For the great majority, pregnancy and childbirth should be a positive and happy experience that culminates in a healthy mother and baby. This means, however, that on those occasions when things do go wrong, the effects are even more devastating than in other areas of healthcare. Maternity care must reconcile these dual aspects in order to be safe, effective and responsive. When it does not, the consequences may be stark. This Report details a distressing chain of events that began with serious failures of clinical care in the maternity unit at Furness General Hospital, part of what became the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. The result was avoidable harm to mothers and babies, including tragic and unnecessary deaths. What followed was a pattern of failure to recognise the nature and severity of the problem, with, in some cases, denial that any problem existed, and a series of missed opportunities to intervene that involved almost every level of the NHS. These events have finally been brought to light thanks to the efforts of some diligent and courageous families, who persistently refused to accept what they were being told. Those families deserve great credit. This Report includes detailed and damning criticisms of the maternity unit, the Trust and the regulatory and supervisory system. This Report sets out why that is and how it could have been avoided.

This step-by-step guide takes the reader through the complex process of investigating serious incidents in health, social care, and criminal justice environments, acknowledging differences of culture and context that shape an investigation. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, Part 1 begins by exploring the key principles of investigation, including ethical and legal perspectives, the involvement of families and carers, and being aware of unconscious bias, among other issues. Part 2 outlines in detail the conduct of investigations, from planning to processing the findings, before moving on to Part 3, carrying them out in diverse settings. Further chapters then look at investigating within diverse environments before moving on to to Part 4 which deals with reviewing and analysing the evidence collected and writing up the investigation. This final part also examines the pivotal issue of learning from the investigation and disseminating the report. The inclusion of case studies, models of good practice, and vignettes enables the reader to view each stage of the process in context and drive the transformation of practice. This practical resource is designed to support health and social care professionals who undertake investigations as part of their role, including nurses, allied health practitioners, social workers, doctors, and psychologists, as well as military personnel and law enforcers. It is an essential companion.

Despite recurring efforts, a gap exists across a variety of contexts between the protection of patients’ safety in theory and in practice. This timely Research Handbook highlights these critical issues and suggests both legal and policy changes are necessary to better protect patients’ safety.

Embryo research, cloning, assisted conception, neonatal care, pandemic vaccine development, saviour siblings, organ transplants, drug trials – modern developments have transformed the field of medicine almost beyond recognition in recent decades and the law struggles to keep up. In this highly acclaimed and very accessible book Margaret Brazier, Emma Cave and Rob Heywood provide an incisive survey of the legal situation in areas as diverse as fertility treatment, patient consent, assisted dying, malpractice and medical privacy. The seventh edition of this book has been fully revised and updated to cover the latest cases, Brexit-related regulatory reform and COVID-19 pandemic measures. Essential reading for healthcare professionals, lecturers, medical and law students, this book is of relevance to all whose perusal of the daily news causes wonder, hope and consternation at the advances and limitations of medicine, patients and the law.

Take an evidence-based approach to prescribing decisions with this comprehensive guide Prescribing decisions are among the most important parts of clinical practice. Balancing patient needs, possible drug interactions, the probability of adverse drug reactions, and more requires an evidence-based approach rooted in pharmacological principles. The New Prescriber: An Integrated Approach to Medical and Non-medical Prescribing offers a thorough, accessible introduction to the core components of prescribing, essential for any student preparing for clinical practice. Now fully updated to reflect the latest best practices and to address questions raised by different prescribing settings, it promises to continue as the key introduction to this vital subject. Readers of the second edition of The New Prescriber will also find: An introduction to the principles of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics New sections covering topics including illegal and illicit drugs, overdose and deprescribing, and more A thorough glossary with key terms The New Prescriber is ideal for all non-medical prescribing students, nursing, allied health professionals, and medical students.

