By Professor Maureen Baker CBE

Openness is critical for safe healthcare and all consultants should be writing directly to you to ensure that you have the right information to make informed decisions about your health, treatment options and care. This is one of the recommendations made by the Paterson Inquiry, accepted by the government today, for improving practice and preventing medical malpractice.

In 2017, former surgeon, Ian Paterson, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for ‘wounding with intent’ hundreds of women by performing unsafe and often unnecessary operations for breast cancer.  In some cases, women were subjected to surgery even though they did not have breast cancer. The inquiry analysed not only how his actions were allowed to happen but how they were able to continue for so long and it became clear that organisations weren’t sharing information which may have raised questions about his work.

The Inquiry recommendations call for a culture shift in the NHS and independent sector, recommending that all consultants write to people, outlining their condition and treatment plan, in simple language, and copy this letter to the person’s GP, rather than writing to the GP and sending a copy to the person, as is common practice now. 

PRSB’s CEO, Lorraine Foley, have been advising the Inquiry since 2018 and have specifically stressed the importance of writing directly to people, a practice we have long been advocating. In 2018, AoMRC published its ‘Please, write to me’ guidance, which supports consultants in writing directly to you in language that is commonly understandable to non-clinicians, and then copy this letter to your GP. The PRSB fully supported this guidance and all PRSB standards, in particular the outpatient letter information standard, emphasises the importance of writing to people in a person-centred way.

Writing directly to you doesn’t change the content of the information in your care records, it will just ensure that the information is written in plain English. By doing this and then copying the letter to your GP, your care records will contain all the detail necessary for your GP to administer high quality care but the information will be transparent and clear, ensuring that you have greater understanding and control over your health and care information and can ask questions and spot issues before problems occur.

Writing directly to people is a practical way of meeting the NHS’s goals of personalising care and making you active participants in your own care. As a doctor, I am reaffirming my commitment to this practice and calling on all fellow doctors to drive this culture shift within the profession towards making writing to people the norm. PRSB recommends the full implementation of the Paterson Inquiry recommendations accepted by the government today, for safer care and better patient outcomes.