When things go wrong: Good medical practice versus clinical errors

Alan Merry is an anaesthesiologist who practises in chronic pain management at Auckland City Hospital. He is Deputy Dean, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland. He was Chair of the Board of the NZ Health Quality and Safety Commission and on the Board of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists. He is on the Board of Lifebox which aim is to improve standards of anaesthesia and surgical care in low-income areas of the world. His books, book chapters and papers in peer-reviewed journals reflect interests in human factors, patient safety, global health and simulation.

Dr Mike Durkin is Senior Advisor on Patient Safety Policy and Leadership for the NIHR Imperial College Patient Safety Translational Research Centre. He is Director of the Academic Partnership for the Global Patient Safety Collaborative, launched in 2019 by WHO. He is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, and the University of the West of England. He is an associate Non-Executive Director of NHS Resolution and is Chair of the Management Board of the NICE National Guidelines Centre.

He was the NHS National Director of Patient Safety from 2012 to 2017 having held clinical, research and faculty appointments in cardiovascular anaesthesia and critical care in London, Bristol and Yale Universities. He was Executive Medical Director at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital from 1993 to 2002 and was subsequently appointed as Medical Director for AGW Strategic Health Authority and for NHS South West. In 2009 he was appointed the UK National Clinical Director for Venous Thrombo-Embolism and from 2010 he was the Medical Director of the NHS for the South of England.

He led the National Patient Safety Programme for England from 2012 and he was commissioned by Her Majesty’s Government to convene the Berwick Advisory Board in 2013 to advise on improving the safety of patients in England. He led the development of the National Patient Safety Alerting System, the 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives across England and the Q Fellowship in partnership with the Health Foundation to build a community of 5000 quality improvers. In 2015 he chaired the Expert Advisory Group to establish the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch. He led the establishment of Ministerial Inter-Governmental Summits on Patient Safety which have now been held in the London (2016), Bonn (2017), Tokyo(2018) and Jeddah (2019).

He is an appointed Expert by the International Society for Quality in Health Care. In 2017 he was awarded the honourary accolade of Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London for services to Patient Safety. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen in 2017 for services to Patient Safety. In 2018 he was elected as one of the 35 Inaugural Members of the International Academy of Quality and Safety, and to the Board of the US based Patient Safety Movement Foundation. He sits on national and international research, policy and patient safety Advisory Boards, including the WHO Task Force on the Global Action Plan for Patient Safety.