This is an interesting piece from which, in my experience, the reality is very different from “From a review of the job description, the PSP appears to be a policy and governance oversight role. PSPs might have been a much more valuable addition to the NHS if they had been asked to become involved in the creation of safer tools and therapeutic services that patients would eventually use.” This not what has happened. Feed-back from the Patient Safety Partners Network (with 66 members hosted by Patient Learning) and four months of monthly calls is that the range and variety of roles and terms of engagement of PSP’s is extremely wide. Some are working in an oversite role but some are collecting patient stories. What is obvious is that there is a need for PSPs at every possible level in NHS providers.
It might be true that “It is really centred around staff–their availability, skills and capabilities, and their ability to effectively communicate with each other and their patients.” However. the ambitions in the NHS Strategy for engaging patients in patient care and investigations has been so big a change that it has made space and given opportunity for disruptors in the system. Those, including PSPs, who follow Professor Richard “Feynman’s adage “Experiment, Fail, Learn and Repeat” are now doing just that. There is little doubt that implementation of PSRIF has been far from easy, and continues to be a challenge, but maybe in a year or two the benefits will have been far reaching just so long as it is allowed to continue to innovate and attempt to put patients first and foremost.