Establishing safe policies and procedures at a medical clinic in the UAE

Establishing safe policies and procedures at a medical clinic in the UAE

The client

An acute foundation trust – Healthcare


Challenge

Governance Issues.

Verita were commissioned to help local staff at a new medical clinical in the United Arab Emirates establish safe policies and procedures. The clinic is run by an NHS acute foundation trust and the trust’s commercial arm commissioned Verita because of our wealth of knowledge in supporting healthcare providers to meet standards and to develop robust systems and processes.

Our challenge was to ensure that the flagship enterprise and its systems, processes and policies were at the forefront of patient-safety thinking and, crucially, that they could be implemented in-line with the local culture and behaviour.


Scope

Our commissioners were clear from the outset that their aspiration was for patients who use the clinic to have an experience equal to that provided in London.


Process

Verita supported the implementation of the framework, bringing our extensive ‘real world’ understanding of the causes of failure and the strategies and tools that effectively minimise these.

The Verita team, involving partner Peter Killwick and director Amber Sargent, ran workshops with the on-site clinical and managerial teams to translate the policies into concrete actions that govern the day to day behaviour of staff and treatment of patients.

The workshops were designed to ensure that quality certification can be achieved as early as possible with minimal disruption to staff or significant additional training costs.

As part of this project we:

  • Took policies and procedures used in King’s London and adapted them for implementation in Abu Dhabi – ensuring they were culturally and legally acceptable
  • Tested the newly developed governance arrangements to ensure their practical application met the needs in the environment in UAE
  • In conjunction with KCH management ensured that staff are clear about what the framework means for them in the day to day running of the clinic (we did this during a week-long training session for King’s Abu Dhabi clinic staff)
  • Worked towards establishing a rigorous safety culture so that staff are clear about their roles in relation to patient safety
  • Ensured all policies and procedures were compliant with JCI requirements – enabling them to seek accreditation at the nearest opportunity