Feb 7, 2024
Health inequalities are widening in paediatrics. Those that are more disadvantaged experience more safety issues whilst in health care. If we can make our healthcare systems more equitable for the children and young people we can for, they will be safer in our care.
In episode 5 of our series on paediatric patient safety, we speak with Dr Helen Stewart, Dr Cian Wade and Dr Mimi Malhotra to explore how patient safety and health inequalities are inextricably linked. Tackling healthcare inequalities can improve safety and vice versa.
Dr Stewart shares her knowledge and experience as the RCPCH Officer for Health Improvement as to how our children are impacted by health inequalities. Dr Wade and Dr Malhotra discuss their BMJ paper, Action on patient safety can reduce health inequalities, and explore some of the improvement avenues that are available to clinicians and service providers.
Thank you for listening.
Dr Natalie Wyatt, RCPCH Clinical Fellow and Jonathan Bamber, RCPCH Head of Quality Improvement | Produced by 18Sixty
Please be advised that this podcast series contains stories relating to child death and harm. All views, thoughts and opinions expressed belong to the guests and not necessarily to their employer, linked organisations or RCPCH.
About the Patient Safety series
As doctors we ‘first, do no harm’. However, the systems in which we work are rife with safety issues and resultant harm. In thinking about how to improve this, we have brought together leaders in the field to discuss challenging and thought-provoking issues around keeping our children safe in healthcare settings.
We hope you will be entertained, educated and energised to make strides in improving the safety of the children that you care for.
The RCPCH Patient Safety Portal has lots of resources, including a wealth of learning about paediatric patient safety. The RCPCH health inequalities programme of work can be found on our key topics pages.
It is imperative to turn this knowledge into action through improvement activities.
About the speakers
Topics/organisations/papers referenced in this episode