Mary Agnew, Deputy Director of the Department of Health Francis Implementation Team, is blogging about her team’s work with organisations across the health system to support the NHS in delivering consistently safe and compassionate care.
She hopes, with contributions from people and organisations across the healthcare system, to place “a spotlight on a series of key themes, such as staff wellbeing, values and patient voice.”
She says:
For me, responding to Francis is about ensuring everyone involved in care always sees, first and foremost, ‘the person in the patient’, listening to views and concerns, and involving people as true partners and experts in their own right. It is about how the system reacts when things go wrong.
It is rarely easy to speak up and speak out, or to challenge and change entrenched behaviours within complex systems.
But I hope readers of my blog will together speak up loudly for quality and be a constant voice for compassion.