Special Interest Group
Philosophy and ethics for health care improvement
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Latest group activity
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Hilda Campbell MBE posted an update 11 months, 1 week ago
I am not sure if this link offers anything further to the conversation about the challenges that staff can face when seeking to show initiative and offer alternative ways of doing things https://www.rcn.org.uk/About-us/Our-Influencing-work/Policy-briefings/sco-pol-nursing-at-the-edge-case-study-rebel-with-a-cause It is the story of my own…Read more
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Hilda Campbell MBE posted an update 11 months, 1 week ago
Hi
I notice sometimes when I reply to some emails with an attachment it bounces back. To make sure anyone interested in a copy of the values poster can access one, I have added it to the document section of this SIG 🙂
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Hilda Campbell MBE created the document Values Poster 11 months, 1 week ago
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Hilda Campbell MBE posted an update 11 months, 1 week ago
Hello Laura and all
I am curious as to the motivation to work in health and social care if it is not to make things better. My interpretation of things being better is a lower incidence of ill health, improved interventions when someone is unwell and strategies to cope when the condition is ongoing. My focus being the quality of life of p…Read more
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Laura Proctor posted an update 11 months, 1 week ago
Good afternoon all, this sounds like interesting group, it caught my eye with the mention of ethics. What seems noteworthy to me is that most, if not all health care professionals go into their careers because they have an aspiration to make things better! I wonder where ethics support these staff and how senior managers and leaders ensure these…Read more
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Hi Laura, thanks for joining our SIG! I appreciate the focus in your comment on how staff can be supported by managers, leaders, and ethical codes. There can often be a great deal of emphasis placed on the intentions and attitudes of individual staff when characterising professional ethics, but having appropriate institutional support and…Read more
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Thank you Polly for your welcome and reply. Lovely to meet you! I’m interested to hear more about the institutional support and incentive structures please can you elaborate on these ideas please to help me understand what these might contain. The reason I ask is that the messages that seem to come from the Trust include messages that when…Read more
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I guess I was thinking about a number of things which might affect the ability of healthcare professionals to act on their aspirations to make things better:
– some more structural, e.g. if there are workforce shortages, staff may not have much time to reflect on and think about improving their ways of working, because they are fighting fires t…Read more
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I guess the point I’m making is that when it comes to improvement, many things fall outside of the frontline teams power to sort, usually the meatier things that hold a lot of influence are not the quick wins. In this case, senior leaders (meaning any manager who is above the clinical lead in a team) are in a position where they are expected to…Read more
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Yes that makes lots of sense and I think connects to what I’m saying about too. There are much bigger structural and institutional issues which affect how staff are enabled to deliver healthcare and how it’s experienced by patients. But often these are sidelined in conversations about improvement which focus on small changes/projects which might…Read more
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Yes Polly I entirely agree. Particularly agree with this bit……. But often these are sidelined in conversations about improvement which focus on small changes/projects which might make marginal improvements in processes and outcomes but miss the big systemic issues. In this way Improvement becomes reduced (in my opinion) and their is a risk…Read more
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Thomas John Rose posted an update 11 months, 1 week ago
An interesting report:
https://demos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Recovery-through-Reform_Paper.pdf
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Thank you for sharing, I have shared this with a colleague looks an interesting read from first glance 🙂
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Thomas John Rose posted an update 11 months, 2 weeks ago
I read a lot about a ‘Learning Health System’ but what is it? I think that two aspects of healthcare should be equally represented in such a system. These two aspect are: 1. Clinical and 2. Operational. The output from a Quality Management System would add Learning to both aspects.
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The only way that you learn from error is by changing what you do. First you have to know and understand what you do. How do you do that?
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Hello, Thomas. I am not sure I understand or accept as true “The only way that you learn from error is by changing what you do”. Is ‘error’ being used in a narrower and/or more technical sense than we might reasonably interpret ‘mistake’. Can I not learn that something I did was a mistake, and learn from it, and then try to change what I do if a…Read more
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Vikki, Thanks foe your comment. I guess so. I think that. although I’m not sure, I’m referring to what action we take after the publication of a report fallowing a major enquiry into an issue in a trust. But – it should be so after any recorded mistake – that if is of there was a no blame culture and. pipe dream, some form of standard work in the…Read more
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Maria Dorthea Skov posted an update 12 months ago
Hello philosophers!
