The human element of giving and receiving feedback.

Human factors is the scientific subject that concerns the understanding of interactions amongst humans, it is what affects behaviour and performance in the work place (Ives and Hillier 2015), particularly in high risk areas such as the aviation industry and healthcare. In this opinion piece it will be limited to the healthcare profession.

A vital part of the surgical team.

The traditional surgical workforce has changed--and it continues to do so.

Glass ceilings of professionalisation.

The term glass ceiling is a political term often used to describe an unbreakable barrier that isnot visible with the human eye, but it keeps minorities from rising up i.e. it is a barrier to minoritygroups, in the past (and sometimes still) for women, that stops them from achieving theirtrue potential.

Process management.

Continuously meeting, and exceeding, the needs of our customers is one of the core requirements for any successful organization. This is no different for hospital trusts when providing secondary health services within the UK, they are continually in the spotlight to save costs and are bring urged to take on the role of 'small businesses' and have an independent view of their business and their stakeholders.

The OneTogether collaborative approach to reduce the risk of surgical site infection: identifying the challenges to assuring best practice.

BACKGROUND: Surgical site infections (SSI) account for 16% of healthcare associated infections, and are associated with considerable morbidity, mortality and increased costs of care. Ensuring evidence-based practice to prevent SSI is incorporated across the patient's surgical journey is complex. OneTogether is a quality improvement collaborative of infection prevention and operating department specialists, formed to support the spread and adoption of best practice to prevent SSI. This paper describes the findings of an expert workshop on infection prevention in operating departments. METHODS: A total of 84 delegates from 75 hospitals attended the workshop, comprising 46 (55%) theatre nurses/operating department practitioners; 16 (19%) infection control practitioners and 22 (26%) other healthcare practitioners. Discussion focused on evidence, policy implementation and barriers to best practice. Responses were synthesised into a narrative review. RESULTS: Delegates reported significant problems in translating evidence-based guidance into everyday practice, lack of local polices and poor compliance. Major barriers were lack of leadership, poorly defined responsibilities, and lack of knowledge/training. CONCLUSIONS: This workshop has provided important insights into major challenges in assuring compliance with best practice in relation to the prevention of SSI. The OneTogether partnership aims to support healthcare practitioners to improve the outcomes of patients undergoing surgery by reducing the risk of SSI.

Whole team training.

At AfPP we are passionate about patient safety and work hard to support our members with their personal development. However, as an Association we are keen to support whole teams to ensure a full understanding of where processes start and finish and why they may fail due to poor communication, poor policies or standards.

Communication: why is this such an emotive subject?

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast distances in time and space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the sender.