Consumer protection in healthcare Flashcards
What are the consumer rights in healthcare?
Right to Access to healthcare
Right to Safety by doing no harm
Right to Informed choice
Right for patient’s voice to be heard
Right to healthy environment achieved via regulation and legislation.
Why is consumer protection important?
Financial sustainability of NHS
Large variation in clinical practise
Failure to accurately measure outcomes in healthcare
Maintaining patient safety and trust by enabling informed choices
Healthcare interventions can cause harm.
What are the 3 core principles of the NHS?
Free at the point of delivery to everyone based on clinical need.
What are preventable causes of death in healthcare?
Poor clinical monitoring
Diagnostic errors
Inadequate drug and fluid management
How are issues in healthcare classified?
Unintended harm due to care complications
Act of omission: failure to treat based on best evidence
Act of commission; incorrect treatment/management
What is the most common case of death in hospital?
Thoracic and respiratory
Abdominal
Intracranial
What are the types of medical errors?
Medication, surgical and infection control.
—> Wrong medicaiton is the most common type of error
How is patient safety measured?
Standardised Health Mortality Index (SHMI) ratio measuring the number of patients that died following hospitalisation compared to expected number based on average rates in the UK. This also includes hospice data.
Patient reported outcome measurements (PROM) before and after procedures
How is patient safety managed?
Introducing fines for “never” events if guidelines and safety reccommendations are followed
What regulatory agencies are involved in healthcare environment quality?
Care quality commission (CQC)
NICE sets standards for treatment
Department for Health and Social Care
GMC
What is a measure of patient treatment outcomes?
Patient reported outcome measure (PROM) which can be used to help patients inform healthcare decisions.
