In England, hospitals routinely conduct a formal risk assessment practice to ensure the safety of patients and staff. However, although specific criticisms have been made on the practice, few investigated the formal risk assessment practice in the literature. This study investigates the risk assessment policies and procedures of one hundred hospitals in the English National Health Service (NHS) through content analysis. Findings revealed that hospitals provided varied descriptions of the terms risk and risk assessment. The concept of risk was often defined to be an undesired event, and risk assessment was often explained with the involvement of risk control step. Despite the variety in the descriptions of the risk terms, all hospitals recommended following similar steps to undertake risk assessments. Risk matrices- and therefore risk scoring–are at the heart of the formal practice, which increases the possibility of wrong risk prioritisation. This study provides several recommendations for the improvement of current guidelines by considering both Safety-I and Safety-II approaches.

Objectives To systematically review the evidence base for a systems approach to healthcare design, delivery or improvement. Design Systematic review with meta-analyses. Methods Included were studies in any patients, in any healthcare setting where a systems approach was compared with usual care which reported quantitative results for any outcomes for both groups. We searched Medline, Embase, HMIC, Health Business Elite, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO and CINAHL from inception to 28 May 2019 for relevant studies. These were screened, and data extracted independently and in duplicate. Study outcomes were stratified by study design and whether they reported patient and/or service outcomes. Meta-analysis was conducted with Revman software V.5.3 using ORs - heterogeneity was assessed using I 2 statistics. Results Of 11 405 records 35 studies were included, of which 28 (80%) were before-and-after design only, five were both before-and-after and concurrent design, and two were randomised controlled trials (RCTs). There was heterogeneity of interventions and wide variation in reported outcome types. Almost all results showed health improvement where systems approaches were used. Study quality varied widely. Exploratory meta-analysis of these suggested favourable effects on both patient outcomes (n=14, OR=0.52 (95% CI 0.38 to 0.71) I 2 =91%), and service outcomes (n=18, OR=0.40 (95% CI 0.31 to 0.52) I 2 =97%). Conclusions This study suggests that a systems approaches to healthcare design and delivery results in a statistically significant improvement to both patient and service outcomes. However, better quality studies, particularly RCTs are needed. PROSPERO registration number CRD42017065920.

In healthcare, patient safety has received substantial attention and, in turn, a number of approaches to managing safety have been adopted from other high-risk industries. One of these has been risk assessment, predominantly through the use of risk matrices. However, while other industries have criticized the design and use of these risk matrices, the applicability of such criticism has not been investigated formally in healthcare. This study examines risk matrices as used in acute hospitals in England and the guidance provided for their use. It investigates the applicability of criticisms of risk matrices from outside healthcare through a document analysis of the risk assessment policies, procedures, and strategies used in English hospitals. The findings reveal that there is a large variety of risk matrices used, where the design of some might increase the chance of risk misprioritization. Additionally, findings show that hospitals may provide insufficient guidance on how to use risk matrices as well as what to do in response to the existing criticisms of risk matrices. Consequently, this is likely to lead to variation in the quality of risk assessment and in the subsequent deployment of resources to manage the assessed risk. Finally, the article outlines ways in which hospitals could use risk matrices more effectively.