PATIENTSTORIES is a new web-based service which aims to use documentary and drama-documentary film-making techniques to provoke discussion and debate about safety and quality issues in healthcare.
Whether gained from personal or professional experience (or a combination of both) the team at PATIENTSTORIES all have an intimate knowledge of quality and safety issues in healthcare.
Our content is deliberately more open-ended and less didactic than your average “training” video and is focused on creating emotional impact to stimulate reaction and reflection. The issues we address are fundamental and the overall tone of the work is honest, in some cases quite hard-hitting and moving. Ultimately however our work is hopeful because all the people we work with share a common aim – to help make a practical difference.
We don’t believe that individuals or indeed organisations are to “blame” for what happens in the stories the we feature. We are keen to emphasise the systemic nature of error and harm and to promote a better understanding of the complex “human factors” that lead to the failures in care that our stories illustrate. We are also very keen to illustrate where things have gone right, sometimes after things have gone badly wrong.
But we’re not going to be shy about illustrating the human cost of avoidable harm – for patients, their relatives and carers and to the practitioners and clinicians involved. Ultimately, we want to stimulate dialogue amongst patients, professionals and policy-makers as it is only through a better quality and more informed ongoing debate that sustainable change in culture is likely to occur.
By combining the courage and generosity of the people involved in the incidents that are the subject of our films and the professional skill and sensitivity of our writers, film-makers, journalists and improvement advisors, we think we are developing some powerful tools to offer anyone interested in setting a new tone for their work around quality and safety. They are not the answer of course, merely a contribution.
Over the past few months we have been “testing” our films and other content with a variety of different audiences ranging from undergraduate doctors, nurses and AHPs; frontline NHS clinical teams, managers and executives; and national and international leaders in the domain of safety and quality in healthcare. The feedback to date has been very encouraging and the issues that have been raised in subsequent discussions and debates have been wide and various. Everyone sees different things in these stories and relates the learning in different ways to their practices and work situations.
You can read more about current projects and what people have said about our work to date here.
If you would like to participate in our ongoing “testing” programme please contact us to discuss your ideas.