World Patient Safety Day is an opportunity to reflect on how we can make healthcare safer for everyone. This year's theme focuses on improving the safety of people living with noncommunicable diseases. It recognises both the complexity of their care and the importance of meaningful engagement with patients and families throughout their healthcare journey.
That engagement, and the willingness to listen to what patients and families tell us, is something I see the importance of every day as Ombudsman. The complaints we receive from patients and families provide vital insight into where care has fallen short and where change is needed to prevent future harm.
Central to our new strategy is our duty to use insight from complaints to drive learning and improve services. Across our casework, we see evidence that patient voice is not always heard or acted upon. Our recent reports on accessible communication and end of life care show how poor communication can leave patients and families excluded from important conversations and decisions about their care.
Listening to and learning from people's experiences helps services improve care and support safer outcomes. We want to see patient voice prioritised in service design, interactions between clinicians and patients, and how organisations respond when things go wrong.
To achieve that, we need to address these issues upstream. That is why are working medical schools to explore how learning from complaints and patient experiences can be embedded from the very beginning of clinicians' training. This will help future healthcare professionals learn the value of listening, communicating and responding compassionately when concerns are raised.
Bringing patient voice into medical education
Medical schools told us that students are often excluded from complaints processes and difficult conversations with patients and families. Without this exposure, many have limited opportunities to develop the skills needed both to respond effectively when concerns arise and to identify and address issues at an early stage, before they escalate.
We’ve been working with Edge Hill University and the University of Chester to address this by bringing real patient experiences into medical education. Together, we are developing resources such as filmed discussions and role-play scenarios focused on patient safety, communication and compassionate practice.
As part of this partnership, two medical students interned at my office this summer, hearing directly from people who brought complaints to us and gaining first hand insight into the investigation process. They observed the role of clinical advice in decisions and saw how mediation can help resolve complaints and build understanding between all parties involved.
These conversations continued at the knowledge exchange conference Foundation to Frontline: Valuing Patient Concerns through Professional Curiosity, Care and Compassion hosted by Edge Hill University, delivered in partnership with my office and funded by the Della Fish Foundation.
The event brought together medical educators, healthcare organisations, regulators and future clinicians. I spoke about the importance of patient voice, while Healthwatch England and the Patients Association shared insights from patients and families. The General Medical Council (GMC) highlighted its role in supporting professional standards, and a medical student reflected on their internship experience with my office.
I was encouraged by the level of engagement from delegates and left the conference optimistic that this work can help the next generation of doctors listen, communicate and respond compassionately when concerns are raised. Ultimately, this will lead to safer care and better outcomes for patients and families.
Looking ahead
We are committed to making the resources developed through the partnership accessible to a wider audience, for example by sharing these through platforms such as the NHSE learning hub. But making these resources available is only the first step. Our ambition now is to see this learning embedded more widely across medical education and training, in undergraduate, postgraduate and foundation years.
We will be inviting educators, regulators, Royal Colleges and healthcare leaders to work with us to make that happen. By integrating learning from patient experiences and complaints into medical education, professional standards and guidance, we can build a culture of openness and continuous improvement from the very start of a clinician's career.
If we want safer care tomorrow, we must make sure patient voice helps shape how healthcare professionals are trained today.