Dr Christopher Sirrs, CHM Research Fellow, will be speaking at the Thackray Museum's prestigious Annual Insights Lecture Series, on the topic Insights: Hazardous Health through History on Saturday, 5 November at 10:00am.

He will be exploring the history of patient safety in the NHS, explaining why a systemic focus on the prevention of harm to patients – despite the ethical injunction for clinicians to ‘do no harm’ – only evolved surprisingly recently in the history of medicine.

Please click here to find out more information and to sign up to attend.

Congratulations to Dr Chris Sirrs, CHM Research Fellow, who has had an article published in the Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Assessment

Christopher Sirrs, ‘Taking Action against Medical Accidents: A Brief History of AvMA and Clinical Risk Management in the NHS’, Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management, 30 October 2022, https://doi.org/10.1177/25160435221135120.

Abstract

Established in 1982, Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA)—originally named Action for Victims of Medical Accidents—was effectively the first charity in Britain dedicated to ‘patient safety’. This article provides a historical analysis of the origins and work of AvMA, situating its background in the medical negligence ‘crisis’ of the 1970s and 1980s, growing consumerism in healthcare, and the significant barriers to justice patients confronted following a clinical incident. It also explores AvMA's impacts on evolving attitudes towards patient harm and safety in the NHS. The article asserts that in addition to supporting patients and campaigning for changes in legal procedures, AvMA played an instrumental role in raising the political profile of adverse health events (‘medical accidents’). By supporting claimant solicitors and increasing their chances of legal success, AvMA contributed to the rising tide of negligence claims, which incentivised NHS trusts and health authorities to introduce clinical risk management (CRM). By 2000, CRM was being framed as part of a broader mission to improve quality and safety in healthcare, and AvMA was recognised as a key stakeholder in the new patient safety agenda

Emmay Deville is a recent graduate of the History Department. In 2020/21 she undertook an extra-curricular research project funded by the Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS), supervised by Professor Hilary Marland.

Her project sought to inquire whether the patient's voice presented in the Royal Edinburgh Asylum's patient-run periodical "Morningside Mirror" was censored by medical staff.

To find out more about Emmay's research, please view the website she has created.