BSB visit to GOSH

Following our breakfast event with Professor Martin Elliott (listen to Professor Elliott below), the BSB was invited to observe the GOSH Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit weekly ‘Morbidity and Mortality’ meeting, and the approach taken within this to help to foster a culture of responsibility and accountability rather than of blame.

The first part of the meeting concentrated on high-level throughput statistics and key performance indicators such as bed occupancy, delayed discharge numbers, the number of serious untoward incidents and days since the last death.

The second part of the meeting focused on presentations about specific cases characterised by poor outcomes. These presentations were made by a middle-grade doctor who had studied the case notes, but who had not been involved with the case; they comprised a factual account of what happened, highlighting where things went wrong. No individuals were named during the case presentations and the emphasis was on technical detail and data, the aim being to displace any notion of blame.

Following each presentation, the Chair (a senior doctor) encouraged discussion about what could or should be done differently in the future. Those involved in treating the patient were asked at this stage to elaborate on specific points and colleagues were invited to offer constructive challenge. Any potential change to processes was examined rigorously by all those in the room.

Professor Elliott speaks to BSB members

In the latest in our series of breakfast events featuring leaders from a range of industries,  Professor Martin Elliott, Gresham Professor of Physic and Immediate Past Medical Director at The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH), spoke with BSB members at a breakfast event kindly hosted by Morgan Stanley on 8 September about his experience as a surgeon and senior leader in the NHS. As one of surgery’s most experienced and innovative figures, Martin has drawn creatively on a range of other sectors – including Formula 1, hotels, ballet and airlines – to find new ways of raising the performance of his teams and improving the experience of patients in hospital.

In his talk Martin shared specific practical examples of how he took learnings from the industries mentioned above to go about establishing a culture of accountability rather than blame, and of fostering a readiness to speak up and learn from mistakes.

As well as the recording of the event, Professor Elliott has given kind permission for us to reproduce a snapshot of the slideshow that accompanied his presentation (©Professor Martin Elliott).

For those who missed the event, please listen below to the recording of Martin’s talk, with a short introduction from BSB Board member and Global COO for Institutional Securities at Morgan Stanley, Clare Woodman.

Martin’s biography

Professor Martin Elliott led the cardiorespiratory and thoracic transplant teams at GOSH for many years, and established, and is Director of, the National Service for Severe Tracheal Disease in Children, the largest such service in the world. Professor Elliott studied at Newcastle University both as an undergraduate and a postgraduate, and also at the Universities of Southampton and London. He was appointed a consultant paediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at GOSH in 1985 and has been Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UCL since 2004. He was appointed 37th Professor of Physic at Gresham College, London in 2014.

His research has covered several domains, including: the pathophysiology of cardiopulmonary bypass (developing modified ultrafiltration, now used in most repairs of congenital heart disease (CHD)); the development and application of outcome registries in surgery for CHD (he developed the European Congenital Heart Defects Database, the forerunner of the EACTS and STS registries); the specification of the nomenclature for congenital heart defects (he was founding president of the International Nomenclature Society for CHD); the improvement of teamwork within cardiac care (consulting and working with Formula 1 teams, the airline and hotel industries); and most recently the management of severe tracheal disease in children, including the first homograft and stem cell based transplantations of that organ in children. Professor Elliott is passionate about improving the experience for patients and providing them with insight they and their families need to make informed choices. At GOSH he leads on quality and safety, and GOSH has won several prizes for its work in this field. He has given evidence to the Bristol and Francis Inquiries related to the importance of information provision for quality improvement. He has published over 280 peer-reviewed articles and is in demand as a public speaker, having delivered over 300 invited lectures worldwide (including 25 named lectures) to professional and lay audiences. He has taken part in several television documentaries. He reviews for many scientific journals and teaches and operates throughout the world. He has trained many of the world’s leading paediatric cardiac surgeons, and has been involved in service reform in several countries.

See Martin Elliott’s Gresham Lectures

For more information on our breakfast events please contact Laura Conaghan

To enquire about engaging Martin Elliott as a speaker please visit www.jla.co.uk