Red Flag tracker

Recognising red flags in health and social care

The Patient Experience Library has published a research report, Responding to Challenge, looking at how to identify ‘red flags’ and harmful patterns of behaviour in health and social care.

They were commissioned by the CQC to look at warning signals from 10 years of avoidable harm inquiries in health and social care. The report uses real-life examples to show the red flags for what could indicate a poor culture.
 

Why the CQC commissioned the report

The purpose of the report was to identify patterns of harm in organisational and professional behaviour. It uses an evidence-based approach to help develop a common language and identify red flags that can be used to:

• recognise avoidable harm
• break harmful patterns
• understand what poor and harmful cultures look like
• open up evidence-based conversations
• support organisational learning and training.
 

Responding to Challenge findings

Probably not surprisingly, the researchers found that problems usually involve multiple people who have failed to spot or deal with avoidable harm.

They identified three states in which problem cultures can give rise to failures – complacency; avoidance; and denial.

The report explains what poor culture looks like in six different organisational areas. These can feed into an overall harmful culture where failures happen. The report identified the areas as:

• reporting
• compliance
• caring
• teamwork
• accountability
• learning.

Through the report findings, a framework to help spot red flags in harmful cultures was set out.
 

Red Flag Tracker

Based on these organisational subcultures and states, the Patient Experience Library developed the Red Flag Tracker. This is an online resource and tool that groups ‘red flags’ and provides a framework to identify and report on an organisational culture in which safety failures are more likely to occur.

The tracker is a useful tool for people whose job it is to recognise signals of harm – complaints managers, patient experience staff, Freedom to Speak Up Guardians and local Healthwatch staff, as well as service managers and Trust Board members.

You can access the red flag tracker here: https://www.patientlibrary.net/redflag/tracker.cgi (external link will open in a new browser tab or window)

You can download the full report from the Patient Experience Library website (external link will open in a new browser tab or window)

 

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