Plain-English explanations of the technical terms and legislation used in this document.
- After-action review
- A structured team discussion held soon after an event to learn what happened, why, and how to do better next time.
- Bacteraemia
- The presence of bacteria in the bloodstream, which can cause a serious infection.
- Caldicott principles
- A set of standards that govern how people's confidential health and care information may be used and shared.
- Care Quality Commission (CQC)
- The independent regulator of health and social care services in England.
- Clinical audit
- A check of whether care is meeting agreed standards, followed by changes and a re-check to confirm improvement.
- Clinical governance
- The system of accountability, checks and behaviours through which an organisation assures and improves the quality and safety of its clinical care.
- Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile)
- A bacterium that can cause severe diarrhoea and bowel infection, often after antibiotic use, and is monitored as a healthcare-associated infection.
- Co-production
- Designing and improving services together with the patients and public who use them.
- Contemporaneous record
- A note made at the time of an event or very soon afterwards, so it is an accurate and reliable account.
- Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check
- A criminal-records check showing whether a person is suitable to work with patients or vulnerable people.
- Duty of candour
- The legal duty to be open and honest with a person and their family when something goes wrong with their care.
- Equality Act 2010
- The law protecting people from discrimination based on characteristics such as age, disability, sex or race.
- Freedom to Speak Up Guardian
- An independent person who supports staff to raise concerns about safety or wrongdoing and reports themes to the board.
- Friends and Family Test
- A short feedback question asking patients whether they would recommend a service to others.
- Fundamental standards
- The minimum standards of safety and quality below which care must never fall.
- General Medical Council (GMC)
- The body that registers and regulates doctors in the United Kingdom.
- Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT)
- A national programme that reviews how specialties work and recommends ways to improve care and reduce unwarranted variation.
- Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
- The body that registers and regulates a range of health and care professionals, such as physiotherapists and paramedics.
- Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014
- The regulations setting out the fundamental standards that registered care providers must meet.
- Healthcare-associated infection
- An infection that a patient picks up as a result of receiving healthcare rather than from their original illness.
- Indemnity
- Insurance or cover that pays for the costs of claims if a practitioner's care is alleged to have caused harm.
- Infection prevention and control (IPC)
- The measures used to stop infection spreading between patients, staff and visitors.
- Information governance
- The framework for handling people's personal and health information legally, securely and appropriately.
- Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS)
- A legal framework, intended to replace the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, for authorising care arrangements that deprive a person of their liberty when they cannot consent.
- Locum
- A practitioner who works temporarily to cover for another, for example during absence or to meet extra demand.
- Medical Advisory Committee (MAC)
- A committee of senior clinicians that advises the board on clinical standards, practising privileges and professional matters.
- Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)
- The body that regulates medicines, medical devices and blood components for safety in the United Kingdom.
- Mental Capacity Act 2005
- The law that protects and supports people who may be unable to make particular decisions for themselves.
- Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
- A type of bacterium resistant to several common antibiotics that can cause difficult-to-treat infections.
- Morbidity
- Illness, injury or complications experienced by a patient.
- Mortality and morbidity review
- A regular meeting where clinicians examine deaths and complications to identify learning and improve care.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
- The body that produces evidence-based guidance on treatments and care for use across health and social care.
- National Joint Registry
- A national database that records joint replacement operations to monitor how well implants and surgery perform over time.
- Near miss
- An event that could have caused harm but did not, by chance or because it was caught in time.
- Never event
- A serious, largely preventable patient safety incident that should never happen if the correct safeguards are followed.
- Nominated Individual
- The senior person responsible to the regulator for supervising how a service is provided.
- Notifiable safety incident
- An unexpected incident during care that results in, or could result in, death or a specified level of harm, triggering the duty of candour.
- Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)
- The body that registers and regulates nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom.
- Patient Safety Incident Response Framework
- A national approach to responding to and learning from patient safety incidents, focused on improvement rather than blame.
- Patient-reported experience measures (PREMs)
- Feedback collected from patients about their experience of care, such as communication and dignity.
- Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs)
- Information collected from patients about their health and quality of life before and after treatment.
- Plan-Do-Study-Act
- A four-step cycle for testing and refining a change on a small scale before adopting it more widely.
- Practising privileges
- Permission granted to a practitioner, usually a consultant, to work in an independent hospital without being employed by it, subject to agreed conditions.
- Quality account
- An annual report in which a provider sets out the quality of the services it delivers and its improvement priorities.
- Quality statements
- The 'we statements' the regulator uses to describe what good care looks like under each key question.
- Registered Manager
- The person registered with the regulator as responsible for the day-to-day running of a service.
- Regulated activity
- A type of care or treatment the law requires a provider to register with the regulator to deliver.
- Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR)
- The law requiring certain workplace injuries, diseases and dangerous events to be reported to the Health and Safety Executive.
- Responsible officer
- A senior doctor who oversees the appraisal and revalidation of doctors and makes recommendations about their fitness to practise.
- Revalidation
- The periodic process by which registered professionals demonstrate they remain up to date and fit to practise.
- Risk assessment
- A structured check identifying what could cause harm and what is being done to prevent it.
- Risk register
- A live record of the risks an organisation faces, how serious they are, and what is being done to control them.
- Root cause analysis
- A structured investigation that looks beyond immediate causes to find the underlying system reasons an incident happened.
- Safeguarding
- Protecting people's health, wellbeing and rights and keeping them safe from abuse, harm or neglect.
- Scope of practice
- The range of clinical activities a practitioner is trained, competent and permitted to carry out.
- Sepsis
- A life-threatening reaction to infection in which the body damages its own tissues and organs, needing urgent treatment.
- Single Assessment Framework (SAF)
- The structure the regulator uses to judge a service, built around quality statements and five key questions (safe, effective, caring, responsive, well-led).
- Statement of Purpose
- A required document describing who a service is, what it does and where, shared with the regulator.
- UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
- The UK's main data-protection law governing how personal information is collected and used.
- Venous thromboembolism (VTE)
- A blood clot that forms in a vein, such as in the leg, which can travel to the lungs and become life-threatening.
- World Health Organization surgical safety checklist
- A standard set of safety checks completed by the surgical team before, during and after an operation to reduce avoidable harm.
- Yellow Card scheme
- The UK system for reporting suspected side effects of medicines and problems with medical devices to the regulator.