Bristol Patient Safety Conference 2014:
On Friday 16th May 2014, Clare Haddow gave a talk at the Bristol Patient Safety Conference held at Engineers House.
In an interview on the conference blog, Dr Harriet Treacy commented on that Clare’s talk, ‘resonated’ with her, highlighting the importance of Occupational Health.
Below is an extract from the interview. For the full interview visit: http://www.bristolpatientsafety.com/blog.html
Did you find inspiration or information in other talks that will stay with you?
The talk by Clare Haddow on the importance of taking care of staff health was one that resonated with me. I believe occupational health will increasingly come onto the radar of those concerned with patient safety; in a service-driven provision such as the NHS you need to make sure the people delivering the care are in the peak of their health. If you do not take care of staff health you are jeapordising the patient’s health. Her talk covered coping mechanisms for dealing with stress, which included health promoting options such as exercise as well as those which are not, such as alcohol and smoking. I made a conscious decision to join a rowing club and to train for a marathon as part of starting work because I knew I was entering a very demanding profession.
The first thing when looking at staff welfare is awareness; people need to become aware of the stress they are experiencing in order to take steps to mitigate it. I think this is an area that will come to the fore. In my view patient safety has to start with a healthy workforce. This needs to form part of a proactive long-term view of patient safety improvement.