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Patient Safety, Human Factors and PSIRF Insights for Healthcare Organisations
Featured Articles.
Start with our practical guides to PSIRF, human factors in healthcare, systems-based learning, patient safety investigations and healthcare governance.


Healthcare risk management and patient safety: why yesterday’s controls may not protect tomorrow
Yesterday’s successful control may not protect tomorrow’s patient. Steve Franklin explores ergodicity, complex systems and Taleb’s risk principles, with practical implications for PSIRF, healthcare risk management and board assurance.

Steve Franklin
17 hours ago


Unauthorised access to health records: why punishment alone is not a patient safety strategy
Recent NHS record-access cases demand accountability. This article asks what system owners, boards and digital leaders must do before a breach creates another victim.

Steve Franklin
5 days ago


Are Our Chimps Running the Organisation? Emotional Decision-Making, Human Factors and Learning Culture
When something goes wrong, does the organisation ask what it needs to learn, or how quickly it can show that it has acted? Steve Franklin explores whether our emotional “Chimps” are shaping leadership decisions.

Steve Franklin
Oct 19


Are Our Chimps Running the Organisation? Emotional Decision-Making, Human Factors and Learning Culture
When something goes wrong, does the organisation ask what it needs to learn, or how quickly it can show that it has acted? Steve Franklin explores whether our emotional “Chimps” are shaping leadership decisions.

Steve Franklin
Oct 199 min read


What Middlemarch teaches us about bias, blame, psychological safety and just culture
Using George Eliot’s candle metaphor and Daniel Kahneman’s WYSIATI principle, Katie Franklin explores how partial perspectives shape judgement, why blame culture restricts learning, and how psychological safety, diversity and just culture help organisations see more clearly

Katie Franklin
Oct 146 min read


Compassion in the NHS: Why Listening Is a Patient Safety Intervention
Poppy Russell’s preventable death and her family’s response ask a wider question of the NHS: do we treat listening as a courtesy, or as a safety intervention? This article connects compassion, PSIRF, family liaison, candour, human factors and good governance.

Steve Franklin
Oct 1214 min read


A Listening Organisation Is a Learning Organisation
A listening organisation does more than invite people to speak. It hears weak signals, responds with curiosity and acts before warning becomes harm.

Steve Franklin
Oct 99 min read


When the Ridiculous Becomes Normal: Why Diverse Perspectives Matter
When questionable behaviours become familiar, we can stop noticing how inequitable, ineffective or unsafe they are. Katie Franklin explores how humour, fresh perspectives and constructive challenge can expose the ridiculousness we have accepted as normal, helping organisations strengthen workplace culture, inclusive work design and safety.

Katie Franklin
Aug 275 min read
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