Patient safety

All patients have a right to safe, high quality, holistic care delivered by compassionate, respectful and expert health professionals. The provision of good care is a fundamental part of what it means to be a doctor.

In autumn 2011, the RCP responded to the Commission on improving dignity in care of older people, run by the NHS Confederation, Local Government Group and Age UK. The Commission was set up in response to a number of high profile instances in which older people received sub-standards levels of care in hospitals and care homes. The RCP’s response sets out how we think patient safety and the care for older people can be improved, and can be downloaded from the end of this page.

Improving patient safety

The RCP is committed to improving quality, providing medical leadership and developing medical professionalism. We provide doctors with training throughout their careers; we develop audits and guidelines that help health professionals compare and improve the standards of care patients receive, and; we support doctors across the country through our regional networks.

Poor service design introduces a number of barriers to the provision of appropriate, high quality care centred around the needs of the patient. Health and social care professionals need to be supported by a system designed to promote the delivery of high quality care. Existing evidence tells us that the following need to be in place:

• adequate staffing numbers, with sufficient time available to care for patients.
• appropriate education and training so that we have a workforce with the right skills to deal with the current and future mix of patients.
• improved communication with patients, their relatives and carers. 
• better continuity of management of patients in acute settings and across providers. This demands clear lines of accountability on the wards, better communication between staff and improved flows of information across the system.
• better care of patients outside normal working hours.

Regulating healthcare

Robust systems that can effectively monitor, performance manage and regulate the care patients receive are vital. This entails different levels of the system, beginning crucially with clinical staff on the frontline and hospital management, and ending with the Care Quality Commission, Monitor and the General Medical Council. All these groups must work together effectively to understand and share information, taking collaborative action where appropriate.

The provision of good care is a fundamental part of what it means to be a doctor. This includes seeking to address instances of poor practice where patient safety may be compromised, raising these concerns with hospital management and sector and professional regulators where necessary.

Professional networks have the potential to act as a source of advice and information, and as a channel for identifying potential poor practice and sharing examples of good practice. We are currently exploring how the RCP’s regional advisory network could be used to support doctors to fulfil this role.