Patient safety partners come on board

We were delighted to welcome our new patient safety partners to HRCH, Kingston Hospital and Your Healthcare this week. They are Chloe Scott and Michelle Deans (HRCH), Sue Strudwick and Natalie Hay (Kingston), and Susan Smith and Ruth Johnson (YHC). All six did their induction training together.

NB, our patient safety partners aren’t wearing masks in the photo as they were able to maintain social distancing.

The patient safety partners will begin working alongside our staff, to ensure our decisions are considered from a patient perspective. This will include joining all our committees with a patient safety, risk and quality remit.

Their role is to act as patient advocate, reflecting the voices and needs of people who use hospital and community-based health services, including patients, family members, carers and the public. As part of that role, they will be actively involved in the design of safer healthcare at all levels across our three organisations, representing the voice of the individual.

They will work on complex patient safety issues, feed new ideas into our organisational strategies and policies, and help to make our patient care safer, alongside employees across all three organisations. The patient safety partners will also learn about best practice by joining networks with national counterparts and other NHS staff.