This book is for anyone who is interested in improving quality in healthcare. It will appeal to those who are traditionally responsible for quality matters, as well as practicing clinicians and leaders. Unusually, it will also be as relevant to those who have the keenest interest in the quality of care - interested citizens. It is a deliberate antidote to the anti-intellectual, QI tool driven, mechanistic approach that still dominates much of healthcare quality improvement work. The authors - both of whom have extensive experience of working in and around quality issues in healthcare at a national, regional and local level - challenge such approaches, which they believe fail to take account of patient and organisational context and invite reductionism, cherry picking, atomisation of complex issues, leading ultimately to simplistic and unsustainable outcomes. Key features of the book: · An exploration of some of the often-overlooked and misunderstood core concepts of quality; their history and meaning in a contemporary context. · A framework to "question the work" using four interconnected conceptual domains as a valuable framework to consider improving quality and reducing failure demand. · Critical re-examination of the dominant approaches to change that are frequently adopted in "quality" work, many of which have been rooted in scientific management that have failed to live up to their promise – particularly transformational. · Exploring how an inter-disciplinary perspective can reframe aspects of quality thinking.

Supporting readers to perform effectively in urgent or emergency situations that can occur in a hospital, at a birth centre or at home, this fully updated fourth edition presents the necessary knowledge and skills for student and practising midwives. With contributions from highly experienced midwives, this practical guidebook incorporates a new chapter on legal issues for safe practice, as well as additional content on professional issues. It also includes an essential new chapter on cardiac problems, recognising that midwives are often the lead professional caring for women with cardiac anomalies, as many are undiagnosed until the emergency. The book continues to provide key, up-to-date information on high-risk medical and obstetric situations, from serious infection to uterine complications to resuscitation. Emergencies Around Childbirth is essential reading for practising and student midwives and those who teach them.

An in-depth analysis of the NHS reforms ushered in by UK Coalition Government under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Essential reading for those studying the NHS, those who work in it, and those who seek to gain a better understanding of this key public service.

While most healthcare facilities have an extremely high success rate at the most challenging lifesaving work and we all know of friends and relatives who have had supreme care, mistakes are still made and patients’ lives have been put at risk and lost. How often have we heard politicians say after some disastrous report, "Lessons must be learned", but what does this really mean. Will responsible parties carry out a careful cause and effect analysis and methodically get to the root causes of the problem? Will sufficient steps be taken to permanently eradicate those causes and provide a permanent solution so that the problem will not reoccur? This is what is done in the aviation industry with the result that air travel is very safe. The low accident rate is achieved by studying the causes and using the methods of continuous improvement explained in this book. These methods are now becoming better known in the medical profession have been recommended in recent reports but are perhaps misunderstood at operational levels. This book is a basic level manual for those who have never been involved in any form of quality improvement project and is also suitable as a refresher for anyone wishing to familiarize themselves with the various techniques discussed. The aim of this book is to explain what continuous improvement is and why it’s needed; explain how individual departments can explain how and why continuous improvement is important, and helps readers recognize quality control methods in their own workplace and understand how to contribute to existing continuous improvement activities. While many of the case studies and examples are from the NHS, the author includes similar examples from around the world.

Work in all its guises is a fundamental part of the human experience, and yet it is a setting where emotions rarely take centre stage. This edited collection interrogates the troubled relationship between emotion and work to shed light on the feelings and meanings of both paid and unpaid labour from the late 19th to the 21st century. Central to this book is a reappraisal of 'emotional labour', now associated with the household and 'life admin' work largely undertaken by women and which reflects and perpetuates gender inequalities. Critiquing this term, and the history of how work has made us feel, Feelings and Work in Modern History explores the changing values we have ascribed to our labour, examines the methods deployed by workplaces to manage or 'administrate' our emotions, and traces feelings through 19th, 20th and 21st century Europe, Asia and South America. Exploring the damages wrought to physical and emotional health by certain workplaces and practices, critiquing the pathologisation of some emotional responses to work, and acknowledging the joy and meaning people derive from their labour, this book appraises the notion of 'work-life balance', explores the changing notions of professionalism and critically engages with the history of capitalism and neo-liberalism. In doing so, it interrogates the lasting impact of some of these histories on the current and future emotional landscape of labour.