Elizabeth Anderson and Simon Bennett: Are we serious about changing culture?

[First paragraph] Healthcare education has enormous capacity to equip future practitioners with the right mindset to promote supportive team-based cultures within the NHS. By this we mean that during training all practitioners should develop skills needed to work in a community that is then manifest when working in clinical and other care situations. They should know how to: form a team; use each other’s skills appropriately; place patients and families at the centre of care; and support colleagues. Proactive, forward-thinking team players stand the best chance of identifying latent errors (incidents and accidents-in-waiting). [1] Foresight and proaction reduce the risk of death and harm. Following the Francis report there have been numerous initiatives within the NHS, some of which, like the rise and recognition of quality-improvement activities, are reactive, while in contrast, education is proactive.