Here’s the direct effect of our NHS blame culture: babies die. Tragedy after tragedy, it can’t go on | Jeremy Hunt

The article discusses the blame culture in the NHS and its detrimental impact on patient safety. It highlights the views of Lucian Leape, a pioneer in patient safety, who stated that the greatest impediment to error prevention in the medical industry is the punishment of people for making mistakes. The author, Jeremy Hunt, who served as the UK's Health Secretary, argues that the biggest barrier to safer care in the NHS was not a lack of expertise, dedication, or resources, but rather the blame culture that prevented professionals from being open about mistakes. This, in turn, has prevented the system from learning from tragedies and condemns it to repeating them. The article focuses on the issue of baby deaths, noting that there are around 4,870 baby deaths, including stillbirths, every year in the UK. While some of these are unavoidable, many could have been prevented if the system was able to learn from mistakes. The author emphasizes the devastating impact on the parents who must bury their own children. Overall, the article calls for a shift in the NHS culture, where staff are unafraid to be open about genuine mistakes, allowing for learning and improvement to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.