You don’t need to go much further than a
very interesting report in Community Care
to see how the blame culture results in services which are less safe.
A stressed and struggling social worker is
reported to have falsified records in order to avoid being publicly named and shamed by her manager. Apparently, the manager circulated a group email to colleagues each
week, listing all instances of work which had not been completed within the
required time scales.
That blame and fear of blame are the primary
enemies of safety is now a well-established fact. Civil aviation has taken this
lesson to heart and has devised systems and practices to make it easy for people
to talk about their mistakes and failings, so that things can be put right
before disasters happen.
Any manager who creates conditions in which
members of staff fear to report things going wrong is acting contrary to the
interests of her or his organisation and, most importantly, to the interests of
those to whom services are delivered. It isn’t just bad practice, it is dangerous practice.
A good introduction to how civil aviation
thinking can inform safety debates in health and other fields is provided in a
recent ITV programme. Trevor Dale, a former airline pilot, explains how the
blame culture works against safety in the NHS. It is well worth half-an hour of
your time watching it, if you haven’t done so already.
The
overall message is clear: stop blaming, start learning.
