Do hospital boards matter for better, safer, patient care?

Fresh evidence from the English NHS

Groups related to this event

Centre for Health Informatics
Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research
Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science

Event date

Wednesday, 11 November 2015

As corporate entities with statutory oversight responsibilities hospital boards are ultimately accountable for the overall quality and safety of the care provided by their organisation. Yet recent high-profile reports and inquiries into serious failings in hospital quality and patient safety in the English NHS, most notably the appalling standards of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, have reawakened concerns over the effectiveness of hospital boards in governing safe care.

This presentation reviews recent hospital scandals in the NHS and distils the findings of empirical research which draws on the analysis of national quantitative data and in-depth qualitative case studies to explore the complex inter-linkages between board oversight and patient safety processes and clinical outcomes across all NHS Hospital Trusts in England.

Related publications

Mannion, R., Freeman, T., Millar, R., and Davies, H. (2015) Effective board governance of safe care: A (theoretically underpinned) cross-sectional examination of the breadth and depth of relationships through local case studies and national surveys, Health Services and Delivery Research (forthcoming)

Mannion, R., Davies, H., Millar, R., Freeman, T., Jacobs, R. and Kasteridis, P. (2015) Overseeing oversight: Governance of quality and safety by hospital boards in the English NHS, Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, Vol 20 (15):9-16

Millar, R., Mannion, R., Freeman, T. and Davies, H. (2013) Hospital board oversight of quality and patient safety: A narrative review and synthesis of recent empirical research, The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 91 (4):738–770

Freeman, T., Millar, R., Mannion, R. and Davies, H. (2015) Enacting corporate governance of health care safety and quality: A dramaturgy of hospital boards in England, Sociology of Health and Illness, doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.12309(first published online 4 August)

Mannion, R., and Davies, H. (2015) Cultures of silence and cultures of voice: Whistleblowing in healthcare organisations, International Journal of Health Policy and Management, Vol. 4 (8):503-505

Speaker profile

Professor Russell Mannion holds the Chair in Health Systems at the University of Birmingham where he is currently Director of Research at the Health Services Management Centre (HSMC). As well as being a Visiting Professor at the Australian Institute for Health Innovation he is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. He was previously Director of the Centre for Health and Public Services Management at the University of York. His research interests embrace clinical governance, health care quality, patient safety and international health reform. He provides expert advice to a range of national and international health agencies, including WHO, OECD, EU, HM Treasury and the Department of Health.

Russell has published 8 books and over 100 peer reviewed articles in leading scientific journals and he has garnered several international prizes for his research including the Baxter European Book Award. Hiswork on organisational culture and patient safety was used as evidence at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Inquiry chaired by Robert Francis QC.

Date: 11 November, 2015

Time: 11:30am - 12:30pm

Venue: Seminar Room, Level 1, 75 Talavera Rd, Macquarie University

Chair: Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite

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