Industrial action and patient safety ethics.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Johnstone, Megan-Jane
• Date: 01 February 2012

In 2003, following mounting international concerns about the incidence and impact of preventable adverse events in health care, the World Health Organization (WHO) passed a resolution supporting a strategic global agenda for achieving patient safety. This move placed patient safety on the world stage for the first time and positioned it 'as a worldwide endeavour'. Since the WHO resolution was passed, health care services around the world have been working systematically to develop a positive safety culture, characterised by 'communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety, and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures' (Johnstone 2007, p16-17).

A key objective of the patient safety movement has been to transform the punitive culture of health care (hospitals in particular) from one which 'named, blamed and shamed' individuals whose actions contributed to preventable adverse events, to a positive culture of 'lessons learned'. Underpinning this cultural transformation has been an empirically validated realisation that when things go wrong, it is rarely the result of an individual, isolated, or unusual event.

Over the past decade unmistakable progress has been made in improving patient safety. However, troubling gaps remain. Notable among the reasons for this has been the 'surprisingly sparse' progress...