Moving from a blame culture to a learning culture in the NHS.

Summit held in London on 9–10 March 2016, the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, gave a speech in which he committed the Government to prioritising patient safety in the NHS through three important announcements (Department of Health (DH) and Hunt, 2016a). Delegates at the summit included health ministers and senior expert clinicians from across the world. In his speech to summit delegates the Health Secretary first announced the formation of an independent Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) and legal protection for whistleblowers who expose and escalate information pertinent to clinical and other mistakes. This will protect them from potential retribution in the work place. HSIB will commence operations in April 2016 and will offer support and guidance to NHS organisations on how to conduct investigations, in addition to conducting its own (GOV.UK, 2016). The primary aim of HSIB will be to fully investigate any patient safety incident that is referred by taking a non-punitive approach. Its practices and recommendations will be intended for: