Public sector organizational failure: a study of collective denial in the UK national health service.

Jane Hendy; Danielle A Tucker

Study

Public sector organizational failure: a study of collective denial in the UK national health service.

May 27, 2020

Hendy J, Tucker DA. J Bus Ethics. 2020;2021;172:691–706.

View more articles from the same authors.

Using the events at the United Kingdom’s Mid Staffordshire Trust hospital as a case study, the authors discuss the impact of ‘collective denial’ on organizational processes and safety culture. The authors suggest that safeguards allowing for self-reflection and correction be implemented early in the safety reporting process, and that employees be granted power to speak up about safety concerns.

Available at

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

The evolving literature on safety WalkRounds: emerging themes and practical messages.

October 1, 2014

The effectiveness of management-by-walking-around: a randomized field study.

April 23, 2014

Operational failures and interruptions in hospital nursing.

June 14, 2006

Ashamed to admit it: owning up to medical error.

August 11, 2010

Perchance to think.

April 3, 2019

Battling alarm fatigue in the pediatric intensive care unit.

October 11, 2023

The effect of work hours on adverse events and errors in health care.

June 30, 2010

Engaging patients and informal caregivers to improve safety and facilitate person- and family-centered care during transitions from hospital to home: a qualitative descriptive study.

July 10, 2019

Quality-monitoring program for bar-code–assisted medication administration.

June 17, 2009

Front-line staff perspectives on opportunities for improving the safety and efficiency of hospital work systems.

June 18, 2008

Health literacy in primary care practice.

September 9, 2015

Physician gender and apologies in clinical interactions.

January 31, 2018

Harnessing implementation science to improve care quality and patient safety: a systematic review of targeted literature.

May 21, 2014

Interpreting and coding causal relationships for quality and safety using ICD-11.

February 28, 2024

The benefits and opportunities: engaging patients in identifying and reporting patient safety incidents.

November 15, 2023

Medical reconciliation in patients discharged from the emergency department.

January 11, 2012

Surgical safety and hospital volume across a wide range of interventions.

September 29, 2010

Does inappropriate selectivity in information use relate to diagnostic errors and patient harm? The diagnosis of patients with dyspnea.

August 7, 2013

The nature and causes of unintended events reported at 10 internal medicine departments.

November 23, 2011

The economic burden of nurse-sensitive adverse events in 22 medical-surgical units: retrospective and matching analysis.

September 20, 2017

The impact of shift patterns on junior doctors' perceptions of fatigue, training, work/life balance and the role of social support.

December 22, 2010

Older veterans and emergency department discharge information.

October 10, 2012

The impact of internal service quality on preventable adverse events in hospitals.

March 27, 2019

Incidence of nosocomial COVID-19 in patients hospitalized at a large US academic medical center.

October 21, 2020

Name and shame.

August 12, 2009

You can say sorry.

August 12, 2009

Measurement and Monitoring of Safety Framework (MMSF): learning from its implementation in Canada.

June 28, 2023

Safety first.

February 25, 2009

Cutting out human error.

November 19, 2008

Prescriber barriers and enablers to minimising potentially inappropriate medications in adults: a systematic review and thematic synthesis.

January 14, 2015

Hospital system barriers to rapid response team activation: a cognitive work analysis.

February 18, 2015

The risks of the prescribing cascade.

September 16, 2020

Rx for medication errors.

November 19, 2008

The first U.S. study on nurses' evidence-based practice competencies indicates major deficits that threaten healthcare quality, safety, and patient outcomes.

April 25, 2018

Why do interns make prescribing errors? A qualitative study.

February 13, 2008

Consumer participation in early detection of the deteriorating patient and call activation to rapid response systems: a literature review.

October 7, 2015

Developing a reporting and tracking tool for nursing student errors and near misses.

May 28, 2014

Understanding and responding to health literacy as a social determinant of health.

October 9, 2021

Nurses' perceptions and experiences of communication in the operating theatre: a focus group interview.

February 22, 2006

Medication safety: just a label away.

October 24, 2007

Impact of incorporating pharmacy claims data into electronic medication reconciliation.

March 4, 2015

Adherence to simple and effective measures reduces the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia: [L'observation de mesures simples et efficaces reduit l'incidence de pneumonie associee a la ventilation mecanique].

May 25, 2005

Unit-based incident reporting and root cause analysis: variation at three hospital unit types.

August 17, 2016

Relating faults in diagnostic reasoning with diagnostic errors and patient harm.

February 8, 2012

The occurrence of adverse events potentially attributable to nursing care in medical units: cross sectional record review.

