Welcome
The Clinical Human Factors Group is a broad coalition of healthcare professionals, managers and users of services who have partnered with experts in human factors from healthcare and other high-risk industries to campaign for change in the NHS.
Our vision is of a healthcare system that places an understanding of human factors at the heart of improving clinical, managerial and organisational practice leading to significant improvements in safety and efficiency.
Browse our site to learn more about how you can help us achieve this vision.
What are Human Factors?
The Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (UK) say:
“Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.”
What are Clinical Human Factors?
Dr Ken Catchpole, a human factors expert who has done much work in healthcare has provided this brief definition: “Enhancing clinical performance through an understanding of the effects of teamwork, tasks, equipment, workspace, culture, organisation on human behaviour and abilities, and application of that knowledge in clinical settings.”
News Blog
CHFG 3rd Open Seminar – waiting list in operation!
This Seminar, entitled “Human Factors – Moving Forward” is being jointly run with the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, and is generously hosted by City Hospital, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. The programme offers stimulating speaker sessions from human factors specialists in both healthcare and non-healthcare... [Read More] →
CHFG Standardisation Survey Results
Standardisation has been shown to be an effective mechanism for reducing human error in complex processes or situations. Conversely, the lack of it can increase risk and make human error more likely and in some cases inevitable. In order to inform the Department of Health’s Human Factors Reference Group, we conducted a rapid on-line survey asking... [Read More] →
CHFG Open Seminar for March 2012 announced…
We are delighted to announce the date for our next CHFG Open Seminar which will be held on 23 March 2012 at the City Hospital Campus in Nottingham. We will be co-hosting the event with the Institute for Ergonomics and Human Factors (IEHF) and a further email will be sent to announce on-line booking via the CHFG website early in the New Year. In the... [Read More] →
Key messages from the CHFG Impact Assessment
In the summer of 2011 the CHFG undertook a limited but focused piece of work with the aim of assessing involvement within the CHFG network and exploring perceptions of our impact. This included a review of our web and e-marketing analytics, the supporter database and a short on–line survey which generated a 35% response rate (against an industry norm... [Read More] →
ORNAC / IFPN 2013 International Conference, call for abstracts
The 2013 Conference Program Committee is accepting submissions of abstracts for paper or poster presentation at the 2013 ORNAC/IFPN International Conference. The theme of the conference is “International Alliance for Perioperative Best Practices”. Perioperative Nurses are crucial to patient safety and this is an excellent opportunity to... [Read More] →
Award for Cranfield University
The CHFG has built a solid relationship with Cranfield University over the last few years. They continue to work with us on a proposal for trialling independent investigation into “never events” for healthcare. This year, the University has trained a leading clinical investigator in techniques learnt from other industries and is supporting one... [Read More] →
More articles from News Blog
Events
Medicines Safety Symposium – making Great Britain a safer place to take medicines
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is holding a medicines safety symposium which may... Read More →
New RCS exhibition ‘Make it Better: Designing Out Medical Error’
At the end of the month the RCS is holding an exhibition in the Hunterian Museum... Read More →
CHFG 3rd Open Seminar – waiting list in operation!
This Seminar, entitled “Human Factors – Moving Forward” is being... Read More →
CHFG Open Seminar for March 2012 announced…
We are delighted to announce the date for our next CHFG Open Seminar which will be... Read More →
Clinical Practice Improvement Course – January 24/25 2012
The registration for the two-day short course on Clinical Practice Improvement is... Read More →
More Events
Articles-Films-Guides
Caldwell G (2011) Logging in and logging out: patient safety on ward rounds. British Journal of Healthcare Management 17 (11): 547–53
In this article, Gordon Caldwell argues that tardy access to core clinical information systems may be close to paralysing clinical care processes for doctors, nurses and other health professionals to the detriment of safe high quality patient care.
IOM (Institute of Medicine). 2012. Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
This is an important and accessible report which has come out from the US Institute of Medicine.
Surgical Never Events should never happen
Surgical procedures are intended to save lives and improve the quality of life; however omissions in essential practices (system and human error) contribute to unsafe surgical care, and cause significant harm to patients. Read Jane Reid’s article (above) published in Vol 21 of Journal for Perioperative Practice, Issue 11, pp 373-378.
Read also Jane’s Guest Editorial in the same publication and issue, p363, which signposts the importance of Human Factors awareness amongst perioperative staff.
Patient safety: staff safety – hand in hand?
(Journal of Perioperative Practice, Vol 21, Issue 11, p363)
Just a Routine Operation teaching video
To order your copy on DVD please email your postal address to Safer.care@institute.nhs.uk