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Patient safety 1 - How can we build a culture of safety in paediatric healthcare?

Release Date: 01/10/2024

RCPCH Podcasts

In this final episode of our podcast series on the changing climate, this mountainous country is seeing extreme temperature fluctuations, landslides and air pollution, endangering communities and impacting healthcare. But, there are some lessons around adaptation, as our guests who work or have volunteered in Nepal explain. Dr Bernadette O’Hare hosts a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation with Dr Jamun Singh, a Nepalese paediatrician, and Dr Rashmi D’Souza, a UK-based paediatrician and Heather Watson, a UK-based paediatric nurse, who volunteered with Dr Singh in our Global Links...

Child health and climate change: Canada

RCPCH Podcasts

Floods, heatwaves and wildfires have become increasingly common across Canada. And as retired paediatrician Dr Julian Pleydell-Pearce explains in this episode of our climate change series, this makes a profound impact on the lives of children and young people - and the way health services are delivered. In episode two of this three-part series, Professor Bernadette O’Hare speaks with guest Julian, who worked as a paediatrician in Canada before his recent retirement. Julian shares his firsthand experiences of how shifting weather patterns has had a drastic impact on the lives of children and...

Child health and climate change: Uganda

RCPCH Podcasts

Less predictable weather in the past several years in this east African country have made it increasingly difficult to grow crops, leading to food shortages and skyrocketing prices. There are broader consequences for children's health, too, as Eva Odongpiny, a pharmacist in Uganda, discusses with us. These include an increased vulnerability to diseases like HIV and cholera, air pollution and water scarcity. This is the first episode in our three-part series on the impacts of climate change on children's health around the word. Host, Dr Bernadette O’Hare, chair of the international workstream...

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

RCPCH Podcasts

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...

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

RCPCH Podcasts

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...

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

RCPCH Podcasts

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...

Patient safety 2 - If we are psychologically safe, children are safer in our care

RCPCH Podcasts

Psychological safety in healthcare settings is the condition in which you feel included, safe to learn, safe to contribute and safe to challenge the status quo - without fear of being embarrassed, marginalised or punished. And it's an essential foundation in building a safety culture. Individually, feeling psychologically safe improves performance and innovation, while feeling unsafe reduces productivity and harms retention. In a highly productive team, it is about feeling safe to take risks, to learn from each other and to feel resilient and able to tackle the difficult and varying challenges...

Patient safety 1 - How can we build a culture of safety in paediatric healthcare?

RCPCH Podcasts

Healthcare is inherently risky and so as child health professionals we need to make patient safety a priority in all our actions. We need to think about safety all the time. In episode 1 of our series on paediatric patient safety, we speak with Dr Peter Lachman, who develops and delivers programmes for clinical leaders in quality improvement at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin. As Peter explains on the podcast, we healthcare professionals need to know patient safety theory - but, more importantly, we need to know how to apply it, drive improvement and create a workplace culture...

The state of digital child health today - an interview with Professor Sam Shah

RCPCH Podcasts

Richard Burley, Executive Director of Digital talks with Professor Shah about how digital technology can support child health, and how paediatricians can embrace it - with a dose of healthy scepticism. Professor Sam Shah is Chief Medical Strategy Officer at men's health company, Numan, and Honorary Lecturer at University College London's Global Business School for Health. He spoke at RCPCH Conference 2023 with a session titled, 'Could healthcare technology address the challenges in child health? Richard Burley here at the College was fortunate to be in the audience and invited Sam to discuss...

Shift the dial on climate change and health inequalities

RCPCH Podcasts

Climate change poses an existential risk to child health and is exacerbating health inequalities. But, paediatricians can play an important role in sharing information and advocating for action. Dr Helen Stewart and Dr Alex Lemaigre introduce the College’s new toolkit for paediatricians. Our first tool helps you understand how climate change impacts on children and young people’s health and exacerbates health inequalities. And our second equips you to influence climate change policy locally, regionally and nationally. Alex and Helen talk about why paediatricians have a role in addressing...

More Episodes

Healthcare is inherently risky and so as child health professionals we need to make patient safety a priority in all our actions. We need to think about safety all the time.

In episode 1 of our series on paediatric patient safety, we speak with Dr Peter Lachman, who develops and delivers programmes for clinical leaders in quality improvement at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin.

As Peter explains on the podcast, we healthcare professionals need to know patient safety theory - but, more importantly, we need to know how to apply it, drive improvement and create a workplace culture that fosters safe working practices.

Everyone - from the most junior member of the team to the most senior paediatric clinical leader - needs to think about patient safety all day every day. A safe culture takes time to build. Shared activities such as handover, huddles and debrief can model good behaviour and benefit performance. Repeating behaviours that represent a safe culture can create a virtuous cycle which can change deeply held attitudes and beliefs, then ultimately the safe culture overall.

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 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.

Download transcript (PDF)

About the Patient safety podcast 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.

There are lots of resources that expand on this on the RCPCH Patient Safety Portal, including the theory of patient safety culture and examples of how people across the UK are doing this well. Visit at https://safety.rcpch.ac.uk.

More about Dr Peter Lachman

Dr Peter Lachman develops and delivers programmes to develop clinical leaders in quality improvement at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin. He works with HSE Global in Africa, and he was Chief Executive Officer of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) from 1 May 2016 to 30 April 2021. Peter was a Health Foundation Quality Improvement Fellow at IHI in 2005-2006 and then went on to be the Deputy Medical Director with the lead for Patient Safety at Great Ormond Street Hospital 2006-2016. Peter was also a Consultant Paediatrician at the Royal Free Hospital in London specialising in the challenge of long-term conditions for children.

Peter is the lead editor of the OUP Handbook on Patient Safety published in April 2022; Co-Editor of the OUP Handbook on Medical Leadership and Management published in December 2022; and Editor of the OUP Handbook on Quality Improvement to be published in 2024.

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