Carin Magnusson: PhD Student
Background
Good governance at all levels of the healthcare system is increasingly seen as important for safety and quality of care. Recent policy documents emphasise the need for stronger accountability as crucial to effective organisational governance. There is, however, little research evidence about the links between accountability and safety. Healthcare associated infection (HCAI) is a key issue for patient safety, and governance and accountability arrangements for HCAIs have been highlighted as an important focus for further research.
Aims
The aim of this study is to identify formal and informal accountability arrangements for the control of healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) within NHS acute care, and analyse how these arrangements operate in practice.
The study objectives are:
- To identify which groups or individuals in the organisation are accountable for infection prevention and control; to whom the various actors are accountable; and for what aspects or elements of the process of accountability.
- To investigate how the various accountability arrangements operate and interact in practice and to identify factors that facilitates or prevent them from working as intended.
- Drawing on the relevant literature on organisational accountability and empirical data from the study, to develop and apply an evaluation framework to assess the effectiveness of the various accountability arrangements identified, in terms of their impact on patient safety.
Methods
The project will utilise a combination of methods including: analysis of relevant Trust documents; semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from different parts of the Trust including some Board members, Governors and Senior Managers, Modern Matrons, Infection Control Team members, Divisional Clinical and Non-Clinical managers and Divisional Infection Control Leads and practitioners; and observation at relevant organisational meetings including the Infection Control and Performance Committee, Infection Control Committee and Infection Control Leads Meeting.
Dissemination
The study will be written up for submission as a PhD thesis, and findings will be prepared for conference presentations and publication in peer-reviewed journals. The research will also be disseminated to the NHS through the King’s Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre, as well as through other established networks.