August 20, 2014

Adaptation and implementation of the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist around the world.

November 3, 2021

Oncology pharmacist-led medication reconciliation among cancer patients initiating chemotherapy.

July 29, 2020

Wake-up call: night shifts adversely affect nurse health and retention, patient and public safety, and costs.

September 20, 2023

The role of emotion in patient safety: are we brave enough to scratch beneath the surface?

January 27, 2016

Inattentional blindness and failures to rescue the deteriorating patient in critical care, emergency and perioperative settings: four case scenarios.

December 7, 2016

Partnering to prevent falls: using a multimodal multidisciplinary team.

August 14, 2013

The spectrum of medical errors: when patients sue.

September 12, 2012

Can patients report patient safety incidents in a hospital setting? A systematic review.

May 23, 2012

Examining the meaning of the language used to communicate the nursing hand-off.

November 24, 2021

The future of engaging patients and families for patient safety.

October 18, 2023

Engaging patients as safety partners: some considerations for ensuring a culturally and linguistically appropriate approach.

November 12, 2008

Culture, language, and patient safety: making the link.

September 27, 2006

Clinical risk management and patient safety education for nurses: a critique.

July 26, 2006

Clinical alarms: improving efficiency and effectiveness.

November 9, 2005

Processes for disciplining nurses for unprofessional conduct of a serious nature: a critique.

May 4, 2005

The nature and causes of unintended events reported at ten emergency departments.

October 14, 2009

Using Kotter's change model for implementing bedside handoff: a quality improvement project.

August 24, 2016

Association of inpatient hospital experience with patient safety indicators: a cross-sectional, Canadian study.

September 21, 2016

Disparities in adverse event reporting for hospitalized children.

August 3, 2022

Body mass index category and adverse events in hospitalized children.

July 27, 2022

Operating manual-based usability evaluation of medical devices: an effective patient safety screening method.

April 5, 2006

The importance of leadership in preventing healthcare–associated infection: results of a multisite qualitative study.

September 15, 2010

How active resisters and organizational constipators affect health care–acquired infection prevention efforts.

April 13, 2011

Are opioid dependence and methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) documented in the medical record? A patient safety issue.

August 5, 2009

Associations of patient safety outcomes with models of nursing care organization at unit level in hospitals.

June 26, 2013

Mitigating imperfect data validity in administrative data PSIs: a method for estimating true adverse event rates.

March 3, 2021

Impact of a pharmacist-facilitated hospital discharge program: a quasi-experimental study.

December 2, 2009

Infection prevention in long-term care: re-evaluating the system using a human factors engineering approach.

February 13, 2019

Identifying potential medication discrepancies during medication reconciliation in the post-acute long-term care setting.

July 17, 2019

The social dimensions of safety incident reporting in maternity care: the influence of working relationships and group processes.

December 12, 2012

Understanding how rapid response systems may improve safety for the acutely ill patient: learning from the frontline.

October 19, 2011

Rethinking diagnostic delay in cancer: how difficult is the diagnosis?

January 7, 2015

Distraction in the operating room: a narrative review of environmental and self-initiated distractions and their effect on anesthesia providers.

December 16, 2020

When to err is inhuman: an examination of the influence of artificial intelligence-driven nursing care on patient safety.

August 2, 2023

Sleepy nurses: are we willing to accept the challenge today?

June 20, 2007

One intensive care nursery's experience with enhancing patient safety.

June 28, 2006

Preventing delayed and missed care by applying artificial intelligence to trigger radiology imaging follow-up.

March 30, 2022

Drug–drug interactions that should be non-interruptive in order to reduce alert fatigue in electronic health records.

October 31, 2012

Self-reported adverse events in health care that cause harm: a population-based survey.

May 13, 2009

The role of patient safety culture in the causation of unintended events in hospitals.

February 20, 2013

Structural racism and the COVID-19 experience in the United States.

July 7, 2021

Supporting patient safety: examining communication within delivery suite teams through contrasting approaches to research observation.

August 25, 2010

Recognising and responding to 'cutting corners' when providing nursing care: a qualitative study.

October 12, 2016

Rapidly increasing rapid response team activation rates.

September 9, 2015

'If no-one stops me, I'll make the mistake again': changing prescribing behaviours through feedback; a Perceptual Control Theory perspective.

May 10, 2017

Safety measurement and monitoring in healthcare: a framework to guide clinical teams and healthcare organisations in maintaining safety.

May 21, 2014

Patient complaints in healthcare systems: a systematic review and coding taxonomy.

