Attitudes to and experiences of reporting poor care

Abstract

Surveys in the UK and USA show that error in health care is unacceptably high. It is also known, however, that considerable under‐reporting of error takes place and we need therefore to begin to understand why people fail to report so that we can introduce systems and develop cultures and systems which make this easier. Although this has been considered hypothetically, what happens in real situations and what the outcomes are for those individuals actually reporting has not been studied. This study is built on an earlier pilot of 228 doctors that considered the experiences and attitudes of a range of nurses and doctors to reporting their concerns. It includes those who went ahead and those who did not, as well as the attitudes of other staff with no experiences of wanting to report, and the types of event that were more likely to lead to reporting.