In May we are running two events around patient safety: an Innovation Lab at Pontio and a symposium on the 23rd/24th hosted by Bangor University.
For those who are already engaged in patient safety we are looking for different angles to provoke some new thinking: Comparisons with civil aviation have attracted some resistance in recent years – doctors and nurses often feel that the comparision underestimates the challenges that working in the NHS is facing.
We have been privileged to benefit from shared learning from other areas such as our colleagues at RAF Valley and Wylfa’s Nuclear Powerstation that inspired our ongoing work on crisis checklists with the randomised controlled trial shortly reporting on the implementation of our conceptual work but we are looking to draw from as wide a range of ideas and concepts as possible.
Given where Bangor is located and given the fact that many of our medical and nursing colleagues are actively involved in rock-climbing, and some at a very competitive level, my colleague Jamie has challenged us to compare the way that climbers look at safety with the way we conceptualise risks in medicine and use this as the starting point for new thinking.
We will therefore invite to an event at the National Outdoor Centre at Plas-Y-Brenin after the close of the symposium on the 23rd of May with some guided exercises and subsequent reflection.
And if you want to gauge the challenge of safety in climbing why don’t you watch the trailer of Free Solo that won the Oscar this year (and the related blog) – don’t worry there will be no free soloing on the 23rd!
And watch this space for the evaluation!