New year - same risks?

Out with the old and in with the new, or how about more of the same? Julie Wilson argues that old risks can be as treacherous as the new ones.

Another year over – all the Christmas decorations are boxed away, cards to the recycling bin, flu vaccines completed and left-over Quality Street tins litter the staff room. A new year is dawning, bringing new challenges and new patients and more QOF reports.¹ However, as the saying goes, some things never change. The same risks will arise whether a new year is setting or not.

No amount of government intervention will completely eradicate the most common risks of general practice. How practices run may be the subject of major changes from Lord Darzi’s report to the establishment of the “superregulator” the Care Quality Commission, but the best people to tackle general practice are the practice teams themselves.²

MPS Risk Consulting (MPSrc) [later renamed to MPS Educational Services] travels the country visiting practices to deliver Clinical Risk Self Assessments (CRSAs). Over 400 CRSAs have been completed in the last six years. Data collected using the CRSA approach between 2004 and 2006 were used to identify the most common risks in general practice. The main risks are identified opposite.

The CRSA approach is one that really does work and can build a stronger, more risk aware practice, which is essential in order to provide a quality service to patients. Tackling these risks one at a time will assist practices to meet the quality standards and the proposed requirements for registration in the future.

References

1. NHS Executive. Our NHS, Our Future. Department of Health (2007).
2. Health and Social Care Bill 2007.