A dominant story in the news this week has been the output and reaction to a government review which suggested that a fifth of hospital trusts in England may be covering up mistakes. As part of their actions to stop 6000 preventable deaths over the next three years, a new website has been launched allowing patients to see the performance criteria of individual hospitals. On this site, there will be an indication where a trust has been rated poor for honest and open reporting.
In their lead story on the topic, BBC news included the comments and opinions from a number of leading NHS stakeholders. Amongst the contributors was Martin Bromiley, founder of the Clinical Human Factors Group, who campaigns for a safer NHS. He made a number of key points: simply naming and shaming would not bring the best results; understanding why organisations were not reporting incidents is key to progress; the best organisations were the ones that encouraged learning; he made a call for safety experts in hospitals. In his view, there is a need for the NHS Leadership and doctors to learn from experts in other sectors and industries.
If this were to happen, would the NHS actually listen? If so, what would be “heard”?
During our Teach the Teacher courses for doctors, we discuss the fact that listening is an active process by both the educator and the learner which requires willingness and effort from both parties. There are numerous barriers to listening which can get in the way, in addition, when messages are heard they will then be interpreted through numerous filters by the listener. Expectations and assumptions; feelings of authority or vulnerability; timing and previous experience. These are just a few of the elements which come into play and colour what is understood. This has to be considered for any teaching/learning environment, whether it be individual coaching, small group tutorials, large group presentation or indeed for expert consultations with large organisations.
So is the NHS ready to listen and learn? Will the “teachers” be able to effectively listen to and understand the NHS?
