advised that this series contains stories relating to child death and harm. All views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast series belong to the guests and not necessarily to their employer, linked organisations or RCPCH.

About the Patient Safety series

The RCPCH Patient Safety Portal at https://safety.rcpch.ac.uk has lots of resources. It includes a wealth of information summarising reports and investigations that identify what puts children at risk of harm. It is imperative to turn this knowledge into action through improvement activities.

More about Dr Damian Roland

Damian is a paediatric emergency medicine clinician scientist and is head of service for the Children's Emergency Department at Leicester Royal Infirmary. Among his many achievements, Damian has been focused on addressing the challenges of identifying deterioration in health in children. He created the Paediatric Observation Priority Score for Children's Emergency Care and currently he is instrumental in the NHS England SPOT programme.

Topics/organisations/papers referenced in this episode

Next Episode

Patient safety 5 – The impact of healthcare inequality on patient safety

Health inequalities are widening in paediatrics. Those that are more disadvantaged experience more safety issues whilst in health care. If we can make our healthcare systems more equitable for the children and young people we can for, they will be safer in our care.

In episode 5 of our series on paediatric patient safety, we speak with Dr Helen Stewart, Dr Cian Wade and Dr Mimi Malhotra to explore how patient safety and health inequalities are inextricably linked. Tackling healthcare inequalities can improve safety and vice versa.

Dr Stewart shares her knowledge and experience as the RCPCH Officer for Health Improvement as to how our children are impacted by health inequalities. Dr Wade and Dr Malhotra discuss their BMJ paper, Action on patient safety can reduce health inequalities, and explore some of the improvement avenues that are available to clinicians and service providers.

Thank you for listening.

Dr Natalie Wyatt, RCPCH Clinical Fellow and Jonathan Bamber, RCPCH Head of Quality Improvement | Produced by 18Sixty

Download transcript (PDF)

About the Patient Safety series

We hope you will be entertained, educated and energised to make strides in improving the safety of the children that you care for.

The RCPCH Patient Safety Portal has lots of resources, including a wealth of learning about paediatric patient safety. The RCPCH health inequalities programme of work can be found on our key topics pages.

It is imperative to turn this knowledge into action through improvement activities.

About the speakers

Dr Helen Stewart is a Consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. She also has an interest in public health and health inequalities, which has led to her becoming the Officer for Health Improvement at RCPCH.
Dr Cian Wade completed a National Medical Director Clinical Fellowship with NHS England. He is a Fulbright Scholar who recently completed a Master of Public Health at Harvard University and now consults for health systems and healthcare providers.
Dr Mimi Malhotra completed a National Medical Director Clinical Fellowship with the Health Foundation. Dr Malhotra continues to work as a respiratory trainee in London with ab honorary clinical lectureship at UCL.

Topics/organisations/papers referenced in this episode