On Monday Dec 4th @12-1pm Q is hosting a conversation on health inequalities and equity that I think you all would find interesting.
Drawing from an ongoing 5 year research project – by Dr John Ford and Dr Lucy Johnson at Queen Mary University of London – this session will provide a space for crucial conversations to tak…Read more
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Thomas John Rose posted an update 1 year ago
Join me for another exciting webinar taking a good look at standard work and its many benefits, next Tuesday at 1pm
Adding value to QI projects and learning from error in the NHS with Dr Tom Rose
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Diane Slater joined 1 year ago
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Thomas John Rose posted an update 1 year ago
I have another formula: The NHS will not manage Quality Management or Patient Safety Management until Quality Improvement = Continuous Improvement. Remember the formula, QI=CI.
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Thomas John Rose posted an update 1 year ago
The NHS will not manage Quality or Patient Safety until work-as-done = work-as-imagined. Remember the formula, WAD=WAI.
How can we achieve this?
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Hi Tom, the more I hear from MacQuarrie team, the more I learn.
As this is the philosophy group, I pose the conundrum can we ever complete the tasks our imagination presents? I offer that we can approach (as close as we might wish) but change/evolution brings us a movable feast.
I’ll bring my knife and fork!
best wishes
Rollo-
Yes Rollo, I’ll bring mine as well! With far too many SOPs. Standards and Guidance available our imagination runs wild. We need to hone in on the best and implement CI. Here is another formula: QI=CI, more about that shortly!
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Thanks Tom for the stimulating thought!
Rollo, I think what you say is important. Here’s a related thought: providing good healthcare requires a high level of responsiveness to emerging situations that are often unanticipated in their detail. Because of this, there may be a limitation to how far work-as-done can ever reflect work-as-imagined–in…Read more
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Polly, The situation you describe is the same for all safety critical processes in all safety critical industries. This should not, and in other industries does not, prevent work-as-done being the same as work-as-imagined, and that work-as-done being clearly documented, monitored and continually improved. The NHS stands out as having many ‘work…Read more
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Hilda Campbell MBE posted an update 1 year ago
Boundaries matter for wellbeing. This podcast recorded with QNIS may be of interest https://www.boomplay.com/episode/4817581 If for any reason the link does not work, please try looking in your search engine Hilda Campbell and Clare Cable QNIS podcast on Boundaries. Check out the other resources QNIS also share on their website h…Read more
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The link didn’t work but the search did. Thanks
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@hilda-campbell-mbe Tom’s right! There was something wrong with the hyperlink, but it was easy enough to find it afterwards 🙂
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Thank you for sharing this Hilda! I just had a chance to listen while I made my lunch 🙂
I really valued how you approached this topic — and especially that you emphasised institutional boundary setting (e.g. triage, managing workloads, caring and responsive management) as well as individual boundary setting. It seems extremely important to…Read more
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About this group
This group is for people who are interested in discussing the fundamental purposes of health care improvement and some of the ethical issues that arise in planning, conducting or researching improvement. It is meant for anyone who is interested in asking these ‘big questions’ but it assumes no previous knowledge of philosophy or ethics. Members who care about these questions will bring their own real world perspectives on managing these questions, their own various professional and disciplinary expertise, and a willingness to have a conversation about conceptual and ethical uncertainties.
The main vehicle for the Special Interest Group will be a series of online discussions on specific topics in this area, with recommended pre-reading, held roughly every two months.
Great to read about the story and impact of COPE, Hilda — really disappointing that you lost your NHS funding… hopefully people are still finding ways to access your care when they need it even if it isn’t an official NHS procurement option! Very dispiriting how bureaucratic procedures can get in the way of health and care
Hi Polly
It’s a long story, the key point is, we were never about growing an empire, but an idea. We wanted to create a model led by lived experience that the health board would be curious about and want to adapt and adopt into the mainstream. However, the model worked, but it was totally different from what currently existed, and the ‘…Read more