June 18, 2014

Supporting structures for team situation awareness and decision making: insights from four delivery suites.

March 25, 2009

Analysis of unintended events in hospitals: inter-rater reliability of constructing causal trees and classifying root causes.

July 8, 2009

Fake and expired medications in simulation-based education: an underappreciated risk to patient safety.

March 23, 2016

The role of patients and their relatives in 'speaking up' about their own safety—a qualitative study of acute illness.

July 8, 2015

Exploring health care professionals' perceptions of incidents and incident reporting in rehabilitation settings.

July 1, 2015

Scaffolding our systems? Patients and families 'reaching in' as a source of healthcare resilience.

January 16, 2019

Moral distress, compassion fatigue, and perceptions about medication errors in certified critical care nurses.

October 26, 2011

How common are cognitive errors in cases presented at emergency medicine resident morbidity and mortality conferences?

July 25, 2018

Related Resources

"Black Women Should Not Die Giving Life": The lived experiences of Black women diagnosed with severe maternal morbidity in the United States.

April 17, 2024

Associations between organizational communication and patients' experience of prolonged emotional impact following medical errors.

April 17, 2024

Feeling safe in the context of digitalization in healthcare: a scoping review.

April 10, 2024

Interview

In Conversation With...Stephen Hines, PhD and Monika Haugstetter, MHA, MSN, RN, CPHQ about TeamSTEPPS 3.0

February 28, 2024

Perspective

Revising TeamSTEPPS: The Evolution of Patient Safety Teamwork Training

February 28, 2024

Physician perspectives on addressing anti-Black racism.

February 14, 2024

Responding to medical errors — implementing the modern ethical paradigm.

January 31, 2024

Addressing nursing shortages and patient safety using Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

January 10, 2024

A proposed approach to allegations of sexual boundary violation in health care.

December 13, 2023

When mistakes multiply: how inadequate responses to medical mishaps erode trust in American medicine.

December 6, 2023

Authentic leadership at the Cleveland Clinic: psychological safety in the midst of crisis.

November 15, 2023

Interview

In Conversation with... Cheryl Jones about Addressing Workplace Violence and Creating a Safer Workplace

October 31, 2023

Perspectives on Safety

Addressing Workplace Violence and Creating a Safer Workplace

October 31, 2023

Annual Speak Up Data Reports.

September 6, 2023

Hospital bosses ignored months of doctors' warnings about Lucy Letby.

August 30, 2023

Amid lack of accountability for bias in maternity care, a California family seeks justice.

August 16, 2023

Patient, carer and family experiences of seeking redress and reconciliation following a life-changing event: systematic review of qualitative evidence.

August 2, 2023

Disclosing medical errors: prioritising the needs of patients and families.

July 5, 2023

The impact of safety culture, quality of care, missed care and nurse staffing on patient falls: a multisource association study.

June 28, 2023

'Speaking Up' for patient safety and staff well-being: a qualitative study.

June 7, 2023

Patient Safety Innovations

Preventing Falls Through Patient and Family Engagement to Create Customized Prevention Plans

May 31, 2023

Patients admitted on weekends have higher in-hospital mortality than those admitted on weekdays: analysis of national inpatient sample.

May 31, 2023

Clinical Investigation Booking Systems Failures: Written Communications in Community Languages.

May 31, 2023

Comparing perspectives on organisational silence: an analysis of the Gosport inquiry.

May 17, 2023

Medical errors kill thousands of people each year. But are hospitals getting any safer?

May 17, 2023

Nurse staffing and inpatient mortality in the English National Health Service: a retrospective longitudinal study.

May 3, 2023

Annual Perspective

Improving Diagnostic Safety and Quality

April 26, 2023

Interview

In Conversation with... Susan McGrath, PhD and George Blike, MD about Surveillance Monitoring

April 26, 2023

Perspective

Surveillance Monitoring to Improve Patient Safety in Acute Hospital Care Units

April 26, 2023

Defining avoidable healthcare-associated harm in prisons: a mixed-method development study.

April 19, 2023

See More About The Topic

Hospitals

Health Care Executives and Administrators

Medicine

Nurse Care

Medical Complications

Public sector organizational failure: a study of collective denial in the UK national health service.

Preventing Falls Through Patient and Family Engagement to Create Customized Prevention Plans

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Public sector organizational failure: a study of collective denial in the UK national health service.

Preventing Falls Through Patient and Family Engagement to Create Customized Prevention Plans

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue logged in

New Users to the PSNet site